The Idle No More efforts then continued in Alberta with an information meeting held at the Louis Bull Cree Nation. The organizer for that event, Tanya Kappo, took to Twitter and Facebook to help generate awareness on the matter as the passage of Bill C45 was imminent. Kappo says, “the people in our communities had absolutely no idea what we were facing, no idea what plans Stephen Harper had in store for us.”
In the week following the first Idle No More event on November 10th, a series of teach-ins and protests are held in other cities, including Regina, Prince Albert, and Winnipeg.
Idle No More began with 4 ladies; Nina Wilson, Sylvia McAdam, Jessica Gordon & Sheelah McLean who felt it was urgent to act on current and upcoming legislation that not only affects our First Nations people but the rest of Canada’s citizens, lands and waters.
These 4 women from Saskatchewan (Indigenous and non Indigenous) decided that they could no longer stay silent in the face of what is a legislative attack on First Nation people and the lands and waters across the country. Together, Sylvia McAdam, Jess Gordon, Nina Wilson and Sheelah Mclean organized a “teach-in” event at Station 20 in Saskatoon titled “Idle No More”.
Jessica Gordon first referenced the name IDLE NO MORE in an October 30th Tweet.
The Idle No More movement grows from strong roots of hundreds of years of indigenous sovereignty and resistance on Turtle Island. Idle No More is inspired and nourished by countless moments of indigenous resistance to colonization war and environmental destruction and by the traditional knowledge, culture, and spirituality of the original peoples of this earth.
