In the week before Christmas, many Nova Scotians were filled with uncertainty and dread in the lead-up to premier Stephen McNeil’s Boat Harbour decision, but Daniel Paul wasn’t one of them.
The 81-year-old Mi’kmaq elder and author says he wasn’t surprised when the premier, despite pleas from mill executives and forestry workers, said he would enforce legislation that requires the Northern Pulp mill to stop pumping effluent into Boat Harbour near Pictou by January 31, 2020.
In the four decades he’s been following the saga of Boat Harbour and advocating for the rights of Pictou Landing First Nation, Paul has watched successive governments promise to change things—but in the end, they all allowed Northern Pulp to keep polluting the lagoon.
He told The Coast that McNeil’s decision marks an important shift.
“It’s finally demonstrating to the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia that perhaps we can put some trust in what the governments are telling us.”
Without Boat Harbour and without a ready alternative, the Northern Pulp mill will close. And by the premier’s own admission, that could be the start of hard times for hundreds of mill workers in Pictou County and thousands of other mill-dependent workers across the province. To help with the change, McNeil’s Liberal government is preparing to spend $50 million on the transition away from the mill.
When announcing his decision on December 20, the premier said he knew the news “could not come at a worse time” for workers at the mill, at sawmills across Nova Scotia, private woodlot owners and all those who work in the forest sector.
But for Paul, it was good news: “I think it’s wonderful that Boat Harbour is finally going to meet its Waterloo as a toxic-waste lagoon.”
In 1981, Paul was working for what is now the department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs when Raymond Francis, then-chief of Pictou Landing, approached him for help on the Boat Harbour issue.
As Paul wrote in his book, We Were Not the Savages, he was “appalled” to learn that bureaucrats from his own department, 20 years earlier, had encouraged the people of Pictou Landing to give up some of their reserve land for use by a new mill.
“Without conscience these bureaucrats brazenly informed the People that the harbour’s water would remain so unpolluted that it would support freshwater fish, and that they would still be able to use it for fishing, swimming and other recreational activities.”
Soon after the mill opened, Paul wrote, those assertions were proven wrong: “The befouling of their formerly pristine natural harbour and the stench, noise and fumes emitted from the pulp mill and the effluent were almost unbearable for most of the Band members.
“The suicide rate increased dramatically and a good many moved away in despair of their community ever becoming an environmentally safe place to live again. Most, however, stayed and suffered.”
The premier acknowledged past governments’ targeted efforts against Pictou Landing, saying he believed the mill’s waste-treatment site was placed in Boat Harbour “because it was next to an Aboriginal community.” He compared the situation to other instances of environmental racism in Nova Scotia’s past, including the placement of dumps next to African Nova Scotian communities.
“Somehow our ancestors thought that was OK. It’s not today. Nor is it OK to allow Boat Harbour to continue.”
Paul says that attitude, from McNeil and others, is what made him confident Boat Harbour would close.
“A lot of people in Nova Scotia, including the premier, I think have come to grips with the fact that racism did a lot of harm to the Mi’kmaq people over a long period of time.”
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This article appears in Dec 26, 2019 – Jan 8, 2020.
The Coast forgot to include that Daniel led a lawsuit against The Queen, The Federal Government, and The Provincial government back in the late 80’s early 90’s. The result of this lawsuit was an admittal of wrong doing by all parties, a payout of over $35,000,000 in damages to the band and a huge tract of 3500acres in Crown land. The stipulation of this lawsuit was that they would take the money, the land and move the whole reserve to prevent any further damages to the community. They got the money and the land but breached their side of the contract, didn’t move and continued to protest.
Then again in 2001 the mill, the provincial government,and the band met when the contract was up for renewal to 2030. The band asked for compensation for agreement of the contract. The mill gave them well over a million dollars and their then chief quickly signed in the dotted line.
Boat Harbour was a poor thought out plan from day one as you guys reported to in 2009. We all agree but nobody wants to talk about the elephant that time and time again our government and the mill have apologized and made huge settlements to the band and they take the taxpayers and the companies money and continue to complain and breach contracts. Want to talk about reverse racism.
As Andrea Paul posted on facebook recently. “These money hungry white men would sell their own children, greedy fuckers” Ironically that’s exactly what the band elders have done. Taken money and continuing to bring more lives into a community that everybody including the Queen herself has admitted is polluted and gave them compensation to move dozens of homes.
I can assure you the order to uphold the Boat Harbour act came from The Queen herself because she is tired of her office continuosly admitting wrong doing and paying out of her own pocket to a community that as basically built a financial and legal immunity to the whole situation.
Everybody looks like criminals and horrible people except the ones that continuosly steal from taxpayers and companies after signing document after document.
WTF is this dudewithadog talking about? Has he ever lived in Pictou Landing or beside any toxic waste dump? It’s offensive the lack of empathy for the generations that have been subjected to this atrocity.
No in fact my family choose not to raise me next to a government owned waste dump, and i cant assure you if one was put beside their homes and then given money and land to move. Theybwpuld have taken it to ensurs their childrens heath and their own health would not be compromised.
I do not live in Pictou Landing but I have spent quite a bit of time there and have spent time at the nearby beaches and parks that are clean as a whistle as well.
The only people I have empathy for are the landowners in and around Pictou Landing who are “money hungry white men” or any other race who have not received any apology or compensation with an agreement on both sides to move. They are the real victims. I have empathy for the thousands of taxpayers now about to lose their livelyhoods with no compensation. As well as the million or so other taxpayers that will continue to pay out of pocket for this whole fiasco. When will it end. A lawsuit because the cleanup isn’t happening fast enough? Workers walking off site because they are being blocked and harassed by protests?
I’m sure everybody involved could have come to a more ethical and rational agreement on the whole matter at hand but the race card gets drawn time and time again and unfortunately that’s a touchy subject with any government and they were being bullied into their decision.