Editor:
Surely, it's only fair to ask: Where was the UNDRIP-inspired indigenous veto over Canada's infrastructure projects when we really needed it?
Oh, what a pristine and unspoiled place Canada could have turned out to be if only Indigenous Law had prevailed when in the late 15th century French and British (Colonial) expeditions explored, and later settled along the Atlantic coast, followed in the late 1700s by (Colonial) Spanish explorers and British navigator James Cook on the Pacific Northwest coast.
No doubt, such early indigenous activism would have prevented Canada's national "disaster" of a transcontinental railroad, poisoning and defiling its natural landscape. There would not have been a "last spike" in 1885 since there would not have been a "first spike" in 1881.
But beyond this, early opportunities for saving Canada's "planet" would have been endless:
The ugly scar of the Trans-Canada Highway would not have desecrated Canada's map; pipelines would not have been built; hydro-electric dams would not flood large parcels of land; oil and gas deposits would have stayed in the ground where they belong; mining would not have polluted aboriginal settlements; transportation would have been limited to where rivers flow; the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System would have been rejected as environmentally unsound; Atlantic and Pacific seaports would merely have been sleepy fishing harbours and there would have been just trees where now cities sprawl.
Oh, what a pristine and untouched place Canada could have turned out to be if only the indigenous veto power over the country's infrastructure had been there in the very beginning.
E.W. Bopp
