In the spring of 2014, over fifty grassroots activists from dozens of rural First Nations and five urban Idle No More chapters gathered in Nova Scotia and agreed on building a coordinated, strategic, national campaign of action, starting with a very thorough series of community-based regional trainings on media skills, organizing skills, campaign strategy, and issue analysis to understand what we’re up against and how to communicate it to the media. Emphasis was also put on the vital work of deepening relations to non-Indigenous communities and organizations so that we are able to act in concert for our greater good. This clear mandate will guide the direction of this movement.

While there, the visiting land defenders went on a tour of a Northern Paper Mill in Pictou Landing, Mi’kma’ki, that has been running since 1967. In June 2014, a 50-year-old pipe burst at a Northern Paper Mill estuary, carrying an estimated 70 million liters of untreated effluent each day.