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B.C. Nisga’a totem on display at Scotland museum since 1930 is heading home
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Nisga’a Nation Chief Earl Stephens says he shook with emotion when he saw for the first time a memorial totem pole with deep ties to his family and spiritual significance to the Indigenous people of British Columbia‘s Nass Valley on display at Scotland’s National Museum.
He touched the red cedar pole and spoke to it in the Nisga’a language as officials from the national museum quietly observed, said Stephens.
The chief said he was celebrating Thursday after the museum’s board of trustees agreed to transfer the 11-metre memorial totem pole, which has been on display at the Edinburgh institution since 1930, back to Nisga’a territory.
“The pole is part of a living being,” Stephens said in an interview from the Nisga’a village of Laxgalts’ap.
It carries the spirit of his great, great grandmother, which is why it’s so important to bring it back to the Nisga’a lands where it came from, he said.
The museum said its board of trustees approved the First Nation’s request to transfer the pole back to its home in northwestern B.C.
A delegation of Nisga’a leaders travelled to Edinburgh last August to ask that the memorial pole be returned to their territory.
Stephens said the Nisga’a people believe the hand-carved pole is alive with the spirit of his ancestor and it’s now coming home to rest.
He said it means a great deal to have the Ni’isjoohl memorial pole returned to the Nisga’a lands, so family, nation and future generations can connect with the living history.
“Being able to stand there and touch it and talk in our own language, it was really, really moving,” said Stephens. “They saw and heard me and they saw how I felt.”
The memorial pole was taken without consent in 1929 by an ethnographer researching Nisga’a village life, who then sold it to the Scottish museum where it has been on display since 1930.
A museum statement says it was carved from red cedar in 1855 in memorial of Ts’aawit, a Nisga’a chief.
The pole includes a series of interlocking figures relating to the chief’s family history through his ancestors, family crests and his clan, says the museum.
It originally stood in front of the home of the chief’s relatives located near B.C.’s Nass River and is currently on display in the Living Lands gallery at the National Museum of Scotland, it says.
The museum’s decision to bring the memorial totem back to its home adds to the ongoing story of the history of the Nisga’a Nation, said Dr. Amy Parent, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous education and governance.
“Our hearts have been moved with the commitment to return our family’s cultural treasure, which enables us to create a new story to re-right a colonial wrong with the honour, dignity and solidarity of the Scottish peoples who are walking beside us on our decolonizing journeys,” she said in a statement.
The repatriation of the Nisga’a memorial totem pole is a historic moment for the Nisga’a and other Indigenous Peoples, Parent said in an interview.
“We really hope that our story inspires our Indigenous relatives around the world to know that the impossible is possible when challenging colonial structures for the repatriation of our stolen cultural treasures and that justice for ancestors will prevail,” she said.
The museum said it will begin planning the safe removal of the totem from its display location and prepare it for transport to B.C.
“We are pleased to have reached this agreement and to be able to transfer the memorial pole to its people and to the place where its spiritual significance is most keenly understood,” said Chris Breward, the director of National Museums Scotland, in a statement. “We hope this is not the end of the process but the next step in a fruitful and ongoing relationship with the Nisga’a.”
The decision to transfer the memorial totem back to the Nisga’a Nation required and received the approval of the Scottish government, said Ian Russell, board chairman of the trustees of National Museums Scotland.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 1, 2022.
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We're still stockpiling reusable bags. Big grocers have adopted solutions, but experts have concerns – CBC News
Canada’s plastic bag ban has had an unintended consequence: a proliferation of reusable bags piling up in basements, closets and, eventually, landfills.
“They’re everywhere,” said environmental researcher Tony Walker. “We’re drowning in them, and we shouldn’t be.”
To combat the problem, several of Canada’s big grocers have introduced solutions. Last week, Walmart launched a free national recycling pilot program for the retailer’s reusable blue bags. Competitors Sobeys and chains owned by Loblaw Companies Ltd. use recyclable paper bags for grocery delivery.
But some environmental experts argue that paper bags are also problematic and that the best solutions are those that help customers actually reuse their reusable bags.
“We just can’t keep giving [them] out,” said Walker, a professor at Dalhousie University’s School for Resource and Environmental Studies in Halifax. “We’re only meant to have a few of them, and we’re meant to use them until they fall apart.”
In late 2022, the federal government rolled out a ban on the manufacture, import and sale of several single-use plastics, including checkout bags. The regulations are being contested in court, but in the meantime, they remain in effect.
The regulations have made single-use shopping bags scarce in Canada, but they’ve also led to the proliferation of reusable bags, especially for grocery delivery.
“It just creates more waste, which is what we’re trying to avoid in the first place,” Walmart customer Udi Sela said in a CBC News interview in late 2022.
At the time, Sela, who lives in Maple, Ont., estimated his family had acquired about 300 reusable Walmart bags via grocery delivery.
“We can’t return them, we can’t do much with them.”
Now, a little more than a year later, Walmart has launched a pilot project to address the problem.
It allows customers to pack up their unwanted reusable Walmart blue bags and ship them — at no charge — to a facility where they’ll get a second life.
How it works
According to Walmart, bags in good condition will be laundered and donated to charity, primarily Food Banks Canada. Damaged bags will get recycled into other materials. Reusable bags typically can’t go in blue bins because they’re costly and difficult to recycle.
Customers must sign up for Walmart’s program, and enrolment is limited.
Jennifer Barbazza, Walmart’s senior manager of sustainability, said the retailer will fine-tune the details as the program progresses.
“[We] know that some customers have more reusable bags than maybe they need,” she said. “One of the things that we’re really excited to learn about from the pilot is customer acceptance and customer feedback.”
Reusable bags are living rent free in closets and car trunks across the country. Most major retailers made the switch away from single-use plastic bags about a year ago, but it’s taking time for some customers to catch on. They’re forgetting to bring their bags with them, and buying more every week.
Udi Sela has already signed up.
“I definitely think it’s a step in the right direction,” he said in an interview on Friday. “It’s something that needed to be done a while ago. God knows we’ve got a ton of bags kind of piled up.”
He said he’s concerned that some customers may find mailing the bags a hurdle. However, it’s not deterring Sela, who soon plans to ship hundreds.
Passing the buck?
Not everyone is keen on Walmart’s project. Emily Alfred, a waste campaigner with Toronto Environmental Alliance, said donating the bags to the food bank is just passing on the problem.
“We need to remove waste from the system entirely, and just sending these somewhere else for someone else to deal with is not really a solution,” she said.
Alfred said a better option is a program Walmart piloted in Guelph, Ont., in 2022. For a fee, customers could check out reusable bags from an in-store kiosk and later return them to be cleaned and reused.
“That’s a real circular reuse system,” she said.
Walmart’s Barbazza said the retailer is continuing to explore different reusable bag programs, including ones placed in stores.
She also said she’s confident Canada’s food banks will make good use of the bags.
“There’s definitely a need for sturdy items to distribute materials to the food bank clients.”
The paper problem
Among Canada’s major grocers, only Walmart offers a reusable bag program for all customers.
Loblaw recently switched from reusable to recyclable paper bags for grocery delivery. Sobeys did not respond to requests for comment, but according to its website, the grocer also uses paper bags and “reusable options” for home delivery.
Several environmental experts say paper bags aren’t a good solution, because their production leaves a sizable carbon footprint.
“Paper bags are a problem,” Alfred said. “It takes a lot of energy to recycle paper, takes a lot of trees and energy to make new paper.”
Loblaw said it continues to explore a variety of more sustainable solutions. “It’s a challenge we’re committed to addressing,” spokesperson Dave Bauer said in an email.
Both Walker and Alfred applaud Metro for its grocery delivery program, because the grocer, which operates in Ontario and Quebec, reuses delivery materials.
Metro said customers can get their goods delivered in a cardboard box or reusable bags, which can be returned and used for another delivery. Or customers can opt for a plastic bin and remove their groceries from it upon arrival.
Metro does not offer similar programs for in-store shoppers.
Alfred said the federal government should introduce regulations that mandate retailers adopt effective reusable bag programs for all customers.
“It’s up to our governments and people to demand that these companies do better,” she said.
But Walker suggested that the regulations would be hard to enforce and that incentives could be a better tactic.
For example, if retailers increased the price of reusable bags, shoppers might be less likely to forget them when they head to the store, he said.
“When the cost is a disincentive to do an activity, people change their behaviour.”
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CTV National News: Honda’s big move in Canada CTV News
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Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says she thinks unhappy premiers will come around on measures in the federal budget that touch on provincial legislation, even as they push back.
At an event in Toronto on Sunday, Freeland — who presented the federal budget on Tuesday — said the national government needs to push ahead on such issues as housing and she was “extremely optimistic” premiers would choose to co-operate.
“Housing is a national challenge, and the federal government needs to be leading the charge,” she said.
“My own experience has been when there are big issues that really matter to Canadians, after all the sound and the fury, people are prepared to roll up their sleeves and find a win-win outcome for Canadians.”
Several premiers have pushed back against the federal government in recent months and again after the budget was released on the grounds that some measures touch on provincial jurisdiction.
This week’s federal budget has premiers lashing out at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over a planned increase to capital gains taxes as well as what they say is overstepping on infrastructure and pharmacare.
In a letter released Friday by the Council of the Federation, which represents the leaders of all 13 provinces and territories, the premiers said Ottawa should have consulted them more ahead of the budget.
Individual premiers have shared more pointed critiques.
“It’s a never-ending spending platform that we’ve seen now for the last 10 years,” New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said on CBC’s Power & Politics on Friday.
“My initial thoughts about the federal budget are that they are overtaxing, overspending, overborrowing and over interfering in provincial affairs,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said earlier this week.
Alberta has clashed with the government repeatedly over housing. Smith introduced legislation earlier this month that would require provincial oversight of deals made between municipalities and the federal government, including for future agreements around federal housing funds.
At Issue this week: The Liberals work to sell their multibillion-dollar spending plan and capital gains tax hike. Pierre Poilievre tells Radio-Canada what he thinks of the federal budget. And another province pushes back on the carbon tax.
Freeland said on Sunday that, as an example, the federal child-care program negotiated through a series of deals with provinces and territories showed that co-operation was possible.
Capital gains tax changes criticized
The federal government has also faced some opposition on what was perhaps the most prominent measure revealed on budget day: changes to Canada’s capital gains tax rules. The government has proposed raising the inclusion rate to 67 per cent on capital gains above $250,000 for individuals.
“The 21st-century winner-takes-all-economy is making those at the very top richer, while too many middle-class Canadians are struggling,” Freeland said Sunday, adding the government was asking wealthy Canadians to pay their “fair share.”
“We do need to ensure that we have some revenue coming in. This is a very limited way of ensuring that that occurs,” Treasury Board President Anita Anand said in an interview on Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday.
Treasury Board President Anita Anand joins CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton to talk about the federal budget and its focus on young Canadians — as well as the criticism it’s receiving.
Critics have raised concerns that the changes could result in reduced investment or capital flight.
“The big concern right now … is this going to have a detrimental impact to the progress we’re trying to make in making Canada a hub for innovation,” said Kirk Simpson, CEO of the tech company goConfirm, in a separate interview on Rosemary Barton Live.
“With productivity the way that it is, we want more capital, not less, flowing into business innovation,” Simpson told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.
Freeland said Sunday that the changes will affect very few Canadian individuals — the government estimates 0.13 per cent — and the revenue will go to pay for investments in areas like housing.
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