MAMU First Nation, a collective of nearly 40 Indigenous land guardians and hereditary chiefs from the Atikamekw and Innu nations, has filed a lawsuit in the Quebec Superior Court, seeking formal recognition of their rights over territory between the St. Lawrence River, the Saint-Maurice River valley, and northern Mauricie. Their legal challenge demands that the court void all forestry permits and supply guarantees, as these permits were issued without their consent.
This lawsuit is part of a broader effort to counter Quebec’s Bill 97, the Legault government’s proposed overhaul of the province’s forestry regime which sought to offer unceded territory for industrial logging activity. This legal injunction, alongside mass blockades in the summer of 2025, tackles a pervasive pattern of Quebec seizing Indigenous land for provincial industrial control. Bill 97 may be withdrawn, but the system of racial capitalism that facilitates Indigenous land dispossession and labour exploitation on those lands will remain unless it is fundamentally addressed through the courts.
Bill 97 proposed dividing public forests into thirds: a conservation zone, a zone dedicated exclusively to private industrial logging activity, and a multi-purpose zone. If it had passed, Bill 97 would have designated significant portions of unceded Indigenous land for industrial use, a clear violation of sovereignty. By allowing the province and industry to extract economic value from Indigenous land while withholding Indigenous authority, Bill 97 reinforced a system of racial capitalism in which colonial dispossession enables the continued extraction of valuable resources for the monetary gain of the colonial state and private developers. Indigenous communities and environmental groups protested the bill, warning it would prioritize extraction while weakening already inadequate public and Indigenous oversight.
Despite the success of Indigenous activists in demanding Bill 97’s removal, scrapping the bill does not resolve the underlying issue, as Quebec’s current legal framework still violates the decision-making power of Indigenous groups, instead placing all autonomous control in the hands of the province. Quebec’s Sustainable Forest Development Act may require the government to take into account the “interests, values, and needs” of Indigenous communities and consult Indigenous communities specifically. However, by only requiring consultations with band councils, whose expertise is often limited to the reserves they preside over, the government neglects the authority of territory chiefs, land guardians, and hereditary chiefs. The law may obligate the Quebec government to conduct consultations, but if this does not come with policy adjustments, these legal standards are obsolete.
Aboriginal and treaty rights are explicitly recognized and affirmed under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution. Yet, through their treatment of Quebec’s forests, the province and private industry continue to prioritize extraction and economic gain over these constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Canada’s labour system operates by the same logic. Under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, migrant workers are recruited to fill labour shortages while being kept on temporary status, limiting long-term security. The Temporary Foreign Worker Program reinforces that precarity by tying workers’ futures to employer sponsorship. When employers determine the ability of temporary workers to secure permanent status or citizenship, changing jobs, reporting abuse, or resisting exploitation can carry serious risks. Though the laws governing land and labour differ, the premise of racial capitalism is foundational to both: for-profit extraction through the exploitation of stolen land and foreign labour.
McGill is not outside this system, either. The university, situated on the unceded territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka, not only operates on stolen land but has continued to pursue expansion and development projects. The wealth behind the university’s founding came directly from James McGill’s participation in the colonial economic system and his slave ownership, illustrating its continued execution of racial capitalism through land dispossession and labour exploitation. The New Vic Project is also still in process despite persistent legal action by the Mohawk Mothers and potential evidence of human remains buried on the site. As is the case under Quebec’s forestry law, consultation without redistributed authority remains an inadequate, self-serving standard, especially for an institution whose history and present-day action are both inseparable from colonial dispossession.
If Quebec is serious about reform, it must move beyond consultation and end the system that turns land and labour into sources of profit, all the while stripping power from the most impacted.
As long as the province can profit from licensing extraction on unceded land and precarious racialized labour, the deeply embedded system of racial capitalism will remain unchanged.
