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For Immediate Release
December, 10 2013, 02:14pm EDT
Contact:
Ottawa, Ontario-Defenders of the Land Founder, Russell Diabo, cell: (613) 296-0110, email rdiabo@rogers.com
Ottawa, Ontario - Idle No More and Defenders of the Land, cell: (613) 297-7515, email: creeclayton77@gmail.com
Winnipeg, Manitoba - Idle No More Organizer, Leah Ganzan, cell: (204) 294-8892, email: leahgazan@gmail.com
"NO" to First Nations Education Act (FNEA) and Federal Termination Plan
Idle No More and Defenders of the Land set January 28, 2014 as national day of teach-ins focused on First Nations Education Act.
OTTAWA, Ontario
Today is International Human Rights Day and also marks Idle No More's one-year anniversary of last year's national day of action. In honor of this occasion, hundreds of First Nations protesters have taken to the steps of Canada's Parliament to send a resounding "No" to the Conservative government's First Nations Education Act (FNEA) and the federal Termination Plan to extinguish First Nations' collective rights. On this historic day, we are choosing to launch IdleNoMore 2.0 - our call to the tens of thousands of supporters in our movement to join in a massive educational undertaking from coast to coast to coast on January 28th - and introducing our crowdfunding campaign, which will be available on December 11, 2013, atwww.idlenomore.ca/support.
Defenders of the Land founder Russell Diabo, who spoke at today's protest on Parliament Hill, said, "The FNEA is the latest bill in a suite of legislation amending the Indian Act to be used by the federal bureaucracy to impose greater control and management of First Nations for their assimilation into the mainstream society".
A message will be sent out tomorrow to hundreds of local Idle No More groups and tens of thousands of movement supporters inviting them to organize teach-ins focused on the Termination Agenda of the Canadian government: an agenda Idle No More and Defenders of the Land feel is reflected not only in the FNEA but also in dozens of other proposed laws.
However, the intent of the teach-ins is not to focus only on legal issues. Winnipeg-based Idle No More organizer Leah Gazan explains "Part of teach-ins is going back to traditional ways in which knowledge was transmitted that was grounded in our ceremonies, that guided governance structures, relationships, our roles and responsibilities, and our duty to respect our lands waters and resources. This requires solutions that are grounded in love. We need to have heart solutions that go beyond shallow intellectual solutions that lack spiritual connections to our Mother Earth."
Today's action on Parliament Hill in Ottawa was organized by Idle No More Ontario with the support of Defenders of the Land, the Assembly of First Nations, and the National Treaty Alliance, and with the important blessing of the host nation, Kiti Gan Zibi, on whose traditional territory Ottawa is located.
Idle No More is not an organization, but a movement, and includes hundreds of Indigenous grassroots organizers from across Turtle Island who are engaged in local resistance struggles against resource extraction corporations and the Canadian government ignoring and defying Treaty rights.
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