This marks the fourth installment in an ongoing curated series that asks contributors to imagine the perils and possibilities that will ground our collective response to or emergence from the COVID-19 crisis. The fourth edition is about infrastructure, with contributions from Deb Cowen, Adele Perry, Dayna Nadine Scott, and Michael Mascarenhas.

Canadian Dimension spoke with Karrie Auger, an amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton) organizer with Free Lands Free Peoples and its Prairie Province Prisoner Support Fund, an emergency fund that has raised over $23,000 to distribute to “recently released prisoners, those still inside, and the families of people still incarcerated in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.”

Governments won’t simply give us what we want—we must force the change we need. It is going to take all of us working together to keep up the pressure and not stop until we see the radical transformation that is required. Anything less will result in continued police racism and brutality and the loss of more Black and Indigenous lives.

The province of Alberta may eventually be forced to repeal Jason Kenney and the UCP’s Bill 1—the Critical Infrastructure Defense Act—but in the meantime, standing in opposition to this draconian legislation that infringes on Indigenous rights must mean standing on the front lines with the communities who will be most detrimentally affected by it.

With the spotlight now so justly fixated on Black Lives Matter in Canada, why has the glare of that spotlight diminished to but a flickering shudder when it has come to highlighting the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada? Does our own history not suggest that now is also the time to give those issues the attention they justly deserve?

The oft-repeated mantra of “we are not a racist country” provides comfort to many Canadians that racism and white supremacy are uniquely American problems. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism and violence in policing is as big an issue in Canada as it is in the US. But don’t take it from me. Let’s just look at the facts.

With people sheltering in place as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many are turning to their TVs for comfort. If you’ve already watched popular choices like Contagion and Outbreak and are still craving more disaster content, don’t worry. On April 28, Mi’kmaq director Jeff Barnaby’s new anti-colonial zombie film, Blood Quantum, is being released across all on-demand and digital platforms.

Until we take the bold step to demand police transparency and hold them accountable for the actions of their officers, deaths of Indigenous peoples will continue. We, as a society, owe Neil Stonechild, Dudley George, J.J. Harper, Frank Paul, Greg Ritchie, Stewart Andrews, Jason Collins and 16 year-old Eisha Hudson better than that.

Every level of government and state agency in Canada has had a hand in creating and maintaining the worst socio-economic conditions for Indigenous peoples, especially Indigenous women and girls. Their continued failures to address ongoing genocide puts Indigenous women and girls at higher risk for infection and death from COVID-19.

While we are all doing our best to adapt to the changing circumstances of the COVID-19 crisis, we must ensure that our isolation does not lead to collective complacency. Now is the time to double-down on our demands for justice and to distance ourselves from capitalism and colonialism.