Emil Bell pictured in 2014 as he led a walk calling for an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. Photo courtesy Facebook, Idle No More.
A 75-year-old First Nations man has not had a bite to eat since this past Friday in protest of what he feels is the poor handling of last month’s oil spill near Maidstone.
In July, around 250,000 litres of oil spilled into the North Saskatchewan River from a Husky Energy pipeline. Several communities along the river were forced to shut off their water intakes from the river and form other plans for safe water.
Canoe Lake Cree Nation Member Emil Bell began his hunger strike because he feels the government and resource companies are not doing enough to protect the clean water in Saskatchewan.
“To put it very bluntly,” said Bell. “Water is life. No water — no life.”
Bell hopes his hunger strike will encourage Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people to join together to hold these groups accountable.
“We have to get a lot more people involved to start doing things to prevent these things from happening in our area,” said Bell. “Especially up in northern communities, we use water for a variety of things, and yet, people seem to be fast asleep.”
Bell believes lax oil spill regulations and the slow response prove that major changes are needed.
Bell says the weekend was hard due to the hot weather, but he says a rain in the area has cooled things off — making the hunger strike a little easier.
The 75-year-old is set-up in a teepee near Duck Lake on land owned by Cree historian and activist Tyrone Tootoosis.
“What Emil is doing is highly commendable and a wake-up call for all of us,” said Tootoosis.
Tootosis echoed some of Bell’s sentiments and says we need to hold people accountable for these types of tragedies.
“Without the land we are nothing,” he said. “If we don’t do anything to support the land we are nothing.”
He says people are free to come visit Emil. They will be providing more updates through Facebook.