Kanehsatà:ke land defender Ellen Gabriel on ongoing land theft and colonial genocide in Canada

On June 21, Kanehsatà:ke land defender Ellen Gabriel was interviewed by CTV This Morning. That six-minute interview can be seen here.

In it, Gabriel says: “We’re trying to get the government to move to stop the land theft that’s going on and to sit down with the people who are also rights holders and don’t follow under the Indian Act of band councils.”

She further explains: “We are being squeezed more and more by urban sprawl, by development, we’re losing more land as time progresses.”

Gabriel also notes: “Canada’s colonial history … is a genocidal history.”

Moving forward, Gabriel says: “It’s that human rights framework that I think the government needs to come in with [rather than] protecting economic interests.”

Interview with Pam Palmater

You can also hear Ellen Gabriel and Judy Wilson of the Secwepemc nation interviewed by Mi’kmaq lawyer Pam Palmater here.

In this interview, Gabriel says: “The genocidal assimilation policies of Canada which are still continuing. We have no trust in Canada, we have no trust in the police.”

Siege on unceded Kanien’kéha:ka territory

This July 11 will mark the 31^st anniversary of a siege by the Quebec police and Canadian military against Indigenous land defenders opposed to the expansion of a golf course in The Pines, an area that includes a burial ground.

The events of those 78 days from July 11 to September 26, 1990, are told in Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance and in the video by Kwakwaka’wakw historian Gord Hill The Oka Crisis in five minutes.

Ellen Gabriel, August 12, 1990.