The Deadly Impact Of COVID-19 On Indigenous Peoples Is A Direct Outcome Of Environmental Injustices In Canada

The Indigenous community in Canada has only recently been subject to the threat of coronavirus. In most of the spring and summer, they successfully kept the numbers of infected people in their communities low. This is no longer the case as infections are rising at worrying rates. Since October, cases among Indigenous people have increased threefold. There have been 2,662 total positive cases in Indigenous people across Canada, 1,170 of which are active. If this trend continues, it will signal a tragedy for Indigenous communities.

In the Fond du Lac Denesuline Nation in Saskatchewan, there have been 37 new positive cases as of Monday, with a possible 200 more people who have been in contact with them. There are only 1000 total community members, which means at least one-quarter of the population are at risk. There are hopes that testing will reveal that the virus has not become embedded in the community yet and that the self-isolation practices of these over 230 individuals will protect the rest of the members.

Although First Nations people represent only 10% of Manitoba’s population, they represent 16% of the region’s cases. Additionally, they are overrepresented in hospitalizations, accounting for 38% of patients in the ICU. That is four times the proportionate amount. The number of Indigenous people with COVID-19 has catapulted in Manitoba in recent weeks, with about 1,000 new cases between October 9th and November 13th. The province has implemented strict lockdown measurements because of the spike in cases. Alberta sees similar trends, with cases rising exponentially since mid-October. Through the pandemic, Alberta has had the highest number of positive cases of COVID-19 among indigenous people. Samson Cree Nation Chief Vernon Saddleback of the Maskawcis community reported to APTN, a local news organization, that “… our numbers have really gone up… For everybody in Maskwacis… you know someone who has tested positive.” (APTN)

Indigenous communities do not have the same resources as other Canadian regions and tend to have more pre-existing conditions. People in these communities are more at risk of being hospitalized and die because of these circumstances, which is evident in Manitoba’s extreme disparity in ICU patients. COVID-19 presents a more significant threat to Indigenous people – this should be distressing for all Canadians. Likewise, this heightened risk also reflects a larger problem of historical environmental injustice.

The traditional Anishnaabe understanding of environmental justice is the duty and responsibility to protect life and ensure that creation continues. Environmental justice movements address the unequal distributions that hinder all beings’ natural ability to preserve and create life equally. For that to happen, there needs to be an amplification of the voices of the poor, marginalized, and Indigenous people in communities taking on more than their fair share of environmental harms. These harms come in various forms, most prominently in the earth’s defacing by corporations and governments that build factories, pipelines, and toxic waste sites in communities heavily populated by Indigenous people. In the more traditional Indigenous understanding that “violence on our lands is violence on our bodies,” these actions can be seen as direct violence on the populations who inhabit the lands that are consistently ravaged.

In one study on pregnant women in Quebec, Inuit women were found to have the highest rates globally of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) in their breast milk because of the pollution of James Bay, which affects the food they consume. PCBs cause severe health conditions such as cancer and other issues that reduce the immune system’s functioning, nervous system, and reproduction system. These health issues are a prevalent and systemic issue that affects Indigenous people. These detrimental health effects come in other ways; the Neskantaga tribe has been evacuated from their community because traces of oil were found in their water reservoir recently as October 2020. The over 250 evacuees continue to be housed in hotels in Thunder Bay, more than 400 kilometres away from their home. For 25 years, this community has been under a Boil Water advisory; all water must be boiled before use. The Neskantaga are not the only tribe to suffer from unclean water; as of October 31st, 2020, 17 First Nations communities have some long-term Water Advisory in place. Water is made unsafe, mainly because of the faulty pipes that cause contamination. The lack of action for a problem that could be argued directly resulted from the haphazard consideration of the placement of reserves on remote land by the federal government should be considered a global stain on Canada’s reputation. In a time like this, when access to clean water is needed to wash hands, take showers, and stay hydrated, the unequal treatment of First Nations is made apparent.

Access to freshwater is also enormously influential in the survival and thriving of Indigenous communities. In Indigenous culture, the water is seen as the blood of Mother Earth and all living beings’ cleanser. The settler’s understanding of water rights, the ability to own, use, and pollute water, violates this understanding. Indigenous communities suffer the violation of the sanctity of water and are also victims of its pollution. Environmentally unjust practices are reflected in the lack of abhorrence to unsafe levels of hazardous chemicals in the water. Water is the source of much of the food of Indigenous people, and due to the dangerous levels of chemicals, they cannot survive as they once were. Not only are the stories of environmental contaminants that are higher than any in other Canadian regions accepted, but they are enforced by the government that sells the land to corporations with the knowledge that they will pollute at wickedly excessive rates.

The health of the land is sacrificed for the sustenance of economic growth, and this land is often occupied by those who do not contribute nor reap the benefits of this capitalistic drive. These injustices that include the building on and selling of land occupied by Indigenous people are an embodiment of environmental racism. Environmental racism is slow violence, one that designates some bodies as being more expendable than others. Those who often feel the effects of corporations’ growth, in the forms of factories in their communities, pollution of their food sources and air supply, are people of colour. Specifically, for Indigenous people, their land is their supply and their livelihood. Indigenous people have a vastly different understanding of land than settler Canadians. The land is something that sustains them, and that should not be violated. Violence on our grounds comes by way of extraction and colonization. The demand by non-Indigenous people for the right to violate lands is disproportionately affecting Indigenous people’s rights to live and produce healthy lives.

How are these communities supposed to fare under the pressure of a global pandemic when their food and water sources cause detrimental health effects. Indigenous people have higher rates of heart disease, cancers, hyperthyroidism and other metabolic diseases. This is not because they live risky lifestyles, but because the sub-standard treatment and violent tactics of those who do not reside on the land harm the environment and puts residents at risk. Effectively, these populations that contribute the least to environmentally harmful chemicals are also those who are feeling the most significant effects. Environmental justice activists would argue that these national trends are embodiments of explicit designations that render some more susceptible to violence inflicted on lands and bodies.

Additionally, the lack of infrastructure built in Indigenous communities further predisposes them to the worst of outcomes in the face of a deadly virus. Insufficient housing necessitates the congregation of people inside, which complicates social distancing protocols. The lack of healthcare infrastructure challenges those who get the virus to receive adequate and efficient care. The Canadian government has had to deploy substantial amounts of money and equipment to build up necessary resources historically depleted in these communities.

The reluctance to acknowledge the less than acceptable healthcare systems for Indigenous people continued to erode their health. Still, in the face of a pandemic, when the Canadian government’s behaviours and large-scale corporations already put these communities at higher risk, this is no longer tolerable. These communities are at the most significant risk and are least prepared. Standards for water safety, air quality, and environmentally harmful practices should not only apply to settler Canadians – in cities where legal representation is easily accessed and followed through with – but need to be implemented in Indigenous communities who are evidenced to be suffering a disproportionate amount. The standard of having clean water, fresh air, and a safe food supply should not be a luxury. It only serves to create the most dangerous of conditions during a health crisis like COVID-19. Acceptance of the sacrifice of Indigenous lives for the sake of drilling, logging, and water rights cannot continue. Indigenous lives are as valuable as any other lives, but COVID-19 has unveiled that Canada’s health protocols do not reflect that.

Keely Bastow

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