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A Deep Dive Into the #Idlenomore Mobilization Initiative: Unpacking the Effects of Social Movements on Political Agenda and Policy Outcomes

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A Deep Dive Into the #Idlenomore Mobilization Initiative: Unpacking the Effects of Social Movements on Political Agenda and Policy Outcomes A Deep Dive Into the #IdleNoMore Mobilization Initiative: Unpacking the Effects of Social Movements on Political Agenda and Policy Outcomes Emmanuelle Richez, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Political Science, University of Windsor Member, Courts and Politics Research Group Email: [email protected] - Twitter: @EmmaRichez Vincent Raynauld, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Communication Studies, Emerson College (Boston, MA) Research Fellow, Engagement Lab (Emerson College) Research Associate, Groupe de recherche en Communication Politique (Université Laval) Research Adviser, Samara Canada Member, Réseau DEL Email: [email protected] - Twitter: @VincentR Abstract This study takes interest in the Indigenous-led Idle No More protest movement (INM) and how its manifestation - both online and offline - impacted the political agenda and influenced policy outcome at the Canadian federal level. Specifically, we compare activity during Question Period in the House of Commons, federal budgets and policy proposals pertaining to Indigenous Affairs before and after the emergence of the movement in December 2012. We posit that INM-related protests coincided with momentary changes to the saliency of Indigenous policy issues, but not with significant policy outcomes in that area. Cette étude porte sur le mouvement autochtone Idle No More (INM) et sur la manière dont la manifestation de ce phénomène de contestation en ligne et hors ligne a eu un impact sur l’agenda politique et sur le développement de politiques publiques sur la scène fédérale canadienne. Nous comparons la teneur de la Période des questions à la Chambre des communes, les budgets et projets de lois fédéraux portant sur les affaires autochtones avant et après l’émergence du mouvement en décembre 2012. Nous postulons qu’INM a coïncidé avec des changements momentanés dans la structure des débats portant sur les affaires autochtones, mais pas avec des développements de politiques publiques dans ce domaine. This is a draft - please do not cite without authors’ written permission. Introduction The Indigenous-led Idle No More (INM) movement emerged as a grassroots-intensive reaction to Bill C-381 and omnibus Bill C-45,2 which were introduced by Stephen Harper’s Conservative Government and received Royal Assent on June 29, 2012 and December 14, 2012 respectively (Inman et al., 2013; Woo, 2013). Through these bills, the Government affected Indigenous and treaty rights with little to no consultations with members of Indigenous communities throughout Canada (Inman et al., 2013; Woo, 2013). Taken together, these legislations had wide-ranging effects, including weakening environmental impact assessment procedures, reducing the number of protected water bodies in Canada and interfering with Indian bands’ reserve land governance (Inman et al., 2013; Woo, 2013). At first, INM represented a mostly bottom-up political mobilization initiative seeking to have portions of Bills C-38 and C-45 repealed (Woo, 2013). However, its mission was broader: ‘Idle No More calls on all people to join in a peaceful revolution, to honour Indigenous sovereignty, and to protect the land and water.’ INM has and will continue to help build sovereignty & resurgence of nationhood. INM will continue to pressure government and industry to protect the environment. INM will continue to build allies in order to reframe the nation to nation relationship, this will be done by including grassroots perspectives, issues, and concern (Idle No More, n.d.). Though INM was fuelled initially by a mixture of environmental, governance and nationhood concerns, Indigenous Peoples’ poor socio-economic conditions coupled with the legacy of colonialism quickly became important drivers for mobilization (Wotherspoon and Hansen, 2013). These grievances are not new as they are rooted in a broader 500-year struggle (Ladner, 2014; Simpson, 2013; Wotherspoon and Hansen, 2013). INM was initiated in November 2012 when four women3 traded emails and discussed the implications of the passage of Bill C-38 and omnibus Bill C-45 for Indigenous Peoples in Canada. These exchanges led to the organization of a teach-in session in Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) that was promoted in part through a Facebook page titled “Idle No More” (Inman et al., 2013; Woo, 2013). On December 10 2012, the first “day of action” cemented INM as a pan-Canadian movement with rallies in more than 13 Canadian cities (Inman et al., 2013). Over the following weeks, it quickly garnered widespread public widespread substantive public support, both in Canada and internationally, from Indigenous Peoples and their allies (Woo, 2013; Wotherspoon and Hansen, 2013). INM peaked in January 2013 with Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike, which pushed Prime Minister Stephen Harper to meet with Indigenous leaders (Woo, 2013; Wotherspoon and Hansen, 2013). During the meeting, Prime Minister Harper pledged to improve the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian state (Galloway et al., 2013). Since then, the mobilization effort has winded down somewhat and questions remain on its outcomes on both the political and policy fronts (MacLellan, 2013; Sinclair, 2014). This paper will address some of these questions. 1 Social media was a key fixture within this protest movement as a wide range of its supporters turned to these channels to express themselves, share information and, to a lesser degree, engage in social interactions (Raynauld et al., 2017; Simpson, 2013). Though the movement employed offline protest tactics such as rallies, demonstrations, hunger strikes, road and bridge blockades, cross-country walks, and flash mob round dances (Inman et al., 2013; Woo, 2013; Wotherspoon and Hansen, 2013), online tactics were an integral component of its protest action repertoire5 (Callison and Hermida, 2015; Moscato, 2016; Wotherspoon and Hansen, 2013). In some cases, there was a clear integration of online and offline protest activities. For example, many of the roundtable discussions and townhall meetings organized by the movement allowed for online participation (Simpson, 2013). Early in November 2012, the #IdleNoMore hashtag quickly gained significant traction on social media (Callison and Hermida, 2015; Woo, 2013).4 At the height of the movement between December 2012 and January 2013, 743,365 tweets with at least one #IdleNoMore hashtag were shared on Twitter’s public timeline (based on work by Callison and Hermida, 2015). As noted by Raynauld et al. (2017), INM is part of a broader wave of protest with a strong online component that have swept the political, economic, and social landscape of several national contexts over the last decades. While similar in many ways, INM distinguishes itself from other movements due to its strong cultural and identity components (also see Wotherspoon and Hansen 2013; Coulthard 2014; Raynauld et al. 2017). While many scholars have studied protest movements with a strong online component, few of them have taken interest in how they capture the attention of political elites and, in some cases, influence the political agenda and policy outcomes. Our paper addresses this gap in the academic literature in the context of INM in Canada. We do so by reviewing academic literature on online movements and their political effects. We then lay out the methodological approach used to conduct this analysis and discuss our findings. Our study suggests that INM-related activism coincided with changes to the political agenda and increased saliency of Indigenous policy issues. However, it had little effects on policy developments in Indigenous affairs-related areas. Literature Review Protest movements’ impact on formal political processes has received significant academic attention in recent years (see Amenta et al., 2010). Some sceptics have argued that social movements have little to no influence, while optimists point out that they can lead to major political reforms (see Amenta et al., 2010; Andrews, 2001; Giugni, 2007; Milan and Hintz, 2013; Tarrow, 1993). Scholarly literature explains the emergence of collective action through three main theories: 1) resource mobilization and organizational forms, 2) public outreach and framing strategies, and 3) political opportunities and context (Amenta et al., 2010). These theories have also been used to analyze the political impact of social movements (Amenta et al. 2010). Much less academic attention has been given to the political impact of protest movements with a strong online component, especially with the recent wave of social media-fueled protest initiatives internationally. From the resource mobilization perspective,6 digital media - including social media - can act as an impactful technical resource for collective action. First, they can lower the threshold (for 2 example, costs, knowledge, technical know-how) for protest action (Van Laer and Van Aelst, 2009; 2010). Still there is an enduring democratic divide when it comes to uses of digital media for political engagement in Canada. Different variables can shape its manifestation, including access to digital media, Internet connectivity (for example, speed, bandwidth), technical skills and knowledge or familiarity with dynamics of digital political engagement (Min, 2010). Second, digital media’s distinct affordances can enable geographically dispersed, like-minded people to connect more easily and rapidly (Castells, 2012). For example, hashtags “can serve as a mechanism [...] for loosely knit groups to debate, formulate, and articulate meaning” (Callison and
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