CALLOUT to #ShutDownCanada Friday February 13th

January 29th, 2015

David Schulberg

Photo: Mike Roy

Canadian grassroots collectives are organizing nationwide for a day of action Friday, February 13th 2015 to ShutDownCanada. Through the use of a diversity of tactics the goal of the action is to significantly impact the Canadian economy for one whole day.

Call out:

Photo: Mike Roy

“CALL OUT for communities across Canada to blockade their local railway, port or highway on February 13th. Don’t buy, don’t fly, no work and keep the kids home from school. A diversity of tactics is highly recommended! Get everyone involved” (#ShutDownCanada).

The ShutDownCanada callout was made by a group called In Solidarity with all Land Defenders who describe themselves as “a collective of indigenous and settler grassroots organizers/activists based out of so called Vancouver(xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) land)”

ShutDownCanada states that the Canadian government is responsible for allowing multiple injustices including, but not limited to:

• The refusal to have adequate and meaningful investigation for missing and murdered indigenous women exemplifies Canada’s systemic racism and permits it to continue.
• The ever increasing expansion of tar sands extraction and how this “development” is destroying a people (Dene), their way of life and the entire ecosystem needed for their survival. Not to mention the multitude of rare cancers and diseases which are byproducts of tar sands destruction.

Photo: Mike Roy

• Pipeline construction which equals loss of jobs being exported topped with importing workers from other countries to take Canadian jobs without the consent of First Nations. It’s true that building a massive oil pipeline will lead to short-term construction activity, but it won’t generate long-term, lasting jobs. Once built, few permanent jobs are required to operate and maintain a pipeline. TransCanada’s own estimates suggest that only 181 direct long-term jobs would be created across Ontario. That’s dismally low when you consider that this is a $12 billion proposal.
• Issuing grants and licenses for open pit mining even after the Tshilqot’in Supreme Court decision, and the Mt Polley tailings pond breach without any real concerted effort in clean up.
• Fractured gas drilling and the serious intentional misleading of the truth of how this impacts our water supply.
• Site C dam construction and why it is being constructed, not to mention who it is displacing and how they never had any consent from First Nations to move forward.
• The destruction of wild salmon habitat, open net feedlots and fish farming with other countries in our waters destroying the seabed ecosystem and wild salmon stalks.
• Unconstitutional agreements such as FIPA, not to mention now even more so privacy laws are being changed without your consent which goes in direct violation of your actual charter of rights and freedoms.

The call out continues by saying:

While the issues are many and varied throughout different regions it’s all interconnected and it is this corrupt government that is responsible. The only way for the people to get the attention of this government is to target their pocket books. That is the reason to #ShutDownCanada.

The current status quo in so called Canada serves only the elite few while the majority of Canadians are financial slaves to the system. Politicians do not represent the people, nor have they ever. Indigenous communities know this all too well and have been actively resisting subjugation since contact with the first colonizers who illegally imposed their jurisdiction through covert biological warfare and the ongoing genocide implemented with the residential school system. The residential schools took the children from the land to disconnect people from their culture in order to take the land from the children.

Oct 21st 1996

The genocide is ongoing, we still see the constant removal of indigenous children from their ancestral lineages and the untimely deaths of so many indigenous men, women and children. Indigenous peoples are over-represented in the (in)justice system and homeless populations are disproportionately indigenous. The systemic racism in the RCMP and Police forces negates any effective justice from taking place. This is the reason why so many indigenous women have gone missing or been murdered without any real action to prevent further violence.

Everything is interconnected. This government blatantly oppresses indigenous peoples in a calculated effort to create dysfunction within communities to maintain control of the land and exploitation of natural resources. The rape and destruction of our mother earth is another facet of the ongoing genocide which holds no prejudice affecting all children of the earth. We are all directly affected by ecocide.

Make no mistake that systemic racism and structural violence are connected to the needs of this illegal colonial state to maintain control of the land for exploitation. That is why we must call attention to these issues at the same time – the tars sands, the pipelines, fracking, mining, mega-dam projects and justice for #MMIW — it’s all connected.

Port Metro Vancouver Port Shutdown!

Significant targets are being identified such as Port Metro Vancouver which is the busiest port in Canada and the fourth largest tonnage port in North America.

Revolution News interview:

Revolution News spoke with Dan Wallace a member of In Solidarity with all Land Defenders the group which made the call out.

Revolution News: “why is diversity of tactics important?”

Dan Wallace: “There are a number or reasons to talk about and rationals for that will enable people to think very indigently as to taking a stand. Diversity of tactics means that, anyone can plan big group or small group and still be affective. People have done things like this before but it has always been for the most part a isolated event or not picked up by mainstream media because of what it “MAY” incite, like let’s say, another grassroots movement…”

Revolution News: “why is direct action important?”

Dan Wallace: “It’s very personally empowering to take a stand as a start and that itself is where people are open to a least talk about real solutions and get involved in any kind of capacity, more so previous to their involvement which was basically nothing but watching mainstream media..”

The call requests people to “Please keep in mind that it is likely many affinity groups will organize and act without any promotion or Facebook event.
Organize and share your event link here… or organize and JUST DO IT!”

Below are links for local events created so far.

Main group English: https://www.facebook.com/events/452509068236441/

Main group French: https://www.facebook.com/events/1381896582111540

Calgary: https://www.facebook.com/events/548709308599553/

Espanola: https://www.facebook.com/events/838893082823510/

Edmonton: https://www.facebook.com/events/547648822004640/

Fredericton https://www.facebook.com/events/588076097991497/

Halifax: https://www.facebook.com/events/354140614777162/

Kamloops: https://www.facebook.com/events/755986344490782/

Lethbridge: https://www.facebook.com/events/771733126228952/

London: https://www.facebook.com/events/394466750722241/

Moncton: https://www.facebook.com/events/1543879242532790/