In his talk at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, Fidel Castro labeled the year the “hottest [one] in recorded history.” This was the very year that I was born. Hotter years have since been recorded; the last six months were the warmest ever. Castro’s speech was one that shone light on an imminent environmental crisis that looms larger with each passing day—20 years and two Earth summits later.
That same year, just as I turned one-week-old, a little known but now infamous part of Canada called Oka stole the limelight. Misguided motives, misplaced trust and missing priorities strained relations between the Mohawk people and the riverside town of Oka.
These two seemingly unrelated events are connected by two words: Plan Nord. Introduced in the Quebec Assembly last summer, Jean Charest’s swan song was pitched as an “economic development strategy” to inject benefits of industrial growth in Northern Quebec. This $80 billion investment has been since mired in controversy. Even among the aboriginal residents, voices of dissent were not heard in unison, as the Inuit and Crees supported the plan.
I side with the environmentalists. The plan is too deeply rooted in the capitalist notion that the aboriginals will lose their land—and the little livelihoods they make off it—to a distant promise of secure jobs. It bodes ill to dwell on hopes of a castle in thin air. Take for instance the claim of ‘developing boreal forests.’ The very idea of developing a forest seems specious. In this case, ‘development’ happens to comprise—amongst other activities—logging. The government’s Plan Nord document claims that logging in the area would account for 53 per cent of Quebec’s annual wood production while supplying wood to 32 plants—only 11 of which happen to be in the area marked for Plan Nord.
If the irony of those figures don’t hit home, here’s another: $15.9 million has been granted to develop the ports in the region. Freely translated, this means the cost of recovery of this capital will involve a huge influx of foreign tourists into a fragile ecosystem. With an understanding of the impact of ecotourism on the Tibetan Plateau, I can safely vouch for the inefficacy of such a plan.
“Quebec and it’s northern zone are indissociable,” wrote Louis Edmond Hamelin in the government’s Plan Nord action plan. Yet, indissociability doesn’t lie in its geographical boundaries, but in the unity of the people who inhabit them. Design of developmental projects demand a social conscience to augment the numbers. Recent shift in power will, if anything, see faster spurts of “development and growth” driven by higher royalty percentages. The need of the hour is an unassuming mind—engaging in a dialogue—that is not disillusioned by the choices it has to make.
Two decades ago, American president George H.W. Bush declared at the Summit that “the American way of life is non-negotiable.” Today, such snobbery won’t get anyone very far in a planet that is common to all. Sooner rather than later, the shadows of our past will come to haunt us while the solution that lies in our hands today slips away. Pablo Neruda said that “…if we want to establish lands of dignity and integrity, lands where people can live in light and justice, then our guiding stars must be struggle and hope.” So, with stubborn hope, earnest desire, and unshaken patience, I wait.
