Canada's First Nations - CF help, protests, solutions, etc. (merged)

[TCBF]

Mr. Campbell,

I think your post makes a lot more sense than the pap that passes for high-priced editorial comment in Canada today.

Tom

 

[geo]

Kash....
Uhhh... shudder, remember the place from my days with the HBC northern stores.
The place was always a little bit crazy. Locals taking pot shots at the Staff house in broad daylight... chopping up the store's wooden sidewalks, all sorts of other sillyness.

glad I left that area a long, long time ago & no one ever made me go back.

 

[Reccesoldier]

Shared with all the normal disclaimers.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=3f4a7d6f-6646-4a47-a8ed-4053e5269058

This week, a Cree living on the Pooundmaker Reserve in Saskatchewan, Floyd Favel, wrote an article published in a Toronto-based newspaper calling for "a Buckskin Revolution."

"Within first nations communities, we need a re-evaluation of where we are going as a people and how we can further contribute to this great country."

Favel laments that the aboriginal leadership lives so indulgently, "driving their big trucks and collecting huge salaries." He complains of "unaccountable leadership that administers its people without any rules and leaves no avenues with which to protest unjust leadership."

Canada as a nation and Canadians as a people fret about such injustices in the world (the highlighted portion) .  We collectively believe in democratic principals and assisting emerging democracies but somehow we find it impossible to enforce a modicum of democracy right in our very own backyards?

In contrast to the articles author I say that there is one more thing that the Canadian Government must do... 

This evolving trainwreck that is Canada's aboriginal experiment should be stopped forthwith and modern liberal democratic ideals must not only be established on reserves but must be enforced and respected uniformly. 

No more useless quasi-tribal regressive historical governance but open, free and fair elections with transparent decision making processes, accountable officials, modern financial accounting practices and legitimacy at all levels of aboriginal government.

How ironic that we currently have people in Afghanistan teaching the principals of democracy but we don't even adhere to those same principals on native reserves here in Canada.

 

[Yrys]

Good point, but I'm not sure that the canadian government has the legal right to ask
for certains rules and way of doing  thinks in reserves. But they could ask for the leaders to clarified on paper
theirs rules, budget, how they spend money etc, and let the first nations people vote accordingly .

 

[GAP]

Yeah, they do have the right under the Indian Act....in addition they supply 9-10 Billion $ per year in funding....if they had the gonads to enforce the rules, they could.

 

[Yrys]

I think I may have a bit of reading to do...


http://www.bloorstreet.com/200block/sindact.htm

Henderson's Annotated Indian Act
The Indian Act is the main piece of federal legislation governing Status Indians and the Reserve system in Canada.
Annotated with comments by legal scholar Henderson.

 

[Benny]

On a related issue, our govt has just requested 30 patrols from NorForce (northern surveillance units) to help keep alcohol out of aboriginal communities, to make sure kids go to school and to stop child abuse. An interesting use of the military...

 

[The Bread Guy]

I think I may have a bit of reading to do...


http://www.bloorstreet.com/200block/sindact.htm

Henderson's Annotated Indian Act
The Indian Act is the main piece of federal legislation governing Status Indians and the Reserve system in Canada.
Annotated with comments by legal scholar Henderson.

Not to mention things like The First Nations Reporting Guide (FNRG) National Template (en francais ici).

Also, when you consider the Indian Act (DOJ version here), take a look at the bottom of the page for all the regulations governing all sorts of things, like Indian Act elections, Band Council Procedures, and estates, to name just a few.

 

[Yrys]

Be prepare for longer transportation time the 29th June...

Quebec aboriginal chiefs to skip day of action protests

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/06/27/ot-day-of-action-070627.html

The Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador has persuaded Quebec's aboriginal leaders not to organize protests for a day of action designated by its national sister organization.

    'The Oka crisis 17 years ago taught us a lot about how something simple can turn into a major confrontation.'— Chief Stephen McGregor, Kitigan Zibi

The national group, the Assembly of First Nations, had named June 29 as a day to draw attention to aboriginal poverty and unresolved land claims. Some aboriginal groups, including the Tyendinaga Mohawk reserve in southeastern Ontario near Kingston, have said they will be holding blockades of highways or railroads.

But Quebec chiefs such as Stephen McGregor, of the Kitigan Zibi Algonquin First Nation near Maniwaki, said they are skipping that type of action at the request of Ghislain Picard, the chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador. "We do not want to blockade bridges, we wish to build some," Picard said when he made the request last week, warning that "any attempt of blockade or demonstration of civil disobedience will be severely denounced." On Thursday, McGregor said Quebec aboriginals learned from a violent clash between police and Mohawks in 1990 in which a police officer was killed."The Oka crisis 17 years ago taught us a lot about how something simple can turn into a major confrontation," McGregor said.

The conflict arose after the Mohawks tried to block the expansion of a golf course onto ancestral lands. Since then, McGregor said Quebec chiefs have turned to a different approach. "There is a change of direction I've seen with chiefs in Quebec. They believe in negotiation," he said.

Blockades can be counterproductive: expert

Cynthia Wesley Esquimaux, who teaches aboriginal studies at the University of Toronto, said the day of action is about educating people about aboriginal issues and that will only happen if the actions taken that day don't antagonize the public. "Some of the chiefs are discouraging their young people from blocking roads close to their reserves simply because it creates bad relations and that's not where we want to go," she said.

McGregor said that on Friday, aboriginals from Quebec reserves won't go further than distributing pamphlets at a few key locations, such as Highway 117 north of Maniwaki. If people really want to do something that day, he's encouraging them to go the noon march in Ottawa organized by the Assembly of First Nations, which he says will be properly supervised.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Don't know about "blockades" in Quebec, but it doesn't look like protests there will be zero, either....

http://www.nationtalk.ca/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2072

The First Nations of Quebec Will Take Part in the "National Day of Action"
Posted 2007/6/28 11:34:02

QUEBEC, June 28 - Contrary to the information broadcasted yesterday on RDI and on CBC's Website, the Chiefs of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador wish to specify that they will participate fully in the "National Day of Action" on June 29th. As stated in the June 21st Press Release, the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL) wish to remind the population that it supports wholeheartedly this day which is intended to raise public awareness in Quebec and across Canada, on the key issues which the First Nations are confronted with.

The Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador is the regional organization representing the Chiefs of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador.

For further information: Alain Garon, Communication and Information Officer, AFNQL, (418) 842-5020, Cell.: (418) 956-5720

 

[midget-boyd91]

On a related issue, our govt has just requested 30 patrols from NorForce (northern surveillance units) to help keep alcohol out of aboriginal communities, to make sure kids go to school and to stop child abuse. An interesting use of the military...

And it has had an interesting kick back already: I have heard within the last day or two that an aborigine tribe may/is boycotting travellers from climbing Uluru.

 

[DualCore]

We need a government with the spine of a pre-political-Trudeau or a Preston Manning, or ... to strongly correct an uncompleted aspect of the Enlightenment:

Indians are Human Beings and Canadian Citizens

Jim Prentice made a tiny step in that direction that human rights and modern Canadian divorce rights would also apply to Indians. 
But we need the full-court-press on this: no more barbarian privileges, no more crappy but free housing, no more free but stinky water, no more discount liquor, no more monopoly on gambling, smuggling, etc.

Phil Fontaine will certainly cry "Genocide" on a proposal of "Indians are People", but 50 years from now, Indians will celebrate a National Holiday "The Day We Became Human Beings"

Canada is seething with opportunity, particularly if you can pass the first couple of hurdles on the Affirmative-Action principle, but the notion that you can get free- heart-transplant, insulin, Viagra, hi-def-wide-screen, 3000 sq-ft ranch-style, annual Jamaican Cruise, ... from a traditional economic activity of seal hunting ...  Well No!  Seal-hunting might have fed the kids in 1600, but if you want a rum-cocktail in Bermuda, then learn how to read, multiply, and use a computer just like the rest of us.  Otherwise, get used to a spot in the zoo beside the Polar Bears.

 

[larry Strong]

The houses may be free, however having built some and stuccoed others, they are not crappy at the start.

 

[Harris]

Agreed.  Friends of mine lived in homes I would gladly have moved into.

 

[Yrys]

Tribal police break up Indian reservation's beer blockade

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/28/beer.blockade.ap/index.html

 

[Rowshambow]

If they are Canadian citizens, then why are they not held to the same laws as the rest of us, and put in jail when they put up a blockade, I know if I or any other non native did that, we would be hit with a batton and spend a night or two in the can! What if an Asian (say Chinese) were to put up a blockade (on a railroad that some of there kin might have died working on) just to get a more money or recognition for their part in building this nation? I am sorry for what has happened to the natives in the past, but to say you want to do this blockade to bring your plight to the eyes of Canadians, C'mon you are tresspassing on Federal land and should be dealt with accordingly! You are not opening our eyes, you are just Pi$$ing us off!! I had a friend that was a cadet in Ipperwash (what he told me, and maybe some of you can confirm this) but he was saying that while at camp one summer, a group of Natives was driving around shooting guns, "protesting" saying it was there land etc.. Now what if one of them had shot a kid? I know in the end an OPP member shot a native, but you never do hear about when they were shooting!
Rant over!, beging beasting....

 

[The_Falcon]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/06/17/4268111-cp.html

DESERONTO, Ont. (CP) - Armed and angry Mohawk protesters prematurely opened a national Aboriginal day of action, leaving the country's busiest travel corridor eerily barren early today on the first day of one of the season's business travel weekends.

The protesters delivered on threats to seriously snarl transportation in eastern Ontario, effectively having two major highways as well as the CN Rail main line closed. Just before midnight, Ontario Provincial Police said they had closed a stretch of the busy Highway 401 between Shannonville and Marysville in advance of a planned native blockade.

"The highway was closed as a safety measure," said Sgt. Kristine Rae, a spokeswoman for the OPP in Ottawa.

Earlier, about 40 Mohawks parked an old school bus across secondary Highway 2 west of Kingston, forcing a steady stream of traffic and heavy trucks to turn around.

Later, the natives closed the nearby CN Rail main line, using jumper cables to activate crossing barriers before moving another old school bus onto the tracks.

Hours later the OPP issued an arrest warrant for protest leader Shawn Brant on a charge of mischief. 


 

Brant said earlier the barricades would remain until midnight Friday night.

In anticipation of the blockade, Via Rail suspended Friday's passenger train service on the heavily travelled Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto corridor. The decision affects an estimated 5,000 passengers.

The OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino warned that criminal activity would not be tolerated.

"We take all disruptions seriously and will use a measured response that must take into consideration the safety of the public, the demonstrators and the police," Fantino said in a statement.

Before police closed the highway, Brant said the next target would be Highway 401, the main east-west artery across southern Ontario.

As a safety precaution, the protesters had planned to wait until the middle of the night, when traffic is lightest, before blockading the heavily travelled highway.

The OPP closure of the highway came as a surprise to the protesters.

"This looks weird, man," said one Mohawk protester as he gazed out over the emptiness.

An OPP news release explaining the closure said motorists travelling westbound to Toronto were being directed to exit at Highway 41 north to Highway 7, west to Highway 37 and then travel south.

Those travelling eastbound to Montreal or Ottawa were being directed to exit at Highway 37 north to Highway 7 and south on Highway 41.

More information on the highway closure were available on the Ontario Ministry of Transportation's website at www.mto.gov.on.ca/english.traveller, the news release said.

The Mohawks' actions were in defiance of native leaders and others who urged peaceful protest on the day of action to raise public awareness of native concerns such as poverty, health, education and land claims.

At the Highway 2 blockade, one angry motorist yelled at some of the younger protesters and a brief exchange of swearing ensued.

Others were more understanding.

A truck driver named Mike was trying to get home to Belleville.

"I don't mind," he said of the blockade. "I just have to get turned around."

A few of the protesters helped guide the big rigs on to a driveway to make the awkward manoeuvre.

Mohawks wearing bandanas over their faces sparked up a bonfire, formed a drumming circle and sang.

Demonstrators are well organized and equipped with a trailer loaded with wooden pallets, large pieces of tree trunk and several trucks.

They are also stocked up with water, food and ice for what Brant says will be an "action of economic disruption" lasting more than 24 hours until midnight Friday.

Men, women and children in army-style fatigues, their hair braided back or shaved in traditional Mohawk style, began arriving at a makeshift camp outside Deseronto just after 5 p.m.

There were reports that dozens of provincial police cruisers assembled in the nearby city of Napanee.

Brant, a 43-year-old militant Mohawk, has done jail time for trashing the offices of politicians. He stands out as the lone voice calling for militancy on what others had hoped would be a day devoted to public education about native issues.

Brant said the protesters were armed and that he and others were prepared to "meet force with force" if police got in their way.

"We've made no secret that we have guns within this camp," he told The Canadian Press in an interview.

"It's our intent to go out and ensure a safe day. Unfortunately, previous incidents have shown that aggressive tactics by the police need to be met with equal resistance by the people that they're bringing those against."

Brant referred to the 1995 death of Dudley George when Ontario Provincial Police tried to force native demonstrators from Ipperwash provincial park.

"Most certainly, they shouldn't challenge us or question our resolve."

Brant says the time to educate Canadians through peaceful rallies has passed.
"We want government to know, and the rest of this country, that we're prepared to make commitments and sacrifices to ensure a safe, healthy environment in which our children can live - and a future that they can look forward to. Maybe then, they'll stop committing suicide."

Ontario Police Chief Julian Fantino singled out Brant at a news conference in Toronto on Thursday, saying he would be held accountable for his actions.

"He is, I think a one -off and we will have to deal with that depending on what Mr. Brant does," Fantino said.

"We're prepared to discuss things with Mr. Brant, we have done that before. But at the end of the day, there is accountability for one's actions as well and he will be held accountable."

In the Maritimes, members of the Mi'kmaq Nation threatened a blockade of the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick boundary on Highway 104.

"It is the sovereign right of the independent Mi'kmaq Nation to disrupt or prevent any transportation through the territory," organizers said in a statement.

Fantino said anarchists distract from the legitimacy of native land claims.

"We can't allow the hijacking of that legitimate cause by those who are intent on creating anarchy or who are intent of creating lawlessness in our country," he said.

The threats of blockades were in stark contrast to calls from aboriginal chiefs who called for peaceful protests and a day of reflection.

"We know there is frustration; we feel it, " Phil Fontaine, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, told a news conference in Ottawa.

"Tomorrow, however, we intend to undertake the educational process, we will be asking all Canadians to learn about our people."

Canada's premiers and territorial leaders also issued a rare joint statement Thursday, acknowledging that aboriginals are understandably disappointed and frustrated with the past, but urged protesters to keep Friday's campaign "peaceful and law-abiding."

The southern Ontario town of Caledonia was also on high alert as a 16-month occupation of a former housing development site continued.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said he had spoken to the province's aboriginal leaders, and everyone had agreed the day should go ahead "without incident."

Friday is about grievances aboriginal communities have with the federal government, not the province, he said.

"I remain hopeful that this national day of action will proceed in a peaceful and respectful way," McGuinty said, adding it will be up to provincial police to deal with any blockades or illegal activity.

Marie Trainer, mayor of Haldimand County, which includes the town of Caledonia, said residents had been watching apprehensively over the last few days as cars with Quebec and American licence plates drove onto the occupied site.

Trainer said everyone was hoping the day would go by without any of the violent clashes the occupation has sparked in the past.

"I'm sure there will be a couple of spots that are hot, but I'm hoping ours isn't," Trainer said.

Brant and his Mohawks amassed at a quarry about two kilometres south of Highway 401 that Brant occupied last March.

Brant said he would remain there until the Ontario government stops allowing a private company to truck away the land the Mohawks have claimed.

Negotiations with the federal government have dragged over the last four years, Brant says.

Dale Welsh of Deseronto drives by the occupied quarry, with Mohawk flags snapping in the breeze, a few times a week.

"If everybody would just get together and settle things, we wouldn't have a problem," he said.

People in town are worried about property values and bad headlines, said Welsh, 60.

Then again, he can see the Mohawk point of view.

"I'd be mad if somebody came in and infringed on my land."

-With files from Noor Javed in Toronto

Highlights are mine, to show plain and simple these are the actions of a TERRORIST, and this IS DOMESTIC TERRORSIM.  This sob Brant is agitating for a violent confrontation, and is taking steps to ensure it happens.  Why is this scumbag still free? We have thrown people in the clink on terrorsim charges, and they haven't done half the crap this asshole has done (not to say they are innocent or guilty, but to show, the huge double standard out there).  This is sickening and pathetic, that our governments allow this crap to continue on.  So far Fantino's all bark and no bite.  And so much for equal rule of law.

 

[LakeSup]

10 Biliion a year SHOULD pay for all the clean water and sanitation required.  Problem is waste and corruption in the FN biz.  Has Sheila Fraser ever been turned loose on this ministry?  FN need some honest leaders with courage and vision, not the same bunch of entitled crooks and bagmen.

 

[observor 69]

http://ago.mobile.globeandmail.com/generated/archive/RTGAM/html/20070628/wxcowent28.html

Thursday, June 28

Trapped in the aboriginal narrative
Margaret Wente
From Thursday's Globe and Mail

All across the land, native leaders are beating the drums for tomorrow's National Day of Action. The point of the protests, they claim, is to "educate" the rest of us about the terrible conditions endured by aboriginals. "Poverty among Canada's first nations peoples rivals Third World conditions," explains Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. "It's this country's dirty little secret."

If so, it's the worst-kept secret in the world. You'd have to be brain dead not to be aware of the poverty of the reserves, the awful housing, the bad water, the sickness, the suicides, the hopelessness. People have grown weary of this story because it never changes. Kashechewan and Davis Inlet and Pikangikum all blur together. Those poor children, they say. And then they change the channel.

Everyone is trapped in the narrative we've constructed to explain it. The Europeans arrived, wiped out most of the natives, stole their land and tried to stamp out their culture. All the dysfunction of aboriginal communities stems from the original sins of the conquerors. Only the restoration of their land and culture (plus more money) will restore their dignity and fortunes.

We now have a vast Indian industry of chiefs, government bureaucrats, lawyers, consultants and academics that is heavily invested in this narrative. Many of these people are well-meaning. They are also the chief obstacles to change, because their remedies make the problems worse.

"Dependency spending programs don't work," says Clarence Louie, chief of the Osoyoos band in B.C. "The only real solution is the economy, stupid." Chief Louie is a rare voice of dissent. Instead of talking about tradition and spirituality, he talks about economic development. The Osoyoos band used to be like the others - dependent on government handouts, crippled by social problems and nepotism. Today, it owns nine businesses, including the award-winning winery Nk'Mip Cellars.

Calvin Helin, from the Tsimshian Nation in B.C., is another unpopular guy. He wrote Dances with Dependency, a call for native self-reliance. Aboriginal communities don't need ancient wisdom and more handouts, he says. They need entrepreneurs. "We don't live in a bubble, and we have to become economically integrated into the system to look after ourselves."

Unfortunately, these voices of reason are all but drowned out by those who insist that participating in the free-market economy is a sellout to the white man's ways. Nowhere is this "sellout" message stronger than among the academic elites who peddle fuzzy visions of a communal, egalitarian, back-to-the-land utopia where first nations peoples will be healed and once again live in harmony with the land and each other.

Whether you're in Canada, Australia or New Zealand, the dominant narrative is always the same - and so is the dysfunction and degradation of aboriginal communities. Last month, a Maori named Alan Duff came to Canada to blow up that narrative. He wrote the book that formed the basis for Once Were Warriors, the heartbreaking movie about the dark side of modern Maori life.

"Political correctness is your enemy! White academic liberals are your enemy!" he told a Winnipeg audience. "They tell us indigenous people that we ought to go back and live as our ancestors lived. They want you to return to your past. But they're not going to do that. They're teaching their children your ceremonies. They're teaching them the modern tools of technology, and how to get mortgages."

The so-called wisdom of the elders is another problem. "Our elders often suggest we go back to how things were. They have no notion or concept of what the modern world is about, nor of what young peoples' aspirations are."

Mr. Duff knows that native kids are doomed unless they acquire the two essential keys to modern life: literacy and an education. That's why he founded the program Books in Homes, which has placed millions of books in the hands of Maori children. He also refuses to soft-pedal, excuse or explain away the familiar pathologies that afflict many of his people - the drunkenness, the wife-beating, the child abuse. To the men, he says: Stop strutting! Stop giving us endless speeches about yourselves! Start doing something for your families and your children!

It's called self-empowerment. And nobody can give it to you.

mwente@globeandmail.com

 

[Exarecr]

Well I was going to bitch and complain with the rest of you but all the good stuff has been said already. Take a gander at the "warriors". The only thing bigger than their numbers is the girth of their considerable paunch's. This rag tag group of wannabe,s are an insult to law abiding citizens and again we let these people break the law at their pleasure. Enough. I'm so pissed my hands are shaking.