The Canadian Senate has passed a closure motion to conclude debate on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s One Canadian Economy Act by Friday.
Bill C5 grants the federal cabinet sweeping powers to fast track approvals for major industrial products it considers to be in the national interest.
Those projects could be anything from twinning the Trans Canada Highway, to creating a military base up here in the North, to creating new nuclear waste disposal sites, and to building pipelines.
First Nations leaders say the bill was drafted and tabled without proper consultation and threatens to undermine Indigenous rights.
Canada is essentially a treaty country, almost all of Canada is covered by numbered treaties, one through 11.
Now the danger, of course, with Bill C5 is that everything that has been negotiated with before would be moot at that point.
Denendeh Sunrise host Roy Dahl on Wednesday morning spoke with former Dene National Chief Norman Yakeleya about the situation:
