Victoria Island is a significant cultural and spiritual place for Indigenous people in the Ottawa area.
It’s located just outside of the downtown core and close to Parliament Hill and is used by a number of Indigenous peoples as a site for ceremony and protest.
Starting at the end of October, it will be off limits for the next seven years.
And that caught some off guard.
Response to the sudden closing of Victoria Island in Ottawa, Canada
I cannot believe that people buy this story by the NCC that the soil is contaminated and the island has to be shut down for 7 years. There was much more industrial activity going on, on the Chaudière Falls side where the multi-billion dollar Zibi project is going on. Why is that not closed down for 7 years. Very suspicious timing.
This is just more colonial strategy to fragment and destroy public meeting places for First Nations as well as those critical of government policy. The NCC is an appointed body and not elected. They have no authority to be doing this. Where is the outrage? Where is the justice? This is the iron fist of corporate and government interference with an island that has been a meeting place for the indigenous culture for more than 500 years, possibly 5000 years.
The NCC announces less than a month before closing it, “we are going to just dig up this whole island so there is no trace of your heritage and close it for 7 years.” They are sanitizing the grounds to make sure there is no trace or history of what it means to the First Nations culture. Less than a decade after a residential school apology, the native people get another swift kick in the teeth by the government bureaucrats and no control of their unceded territory. The governments crass and slimy actions reek with the stench of chrony capitalism.
Response to the sudden closing of Victoria Island in Ottawa, Canada
I cannot believe that people buy this story by the NCC that the soil is contaminated and the island has to be shut down for 7 years. There was much more industrial activity going on, on the Chaudière Falls side where the multi-billion dollar Zibi project is going on. Why is that not closed down for 7 years. Very suspicious timing.
This is just more colonial strategy to fragment and destroy public meeting places for First Nations as well as those critical of government policy. The NCC is an appointed body and not elected. They have no authority to be doing this. Where is the outrage? Where is the justice? This is the iron fist of corporate and government interference with an island that has been a meeting place for the indigenous culture for more than 500 years, possibly 5000 years.
The NCC announces less than a month before closing it, “we are going to just dig up this whole island so there is no trace of your heritage and close it for 7 years.” They are sanitizing the grounds to make sure there is no trace or history of what it means to the First Nations culture. Less than a decade after a residential school apology, the native people get another swift kick in the teeth by the government bureaucrats and no control of their unceded territory. The governments crass and slimy actions reek with the stench of chrony capitalism.