Open letter sent to Premier Tim Houston
It was beyond embarrassing to be a Nova Scotian reading this article on Sep 30, 2025:
"On Truth and Reconciliation Day, the Houston government prepares to criminalize Indigenous land protectors"
So you want to criminalize people who protest on Crown lands which should be protected and used in sustainable ways for all Nova Scotians to benefit, not just private equity. We already have legislation in place. For whom is this additional proposal targeted?
And you want contribute further to an issue that was identified during the Truth and Reconciliation process and became Call to Action #30
We call upon federal, provincial, and territorial governments to commit to eliminating the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in custody over the next decade, and to issue detailed annual reports that monitor and evaluate progress in doing so.
Canada has made progress on some calls, and stalled on others, but when it comes to Call #30, we have made the situation woefully worse than it has ever been.
From the Canadian Justice Department study
Ten years ago, Indigenous adults, 5% of the total population in Canada, made up a shocking 27% of adult admissions to federal prison. Today, that proportion is 30% for Indigenous adult males, and an inconceivable 50% for Indigenous adult females. At provincial jails, the numbers are even more bleak. In Manitoba, Indigenous persons make up 18% of the general population, yet they comprise 77% of those being held in provincial jails. Indigenous youth make up 8% of Canada’s population, yet they account for 40% of all admissions to provincial and territorial jails. Female Indigenous youth make up a staggering 70% of all female youth in jails.
The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly called this state of affairs a crisis. It has declared that the Canadian government is complicit in creating the circumstances for this travesty, and has called on sentencing judges to take into account the impact of colonization: the attack on Indigenous culture, language, traditional practices; and the systemic racism and discrimination faced by Indigenous peoples and communities, including lack of access to clean water, adequate housing, and medicine, mental health, education, and family supports.
This comes only a few days after your government’s announcing:
“The signature element of the bill is to build on the progress we have made to unburden* the natural resource sector,” [Halman] said ... added that he’s "proud of the progress the Nova Scotia government has made by lifting a ban on uranium mining, approving the Goldboro gold mine project and by updating its industrial approval process for metal mining — “but we can do more.”
I hope what “we can do more” is to criminalize any future industrial project developers who DO NOT CLEAN UP their hazardous refuse and remediate their sites when they are finished.
* my favourite bafflegab word of the week, at least when used in this context . I believe it may have come from environmental activism.
