‘Strictly UN Optics’: Quebec’s Magpie River Granted Personhood Status
A remote river in eastern Quebec has been granted personhood status, making it the first time in Canada that an entity of nature purportedly has the same legal rights as a human being.
Bestowing legal personhood on the Magpie River, which spills into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is being lauded by the groups involved, but one expert describes the move as “strictly UN optics.”
Bill Gallagher, a lawyer and strategist who’s authored two books on the intersection of resource interests and indigenous rights in Canada, says granting personhood status to a river has more to do with aligning with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) than with empowering indigenous people economically.