Thursday, March 14, 2013

Is Interest in Idle No More Dwindling

Idle no more originally started to protest omnibus bills C-38 and C-45 has changed to include a number of Aboriginal centric issues.  Including opposition to bill C-27 First Nations Transparency Act, First Nations Education Reform and Mi'kmaq Framework Agreements. They have also posted the Ally Bill of Responsibilities by Dr. Lynn Gehl on their official website that in part asserts that the needs of the supporters of Indigenous people are secondary and must take a backseat to Indigenous people.

As Idle no more shifts away from its original focus and issues statements filled with political rhetoric, traffic to its website has seen a steady decline.

A search on Alexa.com an Internet traffic monitoring site shows that Idle no more's official website has seen a large decrease in traffic.

Daily global Internet users has decreased by -69.77% in the last month from its three month high of +4000% which equals 0.00037% of Internet users to 0.00017% this month. (statistical data from March 14, 2013, refer to Alexa.com for current stats)

This equals a traffic rank of 794,177 which is a rank lower than the previous 402,344.  Indicating a significant drop in visitors to their website.

The decline of Idle no more was acknowledged by Phil Fontaine a former Chief of the Assembly of First Nations at a talk at the University of Winnipeg and reported in an article by the CBC where he suggests that Idle no more must change their direction to restart their movement.

Krystalline Krause in her article Activist Communique: Idle No More still breathing. March 5, 2013. from Rabble.ca said right wing media has declared Idle no more dead however the movement is still alive. March 20 to 22, 2013 have been declared as Global Days of Action for Idle no more.

However, with the change in focus and media wrangling it appears that the environment has been forgotten.  Federal changes to environmental laws have not changed.  The issues surrounding the omnibus bills have not gone away.  But, people's interest and it appears the interest of Idle no more have moved on to other things.

Perhaps March will see a grassroots movement return to its own roots.


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