Latest news with #InnuFirstNations
CBC
08-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Government social services are 'significant agent' of colonialism, N.L. inquiry hears
A social worker with decades of experience working with the Innu in Newfoundland and Labrador has told a public inquiry that government social services that were supposed to help have in fact undermined and harmed Indigenous families. Lyla Andrew, who grew up in Toronto and attended university there, was fresh out of graduate school in the late 1970s when she began working in the Innu community of Sheshatshiu. She said she started her career with the commonly held — but incorrect — belief that she had something to give the Innu that they did not have. "The learning process was that my assumption was very wrong," Andrew said in pre-recorded testimony played at an inquiry hearing in Sheshatshiu. "In fact, I don't think what we were trying to share with Innu had any value unless we could see the value of Innu knowledge and we were prepared to understand that Innu had a very rich culture and history." The inquiry into the treatment and experiences of Innu children in care in Newfoundland and Labrador began in 2023, and it resumed Monday for a week of formal hearings. The proceedings have examined the history of Innu in the province and the systemic barriers they face. Community members have spoken about children being taken away by child services officials to live in care far away from their families and culture. Several Innu children have died in the care of the Newfoundland and Labrador government. Andrew, who works with a secretariat for Innu First Nations in Labrador, said the province's social services programs were built on the Western European idea of a family consisting of a mother, father and children. By comparison, Innu communities are focused on the wider collective; often several generations of families — or even groups of other relations — live together in one house. In that arrangement, for example, the province would reduce income support benefits for parents if there were grandparents living with them, Andrew said. "The policies … were just imposed on the Innu," she said. "The helping systems don't focus on the well-being of the collective." Grandparents felt an added need to protect their grandchildren, Andrew testified, because they knew young children were being taken from their families by child services at the command of non-Innu. "It's hard to imagine that two or three people in these systems — the head doctor, or priest or school principal — could have so much power," she said. "But they did." Andrew wrote a report in 1992 calling for Innu-led family and children's services. It described the government's social services programs as a "significant agent" of the colonial relationship between Innu and the provincial government, and called for Innu-led child and family services. Its recommendations went largely unheeded, she said.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Quebec open to rekindled GNL Québec gas facility project amid U.S. tariff threats
QUÉBEC — The Quebec government says it would be open to reviving a liquefied natural gas project in the Saguenay region to transport Alberta energy overseas, as a way to reduce the country's reliance on the United States as an export market. Quebec refused to authorize GNL Québec Inc.'s proposed liquefaction facility and export terminal in 2021 and Ottawa followed suit in 2022, with both governments citing environmental and other concerns. However, U.S. President Donald Trump's threats to impose tariffs on Canadian energy have increased the urgency for Canadian oil and gas producers to seek export markets beyond south of the border. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette signalled a willingness to entertain proposals from GNL Québec. "We're not closed to energy projects that respect environmental criteria," he said, later adding he would "study (the project) on its merits." In the government's 2021 refusal, Charette said the proposed facility and export terminal risked 'disadvantaging the energy transition' away from fossil fuels. The project, he added, was economically 'risky' and posed 'more disadvantages than advantages.' The following year, Charette said the province "made the decision (to say no) ... and we have no intention of reconsidering it. It's no longer a project (under consideration) in Quebec and we're pretty firm on that.' Christine Fréchette, the province's economy and energy minister, said Wednesday that the project would need to be accepted by the population to go forward, a green light that didn't exist a few years ago. 'We need social acceptability for a project like GNL Québec,' she said. In February 2022, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada concluded that the plant and export terminal would increase greenhouse gas emissions, harm the beluga population, and negatively impact Innu First Nations. And while members of the governing Coalition Avenir Québec party showed openness to the project on Wednesday, later in the day its members voted down an attempt by two Independent members to adopt a motion in the legislature asking the government to "re-evaluate its positions on transporting Canadian energy resources.' Youri Chassin and Éric Lefebvre, both former CAQ members turned Independents, failed to get enough votes to have their motion adopted. Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime, who doesn't have a seat in the legislature, told reporters Wednesday he welcomed the end of the unanimity of elected officials against GNL Québec. Amid the tariff threats by Trump, Duhaime said, Québec must have greater energy autonomy. "And that involves three things: exploiting our natural gas in Quebec, building pipelines across the province, and reviving the GNL Quebec project." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2025. Patrice Bergeron and Thomas Laberge, The Canadian Press Sign in to access your portfolio
