While the Idle No More movement hasn’t gained traction with the Harper government, Halifax NDP MP Megan Leslie is supportive in her political role. “It’s a completely grassroots campaign,” she says. “My engagement is to share information and ensure access to it.”
She is one of several speakers addressing a teach-in this evening (Thursday, January 10) at Dalhousie’s Scotia Bank Auditorium, organized by Idle No More Halifax and Solidarity Halifax. Leslie will give a synopsis of Bill C-45, which sparked the movement. “You can’t talk about C-45 separately from C-38, which was tabled in the spring,” she says.
That bill touched on more than 70 different laws, and was passed at “lightning speed,” Leslie says. “It’s hard to understand and even harder to capture the imaginations of Canadians.”
C-38 repealed the environmental assessment act. “Very few waterways are still protected in Canada. They can now be disrupted without an environmental assessment. Exploratory drilling in the Gulf of St. Lawrence no longer triggers an assessment.”
What offends her just as deeply is the “assault on democracy” generated by omnibus bills, which remove a citizen’s opportunity to respond, petition or testify before a government committee. “There is no consultation; the changes weren’t suggested by the community.”
Leslie is impressed with the immediate impact Idle No More has had in a short time. “It’s been incredibly successful but it’s a small organizing group. They’re taking it further working with Solidarity Halifax.”
This article appears in Jan 10-16, 2013.
Sackville NDP MLA Matt Whynott told the Herald that provincial regulations governing lakes and waterways in the province are in no danger –
” So are Nova Scotia’s waterways in peril of unsupervised commercial development?
“Oh, God, no,” said Mat Whynott, MLA for Hammonds Plains-Upper Sackville.
“Rivers, lakes and streams will still be protected by provincial requirements for environmental assessments.”
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/32…
Will he be there with Ms Lelsie ? Are they on the same page ?
It’s shocking that many Attawapiskat band members are destitute and living in sheds. Yet, of the $31.2 Million their small band is given every year, Chief Spence has taken $8 Million and invested it for her and some councillors. She hired her white boyfriend to manage the band money, and pays him $850 per day. Our First Nations should distance themselves from Chief Spence or her wrongdoings will discredit the much needed changes in Native rights.
I think the Idle No More movement shoud adopt two recent book as a message to disfunctional politics. Here are the title:
Joe Bennett (from NZ) Double Happiness: How Bullshit Works
and
No More Bullshit, Please, We’re All Malaysians
by Kee Thuan Chye
Both books seem to be written with the same fedupness that appear to characterize the Idle No More movement. I think it is time to tell politicians that it is time to run countries for the benifit of all citizens rather than on behalf a few!!!
If MP Leslie is truly “deeply offended” as her characterization of the omnibus bills offending democracy states, then she must be appalled by the continuous assault against Canadians by the special treatment given aboriginals. Per a recent Supreme Court ruling ( aren’t these clowns former lawyers like Megan?) the Federal Government ( that means all taxpayers) are now responsible for all Indians, Metis, and anyone who ever had a pony tail it would seem. Can Ms Leslie explain how it is democratic for 75% of the working population to financially support 25% of the population just because they don’t want to work? That my good friends is the real assault on democracy and fairness. It seems that Ms Leslie will “support”, at least visually, any cause or belief that will give her visibility and the prospect of a vote in the next election.
Is this the same Ms Leslie; the Member of Parliament who doesn’t know who the NS Senators are? The same Ms Leslie who has done nothing to protect the rights of ordinary Nova Scotians? The same Ms Leslie who belongs to a socialist political party that racks up massive debt on behalf of her taxpayers? Sorry Ms Leslie, your opinion doesn’t hold any weight because your nothing but a typical politician. You speak from both sides of your very big mouth.
Do you support blocking roadways and possibly endangering both the protestors and others safety?
So what’s the news here. No one is surprised by this. But I’d like to know where is her voice for her (and other Dipper MPs) concerns for their constituents who are being hosed by NSP, HWC, and of course DD (I never met a tax I didn’t like).
The Anti-apartheid movement, the Abolitionists, Arab Spring, the Indian Nationalists, Idle No More. Wake up people – we’ve tried to pay off the First Nations people for screwing them over for 100s of hundreds of years and we see how well that’s worked. This is about fundamental change, and history will judge the people who fought against it the same as the fine people who supported slavery, apartheid, dictatorship, absentee empire rule.
This is the kind of thing you get when you elect useless left-wing NDP MPs year after year. I’m sure she is a lovely person to go to tea with, but her endless whining about supporting every hard-done-by special interest at the cost of piling on the taxpayer is just too much to stomach.
She is so concerned about omnibus bills that she spends 70% of her time dealing with immigration issues.
Why doesn’t she spend just 10% of her time on immigration and the rest of her time studying bills, homelessness, and other priorities of her constituents ?
Sorry the vast majority of problems with Native Bands happen from within such as $104 million missing from one and that is the cost of one F-35A. They need checks and balances. If former Minister Oda could not get away with a $16 glass of OJ then why did one native band get away with $104 million, and what they spent it on as they said there would be a paper trail.
Hey Megan!….News Flash!…. Nobody Cares!
Why don’t you actually try doing something for your constituents for a change. Might be a nice change from forcing other politicians, both provincial and federal, into stepping around you to do something productive for Nova Scotians.
News flash: Idle No More isn’t just a ‘native’ issue. It’s a Canadian issue! We all need to be concerned about what the federal government is doing. They are throwing decades of progress down the drain. Rivers and lakes that were once protected from development and industrialization will no longer be. Wake up people.