Sneaking around behind the public's back won't go well...
I wonder if I apply my "shaking the dice" theory if this would apply.
As Vaughan points out there are more claims than land.
Different hunter-gatherers could scavenge the same land at different times of the year for different resources. And if they ended up at the same point at the same time then they had a discussion that may or may not have involved physical violence and slaves being taken.
I digress.
Back to shaking the dice.
We, in Alberta, want a pipeline to the coast. The federal government wants us to send them money. The two issues are related.
Both issues are blocked by these multitudinous bands of hunter-gatherers and their sub-divisions. Are you a council supporter, a hereditary supporter, a reserve supporter or an off-reserve supporter....?
Up in the Rupert area, decisions have been made and decisions have been challenged and everything has been blocked.
From an Albertan stand point this Musqueam, Tsawassen, Cowichan, Squamish, Sto'lo (I haven't heard them mentioned yet but I have no doubt their lawyers are in the offing) discussion in the heart of Green Country might be a blessing.
It is easy to want a park you can visit in some one else's back yard.
It is harder to accept that you are being evicted to create a park.
And for the natives? If the feds, and the settlers and the courts all go away, are you going to go back to salmon and berries?
Because if you want money you are going to have to give somebody something.
....
I wonder, if given all the rest of the discombobulation in the world, if somebody in Ottawa hasn't decided that this is as good a time as any to give the dice a rattle and bring the whole issue of BC governance to a head in hope of a better resolution.
