Indigenous activists know how to stop Canada’s wildfires

Patrick Michell, former chief of Kanaka Bar Indian Band:

British Columbia is burning, ladies and gentlemen.

I’m currently living in Lytton, and from where I’m sitting, I can see a fire approximately 20 kilometres south of me, I can see a fire approximately 14 kilometres to the west of me, and I can see flame approximately eight kilometres to the north of me.

The one that most directly impacted me and my family is, of course, the June 30 of 2021 Lytton fire, which saw not only my home, but my hometown lost in less than an hour.

Something happens, I’m gonna call it a form of PTSD. Every time the wind blows, you can see people rapt: “Is it going to be fire?”

This is scary. What’s the solution? Quit emitting greenhouse gas emissions.

For me, it’s an easy decision.

“Hi, can I have a pipeline?”

“No.”

Sol Mamakwa, Member of Provincial Parliament for Kiiwetinoong:

When you hear about the air quality in southern Ontario, that’s what we face on an annual basis in the north.

It certainly has an impact on the ways of life as well. As people, we go on the land to go hunting and fishing, gathering. Communities are already struggling with reliable and affordable food. These struggles are exacerbated when fires move through a region.

First Nations have firefighters on the ground and the governments choose to get people from internationally.

These are our traditional territories, we should be given the resources to be able to fight our own fires.

Mike Mercredi, member of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation:

The ripple effect now is everyone’s seeing the smoke. Everyone’s feeling wildfires, not just us in the north.

Now people in the cities right to the U.S. are like, “What the hell is going on?” And now they’re finding out and they’re going, “Wait, wait, wait—the planet warming and the drying of all the water and everything up north is causing the whole forest to be like a tinderbox of dry wood?”

Mhmm.

Michell:

My biggest concern right now in 2023, is that people are scared, and we need positive actions on the ground. We still have time to invest in transition and adaption plans, but that means we’re going to have to stop investing in projects that perpetuate the very cause.

You can’t have a pipeline and a climate change strategy at the same time.

Because whenever there’s the smell of smoke in the air, I don’t want my family, my children, my grandchildren, to worry.

Mercredi:

Oil sands development is in everything we do. Driving, phones we use, the plastics that are extracted from oil to make the things in our phone.

If we don’t change our ways, we’re basically eating ourselves to death. And I can’t allow you to do that. It’s in my blood to keep us alive and going.