"I'm very proud to be the first aboriginal person, first northern person to be appointed to this position."

Protecting Canada's lakes, streams and rivers and the habitat for fish and wildlife is the one out of the many issues raised by Idle No More that has the greatest potential to expand across much of non-urban Canada, uniting aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians, and crossing the political spectrum from the green left to the small c conservative right.

Our government is ramming through another omnibus budget bill, and is set to sign a deal with China, both of which seem aimed at facilitating the pipeline and other resource-extraction projects. Why would anyone want to sell out our interests, democratic processes and future like this? And why would we put up with it?

The Canadian government introduced (another) sweeping omnibus budget bill on Thursday, changing as many as 60 different acts in a way that eliminates oversight from parliamentary committees. One of those acts -- the Navigable Waters Protection Act -- is one of Canada's most important and oldest pieces of environmental legislation. It preserved the age-old right of every individual to navigate Canadian waterways. The simple act of dipping oneʼs paddle into the water and pulling, propelling oneself forward -- such is an act that defines "Canada."