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This is the land we come from.
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Stolen, illegally occupied, abused.
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But like our people? Alive.
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Over 500 years of attempted genocide,
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our people have resisted.
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We have resisted assimilation,
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we have resisted colonialism.
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As Onkwehon:we, L'nu, Anishinaabe peoples,
as people of the earth,
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our legacy is the land upon which we stand.
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[ Ron Tremblay ] Our old stories say Noh-gelw-ska-po [SP] was the first man who came to this territory,
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and who was our, I guess pathfinder who got
everything ready for the two-leggeds to come here.
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There was agreement with creation
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that we as two-leggeds were gonna come here
and live within balance,
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and within means with the four-legged, with the winged,
with the crawlers, with the swimmers.
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We go back, as traditional people, thinkin'
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well, this is our agreement, our treaty with creation.
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Have we been following that treaty?
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Well, no.
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We've, y'know, messed up.
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[ NARRATOR ] Line 9 is owned and operated
by Enbridge Pipelines,
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a major oil and gas corporation in Turtle Island.
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This pipe is part of a larger system of pipelines
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starting in the heart of the tar sands,
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and occupied Cree and Chippewayan territory
in so-called "Alberta".
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Enbridge has already begun reversing this pipeline,
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increasing its capacity in order to pump
300,000 barrels of bitumen through it per day.
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Line 9 starts in Anishinaabe territory in Aamjiwnaang,
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and follows the north shore of
lakes Huron and Ontario,
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also impacting neighbouring Métis nations,
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and snaking up along the St. Lawrence river,
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where it meets a refinement facility in occupied Haudenosaunee territory in so-called "Montreal".
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Line 9 is coming through our territory,
it's coming through the Haldimand Tract,
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and it is threatening our entire communities,
all of our people, and our lands.
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And it's bringing the fight from the tar sands -
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ground zero, one of the most destructive projects
on the planet -
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it is bringing that destruction and what's going on there, to our lands and our territory.
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[ NARRATOR ] But that isn't the only pipeline battle
coming to a head.
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Trans Canada plans to reverse a 4,500 KM frack gas
pipeline dubbed "The Energy East",
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and retrofit it to carry 1.1 million barrels
of diluted bitumen to the Irving Refinery
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on occupied Wolastoqiyik territory,
in so-called "New Brunswick".
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From there, they plan to build a marine terminal
to ship the dilbit [SP] via supertankers,
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threatening the entire eastern seaboard.
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The Energy Beast pipeline requires construction
of new pipe nearly all along its path,
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as well as the construction of
land and marine terminals, pumping stations,
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and for corporations like Suncor, Irving, and Enbridge
to increase their refining capacity.
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[ John Levi ] This is where we belong, you know?
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And if you're gonna poison our waters,
where do we go, y'know? Where do we go?
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So we gotta protect it, we gotta keep it clean,
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we gotta protect our waters, our hunting grounds,
our medicine grounds, y'know?
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And there's no two ways about it.
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This west to east pipeline
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is another... i think it's gonna be one of the worst
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things that could possibly occur within our territories.
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Especially if there's like spills.
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There was part of the prophesies about this
two-headed snake comin' from west to east;
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and um we thought it was a physical snake.
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Well it is a physical snake,
it's that pipeline that's gonna be comin' across.
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And I said we have to kill that snake.
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[ NARRATOR ] From the point of extraction
to the point of refinement,
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the tar sands and their pipelines threaten
the health of our territories,
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including the lakes, the streams,
and the peoples that they feed.
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[ Suzanne Patles ] Frackin' is an issue in my territory
because it affects us because it destroys the water,
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and water is the foundation of who we are as a people.
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Without water, we're unable to be who we are.
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We're unable to practice our ceremonies.
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We're unable to fulfill our obligations as L'nu people.
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[ NARRATOR ] Resource extraction is the process
of erasing our relationship with our mother,
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and commodifying her in the interests of capitalism.
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We must remember the impacts
of projects like the tar sands.
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[ Lionel Lepine ] It affected us in various different ways,
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varying from social and economic impacts,
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to environmental impacts,
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and ultimately, death.
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[ NARRATOR ] Bitumen is a corrosive solid which has been primarily used as ashphalt.
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To transfer bitumen through pipelines,
it must be diluted,
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which requires the use of gas that comes from
the process of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking".
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Fracking takes the lifeblood of mother earth
-- fresh water --
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and desecrates it by adding chemicals and sand,
targeting shale deposits,
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and injecting this mixture deep into the belly of the earth,
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at incredible speeds and pressures
to literally fracture our mother,
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and cut her open to release the gas and petroleum
that was stored there.
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The natural destruction, it all has a consequence,
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and it impacts the people of the community.
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It removes people from the natural cycles
of what they should be doing with the land,
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and how they should be treating the land,
how they have to live with the land.
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[ Danielle Boisneau ] When our land is destroyed,
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it's definitely a kind of genocide.
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And they know that, y'know?
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That's why they want to destroy us,
because we have that connection.
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But y'know, there's too many strong people,
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and like people are awakening now,
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and they're seeing that,
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and so they're just trying to destroy it faster and faster.
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[ Vanessa Gray ] What I call this process
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with companies taking over land and resources,
is environmental racism,
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because this is not just happening in Aamjiwnaang [SP]
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where we... our health and our environment is affected
by these companies being so close to our houses.
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It is happening all over Canada,
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it happens all over the world
where indigenous people are suffering
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because of these companies selfishly
extracting resources for money.
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[ NARRATOR ] This sickness of capitalism
and abuse of mother earth known as the tar sands
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is fueled by frack gas.
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Resistance to all forms of resource extraction
and their infrastructure,
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pipelines, pumping stations, seismic trucks, marine terminals, gas wells, and their corporate headquarters,
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is necessary.
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As indigenous peoples,
we have a responsibility to our mother earth,
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to the faces not yet born,
and all members of creation,
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to ensure that the death machine of colonial capitalism
is abolished.
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All over Turtle Island, our people are standing up,
on our lands,
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refusing assimilation and asserting our inherent titles.
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[ Toghestiy ] We are Wet'suwet'en people,
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and the territories that they're talking about
belong to our people.
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They don't belong to a tribal council,
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they don't belong to bands.
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They don't belong to industry,
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and they certainly don't belong to government.
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If anybody wants to try and force pipeline
through our territories,
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theyre gonna meet resistance.
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And if they wanna put contractors out here,
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they're gonna be puttin' contractors in harms way,
because we are gonna protect our lands.
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[ Suzanne Patles ] It's important to stop these pipelines
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because they're gonna destroy and deplete
everything that we are.
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It's eco-genocide.
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It's destroying us through destroying
everything that we have.
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[ Laura Norton ] I think what you have to do
is you have to, um, you have to go home.
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You have to really take time
to go sit outside,
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and lay down on your mother,
and she'll tell you what you have to do.
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I think that the nation to nation relationship,
when it's decolonized,
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then that's when we're really gonna see an uprising.
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That's when we're really gonna be bound together
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by things other than physical.
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Y'know, when we have that
spiritual connection with each other,
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like, that's some really strong shit.
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[ Vanessa Gray ] What needs to happen is direct action.
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I think people need to physically get out there and show their support for the earth,
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and not the tar sands destruction, or the pipelines destruction, or the government.
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We tried protesting,
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y'know, we tried, uh, y'know, marching around,
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dancing around malls here and there.
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Y'know, we tried court, we tried y'know legal ways.
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Y'know, strong, hardcore direct action
is the only way to stop these guys.
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We're resisting colonialism,
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we're trying to bring back who we are
as indigenous people,
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and it's important to assert your rights,
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and it's important to assert your inherent authority,
and assert your title over the land,
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because non-assertion equals extinguishment,
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and if we do not assert who we are as a people,
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then we are exterminating who we are.
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[ NARRATOR ] We are caretakers, we are warriors,
we are people of the earth.
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Captions created on un-ceded Coast Salish Territories,
by the Radical Access Mapping Project, 2013