More than a dozen people in Fredericton participated in the #ShutDownCanada event on Friday, Feb. 13, 2015. The group met at 5:00pm at King’s Place and marched down to the N.B. Legislature where they left signs that said, “We all deserve equal justice!” and “Where are our women Harper?”
#ShutDownCanada events were held across the country yesterday, the day before the 25th Annual Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Started in Vancouver’s downtown east side where many women have vanished and been murdered, the March is held every year on Feb. 14th to honour the lives of the missing and murdered women.
Many of those who participated in the Friday action also attended a film screening of Finding Dawn at Cinema Politica Fredericton that evening. The film tells the story of Dawn Crey, Ramona Wilson and Daleen Kay Bosse — just three of the now estimated 1,200 indigneous women who have gone missing or been murdered in Canada over the past 30 years.
From #ShutDownCanada:
What is the Goal of #ShutDownCanada?
To remove the veil or illusion of the Conservative government’s “Action Plan” that is being touted as a strong economic stance for Canada in the global market. Economics being the key word and base of why there is such a blatant disregard for human rights and our environment. Bottom line is that the 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.
• Pipeline construction which equals loss of jobs being exported topped with importing workers from other countries to take Canadian jobs (Action Plan) without the consent of First Nations.
• 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.
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.
