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Saint-Rémi is a major site for commercial farming, employing between two and three thousand migrant workers in the nearby vegetable and berry farms.

As I wander down the street, countless workers exit an imposing Catholic church. Leaving the church parking lot are numerous school buses, used to transport the migrant workers. Following these school busses, I arrive at a large park with a small play structure and tennis courts. It is Sunday, the workers’ only day off, and a few hundred migrants are watching a weekly soccer game.

I find the migrant support centre when I return to the centre of town, above a local bar where a sign taped to the inside of a second-storey window reads “Alliance des Travailleurs Agricoles.” Upstairs is a series of offices and a makeshift living space with couches, tables, and coffee machines, where many workers are chatting as they wait to see the support centre employees. There, sitting on the couch, is Abundio Lopez.

Lopez, originally from Mexico, is working his tenth season in Canada and his first in Quebec. Throughout his decade in temporary agricultural work, he has experienced the rule of law of his employer, minimum wage salaries, inadequate healthcare, and fear of deportation due to a complete lack of job security. “If I fail in anything, I’m practically out of the program,” says Lopez in Spanish. “So I arrive tense, and with many problems.”

The plight of migrant workers in Saint-Rémi is not isolated, but rather mirrored all across Canada. Throughout the country these workers face countless instances of being denied their basic rights: poor health standards, workplace fatalities and deportation.

Over 97 per cent of migrant workers in Canada are male. These labourers must have both spouses and children to ensure that they have enough incentive to return to their home countries and not remain in Canada.

Proper healthcare is often denied to these workers, and dangerous working and living conditions are commonplace, subjecting the workers to frequent injury and even death. The agricultural industry has one of the highest rates of workplace fatalities; 33 migrant workers have been killed on the job since 1999 in Ontario alone. Two Jamaican workers on an Ontarian farm were killed less than two months ago, overcome by toxic gas fumes while producing apple cider.

Since migrant workers’ immigration status is tied to their employment, employers are often the sole authority in workers’ lives. They dictate living standards, working conditions, and healthcare access. With all these basic needs in the hands of their bosses, workers have expressed an extreme sense of fear and concern with standing up for their rights.

“The boss decides the working conditions,” said Lopez. “If the boss says ‘Work 12 hours,’ I have to work.” Workers at Canadian commercial farms are paid minimum wage ($9.50 per hour in Quebec), with no compensation for overtime, sometimes working upward of sixty or seventy hours per week.

There have been some unionization attempts to improve their current situation. But this remains largely unsuccessful throughout many provinces. Ontario and Alberta represent the two provinces in which the right to unionize is specifically denied. In Leamington, Ontario, a major site for tomato production, wildcat strikes broke out in both 2001 and 2003 to protest abusive conduct and the denial of proper living and working conditions. The main leaders of these strikes were subsequently deported.

In order to support these migrant workers in their situations of marginalization and precarious status, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) has created ten Agricultural Workers Alliance (AWA) support centres across Canada, including the one I visited in Saint-Rémi. These centres provide assistance of all forms, from applying for parental tax benefits, to monitoring records from the commission de santé et securité au travail, to addressing wage issues. “It’s everything that we as Canadians do ourselves, but since everything is in French or English, it is doubly hard for the workers,” said Saint-Rémi support centre coordinator Marie-Jeanne Van Doorne in French.

Lopez and workers from Mexico and the Caribbean are employed through the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), a bilateral agreement between Canada and the workers’ countries of origin. This program employs migrant workers for a single season on industrial farms in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec. Workers from Guatemala are employed through a separate program, the Low-Skill Pilot Project (LSPP). This recently created private program has opened 42 new industries to migrant workers, including janitorial work and meatpacking. Guatemalans employed through the LSPP come to Saint-Rémi for two-years terms to work on commercial farms.

Andrea Galvez, Quebec Coordinator for the AWA support centres, commented on the international and personal level of manipulation that occurs on these farms, focusing on the LSPP. “What [the agricultural companies] are saying, not only to the workers but also to the consulate and even to the government is, ‘Don’t ask for too much because there are plenty of other countries who are willing to send their people.’ They’re also pitting the workers against each other to raise productivity. … It’s not only exploitation – it’s really dangerous.”

These tactics put the labourers in stressful and gruelling positions, reminding them of their expendability. (Workers need to be specifically requested by their employer to return for a subsequent season.) Workers with minimal education are often chosen for these programs, making them more easily manipulated. Employers often withhold their visas and passports upon arrival as a way of creating a relationship of dependency.

Conditions within the LSPP tend to be worse than that of the SAWP, and there is now a trend of decreasing Mexican labour and exponentially increasing Guatemalan labour.

In Saint-Rémi this year, roughly forty per cent of the agricultural workers are Mexican, while sixty per cent are Guatemalan. This is a shift from 2009 when the representation was fifty-fifty. The LSPP contains “no involvement whatsoever of the Canadian government,” said Galvez. “The working and salary conditions are negotiated directly by the employers and by a third party. In Guatemala it’s the International Organisation of Migration, which is rotten and corrupt and is really just selling labour.”

Labourers are also technically provided healthcare, but Lopez shed light on the superficiality of this claim: “I had an accident, a stomach disease. But I won’t tell my boss. I have to endure the pain to work.” Employers commonly neglect to provide medical services to the workers, instead threatening them with deportation. With this thought always lingering over workers’ heads, real needs such as healthcare are often foregone to ensure a livelihood for themselves and their families. They become scared to access the services that are rightfully provided to them.

Accompanying these abusive working conditions are inadequate (and at times unsafe) living conditions. Housing arrangements are often set up in temporary trailers located alongside the commercial farms. “One of the worst ones that I went to see, the floor of the shower area was basically rotten and falling through, there was mould in the shower and there was mould in the washing machine,” said Anna Malla, former employee at the Saint-Rémi Workers Centre, and QPIRG McGill’s Internal Coordinator. “A lot of people were getting sick and having stomach infections. The water was a brown yellow colour and…the pump system…was coming from a stagnant water source.”

Although such oppressive conditions seem to be relics of the past in this country, they still flourish on these commercial farms where migrant workers are viewed as dispensable commodities. “If the boss says, ‘Live in a house with ten other people,’ we need to accept,” stated Lopez, illustrating his complete lack of freedom and subjection to his employer.

Workers are also paying employment insurance, Pension Plan and income tax, and receiving none of the benefits, as they are unable to become permanent residents. Racist claims that migrant workers are stealing Canadian jobs permeate society, while these dire situations of inequality remains well masked. Lopez succinctly noted his relationship to Canada: “When people ask me where I’m from, I say Canada when I’m in Canada. Because I too belong to Canada.”

In order to challenge these various forms of neglect and oppression, the UFCW has been actively organizing towards the unionization of migrant workers in Quebec. This would provide workers with the ability to freely advocate for improved medical services, as well as living and working conditions, without the risk of deportation or punishment. The UFCW achieved a significant victory in April 2009 with a change in Quebec Labour Code 21.5, allowing migrant workers to unionize. The government of Quebec appealed the ruling immediately, however, and unionization currently remain impossible.

“The change in Article 21.5 surely scared the employers,” said Van Doorne. However, the law was quickly appealed to the Supreme Court by the provincial government. An exception to this labour code is greenhouse workers, who are employed throughout the year and therefore allowed to unionize
“I don’t think they’re ready, the farmers, but I think the workers are ready, and it’s in their interest. Unionization is the only hope for them…to be treated like workers, like us, like everyone,” said Van Doorne.

The ways in which people can migrate through borders is increasingly being surveyed and manipulated. In Canada, the emergence of the LSPP has drastically increased migration while decreasing the number of landed immigrants permitted in the country. Nearly 82,00 people came to Canada last year under the LSPP, SAWP, and a handful of other programs that exclude the workers from obtaining landed immigrant status.

There are between 250,000 and 400,000 non-status people living in Canada, representing the most exploitable and vulnerable portions of the population. This large portion of foreign labour causes monetary flow from the global North to the global South in the form of remittances, which were estimated at $3 trillion in 2009.

The Canadian migrant labour system is constantly evolving and new industries are continually being introduced. “There are some who come for sugar, for maple syrup, and others for mining,” said Van Doorne. “So it’s evolving and changing very quickly.”

Labour markets are also broadening, Galvez mentioned, indicating Honduras and El Salvador as likely partners for the LSPP. Similarly manipulative systems include the Live-In Caregiver program, placement agencies, and day labourers.

Galvez highlighted the various social groups that were traditionally discriminated against and used through economies of coercion: “Before there were migrants there were prisoners…before that there were war prisoners, using Germans and Japanese as slaves for the farmers; before that there were orphans from Britain.”

In the spirit of solidarity, groups such as No One Is Illegal, Solidarity Across Borders, and the Immigrant Workers Centre have been instrumental in advocating for migrant justice. They work toward putting an end to deportations, decolonizing borders, granting status for all, and advocate freedom of movement and respect for all migrant workers. “The system is set up to have people come and be used as labourers but not have any rights. So what [we] organize around is the right for people to stay and to have access to the same rights that any permanent resident or citizen would have here; to not live in fear of being deported and to have access to all that they need and not feel afraid that they’ll be reprimanded,” said Malla.

The plight of migrant workers in Saint-Rémi reveals injustice that is in some ways well hidden. The intricate manipulation of this industry remains skilfully veiled from the public eye through the social isolation of its workers and the denial of their rights. The immigration system is rapidly changing, allowing labourers to come when it’s convenient and deporting them when it isn’t so convenient. Monetary profits are being prioritized before human well-being, and the work of grassroots activists are now playing a critical role in changing this reality and providing hope for marginalized labourers to be able to organize themselves and demand the rights that any citizen deserves.

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Helbig’s photos deliberately blend the lines between reality and artistry. In his photos, the residual bitumen is confused with a painter’s brushstroke, and an alluvial fan laden with oil is mistaken for the shimmering roots of an ancient tree. The swirling shades of copper mix with the blue tinge of oily waters, reflecting a late summer’s sunset. The viewer is dizzied into a fantasy world of dreamy hues and glistening colours; photographs become nearly impossible to identify from their true form. “It seems to engage people. They get drawn into the art as well as the aesthetic and then it opens a place to think about, to reflect and to identify with the imagery, however they might do that,” said Helbig.

But the massive scale of this environmentally devastating endeavour shakes us from this dream world. The sheer extent of the industrial project becomes undeniable. A Greyhound bus is dwarfed by the immensity of a tailings pond, the Tonka trucks tearing up the boreal forest appear minute, a lone sailor is unidentifiable in a sea of oil, and a sound cannon (used as noise pollution to deter migratory birds) is dwarfed against the immense backdrop of bitumen slick.

“What I find most compelling is what the whole project says about Canada, and Canadian institutions… It’s a bit of a déjà-vu in terms of natural resource exploitation,” noted Helbig, citing the depletion of cod fisheries in Newfoundland as an example. Helbig’s photographs also resonate with the number of social issues inherent with the project, including the housing conditions of the numerous migrant workers and the artificial landscapes that are created around these areas.

Helbig’s exhibit colourfully aestheticizes the tar sands project, while still vividly portraying the environmental destruction the tar sands project has caused. A photo of a misty evening near Fort McMurray captures the serene beauty that is the boreal forest, evoking an honest and sincere depiction of the land. This is contrasted with the horrific scenes of open-pit mining that take place once the so-called “over-burden” is removed. In this way, Helbig plays with the senses to truly engage the viewer. “The purpose of the exhibit is to have people reflect and think and that is way more powerful,” said Helbig. “That reflection, that philosophical space or imaginative space or emotional space, that speaks to us as individuals, as a community, our human spirit, and that’s really powerful.”

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Last week, four indigenous choreographers of diverse origins, spanning from Bolivia to Mexico to Canada, performed “Vents nouveaux,” a series of contemporary dance pieces that engaged in the project of honouring the creators’ collective aboriginal identities. The performance, hosted by Montréal, arts interculturels (MAI) was put on by Manitowapan Productions, a non-profit group that seeks to give opportunity to emerging aboriginal choreographers and promote contemporary aboriginal dance. As founder and director, Gaétan Gingras, wrote in his artistic statement, “Dedicated to exploring my heritage through personal journeys into native stories, beliefs, and rituals, I strive to create modern expressions of my ancestors’ culture.”

Choreographer Lara Kramer, of maternal Ojibwa and Cree ancestry, testified to the disintegration of Aboriginal identity in Canada over the past decades. “I didn’t grow up with a strong sense of indigenous identity,” she said. “There was a big stigma attached to my indigenous identity and I think that completely derived from my mother having grown up in the institution of the residential schools, where it was imposed on her that there was this undertone of being ashamed of being aboriginal.”

For “Vents nouveaux,” Kramer put together a piece entitled Fragments to explore the impact of the residential school system on her people, and provide a form of cultural and personal healing through dance. Kramer, along with three other dancers, used brisk, powerful movements to expose the horrors of her mother’s experience. As educational props such as desks and chalkboards filled the room, an audio recording of the ages and deaths of the children in residential schools transported the audience into a different time, making the recounted atrocities vividly alive and real. “The message I’m trying to send is really passing on knowledge through art and…for me, it’s also a way to give honour to my mother’s experience and the stories that I’ve heard throughout my life,” said Kramer.

Another work, Sky Woman and the Three Sisters Tionhéhkhwen, returned to traditional aboriginal folklore for its source material. The creator of the piece, Barbara Diabo of the Mohawk nation, was influenced and propelled by the Mohawk creation story in which Sky Woman (the first person on Earth), fell from the sky and, from the soil of her buried daughter, grew three sisters – corn, beans and squash – who together became the supporters of the land. With soil, plants, and earthy tones, Diabo and three other dancers depicted the story of birth and life from her indigenous heritage.

The night was not restricted, however, to Canadian aboriginal stories. Le Bleu de Ciel, a multimedia work, was created by Karina Iraola, a choreographer of Bolivian and Spanish descent. Àngeles… in situ, by Mexican choreographer Talía Leos, combined two musicians, three dancers and a young boy to portray the clashing and intersecting of universes as Mexican identity encountered life in Quebec. As musicians banged drums and chanted to the fluid and powerful movements of the interpreters, semi-nude slides of the dancers swimming underwater flashed across the backdrop.

While these four young women hail from different places and deal with various origins, their raw emotions and stories all share the common goal of fusing their indigenous heritage with contemporary dance. These performances encapsulated the goals of Manitowapan Productions. Gingras wrote, “By focusing on finding bridges between spiritual and physical I hope to spark healing processes for some or simply make magic of dance a true experience for others.”

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Neumark, co-director of Engrenage Noir/Levier, a community organization that fosters art and activism, describes the group’s work as an “invitation to create art that interrupts, that addresses, that somehow critiques the systemic forces that lead to poverty… that impact people’s capacities to live well.” Systems of oppression are constantly evolving, taking on appearances that become increasingly masked to the public. In response to this ever-changing process, Engrenage Noir Levier has commissioned a breadth of artists, performing in many different forms, to create art that exposes the multiple ways in which traditional slavery and coercive economies are constructed.

Multidisciplinary artist Naila Keleta Mae, who will perform a show called On Love next weekend, comments on the multiplicity of ways in which oppression reveals itself, but also highlights a kind of strength that may come out of it. “I think that the ways our bodies are read changes,” noted Keleta Mae, “so I’m interested in the transformative possibilities too of being in this body…. Of course there’s the violence of oppression…but there’s also a real wealth of information, and knowledge, and creativity, and imagination, and resilience that comes as a result.”

Performances in a variety of mediums, including street art and dance, allow audience members the opportunity to evaluate their own role in prolonging exploitation.

“There’s a whole host of ways in which our very current society, our entire capitalist, consumer culture perpetuates economies of coercion,” said Neumark.

We have a tendency to place the stories of slavery behind us, as a legacy long gone; doing so, however, devalues the fact that economies of exploitation still prosper today. The collection of art performances presented over the course of the weekend will examine how global oppression still persists in structures like the international sex trade and the subjugation of migrant and domestic workers.

Performance artist Eric Létourneau is interested in personal relationships to global structures. His work, which he refers to as a “micro-sociological study and a socio-aesthetic study,” examines the role of small-scale, individual consumption in allowing exploitation to continue. Létourneau states that his piece, How many slaves do you own?, will look at “how people perceive their relationship with the global economy, [and] more specifically…as consumers, their relationship with the people who make the goods.”

Caroline Hudon also creates art that looks at exploitation on a small scale. Her work addresses the deprivation and challenges that individuals face as a result of the prison industrial complex, a structure that allows for the perpetuation of violence and isolation in prison systems. “It’s about how prisoners feel about the dehumanizing treatment of incarceration and…how they feel when freed,” stated Hudon.

The wide array of mediums that are on display in this three-day event embody the intricacies and layers that exist in current economies of exploitation. The strength of these artistic interpretations is that many of them come from lived experiences, evoking a sense of sincerity and realness. Their stories reaffirm the notion that coercive economies still thrive today, while also providing inspiration to change this reality.

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The exhibition, on view at Kaza Maza throughout February, was sponsored by the Centre for Philippine Concerns. The photos expose issues that are often invisible to those in the West – the extreme poverty and social inequalities spurred by corporate affiliations and the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration’s governmental neglect. The images’ strength is that they provoke critical thinking about the realities of Filipino life that are usually hidden from Western eyes.

Filipino author Miguel Syjuco spoke at the exhibit’s vernissage. Syjuco’s award-winning novel Ilustrado depicts the Philippines’ rich history, and he spoke on the topic at the event. A strategically placed country for Western exploitation, the Philippines was both a Spanish and an American colony at various points in its history. After gaining independence from America in 1946, the Philippines was forced to accept the Bell Trade Act as a condition of secession, an agreement that placed severe hinderances on the Philippines’ economic independence from America. The economy is now dominated by foreign corporate interest, and depends on the more than $1 billion that enters the country monthly as remittances from workers abroad, a dynamic enthusiastically supported by the Arroyo government.

“We’ve forgotten about this country, that was very close to home, that was supposed to be the 51st state of the United States….We’ve forgotten that it was once considered the pearl of the Orient. We’ve forgotten that it has a very rich culture,” Syjuco said. “[Christoff’s] photographs are a testimony of not wanting to forget.” The devastation of poverty and social injustices that is the legacy of colonialism and ongoing economic domination are vividly shown in each of Christoff’s images.

One such photograph is an image of fluttering election banners, symbolic of the hope for change that is still very alive in the Phillippines. Such hope is not necessarily far-fetched. Grassroots struggle is nothing new in the Philippines. One of the women’s solidarity groups in the country today is named for Gabriela Silang, an 18th-century woman who led an insurgency group against Spanish colonization. More recently, dictator Ferdinand Marcos was ousted through a series of non-violent demonstrations and peaceful protests in the People Power revolution of 1986, though the Revolution did little to displace the long-standing oligarchies which still control the nation. However, civilian resistance continues to be suppressed today. “Political repression [is] a reality…systemic political killings targeting progressive activists, union leaders, student activists, and progressive journalists [have been occurring] throughout the country since 2001, which is when the current President, Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo, came to power,” commented Christoff.

Although the turbulent events occurring in the Philippines are not widely covered in Western media, there are major international implications to the country’s unrest. The Canadian and American governments are deeply affiliated with the current Arroyo administration. Joey Calugay, from the Centre for Philippine Concerns in Montreal, explained the causes of foreign presence and exploitation of the country. Since the start of Arroyo’s presidency, U.S. troops have been arriving in the Philippines yearly, under the pretext of military training. However, there have been accounts of U.S. troops involved in military action against the Filipino people. “The Philippines has been a strategic geopolitical country…for the U.S. and continues to be so,” Calugay remarked.

Canada has also played a role in the economic crippling of the Philippines. Many Filipino workers are employed here through temporary migrant work, such as the Live-In Caregiver Program and at the tar sands development. In the Philippines itself, Canadian mining companies have significant holdings. One Calgary-based company, Toronto Ventures Incorporated, has even been accused of violence against the Subanen indigenous people according to the online Filipino news source Bulatlat. The corporations “come in and plunder the natural resources, displace people, and basically get 100 per cent of the profits,” said Calugay. As Canadian mining companies take advantage of the country’s resources, nearly 45 per cent of Filipinos live on less than $2 U.S. per day. However appalling the Western presence, stated Calugay, “All these human rights violations and the suppression of people’s resistance and struggles against…foreign mining, is now labelled as war on terror.”

“[Arroyo’s] government is attempting to use free trade economics…to pressure the peasantry and workers to accept the economic model that they’re trying to present…and that economic model is really one that sees the Philippines as either a vast labour pool or a country filled with natural resources that corporations can harvest,” said Christoff. One photograph, of a woman from GABRIELA standing in front of election signs, captures the resistance that is occurring in the face of such governmental oppression.

Christoff took on this photo project to expose the truths about the Philippines that are not so easy to swallow – the electoral fraud, the social inequalities, the Western complicity, the destitution. Through examining these photographs, the viewer gets a small glimpse of the injustices facing Filipinos today, and the ongoing resistance against these problems.

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James began work on the script for Terminal, Terminal while in a playwriting class at Concordia’s theatre department. After James pitched the story to Fordes, she initially thought of Spielberg’s film. James responded, “No, I want to give [Nasseri] his story back.”

“[James] has brilliantly made it an everyman’s story,” Fordes commented. “You know, anyone who has had to face these issues of refugee status and immigration, and forced immigration or even living in a violent place and those kinds of things, this story’s going to resonate with them,” she continued.

The play questions typical responses to Nasseri’s circumstances, and pushes the audience to realize that there are many ways of looking at the issues surrounding Nasseri’s detention in Charles de Gaulle. One could see 16 years of confinement in an airport, with the attendant deprivation of freedom and subjugation to the will of authorities, as pure and utter torture. Or, one could see the circumstances as providing Nasseri with a haven. “It puts you in a place where you question yourself [for] feeling sorry for him. That allows us to compare his situation to some of the other people in the world who are homeless and refugees,” noted Fordes.

The viewer is also led to question her or his own life, realizing that perhaps cyclical daily habits aren’t as free as they once thought. In his script and his performance, James projects the statement, “Don’t feel sorry for me. What are you feeling sorry about? You’re just as trapped in your day-to-day life as I am trapped right here in the airport. The difference is I know I’m f-ing trapped,” commented Fordes. “And that’s a sad statement on the world, that life could take you to a place where this is beautiful, this is peace, this is happiness.”

Nasseri’s circumstance isn’t singular; there are millions in similar situations. In light of this reality, Fordes touched on deportations in Canada, stating there had been a large number of Haitians coming to Canada once regulations were tightened up in the States, “and they’re being sent back home now [that] the law changed in July of this year. They’re being deported back to Haiti just based on the arbitrariness of this law.” The restrictions will only continue as Immigration Minister Jason Kenney plans to slash the number of asylum seekers allowed into the country by half by 2010.

As the reality of Nasseri’s life is finally brought to the fore, ask yourself two questions, said Fordes: “First, do you know? Second, do you care?”

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The evening started off with a film screening of Club Native, by Tracey Deer. The film dealt with identity struggles brought on by racist government policy. Of these policies, Deer targeted the Indian Act, which was enacted in 1876 for the purpose of assimilating and colonizing aboriginal peoples – an agenda it has upheld to this day. This act was also used by South Africa as a model for apartheid and – more specifically – the blood quantum policies that dictate whom is granted native status by blood percentage. Loss of status results in many restrictions, including loss of property ownership, band council voting rights, and school attendance in the Native community.

Deer decided to make this film “to really open up a dialogue and get people thinking about this on a human level rather than on a political level. It affects everyday people, and it’s hurting them.” Club Native also addresses gender inequalities, in that Native men who marry non-Native women are allowed to maintain their Native status, but women who marry non-Native men cannot. The entire bureaucracy of attaining membership goes against all Native norms and customs. “If the whole point of membership was to build or to preserve the cultural identity of the Kanienkehaka people, I have to say that it has failed,” remarked one of the women in the film.

Conflicts between love and tradition were also brought to the fore. One individual remembered being told as a kid, if “you marry out, get out,” a statement that illustrates the tension between the need to keep your community alive and the desire to follow your heart. “If you forego happiness just to be on the list, then where’s your joy in life,” asked Deer.

After the film, Karl Kersplebedeb spoke about health inequality, and the discrepancy between communities. He touched on the fact that health care access often varies between identity groups. “Health inequality – it doesn’t just happen by accident. It’s always the sign of another form of inequality. It’s not bad luck and it’s not genetics. It’s a result of financial inequality. It’s a result of unequal power relations. It’s a result of unequal places in society,” commented Kersplebedeb. He pointed out that the main factors are class and nation. Looking specifically at First Nations, he remarked that health inequalities were the direct consequences of genocide and colonialism.

Billie Pierre, a Nlaka’Pamux/Saulteaux activist living in Vancouver, promoted the 2010 anti-Olympics campaign. The film Quiet Struggle: Sutikalh the Winter Spirit, was subsequently screened. This film focused on Sutikalh, located on St’at’imcin territory in southern British Columbia, whose inhabitants have successfully prevented the construction of a $500-million ski resort on their territory. “My personal concern is that the water system in B.C. comes from the mountains…and once all these ski resorts are in the alpine mountains then whoever has those ski resorts…has control over the water,” said Pierre. Compounding these issues have been ongoing highway expansion, as well as the promotion of mega-tourism. “The Olympics are assimilating and modifying Native culture, and they’re doing it to promote tourism,” said Pierre.

Though the night featured films and talks about tribes twenty minutes from Montreal and from across the continent, it was evident that they all stood in solidarity against a common system of oppression. The night showed that the myths associated with Thanksgiving are misleading, and the racism and persecution that originated with the actual first contact between Europeans and Native people continues to this day.

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