As in most areas of Canadian law, courts are more interested in legitimating and maintaining capitalist relations of domination than in providing real justice. Opposition to extraction should focus on transforming or working outside of the current legal system, since the duty to consult as it is used today is woefully inadequate, and sometimes even actively detrimental, to the attainment of justice for Indigenous peoples.

On March 1, 1954, the United States military detonated a 15 megaton thermonuclear weapon called “Bravo” (the first in the “CASTLE” test series) and exposed the residents of the Bikini Atoll to its radioactive fallout. Those down-wind of the explosions suffered severe burns and were exposed to massive amounts of radiation, irreversibly altering the trajectory of the region and its inhabitants forever.

The time to confront individual and systemic racism is long overdue. Ontario Premier Doug Ford needs to do more than apologize to NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa late on a Friday afternoon. He needs to apologize to all Indigenous peoples for what Mamakwa calls “shaming First Nations people for getting medical care.” Then he needs to kick priority vaccinations for off-reserve Indigenous peoples into high gear.

The question that needs to be asked is what sort of mindset allows this crisis to continue? It cannot be explained by political orientation as both Conservative and Liberal governments have failed to remedy the issue for decades. Until we confront the racist underpinnings of government laws and policies—like funding policies for water systems on reserves—we will never end the water crisis in First Nations.

Critical infrastructure protection is a class project designed mainly to criminalize opposition to the destructive practices of fossil fuel companies. Despite their claims to being neutral entities enforcing the “rule of law,” the policing and security agencies responsible for critical infrastructure protection act as agents of Canada’s ruling class against Indigenous sovereignty movements defending their land.

The results of inquests and inquiries into police violence often end up excusing and entrenching oppressive institutions. Worse still, policymakers simply ignore their recommendations completely. Canadian Dimension spoke with Sherene H. Razack, Distinguished Professor in Women’s Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, about the function of inquests and inquiries in a settler colonial society.

The following statement is an act of solidarity. It originated with faculty members in the Department of Indigenous Learning at Lakehead University but has grown to include the academic community from across Turtle Island. We stand with the family of Barbara Kentner, the Anishinaabe community, and Indigenous women in the pursuit of justice and ending violence against Indigenous women and their communities.

Canada shares with other settler colonial states a deeply rooted desire to deny or minimize the reality of dispossession and to disregard the Indigenous past. A challenge to the colonial present in Canada will require a society based on human solidarity that rejects colonialism as an abomination and respects and cherishes Indigenous rights and Indigenous sovereignty.

Amidst the ongoing chaos of COVID-19, Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives are attempting to ram through a bill that will criminalize protests at so-called “critical infrastructure” sites such as roads and railways. Canadian Dimension spoke with Mike Bagamery, an organizer with the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition (MEJC) about the province’s proposed bill and how we can fight back against it.

Our willingness to leave settler violence unnamed permits it. It allows arsonists to be cast as conservationists, and for systemic problems to be framed as regional disputes. From Atlantic fisheries to Alberta classrooms, there is no part of settler society violence does not touch. After all, it is a whole society that must realize the need to face the consequences of a traumatic history.