not the only one

I seem to be in good company in an earlier post about the lack of federal action to protect the lives of Indigenous women and girls, “so get off your butts, and do something!” Read the snippet below, then go read the whole story in the Calgary Herald newspaper.

ipperwash

From today’s Sarnia Observer online:

After decades of wait and struggle, Stony Pointer Cathryn Mandoka is back home.

Mandoka is the first member of the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation to move back onto ancestral lands at what was once Ipperwash Provincial Park.

“Ipperwash” dredges up a lot of pain among people who were there at the standoff in 1995, who identified with the Anishnawbe (Ojibway) peoples and what they have gone through – not just since 1993, when the occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park began, but for more than 80 years before. 

The name “Ipperwash,” however, also brings hope that maybe – just maybe – real change might be possible in this land where things move like molasses in January, and racial attitudes toward Indigenous peoples continue to be as vibrant as ever. 

Lambton Shores councillor Mark Simpson said the province has set a dangerous precedent when it comes to land claims. He worries that awarding land to a “special interest group” could open the government to a series of repercussions.

“To me, this is a dark day in the history of our community,” he said. “This sets a bad precedent.”

Yes, things are changing but the questions are: Will things change before another generation is ruined? More to the point, will they be for better or worse?

Dudley George is another name that brings mixed emotions. He was the first Indigenous person killed in Canada in the last century during a peaceful occupation to recover land that had been stolen from his peoples. For some, he is a hero. To others, he’s just another one of those individuals who knew when something was wrong, and who stood up because it needed to be made right.

Dudley’s brother, Sam George, is a soft-spoken man of great dignity and quiet determination. The occupation, the shooting of his brother by the Ontario Provincial Police, and Sam’s long fight to get a provincial government in full-blown denial to answer a simple question – What went wrong? – is the stuff of legend. 

Sam’s struggle to get past the slammed doors and official cover-up of a botched police raid eventually (I contend) toppled a provincial premier. It showed how petty those in power could be, and how profound the powerless were. The Ipperwash Inquiry showed how federal and provincial governments took part in legalized land theft, illustrated nearly a century of official denial of fundamental rights and the rule of law to the peoples of Kettle and Stony Point, and how racial attitudes contributed to an abuse of power and coverup at the highest levels of the Ontario Government of former premier, Mike Harris.

There are lessons here, questions too?

 

“To me, this is a dark day in the history of our community,” he said. “This sets a bad precedent.”

What’s to be learned? Who should learn them?

 

As a 10-year-old child in the 1940s, Bud Cloud was part of a forced relocation from the Stony Point reserve to the neighbouring Kettle Point reserve. His family lived in a house with no heat that winter.

The federal government said it would return the land after it was no longer needed as an army camp, but still hasn’t formally done so.

He now lives with other Stony Pointers at the former army camp, which has been occupied by the group since 1993.

we stole your land fair and square

 

I once heard a former minister of Indian Affairs, Warren Allmand I believe, describe the Canadian Government’s so-called “land claims policies” in just those words. Legalized theft.

 

For a Google page full of: “We stole your land, fair and square.”  (WARNING: be prepared to woof your cookies.)

Chairman Chuck

The federal government’s refusal to end this form of state-sponsored theft makes a mockery of numerous court decisions affirming Indigenous rights to land and a share of resources, and all but condemning the same to continued dispossession and poverty.

It flies in the face of too many royal commissions and judicial inquiries to list here recommending that governments respect decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada upholding Indigenous rights.

The federal government’s refusal to heed mountains of reports prepared by their own officials, reports that underline all of the above, is proof of inept and incompetent ministers who prefer to waste money and lives…. and for what?

This much is certain: lands and resources continue to be ripped out from beneath the feet of Indigenous peoples, denying them benefit, despite too many pious statements from the mouths of folks like Robert Nault, Jim Prentice, and now Chuck Strahl that such travesties will never, ever happen again. Hypocrites one and all.

 

Indigenous “land claims” are adversarial, needlessly drawn out and lengthy, hugely wasteful and expensive to everyone. So why do Canadian governments adhere to a policy that is morally and ethically wrong, would be illegal if put to an international tribunal, and costs all sides – wastes – hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees each year?

 

For more from the latest the highlights reel on official idiocy in Canada, take a look at the always lovely and talented balbulican’s write up over at the equally lovely StageLeft.

 

For more from that same reel (Idiots Gone Wild?), there are on-going attempts by some lunkheads in parliament to keep the status quo, or even go back to the good old days when white was right, black – step back, and better dead than red. Head on over to read John Cummins, an MP from British Columbia, in the National Post (a former journalistic publication). Cummins apparently wants everyone from judges to politicians to remember what side of the colour line they belong. 

 

Strange that Cummins would try to sabotage Campbell’s campaign, a fellow conservative, for re-election in British Columbia. The Libs are over on the right-hand side of the political quad in BC. But then, these race-based political parties really confuse me.

 

(update: I should add that Allmand used the sentence to condemn Canada’s record on land claims)

human nature hates vacuums

 

Portrait of Duncan Campbell Scott.

A story in the Globe and Mail today (Tue, Apr 14)  is informative – not for what it states but for what it doesn’t. Here’s the lede by Bill Curry:

 

OTTAWA — Parliament has less than a year to craft a new definition of “Indian” before Canadian native policy risks tumbling into chaos as the existing rules for determining native status are thrown out by the courts.

The clock is ticking after the B.C. Court of Appeal set the tight deadline for the minority Parliament. It’s a ruling that has experts in native law scratching their heads, wondering how such a contentious issue can possibly be resolved in time.

Right there is the problem, not from the perspectives of that B.C. judge, Canada’s Parliamentarians, or from the Minister of Indian Affairs or anyone else from the Government of Canada. No the problem is that Indians, or First Nations (a term I loathe), would allow anyone else – most especially the colonizer – to define who they are.

The sad fact is that most Indigenous North Americans in Canada have had whatever sense of nationhood they once held so dear to be replaced by the Indian Act. They allowed (yes, allowed) this piece of Canadian law to dominate their lives. They allowed the Indian Act to displace their own governments and institutions, their own laws and customs. They allowed the Indian Act, drawn up to meet the needs of white colonists, to define who was, who wasn’t, and who could be an “Indian.” 

Indigenous peoples in Canada allowed the Indian Act to replace their own forms of local government with the federal Indian agent. The Indian Agent held the power over the lives of Indigenous peoples on behalf of whatever ministry they served.  He ruled over them completely. The Indian agent was slowly replaced by Indian Act band councils – a different version but still the Indian agent in modern dress.

Now, a court in British Columbia has given the Indian Affairs Minister, the Canadian government, Parliament, a deadline. The court has, in my opinion, misplaced that order. The court’s order should be directed instead at the Indigenous nations in Canada to come up with their own definition of membership – and citizenship – and stop waiting for white people to do it for them.

BTW, Campbell Scott (pictured) was the deputy minister for Indian Affairs at the turn of the previous century. He infamously described (paraphrase here) Indian policy in Canada as ridding the Indian in the Indian, until there were no more Indians and no more Indian problem. You can still hear the same or very similar sentiments uttered in the halls of the Canadian parliament and in society. What better reminder to Indigenous peoples why they need to stand up today.

two words & the Canadian Govt’s racism

Abousfian Abdelrazik.