“Nothing about us, without us": Member of Parliament Leah Gazan on Bill C-5 and Indigenous Rights
Bill C-5, the Building Canada Act, is an omnibus bill that the Liberal government fast-tracked through Parliament in June 2025, in violation of their constitutional obligation to obtain the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous rights holders. Bill C-5 gives Prime Minister Carney and his Cabinet unprecedented powers to subjectively define projects of ‘national interest’ and eliminate essential regulations that uphold Indigenous constitutional rights and protect public health and the environment on these projects. Pushing back against these grave violations of the Charter, Leah Gazan, Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre, joined Indigenous leaders, Elders, and land defenders to remind the government, “Nothing about us, without us.” Although the Liberals joined forces with Conservatives to pass this bill into law, MP Gazan has continued working to repeal this legislation and to hold the government accountable to its obligation to uphold free, prior and informed consent under the Constitution Act of 1982, Treaty agreements and international law.
Leah Gazan
Leah Gazan is the NDP Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre, which she has represented since 2019. She is a member of Wood Mountain Lakota Nation, located in Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 territory. Gazan is a leader in local, national and international human rights advocacy. In the House of Commons, she championed motions to recognize the residential school system as an act of genocide, and to recognize the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people (MMIWG2S) as a Canada-wide emergency and to immediately invest in a Red Dress Alert system. She has also tabled several bills in the House of Commons upholding Indigenous rights, including Bill C-223 to develop a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income, in fulfillment of Call for Action 4.5 of the Final Report of the National Inquiry into MMIWG, along with Bill C-413 to add to the Criminal Code the incitement of hate through residential school denialism. In 2024, MP Gazan received the Doris Anderson Award from Chatelain Magazine for her advocacy surrounding the Red Dress Alert.