The rights of Tribal Sovereign Nations and our shared climate and environment are in jeopardy today because of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—and I’m asking you to join me in taking a stand.
When President Donald Trump was elected, the world looked to Trudeau to be a strong progressive voice and leader. Instead, he’s close to selling out our environment—and First Nations communities—to give government assistance to Texas-based company Kinder Morgan (formerly Enron Liquid Pipelines) to build the Trans Mountain Pipeline. This would be the biggest tar sands pipeline on earth, shipping 890,000 barrels of oil from Alberta to the coast per day—the equivalent of 34 million new cars on the road every year.
I expected this of Trump, but from Trudeau, it feels like betrayal. He knows as well as we do that we’re in a climate crisis, and we all stand to lose big—especially First Nations people. Big polluters have called the shots for decades while indigenous communities, low-income communities, climate scientists and environmental activists have been shut out of or, at best, held at arm’s length while our elected officials cater to Big Oil and Gas and their shareholders’ profits.
It’s not too late to hold Trudeau to account before he makes a huge mistake. Show your solidarity with the First Nations and our Canadian neighbors fighting their Parliament to stop the Trans Mountain Pipeline—sign the petition.
The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People would be torn apart with Trudeau’s approval of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Our environment is at its breaking point, and no one knows this better than the First Nations in Canada, and Native American communities like the Tulalip Tribes of Washington state, of which I am a part.
I know we can do this. Together, we’ve taken stands to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, Keystone XL, and countless other pipelines that threaten our land and water. Over 250,000 of us signed the #NoDAPL petition, and we raised more than $200,000 for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. We have the power to do it again, and stop the Trans Mountain Pipeline if enough of us take action right now.
Center for Biological Diversity
There is no big money or benevolent corporation coming to save us. We have to be the change, and change is the only thing that can save our planet from the greed and recklessness of the fossil fuel lobby. Please join me, and my dear friends in Canada, in raising your voice in solidarity with the rising international chorus for environmental justice today.
t’igwicid—thank you!
Deborah Parker is a member of the Tulalip Tribe, as well as
Co-Vice Board Chair of Our Revolution
