6. Contesting Development, Democracy and Aboriginal

Rights in the Red Hill Valley1

In the early morning hours of August 5, 2003, construction vehicles approached the

edge of the Red Hill Valley. They were to begin work on the east side of the valley,

clearing land for a ramp at Greenhill Avenue and the expressway itself one block south.

As they reached the valley, however, they found rows of people blocking their access,

marching slowly in a circle, singing and waving placards. Behind them was a small

garden, planted in the path of the future access ramp by local citizens just days before.

Five days later, while pickets continued day and night, a small group of men gathered

and began constructing a round wooden structure in the dense woods of the valley,

working in the pouring rain. Later that evening, when the rain had lessened, tobacco

was offered to the ancestors and a fire was lit. Haudenosaunee activists from Six

Nations had created a sacred fire, symbolizing their concern with the fate of

archaeological sites within the valley and providing a place for dialogue between the

different parties involved. These decisions sparked a series of events that intensified the

expressway conflict, opening up new political opportunities and providing catalysts for

experimentation with new political strategies.

1 Portions of this chapter are based on a paper of the same name, co-authored with Jane Mulkewich. This paper will be published in Laurie Adkin (ed.) Environmental Conflicts and Democracy in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009). The excerpts included here have been revised and rewritten.

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This chapter examines how Aboriginal involvement during this period challenged the

ways that non-Aboriginal actors understood and represented the expressway debate,

exposing further limitations and omissions within the dominant political narratives of

growth and progress and public ecology. As this case demonstrates, particular

assumptions about indigeneity, progress, democracy and nature are often articulated

together in ways that marginalize or obscure the experiences and concerns of Aboriginal

peoples. Indigeneity continues to be thought in opposition to dominant conceptions of

development, nature, and democratic citizenship, a conceptual marginalization that

supports the continued socio-economic marginalization of Aboriginal peoples. I begin

by tracing the events that led up to the confrontations in the valley during the summer of

2003.

The “New” City of Hamilton and the Transportation Network Engine

Shortly after taking power in 1995, the provincial Conservative government had begun

exploring the idea of amalgamating local municipalities as a means of cutting costs,

reducing the duplication of services between the two-tiers of local government and

lessening competition between neighbouring communities. This process began in 1997

with the creation of the “megacity” of Toronto (Boudreau 2000) and continued with a

number of large urban centres across Ontario, including Hamilton. The amalgamation of

six neighbouring municipalities into the “new” City of Hamilton was met with

resistance from many of the smaller suburban and rural communities, who objected to

the loss of political representation and the possibility of tax increases to pay for urban

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services and revitalization. In spite of this opposition, the Harris government pushed

ahead and by 2001, Hamilton had expanded to encompass a population of 468,000

people, governed by a single-tier of municipal government.

Amalgamation affected every policy and program within the city, as staff positions

were eliminated or reconfigured (Linda Harvey, February 12, 2003). The November

2000 election brought Mayor Bob Wade to power. Wade was the former mayor of

Ancaster, one of the smaller and more affluent amalgamated communities, with a

familiar platform that underscored the need for economic growth. He soon introduced a

business tax reduction program as advocated by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce,

and oversaw the adoption of a new “vision statement” by city council that resolved “to

focus all available resources on economic development”.2 This provided the foundation

for the Economic Development Strategy of 2002, which focused on industrial

development in six “industry clusters”, based upon “pre-existing advantages” in

manufacturing, agri-business, health and biotechnology, information and

communications technology, film and the “aerotropolis”. This later cluster concerned

the development of a “master planned community” around the Hamilton airport,

“including industrial, commercial and residential development,” and was identified as

“the number one strategic priority for economic development in Hamilton” (City of

Hamilton 2002: 5). The plan calls for the extension of the urban boundary and the

provision of municipal services to 3600 acres of land surrounding the airport, creating

2 These measures were in addition to the provincial caps on property tax increases for industrial, commercial and multi-residential properties introduced in 2000 by the Harris government.

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“an industrial, commercial and residential community” – a new city outside the city

(City of Hamilton 2006). The extensive development surrounding the Dallas / Fort

Worth airport has been cited as an example of what Hamilton should aspire towards

(City of Hamilton 2002).

The aerotopolis concept is based on the work of John Kasarda (2000) and other

promoters of airports as the “fifth wave” of transportation-driven commercial

development, the first being seaports; the second, rivers and canals; the third, railroads;

and the fourth, highways. According to Kasarda, "Aviation will drive development in

the 21st century the ways cars did in the 20th century.” The aerotropolis is an economic

hub based around an airport and consisting primarily of industries related to air freight

and travel, such as distribution centres, office buildings, light manufacturing firms,

convention centres, hotels, restaurants, upscale retail, housing and various recreational

facilities. Commenting on a recent report on the proposed expansion of the Kansas City

International Airport, Kasarda stated "commerce is becoming more airport-driven, just

like it was by trucks in the 20th century and railroads in the 19th century and through

the waterways in the centuries before that. Your problem — all this vacant space — is

actually your advantage" (USA Today, October 26, 2003). The ecological impacts of

such development are given little or no consideration in his writing.

Hamilton’s aerotropolis vision was essentially an extension of the “transportation

hub” scheme outlined in Chapter 5, linking the airport to local roadways and, to a lesser

extent, the harbour and railway lines. “Lack of infrastructure and access roads” was said

to be the primary obstacle to the success of the airport. The extension of nearby

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Highway 6 to the airport and completion of the Red Hill Valley Expressway were

described as key components of this future “transportation network engine” (City of

Hamilton 2002: 26). The City of Hamilton had also joined Get Hamilton Moving and

the Chamber of Commerce in advocating construction of a proposed provincial “mid-

peninsula highway”, running south of Hamilton and east to west across the Niagara

escarpment, from the western edge of Burlington to the US border. This proposed

highway had quickly generated public outcry. Citizens voiced their objections at

provincial consultation events that followed a format familiar to opponents of the Red

Hill Creek Expressway, excluding debate over the need for the road and discussion of

transportation alternatives.3 Concern was also expressed about the proposal to link the

mid-peninsula highway to Red Hill, thereby opening up the later road to more

provincial and cross-border traffic (Hamilton Spectator, June 27, 2001).

While the mid-peninsula highway remained at the planning stages, by April 2001

construction of the Red Hill Creek Expressway once again seemed imminent. To the

surprise and disappointment of expressway critics, the municipal government was

successful in its legal challenge of the federal environmental assessment, spending

approximately $4.5 million to prevent the assessment from going forward. The Friends

of Red Hill Valley had been permitted to participate in the case but the court ruled that

3 This opposition cut directly to the need for the expressway and demonstrated the increasing level of public concern over the negative impacts of growing automobile use and suburban expansion, including air quality and climate change. Curiously, despite their sustained support for the Red Hill Creek Expressway, the Hamilton Spectator’s editorial (September 5, 2002) declared that “the groundswell of public concern is powerful evidence that it would be smart of the government to accelerate improvements to existing roads and public transit building another new highway through the heart of this area.”

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they could only provide information on the “natural features” of the valley, effectively

ruling out their arguments regarding the democratic process, environmental justice and

financial mismanagement. Essentially, the court had ruled that the federal assessment

legislation did not apply to the project because preliminary construction had occurred

before the legislation went into effect on June 22, 1984 (Hamilton Spectator, April 27,

2001). The federal government appealed this decision but by the end of 2001 that appeal

had failed.

Expressway opponents responded by continuing to criticize the municipality’s

spending priorities and the limited financial resources available for maintenance of

existing infrastructure, public transit and social programs. The doubling of municipal

water and sewer rates in early 2002 and a number of water-main breaks in the lower city

over the following year raised public concern about the state of the city’s older

infrastructure (Figure 6.1). Friends of the Red Hill Valley also concentrated on raising

awareness about the obstacles still remaining in the path of the expressway, including

the excavation of the Rennie Street landfill and the need for approvals from the Niagara

Escarpment Commission and the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority, and urged

citizens to lobby the appropriate authorities (Friends of Red Hill newsletter, September

2001).

Figure 6.1: Money and water down the drain?

(Friends of Red Hill Valley newsletter, February, 2002)

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Reports on the high rates of poverty and homelessness and the lack of affordable

housing in Hamilton (Social Planning and Research Council 2003) also generated

concern amongst social justice advocates and labour groups, who questioned the City’s

spending priorities (Hamilton Action for Social Change 2008). The 2002 City budget

became a point of critical convergence for all those opposed to the expressway project

and demonstrated the strengthening lines of communication and support between social

justice and environmentalist organizations in the city. This budget proposed significant

funding cuts to public transit, disabled transit, libraries, social housing, public health,

cemetery maintenance and various environmental programs. Residential tax increases of

up to $120 per household were proposed, while the City remained committed to its

business tax reduction plan, effectively transferring about half of the proposed

residential taxes to businesses. City staff warned,

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The City is currently in a budgetary 'Catch 22' situation with regards to the allocation of capital funds. If it were to fund existing city infrastructure to recommended annual levels, there would be no available capital for new projects… The 2002-2011 capital program has a growing gap between the requirements of the existing infrastructure and the allocations of funds for the same. Maintenance, rehabilitation and replacement of existing infrastructure has been deferred as funding has been directed to special projects such as the Expressway and capital projects previously approved and included in prior year's financing plans but never fully funded (quoted in Friends of Red Hill Valley newsletter, May 2002).

Public reaction to these proposed cuts prompted the City to withdraw some of them

from consideration, including the cuts to disabled transit and the proposed elimination

of the long-running Clear Air Hamilton program. On May 29, 2002, Hamilton Action

for Social Change (HASC) organized a rally at City Hall to protest Council’s approval

of the budget (Figure 6.2). HASC described the funding reductions as an assault on “the

public good” and called on councillors to stop providing “handouts to corporations” and

cancel the expressway. The rally attracted hundreds of people and brought together

representatives of various environmentalist, social justice and labour groups. Speakers

emphasized the City’s apparent prioritization of the demands of business interests over

the needs of Hamilton’s less affluent citizens (Ancaster News, May 29, 2002). Inspired

in part by the participatory budgeting initiatives popularized by the burgeoning global

justice movement, many called for public participation in allocating Hamilton’s

spending priorities so that they better reflected the interests of the community as a

whole (Hamilton Action for Social Change 2008).4

4 These ideas informed the creation of the Peoples’ Agenda, a monthly meeting space for local activist groups that I helped organize in 2003, in cooperation with Environment Hamilton and the Hamilton chapter of the Council of Canadians. The aim of the Peoples’ Agenda was to provide a space to discuss and debate Hamilton politics, share ideas and strategies for social change, and inform each other of upcoming events and opportunities for collaboration. It was

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Figure 6.2: Protest the Cuts poster (Hamilton Action for Social Change 2002)

More Than Just a Road: Aboriginal Land and the Green Expressway

also an attempt to create stronger links between the many environmentalist and social justice groups in the city. Over the following year, the group began to produce critical commentaries on the City’s economic development goals and spending priorities and proposed an alternative urban development vision based on principles of environmental justice and a shift towards more localized economic development. Preparations were also made for a proposed participatory budgeting process for Hamilton but the intensification of the expressway conflict in the summer of 2003 led to the splintering of the group as many activists began to concentrate on preparations for direct action in the valley and/or the municipal election of 2003. In the wake of the Peoples’ Agenda, a number of new coalitions and initiatives emerged, including the Hamilton Social Forum, the Hamilton Civic Coalition and People Powered Planning.

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In 2001, notices had begun appearing in the Red Hill Valley, posted to trees along the

walking trails. Signed by the Six Nations or Haudenosaunee Confederacy, they

designated the area as “Six Nations land.” These signs had been posted by Norm

Jacobs, the Six Nations representative for the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task

Force, a group that monitors land disputes and environmental issues on Haudenosaunee

territory in Canada and the United States. In June 2001, Jacobs had formally notified the

City that the Confederacy was concerned about lack of oversight on archaeological

work that was being undertaken in the footprint of the highway. The City began

tentative negotiations with the Confederacy while members of the Task Force continued

to monitor the work in the valley, demanding on several occasions that archaeologists

stop work in areas where Aboriginal artefacts were believed to be located or had

previously been found (David Heatley, November 17, 2005).

Numerous Aboriginal sites and artefacts had already been uncovered in the valley.

Prior to the survey conducted by Mayer Heritage Consultants in 1995, twenty-six

archaeologically significant sites were registered within two kilometres of the Red Hill

Creek and at least twenty of these were from Aboriginal sources. Burial sites had also

been reported in the valley during construction of the Grand Trunk Railway in the late

nineteenth century. According to local historian Frank Wood (1915), railway

construction unearthed an Attiwandaron burial ground and the contents were simply

placed at the side of the construction area for interested parties to sift through.5 During

5

? Wood reported (1915: 8), “a few relics were gathered by private collectors, but the greater part were thrown around and destroyed by uninterested parties who cared nothing for what they found. I got several fine small drills and a few amulets, quite a number of skinning stones, and a

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the 1960s, construction work on sewer infrastructure had partially destroyed a 1000-

year-old Iroquoian village site and an “unspecified number of Aboriginal sites” had

been erased by the expansion of the King’s Forest golf course during the 1970s (Wilson

1998: 119). In 1990, archaeologists working for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation

discovered another burial site at the northern end of the valley while surveying the land

for expansion of the provincial QEW highway. The 1995 survey found fourteen

additional Aboriginal archaeological sites, “relatively small camps or isolated

findspots” (ibid: 123) that were believed to indicate short-term use for hunting, fishing

and gathering but Jim Wilson (1998) notes that human disturbance and construction

projects in the valley since the early 1960s had dramatically reduced the number of sites

and artefacts.

In 1994, an archaeologist employed by the City informed the Hamilton Indian

Regional Centre of the new Aboriginal sites that had been discovered, who in turn

referred him to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Tekawennake News, July 30, 2003).

The people of Six Nations were understandably concerned that construction of the

expressway would involve further erasure of their heritage. In the words of activist

Buddy Martin (December 27, 2005),

I think that genocide is taking on a new form, even if people don’t realize it. Say there’s a big war in the future and all of this breaks down, things get crazy. And years from now, they come back and dig in the ground to find out who lived here, they may not find any trace of the Indian. The indigenous past is literally being erased by some of these developments.

few beads in that locality.”

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The 1995 survey, commissioned by the Hamilton Conservation Authority, was not

permitted to work within the vicinity of the highway route. The contract for this work

was given, untendered, to Archaeological Services Inc (ASI). By 2002, ASI had

received over $1 million for their work, fifteen times the original estimate, but the

reports of their discoveries had not been disclosed to the public or to members of city

council, arousing suspicion and speculation about what ASI may have uncovered (Don

McLean in Hamilton Spectator, April 19, 2002). The discovery that the burial site

uncovered during construction of the Queen Elizabeth Highway in 1990 had not been

formally registered for almost ten years raised further concern. Finally, one of the recent

archaeological digs by ASI had become a target for looters, who had repeatedly stolen

artefacts from the site during the night. For a month, citizens of Six Nations and the Red

Hill area guarded the area and attempted to stop the looting, until the City finally

erected a fence and posted guards (Hamilton Spectator, September 6, 2002).

On behalf of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Norm Jacobs presented a petition to

Hamilton City Council asking for “full disclosure of any material found in the Red Hill

Valley” (Hamilton Spectator, January 17, 2002). Despite assurances from the City that

they would be “kept informed”, Aboriginal activists monitoring ASI’s activities in the

valley were frustrated by the lack of communication, particularly when investigations

were being done in areas that they considered potentially significant, often without any

prior consultation (Buddy Martin, December 27, 2005). Jacobs explained to the City

that he and others knew of other significant Aboriginal sites but did not want to disclose

these locations because they knew that the City would be bound by law to investigate

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and disturb those sites. Jacobs and others had asked ASI to stop working in these areas

until the City was willing to enter into formal negotiations, but their requests had been

ignored (David Heatley, November 17, 2005). He explained that the Six Nations wanted

to be informed and involved in all archaeological activity in the valley, and reminded

council that the bloody conflicts at Oka and Ipperwash had begun with threats to

Aboriginal burial sites (Hamilton Spectator, April 11, 2002).

The City of Hamilton soon responded by postponing archaeological work in the

valley and entering into talks with representatives of both the Haudenosaunee

Confederacy and the band council.6 Following the advice of lawyer David Estrin, who

had overseen the case against the federal EA, the City also hired Christine Silverberg,

former Chief of the Calgary Police Service and a former Deputy Chief of the Hamilton

Police Service. Silverberg had established a career as a conflict resolution consultant

based on her work with various Native communities (Hamilton Spectator, May 9,

2002). The high fees paid to both Silverberg and Estrin, and the City’s refusal to

provide detailed accounting of these expenses, soon generated further public interest

and concern (August 24, 2002).

Much of the public debate at this point centered upon the impacts of the highway

within the valley and, secondarily, on the conflicting visions of development, nature and

6 The Haudenosaunee Confederacy (a.k.a. the Iroquois or Six Nations Confederacy) consists of fifty chiefs, with titles appointed by clan mothers, from the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora nations. Haudenosaunee means “people of the longhouse”, where a longhouse is both the traditional dwelling structure and a symbol of the cultural, political and religious framework which holds the Confederacy together. The elected band council was forcibly imposed by the Canadian federal government in 1924, creating ongoing political tensions between the traditional Confederacy and the band council, regarded by many as nothing more than an arm of the Canadian state (Wright 1992).

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democracy articulated through representations of the valley and the expressway. The

City’s re-branding of the expressway as “The Red Hill Valley Project” in 2003

described the highway as “More than Just a Road” and detailed the plans for relocation

and restoration of 7 km of the creek, the installation of stormwater ponds and pipes, and

a landscape management plan for ecological restoration and the replanting of trees. A

combined sewer overflow pipe would drastically reduced the discharges of storm and

wastewater into the creek and the concrete barriers that had disrupted fish migration

would be removed.7 The highway itself incorporated migration tunnels to allow wildlife

to move beneath the road (City of Hamilton 2007). A new logo showed the expressway

running alongside the creek, surrounded by green grass and trees (Figure 6.3). The City

argued that it had responded to the concerns and criticisms of the highway by designing

a project that prioritized the restoration of the valley as much as the construction of the

highway, achieving a “balance of interests.”

Figure 6.3: The Red Hill Valley Project (City of Hamilton 2005)

7 In December 2001, the provincial Ministry of the Environment had ordered the City to address the longstanding practice of allowing storm and combined sewers to discharge directly into the creek. As per usual, the City had maintained that these problems would be addressed during highway construction but they were forced by the province to begin dealing with this problem in advance (Friends of Red Hill newsletter, February 2002).

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Proponents of the road such as Chamber of Commerce CEO John Dolbec and City

councillor Larry DiIanni, chair of the Expressway Implementation Committee, argued

that the revised project was a fine example of Hamilton’s commitment to “sustainable

development” and entirely consistent with the much lauded Vision 2020 plan because it

allegedly reconciled the need for economic development with environmental

restoration. Chris Murray, project director for the Red Hill Project, claimed that the

reconstruction of the stream would make the creek “more stable” and return much of the

creek to the natural course that it had followed prior to the installation of sewers and

other infrastructure during the 1960s. In this way, proponents linked the highway

project with the re-naturalization of the valley, restoring this degraded and neglected

area to “a more natural state,” retaining recreational amenities, and allowing for the

construction of a piece of infrastructure allegedly beneficial to all Hamiltonians. The

repackaging of the expressway drew upon early modernist visions of landscaped “scenic

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parkways” integrated with their natural surroundings. The implicit representation of

“engineering as an art form that can in some way embellish or improve upon nature”

(Gandy 2002: 122) had particular resonance with the dominant industrial imaginary and

its celebration of progress through the taming, transformation and processing of nature.

As discussed in the previous chapter, most proponents described sustainable

development in terms of “economic sustainability”: maintaining the conditions of

economic growth into the future. In a municipal context, this was defined by proponents

as “having the businesses and industries to pay for the services and infrastructure that

all of us use” (Neil Everson, December 15, 2005) and “having a balanced tax base that

can provide the resources to manage all the other needs of the community” (anonymous,

December 5, 2005). Others expressed this as the search for a “true balance” between

social, economic and environmental sustainability, arguing that Hamilton’s survival was

dependent upon development projects that spurred private sector growth but that

measures should be taken to minimize negative impacts (John Dolbec, November 18,

2005). From this perspective, sustainable development does not entail a radical shift in

economic development practices but rather a strategy of “harm reduction” for

minimizing their negative ecological impacts (John Best, December 20, 2005), thereby

reconciling economic growth with the conservation of nature.

Against this dominant framing of sustainable development, anti-expressway activists

struggled to present alternative visions in the face of imminent construction but largely

remained within a defensively critical mode, directing attention to the City’s growing

financial expenditures for the road (Hamilton Spectator, August 26, 2002), the

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anticipated impacts of construction on animal habitat and trail systems in the valley

(Hamilton Spectator, November 11, 2002) and the City’s persistent refusal to publicly

release all of the remaining consultants reports, including assessments of the highway’s

impacts on air quality, noise pollution, groundwater and the endangered flying squirrel

populations recently identified in the valley (Hamilton Spectator, August 19, 2002).8

Friends and supporters continued to develop a counter narrative of “public ecology” that

emphasized environmental conservation, participatory democracy and alternative

approaches to economic development, situating the expressway conflict within a larger

debate over different visions of urban sustainability, democracy and development.

However, expressway proponents continued to frame the debate as one between a “pro-

growth” majority of “average citizens” concerned with progress and prosperity and an

“anti-growth” minority of environmentalists concerned only with protecting the trees

and wildlife of the valley (Larry DiIanni in Hamilton Spectator, February 5, 2002 –

check this). This attempt at “discursive closure” (Hajer 1995) appears to have been

quite successful, reducing popular conceptions of the debate to a familiar opposition

8 On this later point, the City maintained that the reports, dating back to 1999, had been withheld because of their relevance to the legal proceedings against the federal government and claimed that the reports had to be updated before releasing them to the public. Councillor DiIanni argued that critics had failed to understand that “the majority rules” in a democracy, suggesting that critics were somehow going against the will of the majority in their requests for these public documents (Hamilton Spectator, October 1, 2002). While earlier requests under the Freedom of Information Act had been denied (Hamilton Spectator, April 3, 2002), the City gradually released the documents during the fall of 2003, allowing only 45 days for public review and comments on over 800 pages of information (Hamilton Spectator, November 29, 2002). The Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner later ruled that the City had illegally withheld the reports, nothing that the reports had been commissioned to meet the public consultation requirements of the 1996 provincial environmental assessment exemption order, not to support the legal challenge against the federal government (July 8, 2003).

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between economic growth and environmental conservation.9 In this way, the City was

able to present the Red Hill Valley Project as an example of ecological modernization

that met both goals.

Confrontation and Collaboration in the Valley: The Showstoppers and the Keepers of

the Sacred Fire

Following the cancellation of the federal environmental impact assessment in late 2001,

it appeared that they were few remaining legal and regulatory obstacles in the path of

the expressway. A number of permits were still required but the City planned to proceed

with construction and hoped to obtain the outstanding permits as necessary. Local

activists had been preparing to intervene in construction by holding direct action

training workshops and a series of camp-outs in the valley in the effort to increase

public support and involvement. This group consisted of diverse participants, including

concerned citizens living nearby the valley and experienced activists affiliated with

Friends of the Red Hill Valley and the McMaster University Ontario Public Interest

Research Group (OPIRG). They dubbed themselves “The Showstoppers” in reference to

comments by city councillor and mayoral candidate Larry DiIanni that construction

would proceed unless there was another "showstopper”. The City of Hamilton reacted

9 Some of the anti-expressway activists I spoke to argued that the Hamilton Spectator had overemphasized stereotypical “environmentalist” messages of nature preservation in their coverage of the debate, neglecting arguments concerning alternative approaches to economic development and urban planning. During the events of 2003, one letter writer accused the Spectator of “actively working to paint any opposition to the expressway as tree-hugging environmentalism… The Red Hill debate has been falsely painted as one of environment versus development… In truth, it is a debate about different kinds of development” (October 25, 2003).

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with grave concern about the threat of “illegal” activity and issued letters to prominent

members of the Showstoppers and Friends of Red Hill Valley that threatened arrest,

legal action and the seizure of property if they broke the law by interfering with

construction or damaging property (Hamilton Spectator, August 1, 2003). This widely

publicized threat and the police surveillance of protesters during previous campouts in

the valley undoubtedly frightened some activists, many of whom had little familiarity

with direct action.

Figure 6.4: Rally for the Valley, August 4, 2003 (Friends of Red Hill, 2004)

Nevertheless, following a large public rally in the valley on August 4, (Figure 6.4)

activists began picketing around the clock at Greenhill Avenue, where construction for

an expressway off-ramp was scheduled to begin. This action was well organized, guided

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in large part by a handful of people familiar with direct action tactics through their

involvement with various social justice, peace and counter-globalization groups.10 They

prepared participants for the possibility of arrest by arranging legal support, providing

contact numbers and advising people of their rights. They also successfully advocated

the adoption of a six-point “Basis of Unity” that emphasized non-violence:

1) Our attitude will be one of openness, friendliness, and respect towards all people we

encounter;

2) We will use no violence, verbal or physical, toward any person;

3) We will not damage any property;

4) We will not bring or use any drugs or alcohol other than for medical purposes;

5) We will carry no weapons;

6) We will make decisions by consensus.

This last principle generated particular controversy amongst the group, as many people

were unfamiliar and uncomfortable with organizations lacking a hierarchical structure

10 For the most part, these individuals were younger activists affiliated with the McMaster OPIRG and/or involved with anti-war groups such as Homes Not Bombs that emphasized the use of non-violent direct action and demonstrated an affinity for anarchist organizing principles. Some of these activists drew upon experience in large-scale protests such as those against the Free Trade Area of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001 and the earlier campaign against the military content and symbolism of the Hamilton International Air Show (held annually each Father’s Day). The Father’s Day Coalition for Peace, a group of peace activists from Hamilton and Toronto, launched a substantial media campaign and staged non-violent interventions at the “War Show” that included costumes, performances, songs, leafleting and silent vigils for those who had been killed by the military weaponry on display. Many of these same activists were involved in non-violent direct actions around southern Ontario that aimed to raise public awareness about militarization and the infrastructure, institutions and corporations that support military industries and the waging of war. Many of the skills learned here undoubtedly informed the shift towards non-violent direct action in the Red Hill Valley.

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and decision-making process. Nevertheless, the group managed to operate on this basis

for many weeks, holding large daily meetings in which decisions were made

collectively (Figure 6.5).11 Debate also surrounded the use of picketing as the primary

tactic, which prevented construction vehicles from entering the site but raised the threat

of a legal injunction (Randy Kay, interview, June 29, 2005). The Showstoppers were

able to prevent construction crews from entering the Greenhill area for almost two

weeks until the city initiated legal proceedings. Many people from the surrounding

suburban neighbourhoods participated in the blockade, provided food and water, and

helped maintain a community garden that was created directly in the path of the

highway access (Figure 6.6).

Figure 6.5: Showstoppers Meeting, August 2003 (Friends of Red Hill Valley 2004)

11 According to activist Andrew Loucks (July 20, 2005), “throughout August the majority of our meetings went well, with around seventy or so people at each one. I think it gave people a lot of confidence that we could do things ourselves, and that we could work through differences without ‘fifty plus one.’ Many of the people involved had no experience or conception of that model but it worked really, really well. I think a lot of people gained important knowledge and experience from those meetings… Meetings would go on forever and people had limited amounts of time to speak. And as things went on we had different sites of resistance and different perspectives. Some folks were very concerned about people being named as parties to the injunction and about how people presented themselves as representatives of the group – such as concerns about how people appeared, hairstyles, etc. because they maybe had some assumptions about what peace looks like, commitment, respectability or whatever looks like. You know the guy with a Mohawk doesn’t necessarily get associated with that and that was the kind of people that might wind up in the newspaper photos because of their appearance and that sort of thing. There were problems with fatigue and with the lack of meeting space as well.”

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Figure 6.6: The Greenhill Community Garden (Friends of Red Hill Valley 2004)

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On Sunday, August 10, several people from Six Nations and the Hamilton area

constructed the roundhouse and sacred fire in the valley on behalf of the

Haudenosaunee, a short distance from the Showstoppers blockade.12 For the next five

days there was a constant stream of visitors and some camped overnight at both the

Showstoppers blockade and the Aboriginal occupation. But on August 15, 2003, the

city obtained a temporary three-week injunction, which stopped both picketing and

construction until the matter could be settled in court. The Showstoppers agreed to stay

away from the injunction zone but many continued to supply moral and logistical

support for the Aboriginal roundhouse, while others prepared to defend themselves in

court.13 Aboriginal activists did not participate in the legal battle over the injunction and

maintained that the injunction did not apply to them. Police began meeting with

activists at the roundhouse regularly, initiating a respectful dialogue and working to

maintain a position of neutrality until called upon to enforce the injunction (September

18, 2003).

12 The roundhouse was made of tree-branches and was intended as a place where everyone was invited to sit and talk about the issues. The fire was to be kept burning day and night until all issues were talked through and resolved, and so required a group of fire-keepers who kept turns keeping the fire and sleeping overnight. The “fire keepers” invited Mayor Bob Wade and other Hamilton politicians to speak at the site but to my knowledge only Councillor David Braden accepted this invitation. However, as noted above, the roundhouse became a site for dialogue between activists, and between activists and police.

13 As mentioned in the previous note, the injunction prompted new debates within the Showstoppers, including how to best approach the legal proceedings. Six members of the Showstoppers served as representatives in the case and, after much debate, elected to represent themselves in court in order to have more flexibility in how they argued their case and in order to avoid fundraising enough money to cover the substantial costs of a lawyer (Andrew Loucks, July 20, 2005).

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Shortly before the occupation began, the City of Hamilton had signed a “facilitation

agreement” with the band council that formally recognized the need to consult with Six

Nations and to allow Aboriginal monitors during archaeological excavations.14 The

Haudenosaunee Confederacy had refused to sign the facilitation agreement and

continued to debate the issue internally (Hamilton Spectator, July 2, 2003). Norm

Jacobs of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force had become very ill with

cancer but continued to insist that no road should be allowed without “meaningful

negotiation.” In early August 2003, Jacobs granted a request from the Showstoppers for

a permit to allow them to camp in the valley and it appears that Jacobs also helped

galvanize support amongst the Confederacy sachems (or “chiefs”) for the lighting of the

sacred fire in the valley shortly thereafter. However, less than a month after issuing the

permit to the Showstoppers, Jacobs had passed away and it soon became apparent to

those involved in the occupation that the Confederacy remained divided over how to

best address the issue of the expressway and how much efforts and resources should be

given to support the land occupation (David Heatley, November 17, 2005).

14 The provision for Aboriginal supervision of excavations would be written into later agreements with the Confederacy, as detailed below. However, according to Buddy Martin of the Hamilton Executive Directors’ Aboriginal Coalition (HEDAC), who was extensively involved in monitoring these activities, conflicts soon emerged between Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI) and Wayne Hill, the individual appointed by Six Nations. Hill objected to work being doing near a village site adjacent to the footprint of the expressway, but his objections were allegedly ignored by ASI. Martin recalled that, “they notified us, we objected and they just did it anyway without consultation. They were also redirecting the sewage overflows and there were working in that one section off to the side of the village site where there were patches that may have contained burials but they just dug it up. And that’s when Wayne complained and told them to stop. They told him to f*** off and they made some comments to him. As soon as they finished what they wanted to do there, they didn’t want to talk to us anymore” (December 27, 2005).

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Aboriginal activists involved in the land occupation were motivated by a number of

different interests and concerns, the most prominent being the protection of the valley as

a burial ground and heritage site (Buddy Martin, December 27, 2005). Many also saw

the Red Hill case as an opportunity to force the Canadian state to recognize existing

Aboriginal rights, a point that is discussed in greater detail below. Some believed that

they had a sacred duty to protect nature, finding much in common with non-Aboriginal

environmentalists. These later two concerns overlapped, insofar as the assertion of

Aboriginal rights is intimately connected with ecological health. If the land and living

things are degraded, the right to use that land in traditional ways will be lost, regardless

of the legal existence or recognition of those rights. Finally, still others believed that

they could negotiate economic benefits for the Aboriginal community while allowing

the expressway to be built.

By late August, the Confederacy had agreed to establish a committee to negotiate

with the City. According to one participant, the original intention of the negotiating

team was not to make a deal with the City but rather to “buy some time” until the

municipal election in November 2003, when it was hoped that there would be sufficient

changes to city council to stop the expressway (Carol Bomberry in Tekawennake News,

December 3, 2003). Nevertheless, political pressure was placed on the activists in the

valley to end the occupation, despite support for their efforts from some Confederacy

chiefs and the clan mothers, the elder women who appointed and traditionally advised

the chiefs. As the fall season approached, questions arose about how long it would be

possible to sustain the encampment. A small core group maintained the sacred fire, with

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other individuals visiting the camp more sporadically. By tradition, fire-keepers had to

be male and the group soon faced a shortage of Aboriginal men to maintain the fire at

all times. A number of non-Aboriginal activists were soon instructed to do this job when

necessary (Carol Bomberry, November 23, 2005).

On September 12, the court granted a full injunction.15 The Haudenosaunee

Confederacy met the following day and gave discretion to the fire-keepers to stay at the

roundhouse or to move the sacred fire to Six Nations if they were faced with arrest. The

fire-keepers put out a call for help and by Sunday afternoon there were hundreds of

people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, working together to build a more permanent

longhouse (Figure 6.7). The Hamilton Spectator (September 18, 2003) reported that

police would not move against the people at the encampment that week. Meanwhile,

negotiations between the Confederacy and the City of Hamilton continued. Following

the occupation of the valley, Chief Roberta Jamieson of the Six Nations band council

had issued a public statement indicating the council’s opposition to the highway, despite

the facilitation agreement with the City regarding archaeological work (August 13,

2003). Thereafter, the City’s negotiating efforts were focused on those members of the

Confederacy who were willing to negotiate, primarily through Paul Williams, a non-

15 The members of Showstoppers had argued that civil disobedience against the expressway project was justified by the City’s poor stewardship of the valley, its failure to obtain all of the permits necessary for construction, and the lack of a comprehensive environmental assessment. While the judge stated, “it was powerfully argued that the plaintiff has behaved in a reckless manner, and cannot be trusted to properly care for the Valley, its ecological system, and its inhabitants,” (quoted in the Hamilton Spectator, October 11, 2003) he ultimately ruled that the City could do as it saw fit with the valley because it owned the land.

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Aboriginal lawyer from Six Nations who worked closely with a number of influential

chiefs within the Confederacy (Carol Bomberry, November 23, 2005).

Figure 6.7: Building the Longhouse (Hamilton Spectator, September 15, 2003)

While participants in the land occupation ignored the injunction, many members of

the Showstoppers were left unsure of how to continue fighting against the road. Many

participants had limited experience with civil disobedience and regarded this as a “last

ditch” effort.16 Furthermore, groups such as Friends of Red Hill Valley had staked their

16 According to activist Randy Kay (June 29, 2005), “what was missing for many people, was a willingness to risk arrest. I remember this Aboriginal guy was one of the first that was arrested. We picked him up from the jail and he asked to take him right back to the Greenhill site. I think he’d been in a physical confrontation with the police. We were standing around in a circle with people from the neighbourhood and he was telling everyone that this was just the beginning and we have to keep fighting. And I could see the energy from him going out to the crowd and sort of dissipating in them, being absorbed into some sort of more acceptable form of involvement like writing a letter or making a witty commentary on the CBC phone-in or something. It just

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identity and reputation on the use of legal means of challenging the project and worked

to distance themselves from any illegal activity in the valley (Don McLean, February

18, 2007). Thus, many of those involved focused their attention upon the municipal

election when the injunction was established while others staged public protests around

the city that involved elaborate costumes and street theatre, including representations of

the endangered flying squirrel, trees and the expressway itself, visualized as a menacing

asphalt monster. Those who remained to assist the Aboriginal land occupation and

interfere with construction were largely younger activists with little financial security,

including students, artists and self-styled anarchists. They dedicated large amounts of

time to supporting the construction pickets, the Aboriginal occupation and/or the later

tree-sit campaign, while many affiliated with the more prominent environmental groups

refused to break the legal injunction, both on principle and out of recognition that doing

so would put the six people named as defendants at risk. Many concentrated their hopes

and energy on the municipal election, and these ideological differences created

divisions and debates within the ranks of the Showstoppers, gradually splintering the

group into different factions.17

sort of sank into that crowd of people and it wasn’t going to result in action. And for an issue that’s been around for so many years… I mean a lot of the arrests were people who had been arrested more than once and the level of resistance and the unwillingness to break the law or to uphold higher laws as it were – that was a little disappointing to me.”

17 Randy Kay (June 29, 2005) recalls, “we had a big Showstoppers meeting about that and there was a lot of people but the animosity level was way up. Some people were saying that the other stuff was all fine and dandy but that we had to focus on the election because it was only thing that could stop the road. That kind of rhetoric I found offensive because that’s not the way that movements succeed – by putting all your energy into one tactic. I thought that was a mistake. To marginalize and hurt people who were doing other things sort of reinforced this false democracy – the idea that if you just elect the right people than everything will be fine.”

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Despite the redirection of energies towards the electoral process, non-violent direct

action18 continued in late October when a number of people chained themselves to trees

and interfered with construction crews in their efforts to prevent clear cutting at the

south end of the valley. Making slow but steady progress in their negotiations with

representatives of the Confederacy and likely cognizant of both the imminent election

and the lack of clear support from authorities at Six Nations, the City now asked the

police to begin enforcing the injunction (Hamilton Spectator, October 30, 2003). A

handful of people were charged for interfering with the tree cutting, including one

activist who was perched in a “tree sit” platform for three days. Curiously, these

individuals were charged with trespassing rather than violation of the legal injunction. A

week later, the Reverend Canon Paddy Doran, a local Anglican priest, led a march of

over two hundred people through the valley, in support of those who had been arrested

(Figure 6.8). He proclaimed the area a “sacred space” that should be protected.

Reverend Doran was arrested for marching into the injunction area but was released

18

? While the vast majority of actions taken against the expressway during this period were non-violent in nature there were also incidences that involved physical confrontations with security guards posted in the valley and the destruction of some construction equipment, particularly in 2004 when resistance became more fragmented. All of the groups involved in the picketing and land occupations of 2003 distanced themselves from the destruction of property and claimed that none of their people were involved. However, it soon came to light that a plainclothes police officer was posing as a protestor during the fall of 2003 and many claimed that this individual soon attracted attention by trying to instigate against the police and construction crews at the Mount Albion site. Hamilton Police dismissed the formal complaints brought against Staff Sergeant Davis in 2004 as “frivolous” (Hamilton Spectator, June 9, 2004) and Ken Leendertse, promoted to Deputy Chief following the confrontations in Red Hill, defended the use of police infiltrators as a means of “avoiding violence” (View Magazine, January 22, 2004). Davis eventually made a formal apology to Willamina McGribbon and other activists but faced no disciplinary action (Hamilton Spectator, July 2, 2005).

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without charge after fellow marchers surrounded the police car and peacefully

prevented it from driving away. This event, like the longhouse construction in

September, raised the spirits of anti-expressway forces but numbers still remained

relatively low at the longhouse and sacred fire, and in the actions against the clear-

cutting (Hamilton Spectator, November 1, 2003).

Figure 6.8: Claiming Sacred Space (Friends of Red Hill Valley, 2004)

On November 6, 2003, following a community breakfast organized by members of

the land occupation to rally support and increase their numbers, police raided the

longhouse, made arrests for trespassing, and allowed construction crews to enter the

valley. In an ostentatious display of power, workers immediately began using

machinery to tear up trees in front of the crowd of onlookers, reducing many to tears.

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The Greenhill Community Garden, a symbol of hope and solidarity for many, was soon

also erased from the landscape. Many activists interpreted these actions as attempts by

the City to ensure that construction resumed before the municipal election, both to

present the project as impervious to political obstacles and to “demoralize” activists by

demonstrating their power to control and transform the valley with impunity (Joan

Roberts, in Iotzova 2004).

In subsequent media coverage, police justified their actions as a response to rumours

of firearms hidden in the valley and the imminent arrival of allegedly armed Mohawk

“warriors” from the United States.19 Indeed, some of the protestors had been organizing

the involvement of “warriors” from other Aboriginal communities and this had become

a divisive debate within the small group maintaining the camp in the valley, physically

splitting the group into two factions in separate camps: one in favour of non-violence

and negotiation with police, and the other in favour of an more militarized approach

(David Heatley, November 17, 2005). Some of those favouring non-violent resistance

had maintained frequent contact with deputy police chief Ken Leendertse and other

police officers. They apparently knew in advance that the raid would be taking place

19 The Mohawk Rotiskenhrakete or “Warrior Society” was established in 1972, advocating a more militant approach to protecting and reclaiming Mohawk territories in Canada and the United States. Other indigenous movements adopted the “warrior society” term during this period, including the American Indian Movement. The warrior image played with colonial stereotypes of indigenous peoples as violent and war-like while simultaneously recovering traditional notions of warriors as brave and wise defenders of Aboriginal sovereignty (Smyth 2000). Tensions soon emerged between Iroquois followers of Handsome Lake, the Seneca prophet who had preached pacifism and temperance, and supporters of the Mohawk Warrior Society, who argued that the Iroquois Constitution or Great Law advocated peaceful relations among the Iroquois but not with colonial aggressors (Wright 1992). As discussed above, these same tensions played out in the Red Hill conflict.

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that morning but others involved in the land occupation did not (Carol Bomberry,

November 23, 2005). Police stated publicly that they did not consider the occupiers in

the valley to be bona fide representatives of Six Nations. According to Leendertse

(quoted in Hamilton Spectator, November 7, 2003), “on the morning of the arrests, the

only people left in the valley were ‘professional’ protesters who did not represent the

band council, the Six Nations Confederacy or the Friends of Red Hill Valley group.

There was just those who did not have a voice at the table.”

The police intervention and tree-cutting occurred just four days before the municipal

election on November 10. The Hamilton Spectator and other local media represented

the expressway as the pivotal election issue. A number of candidates for council,

including veteran NDP politician and mayoralty candidate David Christopherson, ran on

a platform that included opposition to the highway and support for the Vision 2020

plan, and were actively supported by activists across the city. While these efforts

managed to help elect a handful of new councillors, they ultimately failed to change the

composition of council sufficiently to stop the project. After losing the physical

presence in the valley, expressway opponents were dealt a further blow when city

councillor Larry DiIanni, chairperson of the Expressway Implementation Committee,

was elected Mayor. That year, only 39% of the population voted in the municipal

election and DiIanni won with support from approximately 19% of the total population.

Nevertheless, expressway supporters interpreted his victory as a clear indication that the

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majority of Hamiltonians supported the road in the valley, in spite of the efforts of a

vocal minority of “radicals” (Hamilton Spectator, November 12, 2003). (Figure 6.9).20

Figure 6.9: The voice of the people? (Hamilton Spectator, November 12, 2003)

Aboriginal Rights: Land, Law and Colonial Imaginaries

On November 27, 2003, the spirits of expressway opponents were raised by the

announcement of a lawsuit against the City launched by Larry Green, one of the original

fire-keepers who lit the sacred fire at the roundhouse. Green filed for an injunction to

halt construction within the valley under threat of a $100 million lawsuit. The

20 Yet another public opinion poll on the expressway, commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce in the fall of 2003, found 59.3% in favour of the road and 20.8% opposed. The results of this poll were featured on the front page of the Hamilton Spectator (November 1, 2003), one week before the municipal election, along with warnings from the Chamber that “anti-expressway forces” could have a “disproportionate influence” on the election if supporters of the road did not vote in sufficient numbers.

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foundation of his case was the Nanfan Treaty of 1701, which had been signed by

Governor Nanfan on behalf of the British Crown in Albany, New York, to guarantee the

hunting and fishing rights of the Haudenosaunee within a large area that includes what

is now known as southern Ontario.21 The Nanfan Treaty had previously been recognized

by Ontario courts to defend Haudenosaunee people from prosecution for hunting in the

treaty territory, but Green’s lawsuit proposed to use the treaty to make it theoretically

and legally possible for an Aboriginal person to have unrestricted access to hunting and

fishing in the area. Many of the activists involved in the land occupation were well

aware of the Nanfan Treaty and indicated that they were in the valley to uphold the

rights it guaranteed to them. In the words of Andrew Orkin (November 30, 2005), one

of the lawyers representing Larry Green,

Iroquois caught fish and hunted rabbits in that territory and I have photographs of Iroquois fishermen spearing fish in that creek. Some of the people told me that they had walked in that valley without interruption to gather plants and to be with the game, whether or not they hunted. So whether or not the assertion of those rights had been dormant, the connection with the valley was uninterrupted… So the treaty’s not dead and is demonstrably not dead in this case. And Canadian law says that treaty rights are part of what make this country – there is no basis for our being here legitimately without the treaties.

Green’s lawsuit demonstrates the extent to which Aboriginal involvement challenged

prevailing representations of the valley, the expressway and the larger Red Hill conflict.

21 In 1701, the French and British were locked in a power struggle over control of North America. The Nanfan Treaty was intended to ensure peaceful trading relationships and was initiated by Aboriginal people rather than by the settler society. “In what numerous scholars have termed a stroke of diplomatic genius, the five Iroquois nations succeeded in simultaneously entering into treaties of peace, friendship and protection with both of these European powers” (Orkin and Klippenstein 2003).

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Whereas expressway proponents framed the debate in terms of the relationships

between the global economy, the city, and the “needs” of the individual taxpayer, critics

emphasized the relationship between the valley, the city and human and non-human

health on a bioregional scale that blurred the boundaries between the city and nature.

The Nanfan Treaty, however, places the debate in the much larger spatial and temporal

context of colonialism and the ongoing dispossession of Aboriginal peoples from their

land. In contrast to the dominant representations of the valley as a degraded “wasteland”

requiring “improvement” or as an urban “wilderness” requiring protection, Six Nations

activists represented the valley as a sacred space with a rich Aboriginal history and as

an economic space for the exercise of hunting and fishing rights, situating the valley in

the much larger territory identified by the Nanfan Treaty. This invited others to

recognize the relationships between that land and the socio-economic conditions of

indigenous people both within and outside of the city limits, and to consider the

expressway project as part of a long history of colonial development.

You had a small but strategically important piece of territory. It was pristine, and like other territories that had been the subject of earlier wars, was being used for passage and trade – that was the rationale for the expressway. That is exactly what all of the wars for this territory have been fought over, for centuries. And the promise of the Nanfan Treaty was not weasel words – it was profound and absolute. Now whether or not one interprets the wording as saying that the Iroquois had the right ‘merely’ to hunt, or whether that was a concession of the totality of economic rights in that area, either way it is equally profound (Orkin, November 30, 2005).

However, Green’s lawsuit was very controversial within the Six Nations community

because it was launched by an individual in defence of collective rights and because the

valley remained a contentious issue amongst the band council and the Haudenosaunee

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Confederacy, due to the ongoing negotiations between the Confederacy and the City,

and the sense among some members of Six Nations that the Red Hill Valley was not the

right time and place to assert their rights. In the effort to assuage these fears, lawyers

Orkin and Klippenstein (quoted in Tekawennake News, December 3, 2003) explained

that the Nanfan Treaty guaranteed hunting and fishing rights for individuals rather than

nations and so Green’s case would be an assertion of his “personal treaty rights” but that

any money awarded to him would be placed in “a trust fund for Iroquois traditional and

cultural activities.” Nevertheless, like the majority of Aboriginal people involved in the

land occupation in the valley, Green lacked strong political connections to the

Confederacy or the band council and this lack of political support, along with fears that

a failed case could endanger the reputation and future application of the Nanfan Treaty

(Tekawennake News, December 3, 2003) appears to have led to the eventual withdrawal

of the lawsuit on June 1, 2004, two weeks after the City had ratified a series of

agreements with representatives from the Confederacy. According to Native activist

Carol Bomberry (November 23, 2005), one member of the band council told her

Well, it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of a treaty for white people. In other words, he thought the Nanfan Treaty was being fought by white people, not native people. That’s the key right there. There wasn’t enough support.

The agreements between the City and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy were equally

controversial. Representatives of the Confederacy were guided by Paul Williams, a non-

Aboriginal lawyer with close ties to influential members of the Confederacy. The

negotiation process was supported by many of the Confederacy sachems but opposed by

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clan mothers from Six Nations, who interrupted the February 24, 2004 meeting of City

Council to peacefully demonstrate their objections (Hamilton Spectator, February 25,

2004). The Six Nations band council also expressed concern and asked for a separate

agreement with the City but this never materialized. The agreements were presented as

distinct from treaty rights and therefore exempt from any legal obligations, although

they attempted to address some of the concerns raised by the treaty claims. According to

Andrew Orkin, the City of Hamilton was primarily concerned with avoiding explicit

discussion of honouring treaty rights and to avoid the involvement of the federal

government. Although many Aboriginal activists sought to frame the issue as one that

must involve genuine dialogue between nations – between the Six Nations and the

Canadian state – the agreements between the Confederacy and the City ultimately

prevented that dialogue from occurring. As Andrew Orkin (quoted in Tekawennake

News, March 10, 2004) argued,

This situation is actually not about an expressway, but rather it is about those treaty rights, all of them. The City of Hamilton's expressway project is paving over those rights, and the City has "discovered" at the last minute that it needs Iroquois permission to do this. Of course the City hopes the agreements affect the 1701 treaty rights! It is clear to me from the papers I have seen that the negotiators on both sides are deliberately trying, after expressway construction has already begun, to negate the 1701 treaty rights while saying at the same time this is not what they are doing.

From the beginning of these negotiations, it was clear that the City was not willing to

discuss whether or not to build the road, but only "the details of implementation" (City

of Hamilton 2003c). Indeed, as the negotiations were in progress, the City moved along

with construction, cutting trees in the path of the expressway and preparing for the

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blasting of the escarpment. As stated in the final agreements reached between the

Confederacy and the City, "rather than engage in debate or dispute about the nature of

their rights in the valley, the Parties resolved instead to concentrate on agreeing about

the nature of their responsibilities" by forming a "Joint Stewardship Board" (City of

Hamilton 2004a: 2). The agreements themselves include provisions for Haudenosaunee

monitoring of further archaeological work and “economic opportunities" for the people

of Six Nations to participate in restoration work in the valley, as well as the creation of

a heritage complex. Neither the legitimacy of the City's claim to ownership of the valley

nor the conflicts between the existence of the expressway and the exercise of hunting

and fishing rights was questioned or debated in these negotiations.

During the summer and fall of 2003, Aboriginal involvement in the Expressway

conflict was perceived and represented in different ways by local media, the City of

Hamilton, and many anti-expressway activists. These representations exemplify some of

the problematic assumptions that are often made about the relationship between

indigeneity, nature, development and democracy. In the Hamilton Spectator, editorial

columns and letters to the editor debated the applicability of the court injunction to

Aboriginal activists and the nature of the rights granted by the Nanfan Treaty. Some

writers argued that the people of the Six Nations should not be granted any special

consideration and questioned both the legitimacy and practical applicability of hunting

and fishing rights in the valley (Hamilton Spectator, October 18, 2003). Letters and

Spectator editorials expressed impatience over the length of time that Aboriginal

protestors had remained in the valley and called for immediate intervention from the

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City and police (cf. Hamilton Spectator, October 23, 2003). Other letters called for

transparent negotiations between the City and the Confederacy, debated the extent of

Aboriginal burial sites within the valley, and addressed the potential for violence on the

part of activists, police and other citizens angered by the conflict.

Arguments against the Aboriginal occupation tended to point to the illegality of the

occupation, its violation of the court injunction and the municipality’s "legal right to

start building the road" (Hamilton Spectator, October 23, 2003). In the City’s press

releases, the expressway project was presented as the outcome of "years of study" and a

"democratic" planning process (City of Hamilton 2003b), despite the fact that the City

did not engage in consultation with Aboriginal people prior to 2001, when Norm Jacobs

formally notified the municipality of the Confederacy’s growing concerns. Other

arguments against the occupation appealed to the costs to taxpayers incurred by

delaying construction, and the need for "progress" via road-building and job creation

(Stoney Creek News, September 23, 2003). Many of these arguments presented the

claims to hunting and fishing rights as either outdated claims no longer applicable to

"the reality of changing times" (Hamilton Spectator, August 18, 2003) or as special

rights that allow unfair and unwarranted privileges. In the words of one letter writer, the

concerns and grievances of Aboriginal peoples “should be given no more weight than

that (sic) of any other Canadian" (Hamilton Spectator, August 8, 2003). These kinds of

comments were often met with responses that emphasized the colonial oppression and

ongoing socio-economic marginalization of Aboriginal peoples, the cultural

significance of the Valley as the site of extensive Aboriginal use, the right of access to

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hunting grounds guaranteed by the Nanfan Treaty, and the lack of prior consultation

with the people of Six Nations (cf. Hamilton Spectator letter, August 27, 2003).

These representations of Aboriginal involvement in the Red Hill conflict provide us

with examples of the imaginative geographies through which colonial discourse

reinforces conceptual and physical boundaries between the colonizing and the colonized

(Gregory 2001). In an urban context, the creation of settler cities involved both the

physical and legal dispossession of indigenous people from their land through the

establishment and institutionalization of private property rights, and the conceptual

displacement of indigenous people from dominant conceptions of urban civilization

(Razack 2002; Blomley 2004). European thought has defined "authentic" aboriginality

in terms of its pre-modern nearness to nature and its spatial and temporal separation

from the civilized order of Western culture, exemplified by the city (Peters 1996). In

this way, the colonial city has been represented as a civilizing force that produces order

out of chaos by taming "wilderness" and the indigenous cultures that have been

identified with that wilderness (Jacobs 1996), part and parcel of the “frontier imaginary”

described in Chapter 2. Aboriginal peoples have subsequently been defined as external

to urban culture and this perception persists, despite the fact that fifty percent of

Aboriginals in Canada now live in urban areas (Law Commission of Canada and

National Association of Friendship Centres 1999).22 This is expressed through the

22 In Hamilton, the urban Aboriginal community has been largely invisible to a predominantly white population. The Hamilton Regional Indian Centre was formed in Hamilton in 1973 and other Aboriginal organizations followed, including a women’s centre, two housing organizations, a health centre, a pre-school, and organizations representing the Metis population in Hamilton. Around 1999, the heads of a number of urban Aboriginal organizations in Hamilton came together to form the Hamilton Executive Directors’ Aboriginal Coalition

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spatial segregation of reserves and through the temporal distance that is achieved by

defining authentic aboriginality as an earlier stage of human development beyond which

Aboriginal peoples must progress if they wish to accept and integrate into modern life

(Bedford and Irving 2001).23

Property, Nature and Indigenous Sovereignty

This conceptual and spatial distancing of indigeneity from the urban is also evident

within the dominant political narratives of the Red Hill debate, which share assumptions

about the relationships between development, nature and democracy that tend to

obscure or misinterpret the concerns and perspectives of Aboriginal peoples. Firstly, the

identification of development with modern, urban capitalist economies and the

identification of authentic aboriginality with pre-modern economies and immersion in

nature suggests that the survival of Aboriginal communities can only be achieved by

further integration into the economies and cultures of contemporary capitalism (Bedford

and Irving 2001). A binary choice between modern urbanity and pre-modern

aboriginality obscures the many shades of grey and hybrid combinations that

characterize the actual lived experiences of Aboriginal peoples (Peters 1996; Newhouse

and Peters 2003).

(HEDAC).

23 This separation and erasure is evident in many popular history books of the Hamilton area, which briefly introduce the Aboriginal history of the area and the arrival of Europeans, often with little or no mention of the brutal impacts of colonization, and then make no further mention of Aboriginal peoples within or outside of the city (cf. Proulx 1972; Weaver 1982; Bailey 1983; Freeman 2001).

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While expressway proponents tended to dismiss the defence of hunting and fishing

rights as out of step with “modern realities”, environmentalists were much more

sympathetic to these claims, insofar as they could be understood as entailing the effort

to protect and preserve nature. Many non-Aboriginal activists took interest in traditional

Haudenosaunee teachings and celebrated spiritual connections with nature, but some

interpreted the notion of an economic Aboriginal connection to Red Hill Valley as

evidence of "self-interest." Suspicion about the motives of some Aboriginal people was

evident, particularly but not exclusively directed against those who engaged in

negotiations with the City. Some anti-expressway activists suggested that these people

were primarily concerned with “economic gain” rather than ecological concern (Jim

Quinn, interview, 2005). While those who negotiated on behalf of the Confederacy

clearly accepted the framing of “economic opportunities” in terms of potential

employment in post-construction restoration work, it is important to recognize that

others were interested in preserving the ecological integrity of the valley as a cultural,

political and economic space for the assertion of their sovereignty through the symbolic

and literal exercise of hunting and fishing rights.

In this light, it is important to consider how easily Aboriginal struggles can be

misrepresented as a form of “anti-modern preservationist politics” (Braun 2002). From

this perspective, indigenous communities are seen as external to modern culture, despite

the fact that these communities do selectively engage in modern social, political and

economic relationships, in different ways and to varying degrees. Too often, those who

deviate from this vision of “authentic” (pre- or anti-modern) indigeneity are chastised

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for “selling out” the preservationist principles that many environmentalists assume they

share, without sufficient attention being given to the specific concerns and life

experiences of Aboriginal peoples. This presents the danger of incorporating indigenous

identities and politics “within the environmental imaginaries of European

environmentalists and the postcolonial nation state” rather than endeavouring to

understand and support Aboriginal political struggles on their own terms (Braun 2002:

81). Indigeneity becomes simply a category for everything that modernity lacks and that

can be utilized to resist the negative impacts of modernization (Gupta 1998).

Related to this is the assumption that “authentic” environmentalism is about the

altruistic protection of nature and the overcoming of human separation from nature.

Such a view fails to consider that these allegedly altruistic and universally beneficial

goals are often rooted in social positions of privilege. For example, those who engage in

the protection of green spaces as places of recreational or aesthetic significance are

often those with privileged access to those green spaces and the luxury of not having to

worry over basic needs. As William Cronon (1995) and others have argued, the

discourse of wilderness conservation and preservation that has traditionally dominated

North American environmentalism is rooted in romantic longings for pristine,

“untouched” nature – an ideal that tends to direct attention away from other

environmental problems and often brackets out the concerns or even the existence of

people who inhabit and utilize natural areas, or have done so in the past. Focusing on

alienation from nature as the fundamental problematic of modern times runs the risk of

obscuring the needs and experiences of those cultures and communities who are

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struggling to preserve vital cultural and economic connections to natural processes and

spaces, rather than trying to recreate such connections (Deloria 1983).

The dominant narratives in the Red Hill debate displayed a shared emphasis on

liberal representative democracy and related conceptions of citizenship based on the

principles of individual freedom and equality, the political sovereignty of the state and

the private ownership of property. These tenets of liberalism have guided the efforts of

the Canadian federal government and religious establishment to assimilate Aboriginal

peoples and they continue to frame the popular discourse of Aboriginal rights. The

voices of Aboriginal people themselves are often absent from this discourse, their own

conceptions of citizenship, nationhood and sovereignty unrepresented or misunderstood.

The liberal emphasis on individual liberty and equality presents great difficulties for

accommodating and addressing group rights, philosophically and legally (Turner 2006).

Such claims are often viewed with suspicion, as an infringement of individual rights

that violates the principle of equality by seeking special privileges or “two tiered

justice”. This was a common refrain in the Red Hill case and would become even more

prominent in subsequent land occupations, as discussed in the following chapter.

Similarly, the common view of the Canadian state as the only legitimate source of

political sovereignty overlooks the sovereignty or nationhood of Aboriginal peoples,

manifested in Aboriginal laws that predate the formation of the Canadian state and its

predecessor, the British Crown (Bird et al. 2002). As Tim Schouls (2002: 22) writes,

“Aboriginal nations claim to continue to negotiate as political entities with independent

powers, in the tradition of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which formalized relations

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of equality between the British Crown and Aboriginal nations. Self-government, they

argue, would not be granted but restored.” This point is rarely acknowledged and

accepted within the popular discourse of Aboriginal rights, which is based on a liberal

notion of justice as the “equality between individuals” guaranteed by the Canadian

nation state. Again, this is reflected in the Red Hill Valley case, where many non-

Aboriginals argued that Aboriginals should not be granted “special rights” and

represented the contravention of the legal injunction as “lawlessness”, while failing to

recognize the violation of Aboriginal treaties as an illegal act.

Finally, if we look at the arguments used by expressway proponents, the City's

ownership of the valley and the violation of those property rights by activists were often

cited as the primary reasons for questioning or rejecting Aboriginal claims to hunting

and fishing rights. Central to these arguments is the notion that individual property

rights should take precedence over any claims to collective rights. Such arguments

perpetuate the myth that all members of a liberal democratic society are treated equally,

and that unequal treatment results from individual error or malice rather than being

systemically embedded in the practices of the institutions that we create and in the ways

that we think and act with others. These arguments demonstrate an ignorance of both

the ongoing effects of the dispossession and discrimination suffered by Aboriginal

peoples, and the entitlements that were enshrined as "sacred promises" in the treaties

signed with the British Crown in Canada (Orkin 2003). Attempts to exercise those

treaty rights are often dismissed as illegitimate because they do not conform to the

private ownership model of property, which "encourages the bounding of property into

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spaces of 'certainty, identity and security', such as aboriginal reserves, urban areas

purged of indigeneity, national parks, and freehold estates" (Blomley 2004: 135).

However, as Nick Blomley argues, the ownership model of property as an

individualized, private possession is just one model among many. Property can also be

shared and communal. As Blomley (ibid: 153) contends, “the city is crosscut by claims

to land that are neither private nor statist. Lacking formal rights status, these claims

nevertheless are defended, articulated and mobilized.”

Appeals to property rights, individual freedom and respect for the legal and political

institutions of the state were central to the “growth and progress” narrative of

expressway proponents. As discussed in the previous chapter, the counter narrative of

“public ecology” was characterized by a more critical view of liberalism and

representative democracy, advocating participatory democratic reform, a more

communal notion of “the common good” and the need for sustained community

organizing outside the boundaries of the state. However, this political narrative also

shared an implicit faith in legal, regulatory and political institutions. The most

prominent environmental groups involved in the conflict, from Save the Valley to the

Friends of Red Hill Valley, consistently attempted to force expressway proponents to

follow existing regulatory processes for a “full and proper assessment” of the project

and to hold the municipality to their professed support for “participation,”

“accountability” and the “democratic process,” while suggesting an expanded

understanding of these notions. These groups turned to direct action tactics only when

these other legal processes had failed. While this approach was very successful at a

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number of points in the conflict, it also entailed a lack of familiarity with and support

for direct action, leaving many activists unprepared. This focus on legal, regulatory and

political processes to stop the road also left little room for a deeper consideration of

Aboriginal interests and rights, which many non-Aboriginal activists were unfamiliar

with.

The Red Hill conflict can be viewed as a contestation over the meaning and nature of

political sovereignty, in which dominant notions of development, progress, urbanity,

nature and democratic citizenship were utilized to defend the territorialization of the

Canadian state – socio-spatial practices that identify land with the exclusive sovereignty

of the state, separating “us” from “them” by linking together “notions of state, society,

economy, culture and community” (Brenner 1999:47). In addition to the assertion of

privatized property rights, the deployment of well-established notions of indigeneity as

antithetical to progress and development, the equation of justice with Canadian legal

institutions and the equation of democracy with electoral politics, (de)politicized

conceptions of nature were essential to state territorialization in the Red Hill Valley

case. While Aboriginal activists struggled to link the environmental protection of the

valley with the sovereignty, heritage and/or economic survival of the Six Nations, and

anti-expressway groups had begun to articulate a more sophisticated political narrative

that connected ecological health to urban form, environmental justice and municipal

democratization, proponents worked to contain the debate within the familiar binary

opposition of “growth, development, progress and jobs” versus “the natural

environment”. Within this discursive frame, proponents could then present the

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restoration efforts of the City’s “Red Hill Valley Project” as the reconciliation of the

opposing goals of development and environmental protection, achieving the oft-

repeated “balance of interests” and creating a “win-win” situation that allegedly fulfilled

the requirements of sustainable development.

Against representations of the valley as a pristine ecological space requiring public

mobilization for its protection, proponents offered the vision of a damaged and

neglected ecosystem “restored” by the municipal government. The “suggestions” of

critics were “incorporated” into the final design of the road and related ecological

restoration work, but the local state, acting on behalf of the “majority” of Hamiltonians,

was represented as the primary actor, the rightful owner of the valley and the successful

mediator of opposing positions. Against visions of the valley as a sacred space and a

site for the assertion of Aboriginal sovereignty, thereby de-linking notions of the nation

and community from the state, proponents presented the Red Hill Valley Project as a

successful negotiation between the interests of the City and Six Nations – another “win-

win” situation in which the need for the highway and the municipality’s claim to the

valley remained unquestioned and unchallenged.

Searching for Political Space

Resistance to the Red Hill Creek Expressway did not end with the 2003 municipal

election, the end of the Aboriginal land occupation, or the signing of the agreements

between the City and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Immediately following the

election, activists again attempted to reclaim the space of the valley, materially and

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symbolically. A small group that included members of the original encampment created

a new camp on the western edge of the valley, this time on adjacent private property,

while others once again shifted attention to extra-local scales, concentrating their

energies on lobbying the governmental bodies from which the City still required formal

permission to complete the road, including a newly elected Liberal provincial

government. A five-day walk from Hamilton to the halls of the provincial government

at Queen’s Park in Toronto was organized in late November 2003. Activists “returned”

$100 million in provincial funding for the expressway to newly elected Premier Dalton

McGuinty in the form of a giant bank cheque but they were denied audience with

political representatives (Figure 6.10). Calls and letters to the Ministry of the

Environment, urging them to demand a review of the expressway, similarly went

unheeded.

Figure 6.10: March to Queen’s Park, 2003 (Friends of Red Hill Valley, 2004)

At the local level, people living near the valley had formed the Red Hill Valley

Neighbourhood Association in the summer of 2003 to demand better communication

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from the City of Hamilton regarding the construction of the road and future mitigation

of noise and air pollution. By the summer of 2005, the group was threatening to sue the

City unless mitigation measures were significantly expanded (Hamilton Spectator, July

30, 2005). Concern was also raised about the excavation of the Rennie Street landfill

adjacent to the creek and the measures that could be taken to avoid further

contamination of water and air during the removal of hazardous waste materials (ibid,

June 10, 2004). Controversy also continued to surround the presence of Aboriginal sites

and artefacts within the valley. Large mounds of earth discovered near the path of the

expressway in early 2004 led to debate over their origins, with some arguing that these

mounds were Native ossuaries and others claiming that they were mounds of

construction debris created during the construction of a trunk sewer line during the

1960s. Archaeologists employed by the City advanced the later interpretation based on a

review of aerial photos and previous investigations in the area. An archaeologist from

Wilfred Laurier University supported this interpretation but others believed that these

mounds might still contain Native burials (Buddy Martin, December 27, 2005). Similar

debate surrounded the discovery of another site in late 2004 at the north end of the

valley. An ancient copper axe, animal bone fragments, and pieces of coffins believed to

have belonged to early European colonials were found but no bodies, despite the

presence of red ochre, a ceremonial powder often used in Native burial sites (Hamilton

Spectator, January 18, 2005).

Proposed spending cuts to social services and programs in the City of Hamilton’s

2004 budget sparked a protest at city hall in April of that year. The ad-hoc committee

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organizing the rally presented this as a call to “take back the city,” voicing opposition to

the Red Hill Creek Expressway and support for Hamilton’s Vision 2020 sustainability

plan. Promotional material explicitly linked together urban sprawl and a neoliberal

model of urban development, while pointing towards “an alternative model” (quoted in

the Friends of Red Hill Valley newsletter, March / April 2004):

The current budget crisis affects us all — as tax payers, transit riders, small business owners, service consumers and citizens. City Hall has spent Hamilton into near-bankruptcy by pushing an outdated, discredited model of economic development. This model tells us that prosperity comes from more roads, more sprawl, big business, privatization and minimal services. From countless examples world-wide, we know this model doesn't work! Join us in presenting an alternative model for Hamilton's development. Lets unite to pursue a vision that includes:

Adequate support, services and housing for the poor and homeless in our communities

A Vision 2020 community with sustainable development, clean air, clean water, green space and wildlife conservation

A revitalized city core that is small business - friendly and committed to enhanced quality of life

An end to financial mismanagement and unaffordable, capital-intensive projects like the Red Hill Expressway

Good relations between the diverse cultural groups that make up our city, including respect for First Nations rights

This “festival of the alternative” remained vague on the details of that alternative,

particularly with respect to economic strategies, but nevertheless demonstrated the

extent to which resistance to the expressway was now focused around criticism of the

larger model of urbanization and development that the highway represented to many.

This event also manifested a great deal of accumulated frustration and anger on the part

of those opposed to the project, culminating in the disruption of City Council’s budget

deliberations when, against the advice of some veteran activists, a large group entered

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the Council chambers and refused to leave. Protestors occupied councillors’ chairs,

jumped up on tables, played music and chanted slogans such as “Budgets for People,

Not Profit” before being removed by police (Hamilton Spectator, April 15, 2004)

(Figure 6.11).24 While many activists saw this moment as a symbolic assertion of public

ownership over the political space of city hall (Ken Stone, July 7, 2005), the event was

popularly represented as a chaotic affront to the “democratic process.” In the words of

Mayor Larry DiIanni (quoted in the Hamilton Spectator, April 15, 2004), “the sad part

is they came here to champion democracy when they are preventing democracy from

unfolding. We are being very patient but we can't allow anarchy to rule.”

Figure 6.11: Council Chambers Protest, 2004 (Hamilton Spectator, April 15, 2004)

24 Controversy surrounded the discovery of rocks within the Council chambers following the protest. Activists insisted that these were not weapons but had been used as paperweights to hold down flyers during the rally outside city hall.

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By May 2004, much of the southeastern valley had been clear-cut to make way for

the expressway and construction crews were preparing to blast through the

escarpment.25 This would create the largest hole in the Niagara Escarpment ever – 80

metres wide, several hundred metres long and 15 metres deep. Activists had lobbied the

Niagara Escarpment Commission to prevent this from happening, but to no avail. Just as

blasting was about to begin, activists intervened by constructing and occupying three

wooden platforms in large trees located less than 25 metres from the blast site. The City

began blasting through the escarpment less than a month after the tree-sit began and this

work continued into the fall, although the City was forced to halt for a month in August

2004, after flying rocks damaged homes and cars up to 200 metres away from the blast

site (Hamilton Spectator, August 10, 2004).

Most of those involved in the tree-sit were younger people, with few direct ties to

more established environmentalist groups like the Friends of Red Hill Valley. The tree

sitters endured weather extremes during the summer and fall, the glare of spotlights and

other harassment from security guards below, and the threat presented by the blasting of

the escarpment nearby. Supporters would routinely re-supply the tree-sitters and

although these efforts were peaceful, physical confrontations with security guards

occurred on a number of occasions (Hamilton Spectator, July 2, 2004). In August 2004,

25 The City awarded the contract for this work to Dufferin Construction, although they were the second lowest bidder. Dufferin is a division of St. Lawrence Cement, part of the multi-national Holcim Group, one of the world’s largest suppliers of cement, concrete, and aggregates. The general manager of Dufferin at this time was Lloyd Ferguson, brother of city councillor and expressway proponent Murray Ferguson. Lloyd left this position to become a Hamilton city councillor in 2006.

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supporters organized the “Red Hill Valley Literary Festival” to support the tree-sittters.

Under the watchful eyes of police and security guards, over 200 people violated the

injunction to gather below the tree-sit and listen to performances and readings from

Sarah Harmer, Dave Bidini and three local writers. One tree sitter came down after 10

days, while a second stayed up for over month and was then replaced by another who

lasted for 55 days in the trees. A third remained for 112 days, the longest tree sit in

Ontario history (Citizens At City Hall, September 11, 2004).26

This was the last significant attempt to prevent construction of the expressway in the

valley. While the tree-sit was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the blasting of the

escarpment or the completion of the road, it inspired many people to continue their

efforts to build alternatives to the model of urban development represented by the

expressway. A number of new initiatives and strategies had already begun to emerge

out of the galvanizing events of 2003, expanding upon ideas and arguments developed

during resistance to the expressway. Increased emphasis was placed on ecological

citizenship, environmental justice and the democratization of control over urban nature,

alongside a surge of activity in the production of independent or alternative media, and

the articulation of alternative approaches to economic development, transportation and

urban form. In the final chapter to follow, I consider the aftermath of the confrontations

26 In November 2004, the City of Hamilton launched a lawsuit against four tree-sitters and three supporters, and an additional $75 million lawsuit against Sheila Copps and 67 other federal officials. The case against the tree-sitters was settled out of court the following summer when protestors agreed to stay away the valley under threat of additional fines and legal fees (Hamilton Spectator, July 13, 2005), but the case against the federal government is ongoing at the time of writing. The City alleges that Copps and various federal bureaucrats conspired to use the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) to prevent construction of the expressway “despite knowing that the use of CEAA for this purpose was illegal and unconstitutional” (quoted in Hamilton Spectator, November 25, 2004).

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in the valley and the subsequent shifts in the discourse surrounding urban development

in Hamilton and Southern Ontario more broadly. Resistance to the expressway and

associated urban expansion opened up new political spaces and sparked new avenues

for community organizing, in the midst of new conflicts over urban development within

the city and beyond its borders. This provides a vantage point for considering the

lessons and implications of the Red Hill Creek Expressway struggle, for urban political

ecology as a field of study and for urban environmental activism more broadly.

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