Indigenous peoples was messed over. It was like a tradition here. We broke every treaty with them that ever was written. I think Andrew Jackson wanted to wipe them out.
America's peak years of indigenous innovation ran from the 1820s to the 1960s. There were a few financial panics and two depressions, to be sure. But in this period, a frenzy of creative activity, economic competition and rapid growth in national income provided widening economic inclusion, rising wages for all, and engaging careers for most.
I support the indigenous people anywhere in the planet.
There is no way that we know what is going on between the African American and the Asian American. We don't understand what an Indigenous American is. We don't understand what a Latino American is.
For centuries, cultures throughout the world have used indigenous technologies to navigate life's complexities. From navigator-priests in Micronesia to mystics in India, vast sums of knowledge are available if we but recognize it.
In my cosmology, indigenous wild deer are more important than exotic ornamental shrubs.
You have to look at what the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous people says which is free and prior informed consent. Now, if you say ‘we're going to build a pipeline, what does it take for us as the colonial power of Canada to make you agree?' That's not free, prior and informed consent, that's coercion.
Canada has, entrenched in our Constitution, a world-leading recognition of Indigenous rights.
The federal government needs to make it clear that recognition of Indigenous rights means that when Indigenous bands and their leadership approve projects, we listen.
I don't think anyone who's had a casual observation of the Trump administration will suggest that their priority is going to be environment, Indigenous and other things like that.
