Another First Nations blockade

[wanderingman]

If anyone stole anything from anyone then I think the indian needs to look in the mirror these days

[Jo]

You need to stop making racist statements.[/b]

What qualifies as a racist comment? It's pretty easy to tell:

When you discredit an entire people, that is racist.

When you attribute certain traits to an entire people, that is racist.

Address the policies, the situation, whatever, but don't slam an entire people.

Do NOT use this thread to challenge the above. If you have a concern, contact me via PM.

[Donald G]

To Coolworx ...

Where did you get the idea that the native cultures lived in balance? Strength over justice and rule by fear were the predominant characteristics of the inter and intra band lifestyles. You were evidently not around fifty or sixty years ago to talk to many of the elders on the west coast.

Nor have you apparently read any of the diaries left behind by the Indian Agents and Police Officers who have recorded some of their history very vividly. Personally I do not see a great deal of difference between what the Europeans were doing to various Native Bands and various Native Bands were doing to each other.

The idea that one West Coast Native or Native Band is the same as another is as silly as the notion that one West Coast Asian or European individual or culture is the same as another.

[Madhue]

If anyone stole anything from anyone then I think the indian needs to look in the mirror these days

this is often the vantage point from people unfamiliar or simply choose to ignore facts on the matter of the laws specific to the situations at hand. Fact is this all goes back conception of this country called Canada, The British created legislation called the Civilization of Indian Tribes Act (1857), which was created for the intentions "protecting the Native from white folks" and to allow Native Peoples to transition into becoming British subjects. It was at this time, Native People became Wards of the Crown and to this day still are.

The British North American Act (1867), basically reinforce much of what was placed down earlier however imposed the addition that the Crown would hold lands and title for Indians in "in-trust" and transferred this responsibility to newly formed Federal Government of Canada.

The Indian Act (1876) stipulated levels of controls over Natives in Canada imposed by the Crown, land use is one of them. There was in essence no self governance in this act for the indigenous persons.

Amendments of this act (1884), prohibited the abilities of individuals to grow and sell crops, gather, forcibly remove children into residential schools. Last Residential School closed in 1996. Its estimated that over 150,000 children were taken from their homes, their home communities and forced into school dormitories across Canada. We are aware that over 4,000 of these children dies in these schools, countless other were physically and sexually abuse. Untold numbers of parents were jailed for attempting to hide their children from Indian Agents and RCMP that came to collect their children.

The truth and Reconciliation Commission looked into these atrocities against the Indigenous people's of Canada directed the Government of Canada to release an apology and the documents of this time frame. Court Judges have ordered these documents released... to this day only a handful have been....

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... le8001068/

In Canada status Indians were not given the Vote 1961. Women in English Canada we allowed to vote in 1918.


so lets summarize this for you and others so they can follow easier...


you're a kid, you have cookies.
I like your cookies and I'm older, I say there's kids over there that will steal your cookies.
I'll make a law that will look after you and your cookies.
I say I'd give you a choice but you are too young.
I make a Law that says Once your old enough and smart enough I'll give you your cookies.
I given you 3 cookies out of the 10 cookies you have, I eat the other 7.
Your Mom makes more cookies.. 20! Same deal before you get 3 I eat seven and sell the other 10.
Next year its 100, I given you 7 cookies.. I show everyone that I'm giving you these seven cookies, I make a big deal of it.
I eat 30 and sell the rest... no one sees this.

you come to me when your 21... by now your Mom is giving us 2,000 cookies a year! You say hey I'm old enough to have my own cookies. I say no, here's 30 cookies.

see where this is going?

[maryjane48]

So why don't we just abolish the Indian Act?

The Indian Act is a very controversial piece of legislation. The Assembly of First Nations describes it as a form of apartheid.9 Amnesty International, the United Nations, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission have continually criticized it as a human rights abuse. These groups claim that the Canadian government does not have the right to unilaterally extinguish Aboriginal rights—something the government could legally do to status Indians up until 1985 through the process of enfranchisement, and can still control through status.

Yet despite controversy, the Indian Act is historically and legally significant for Aboriginal peoples. It acknowledges and affirms the unique historical and constitutional relationship Aboriginal peoples have with Canada. For this reason, despite its problematic nature, efforts to outright abolish the Indian Act have been met with widespread resistance. (See, for example, the White Paper, 1969). As Harold Cardinal explained in 1969,

We do not want the Indian Act retained because it is a good piece of legislation. It isn’t. It is discriminatory from start to finish. But it is a lever in our hands and an embarrassment to the government, as it should be. No just society and no society with even pretensions to being just can long tolerate such a piece of legislation, but we would rather continue to live in bondage under the inequitable Indian Act than surrender our sacred rights. Any time the government wants to honour its obligations to us we are more than happy to help devise new Indian legislation.10

RCAP identifies this situation as a paradox that is key to understanding the Indian Act and the relationship between the Canadian state and status Indians. The Indian Act legally distinguishes between First Nations and other Canadians, and acknowledges that the federal government has a unique relationship with, and obligation to, First Nations. At the same time, any changes to the Indian Act through history have historically been proposed or established unilaterally by the government. Although there are many differing opinions on how to confront the issues presented by the Indian Act, Aboriginal leaders widely agree that if any alternative political relationship is to be worked out between First Nations and the government, First Nations will need to be active participants in establishing it.


http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.c ... n-act.html





The traditional roles of Indian people in early colonial society were to act as middlemen in the fur trade and to assist regular armed forces in times of war. These activities were carried out with distinction during both the French and British regimes. In these traditional functions, Indian people shared, to a degree, in decision-making, devising trade practices, and planning military operations.
what this means is the first nations helped protect canada, and helped set up and manage canada's first economy


This protection came in 1850, when the Province of Canada, which at that time comprised Ontario and Quebec, passed two pieces of legislation to protect Indian reserve lands and property. The legislation that applied to Canada East – which became Quebec – is noteworthy because a four-point definition of who constituted an Indian in government eyes was provided for the first time. In the legislation for Canada West, section 4 of the act established the practice that no taxes would be levied on Indian people living on reserve lands.

canadian goverment comes up with the idea of no tax on rez

In 1876, the Indian Affairs branch consolidated all the existing pre-Confederation legislation, with some modifications, into one consolidated Indian Act, meaning that the first consolidated Indian Act came in 1876. It is interesting to note that the Indian Act actually came after some of the treaties. The western treaties that were negotiated, Treaty No. 1 through Treaty No. 6, 1871 to 1876, preceded the Indian Act. Many Indian people in western Canada say the relationship is not with the Indian Act, it is with the treaties, because the act came after the treaties

treaties 1 through 6 came before the indian act and is law in canada


In spite of the official optimism, events were not progressing as politicians and officials had hoped, particularly in the west. Old Indian ways persisted. The policy of Indian assimilation was not showing tangible results. In the view of government officials, a relatively effortless way of dealing with the apparent lack of progress was to revise the Indian Act to give more powers to local Indian agents and to heavily penalize Indian people for persisting in the old ways. For example, in the 1880s, Indian agents acquired additional powers as justices of the peace in order to prosecute Indians. In April 1884, the Indian Act was amended by section 3, which placed a ban on dances and traditional ceremonies. In 1894, section 11 gave the Minister of Indian Affairs the power to direct industrial or residential schools, and made school attendance compulsory, with strict truancy penalties. And in 1927, a section 141 was inserted into the act, banning the pursuit of land claims.

this is really saying back then, the first nations were open game to be abused

http://www.revparl.ca/english/issue.asp ... 83&art=255

[Donald G]

The Naive people in Canada are very fortunate. The Scottish people in northern Scotland were simply exterminated. Those that remained alive after being kept on "starvation" ships ended up in one British Colony or another. Predominantly Canada, the United States and to a lesser extent Australia.

They recovered and went on to become some of the most productive early settlers wherever they went but every Scottish person remembers the price they paid for trying to stand up for their rights.

BY comparison the Natives in Canada have IMO been given what seems to be a never ending path to everything they presently retain in Canada.

[maryjane48]

The Naive people in Canada are very fortunate. The Scottish people in northern Scotland were simply exterminated. Those that remained alive after being kept on "starvation" ships ended up in one British Colony or another. Predominantly Canada, the United States and to a lesser extent Australia.

They recovered and went on to become some of the most productive early settlers wherever they went but every Scottish person remembers the price they paid for trying to stand up for their rights.

BY comparison the Natives in Canada have IMO been given what seems to be a never ending path to everything they presently retain in Canada.

first they were naive to trust the settlers, second what happened anywhere else means zero, the indian act and numbered treaties are canadian law , third what they retain in canada is a fraction of what they did retain before the europeans arrived . if you want to deal in what ifs, how about this , when the americans first got going, they were under british rule, then they started to feel enslaved to the crown , now its not a stretch to consider the first american settlers to the first nations in canada, at some point both felt to be abused by their handlers. so what the first americans did was to forcibly get rid of the oppressors , and become their own nation, now the reality is the first nations in canada wont win a shooting war, but what they can do is make the canadian goverment live up to the obligations they said they would. and that is exactly where we are now.

the main point though, is we are in this mess because of the canadian government's greed and sense of christian dominance over a group of people they felt below them tsk tsk .imperial metals seems to have realized they have to include first nations , we will see if the provincial and feds realize it to

[zzontar]

third what they retain in canada is a fraction of what they did retain before the europeans arrived .

If you think of the things they use daily to make their lives easier that are products of the Europeans and then things they use daily that are Native products, I don't think many would want to go with what they had before the Europeans.

[Rwede]

If you think of the things they use daily to make their lives easier that are products of the Europeans and then things they use daily that are Native products, I don't think many would want to go with what they had before the Europeans.

Agreed. Pretty difficult to drive into town for smokes when the wheel hasn't been discovered yet.

[maryjane48]

Agreed. Pretty difficult to drive into town for smokes when the wheel hasn't been discovered yet.

pretty hard find a buffalo after the wheel was invented

[zzontar]

pretty hard find a buffalo after the wheel was invented

The buffalo massacre was horrendous, but nowadays who would rather hunt one with a bow and arrow they make and skin it themselves instead of buying meat at the grocery store?

[Madhue]

The Naive people in Canada are very fortunate. The Scottish people in northern Scotland were simply exterminated. Those that remained alive after being kept on "starvation" ships ended up in one British Colony or another. Predominantly Canada, the United States and to a lesser extent Australia.

They recovered and went on to become some of the most productive early settlers wherever they went but every Scottish person remembers the price they paid for trying to stand up for their rights.

BY comparison the Natives in Canada have IMO been given what seems to be a never ending path to everything they presently retain in Canada.

Yeah the scouts had it tough... They also now have Self Governance, their own Parliament and one of their first actions was to give the land back to the Scots. It was a brilliant move by the new Scottish parliament The Land Reform Act of 2003. Giving unhindered access to Scottish countryside to Scots. This included "crown lands" or previous Titled land and water ways.


As for loss of lives ... We'll folks we need to think a little more globally than The Borders we now have, peoples of that time moved freely between nations... Many a time Native people where chased or squeezed into another State or Province only to deal with the heavy boot of armed forces, poisoning or nations paid to attack others.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_massacre

Of course I don't believe there were incidents in Scotland where Scottish Children were strapped into kiddy electric chairs.... That's an honour strictly reserved for the notable Canadians.

[Rwede]

pretty hard find a buffalo after the wheel was invented

The wheel was invented 5,500 years ago. Anyone seen a buffalo in the last 5,500 years?