Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation Chief Sheldon Sunshine and Sunchild First Nation Chief Joey Pete spoke to media after the First Nations Major Projects Summit in Gatineau, Que., on July 17.
Photo: Carl Meyer / The Narwhal
When Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Bill C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, a great chorus rose from those who follow Crown-Indigenous relations. It sounded a little like “Um, WHAT?” — or maybe more like “WTF!?”
The exclamations grew louder when the Building Canada Act (one of two pieces of legislation put forward in Bill C-5) passed in late June, paving the way for fast-tracked mines, pipelines and infrastructure projects. In statement after statement, many Indigenous nations rejected Carney’s assurances his government will now consult with them, fully and fairly — after the fact isn’t good enough, they said.
“You want my consent? You improve my people’s health.” That was the message put forward by Mikisew Cree First Nation Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro at last week’s First Nations Major Projects Summit between Carney and Indigenous leaders.
Tuccaro told Ontario reporter Carl Meyer about no longer being able to drink from the rivers and lakes around Fort Chipewyan, downstream from the Alberta oilsands. He says industry has decimated his community’s quality of life.
“By the time my people are actually seen in an adequate hospital, it’s three or four months behind. And if it’s a severe illness like cancer, they’re coming back home as stage three or four, and sometimes they’re even coming home in a box, dead,” Tuccaro said.
The Cree chief gave Carney credit for meeting with Indigenous leaders in person, but freelance columnist Robert Jago wasn’t quite that generous. In an op-ed The Narwhal published today, Jago called the summit “hastily and sloppily organized,” in part because some invites, his own included, were rescinded at the last minute, along with a promise to help cover travel expenses. He went anyway, and was only allowed to watch the summit from an overflow room.
“Two themes asserted themselves” as he watched, Jago wrote. “The first was the ham-fisted communications style of federal officials and cabinet ministers. The second was the anger and fear being conveyed by First Nations chiefs.”
Carney says his dream for the future is a strong Canadian economy with more co-operation between provinces and less reliance on the United States than at present. For many, his approach seemed straight out of the colonial past.
Treaty Rights for First Nations, Métis and Inuit people have been upheld time and again by Canada’s highest courts. They’ve also been enforced on the ground by communities objecting to a lack of free, prior and informed consent for development and industry on their territories. Ignoring what Canada’s constitution calls Aboriginal Rights can be politically disastrous. Especially when delays due to legal or grassroots action make industry skeptical of the type of big, expensive projects Carney wants to be his nation-building legacy.
Canada is in a complicated moment and The Narwhal is ready to report on it. Since our inception in 2018, we’ve understood that Indigenous Rights are enshrined in Canada’s constitution and that empowering Indigenous communities to steward their territories is key to truly mitigating climate change.
We also know that, like everyone else, Indigenous communities balance environmental protection with cold, hard economic realities. Many chiefs have told our reporters that their message to politicians is not that they’re automatically saying no to development — it’s that they won’t say yes without a chance to make careful, informed decisions that truly benefit their communities.
Our journalists are committed to untangling these complicated truths, especially when reporting on how these rights and considerations intersect with resource industries. We’ve reported fully and fairly on projects that face significant Indigenous pushback, like TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline in B.C., but also those that some First Nations are willing to consider, like TC Energy’s proposed battery storage project in Ontario.
But we’re still a tiny newsroom. So as the fallout from Bill C-5 unfolds, The Narwhal won’t be providing a constant stream of news stories about what Carney said and what Pierre Poilievre said about what Carney said and then what Carney said about what Poilievre said about what Carney said.
Instead, we’ll dig deep into our expertise and the trust we’ve built with sources to provide context that helps you understand that there are far more than two sides to these issues.
The saying of being “beside oneself” is used so often in expressions of gratitude that it can feel a little contrived.
But throughout the past week, as I watched more than 1,600 people come forward to donate $147,000 to our press freedom fundraiser, there were times when I physically felt outside of my own body. My mind whizzed back and forth between the present, the moment RCMP arrested photojournalist Amber Bracken and the early days when The Narwhal was still an unproven concept in a dream I shared with Emma Gilchrist.
We started The Narwhal with an unwavering conviction that if we poured our heart and soul into public-interest journalism, the public would eventually see its worth and help pitch in to make it happen. Seven years in, our readers have proven that out time and time again. We now have more than 7,100 members who give what they can each month or year to keep this publication alive.
We have a long struggle ahead of us, one likely to continue well beyond the five-week trial we have barreling down on us in January. But boy, am I ever glad to be walking that path alongside all of you. What a tremendous honour and privilege.
— Carol Linnitt, co-founder, interim executive director and editor-in-chief
Meet Savannah Ridley, our first Indigenous editorial fellow
When I first crossed paths with Savannah Ridley, I thought, wow, she is going places. She was already a CJF-CBC Indigenous journalism fellow, learning the ropes at CBC Montreal while also writing a complex, moving feature story about Sixties Scoop survivors impacted by Indigenous identity fraud — all while completing her studies in the journalism program at Toronto Metropolitan University and working as a fitness instructor.
And when The Narwhal opened applications this spring for our Indigenous editorial fellowship, a new role aimed at developing capacity in the Canadian journalism industry for editing Indigenous stories with care and attention, we were thrilled when Savannah applied.
Among a pool of exceptional, brilliant candidates, she stood out with her passion for the industry and for reporting Indigenous stories. She might even renew your faith in media — or at least your hope for its future. Get to know her (and her perfect dog, Chuck) in this Q&A.
— Michelle Cyca, senior editor
This week in The Narwhal
Here’s how Canada’s LNG exports could make your heating bill go up By Matt Simmons
Canada’s LNG industry is just getting going, but one expert says the ‘party is almost over’ when it comes to economic benefits.
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
We’re fighting for our right to report — and your right to know. Stay in the loop about our trial against the RCMP and get a weekly dose of The Narwhal’s independent journalism
We’re fighting for our right to report — and your right to know. Stay in the loop about our trial against the RCMP and get a weekly dose of The Narwhal’s independent journalism
