Summary

Arthur Manuel, a spokesman for the Indigenous Network on Economies sand Trade, worked with First Nation leaders to find a way to legally downgrade Canada’s AAA credit rating through Indigenous land rights. By doing so, it would give the Indigenous people more leverage in their fight to ban or limit fossil-fuel drilling. Manuel argued that Canada didn’t deserve the AAA rating because of the unpaid debt that had accumulated over decades from allowing the wealth of Indigenous land to be extracted without permission.

Klein reports that Manuel and Guujaaw, the president of the Haida Nation, met with a representative of Standards & Poors, the credit rating service, and presented their case. They were told that since First Nation leaders didn’t have the power to collect the alleged debts that S&P couldn’t hold it against Canada in...