Friday, May 16, 2025
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Economic Policy
      • Justice
      • Rights and Freedoms
      • Assisted Suicide (MAID)
      • Health Care
      • COVID-19
      • Gender Identity
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • AI, Technology and Innovation
      • Media and Telecoms
      • Housing
      • Immigration
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Competition Policy
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Israel-Hamas War
      • Ukraine
      • Taiwan
      • China
      • Europe and Russia
      • Indo-Pacific
      • Middle East and North Africa
      • North America
      • Foreign Interference
      • National Defence
      • National Security
      • Foreign Affairs
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • CNAPS (Center for North American Prosperity and Security)
    • The Promised Land
    • Voices that Inspire: The Macdonald-Laurier Vancouver Speaker Series
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada on top of the world
    • Justice Report Card
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Double Trouble
    • Digital Policy & Connectivity
    • Managing Indigenous Prosperity
    • Defending The Marketplace of Ideas
    • Reforming the University
    • Past Projects
      • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
      • The Transatlantic Program
      • COVID Misery Index
        • Provincial COVID Misery Index
        • Beyond Lockdown
        • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
      • Speak for Ourselves
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
      • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
        • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Inside Policy
  • Libraries
    • Columns
    • Commentary
    • Papers
    • Books
    • Video
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Economic Policy
      • Justice
      • Rights and Freedoms
      • Assisted Suicide (MAID)
      • Health Care
      • COVID-19
      • Gender Identity
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • AI, Technology and Innovation
      • Media and Telecoms
      • Housing
      • Immigration
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Competition Policy
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Israel-Hamas War
      • Ukraine
      • Taiwan
      • China
      • Europe and Russia
      • Indo-Pacific
      • Middle East and North Africa
      • North America
      • Foreign Interference
      • National Defence
      • National Security
      • Foreign Affairs
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • CNAPS (Center for North American Prosperity and Security)
    • The Promised Land
    • Voices that Inspire: The Macdonald-Laurier Vancouver Speaker Series
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada on top of the world
    • Justice Report Card
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Double Trouble
    • Digital Policy & Connectivity
    • Managing Indigenous Prosperity
    • Defending The Marketplace of Ideas
    • Reforming the University
    • Past Projects
      • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
      • The Transatlantic Program
      • COVID Misery Index
        • Provincial COVID Misery Index
        • Beyond Lockdown
        • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
      • Speak for Ourselves
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
      • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
        • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Inside Policy
  • Libraries
    • Columns
    • Commentary
    • Papers
    • Books
    • Video
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Hollywood should get the facts and show respect to Indigenous peoples: JP Gladu in the Toronto Star

A celebrity with few, if any connections to Canada gets 100 times more coverage than a First Nations chief speaking on behalf of her community.

June 27, 2022
in Energy, Energy Policy, Latest News, Columns, Indigenous Affairs, In the Media, Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources, JP Gladu
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
Image courtesy of Gage Skidmore

This article originally appeared in the Toronto Star.

By JP Gladu, June 27, 2022

In recent years, Canada has become a touchpoint for Hollywood stars eager to demonstrate their environmentalist props. Motivated by commitments to sustainability, while publicly declaring support for Indigenous peoples, celebrities like Leo DiCaprio, Neil Young, Mark Ruffalo and Jane Fonda feel free to lecture Canadians about both environmental matters and their treatment of Indigenous peoples.

Infatuation with stardom means Hollywood pronouncements receive outsized media attention. A celebrity with few, if any connections to Canada, let alone to Indigenous communities, gets 100 times more coverage than a First Nations chief speaking on behalf of her community. It hurts that the commentary can be so ill-informed and destructive of what we have worked toward. Simplistic notions — resource development is bad, all Indigenous peoples oppose oil and gas projects — may be wildly off the mark, but this doesn’t deter the stars.

Mark Ruffalo called out the Coastal Gas Link Pipeline and the Canadian government for ignoring Indigenous peoples. This was totally inaccurate. The pipeline has the support of all 20 First Nations along its route. Indigenous communities are purchasing a 10 per cent stake in the project and hope to buy an even bigger share. Hundreds of First Nations people and dozens of Indigenous companies are employed by the project. Our communities will receive millions of dollars in benefits, which will improve conditions for our people.

Not everyone supports the pipeline and other projects. In this, our communities are like all others. But unlike the pipeline opponents, First Nations leaders have the prevalent backing of their people, openly expressed in meetings or chief and council elections. Critics, meanwhile, have not secured widespread support in a single pipeline community. Instead, they find favour primarily among urban sympathizers, international environmental organizations and, yes, Hollywood stars. None of these people will live with the consequences of their interventions, which promise only more poverty and cultural dislocation.

There is more than pipeline construction underway on our lands. Our communities are extensively involved with commercial fishing, forestry, mining, and other infrastructure projects, all of which meet our exacting environmental standards and provide substantial benefits to our communities.

We have turned down projects that did not meet our requirements — for example, the proposed Northern Gateway bitumen pipeline — and we have devoted years to understanding the local and global impacts of projects being undertaken on our lands. First Nations communities are also exploring geothermal energy production, investing in electrical transmission lines, and completing contracts related to mining, hydroelectric and other projects. For the first time in over 100 years, we share in national prosperity, albeit still at a low level.

We have worked hard to achieve the power to manage our lands and determine our future, spent years in court securing our rights. We lobbied politicians and built ties with governments, corporations and non-Indigenous peoples. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is now the law in Canada and in the province of British Columbia; it recognizes what the celebrities do not, that Indigenous communities have the right to use their traditional lands as they wish.

We did not undertake this struggle only to be lectured by non-Indigenous celebrities who have never met us and did not even visit our communities before telling us what to do.

Indigenous folks have a term for outsiders who tell us what to do about development. They are environmental colonizers — unwittingly the inheritors of their destructive predecessors: missionaries, government officials and social engineers, all of whom believed they knew what was best for our people and, paternalists to the core, did not hesitate urging us to follow their lead.

The earlier colonizers were wrong, and we paid an enormous price for their arrogance. The Hollywood folks are reprising a familiar and unhappy play, with an ending that only increases the marginalization of our people and erodes our languages and cultures. We have trouble believing this is really what the celebrities think that they are doing.

We wish these media personalities would come to Canada and spend time in our communities. They would, we suspect, be surprised. Our commitment to environmental protection, both local and global, is unbroken. We are strong in spirit and culture, and proud of what our people have done to plan for their future. We engage in economic development to give our communities the money we need to rebuild languages, strengthen relationships with the land, and bring health and joy back to people who have been hurting for far too long.

Indigenous communities are shedding the shackles of welfare dependency, determined to get government off our backs, working to recover from centuries of colonization and outsider interference. The last thing that we need is more non-Indigenous peoples telling us what to do with our land, its resources and our future.

Hollywood, we ask you to take the time to get to visit us, witness the transformations that are underway. Learn how we are making economic and natural resource development work for our communities — really for the first time in post-settlement history. Move beyond simplistic notions of Indigenous peoples and environmental action. You will receive a warm reception. You will change your mind about the future use of our lands.

In the interim, please stop professing to speak on behalf of Indigenous peoples or that you know what is best for our communities. We can do that for ourselves just fine.

JP Gladu is an Indigenous business leader, member of Sand Point First Nation and a senior fellow at the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Source: Toronto Star
Tags: indigenous affairsIndigenous

Related Posts

Welcome to the post-progressive political era: Eric Kaufmann in the Wall Street Journal
Social Issues

Welcome to the post-progressive political era: Eric Kaufmann in the Wall Street Journal

May 16, 2025
Spike in church arsons puts reconciliation at risk: Ken Coates and Edgardo Sepulveda for Inside Policy Talks
Domestic Policy

Spike in church arsons puts reconciliation at risk: Ken Coates and Edgardo Sepulveda for Inside Policy Talks

May 16, 2025
Legacy on Trial: Revisiting Macdonald and Diefenbaker
Fathers of Confederation

Legacy on Trial: Revisiting Macdonald and Diefenbaker

May 15, 2025
Next Post
Ukraine loses Severodonetsk: Christian Leuprecht on CBC News

Ukraine loses Severodonetsk: Christian Leuprecht on CBC News

Newsletter Signup

  Thank you for Signing Up
  Please correct the marked field(s) below.
Email Address  *
1,true,6,Contact Email,2
First Name *
1,true,1,First Name,2
Last Name *
1,true,1,Last Name,2
*
*Required Fields

Follow us on

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

  • Inside Policy Magazine
  • Annual Reports
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy

© 2023 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Economic Policy
      • Justice
      • Rights and Freedoms
      • Assisted Suicide (MAID)
      • Health Care
      • COVID-19
      • Gender Identity
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • AI, Technology and Innovation
      • Media and Telecoms
      • Housing
      • Immigration
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Competition Policy
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Israel-Hamas War
      • Ukraine
      • Taiwan
      • China
      • Europe and Russia
      • Indo-Pacific
      • Middle East and North Africa
      • North America
      • Foreign Interference
      • National Defence
      • National Security
      • Foreign Affairs
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • CNAPS (Center for North American Prosperity and Security)
    • The Promised Land
    • Voices that Inspire: The Macdonald-Laurier Vancouver Speaker Series
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada on top of the world
    • Justice Report Card
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Double Trouble
    • Digital Policy & Connectivity
    • Managing Indigenous Prosperity
    • Defending The Marketplace of Ideas
    • Reforming the University
    • Past Projects
      • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
      • The Transatlantic Program
      • COVID Misery Index
      • Speak for Ourselves
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
      • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Inside Policy
  • Libraries
    • Columns
    • Commentary
    • Papers
    • Books
    • Video

© 2023 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.