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OTTAWA — Jean Chretien scoffs at the notion that Indigenous protests and western alienation are a threat to Canada’s national unity.

The former Liberal prime minister said Tuesday that Canada has suffered worse threats in the past and has always managed to survive.

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He recalled the 1960s and 70s, when radical separatists with the Front de liberation du Quebec (FLQ) were setting off bombs, kidnapped the British trade commissioner and killed a Quebec cabinet minister.

“That is a few years ago and we’re still together, more united than ever,” Chretien told reporters after reminiscing about his 40-year career in federal politics at an Ottawa conference focused on his decade as prime minister.

Some politicians and pundits have lately been arguing that Canada is broken, unable to reconcile the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and the need to fight climate change with the economic benefits of developing natural resources.

Those competing demands have collided over the past few weeks as blockades popped up across the country in support of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs fighting a natural gas pipeline in northern B.C.

The barricades, one of which remains south of Montreal, paralyzed train traffic and damaged the economy.

But Chretien, who served as Indian Affairs minister for more than six years under Pierre Elliott Trudeau, said there have been periodic protests by Indigenous Peoples for decades and they’ve all been resolved one way or another.

“Do you think that this problem will break the nation?” Chretien asked and then answered. “No. Because Canada is stronger than that. We always face a problem and resolve them … Don’t have an inferiority complex.”

He urged a questioner to “relax” and put the recent protests in perspective.

“You’re young, you will see a lot of problems until you get my age,” the 86-year-old said.