saga

Canada has a land base over which it is sovereign. The theoretical claims of native groups mean nothing in the real world of politics and economics. You are quite delusional if you believe that the Six Nations could get away with such actions without triggering a blood bath. The only way Six Nations can control the territory they claim is to have the sovereign gov't of Canada enforce that claim on their behalf. Without the support of the Canada gov't, Six Nations has nothing. Natives have been able to get away with non-violant protests and blockades because most Canadians believe a non-violent political solution is best. If natives became the aggressors and started seriously threaten the livelihood of urban Canadians then you would see the full force of the state be brought to bear. In the short term, native groups could cause damage, in the long term the will of 30 million plus people will prevail and it would be the natives who would be the biggest losers in the end. The UN is toothless and irrelevant body and would be able to do nothing. I find that statement laughable - there are many examples of corruption and incompetence native leadership and governance of the territories that they already have. Those stories may not apply to the Six Nations band today but no one will believe you so you will not be able to collect those taxes. And what will that mean when the 500,000 non-aboriginal citizens use their democratic rights and vote to rejoin Canada? Riverwind, I can not help but notice that your tone regresses to broad based insults when you are most wrong. You have cynical opinions backed only by stereotype, and you are quite rude. ...! no one will believe you ! such ignorance! You know nothing.

Silly posturing fool John Tory ... crashing through quiet Caledonia to stir up the idiots ... What possible good can he think he is doing ... oh ya ... when you are the hardliner it is good to seek out fragile situations and verbally bash a few heads ... harumph! ... good for the image in the redneck hinterland ... harumph! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...Story/National/ Tory forgets that there is no injunction for removal at present, hence no need for any disruption to a peaceful situation. Tory forgets that the OPP did that once but could not sustain it ... that has not changed. No matter how many police they bring in, they are far outnumbered by Haudenosaunee unarmed women and men ... and they can not just shoot them so they are stuck with hand to hand combat ... Anybody want to volunteer against people who have been waiting 200 years ... who are passionately defending their land... who come quietly out of the woods in thousands ... I did not think so! Tory forgets there is nothing there for him to see except a peaceful town, and a few angry business people ... do not know why ... did they not get their monthly reimbursement-for-racism government cheque... Tory also forgot his manners ... when he wants to go to the reclamation site he can give them a bit of notice ... Monty Kwinter is right. Mayor Marie Trainor is an idiot. There are no problems at present ... just people who want to cause a problem by yelling at the Indians again for a while ... until they get thirsty. Perhaps John Tory will finally get that railroad bridge rebuilt for the business people. After all, Six Nations might be pleased at that gesture and more of them might shop in town again!

If Canada is not a legal nation, how can it give back something when you don't recognize its existence? Canada is a nation ... just not sovereign ... without the Queen that is.

Yes, what Canada did is take responsibility for lawful treaties ... that it must now honour. Well we certainly agree there! However, there is the matter of the treaties and land and compensation to be resolved first. Sorry ... the rest was full of ignorant innuendo that I could not begin to respond to.

Resolution at Caledonia is federal government's responsibility By George Sorger, Hamilton The Hamilton Spectator (Aug 3, 2006) Re: 'Onus on judge to rule' (The Spectator, July 25) Many demanding "law and order" in Caledonia, along with this article about Justice Marshall's deliberations concerning the Six Nations occupation of their land at Caledonia, seem to ignore the fact that the disputed land is part of a formal treaty between the Crown, now the responsibility of the federal government, and the Six Nations. The fact the land was sold to a developer, and then bought from the developer by the province of Ontario, does not change the fact that it is treaty land and cannot be sold or bought by anyone without Six Nations consent, which neither of the above sales had. If the OPP are sent in once again to "clear" the Six Nations occupants from the site, we will be back where we started months ago, when the barricades went up and there were violent confrontations. The courts and the OPP should not be expected to settle aboriginal land claims. This land claim must be settled by negotiations between the federal government and the Six Nations Confederacy. They are the authorities which inherited the responsibility for the treaties, describing who owns the above land and what the relationship between the two nations is to be. Justice Marshall and the lawyers opposing the Six Nations describe the occupation of native land as an act of contempt of court, which carries a stiff penalty. I think there should be something called contempt of treaties, which should carry an equally stiff penalty, so that the formal treaties governing relations between Canada and the First Nations will be obeyed and the law prevails. ............ This letter to the Spec echoes my thoughts ... unfortunately some idiot wants to have an idiot rally again this friday. If they get loud and nasty again, we are going to drown them out with our car horns!

Absolutely ... if it was me doing it! However, if you followed our rough calculations above ... I think Riv is no longer viewing it as impossible. I think Canadians can handle it ... and how wonderful it would be to be able to really do it right.

I have always advocated finding the middle ground. However, I believe the middle ground is going require that aboriginal groups give up on the idea that their treaties will be honoured as written if doing so would cost non-aboriginals too much.I have always felt that changing the constitution to remove aboriginal rights is the 'nuclear' option which should never be used. However, I felt it is important to remind some aboriginal rights advocates that the 'nuclear' option is available and it will be used if aboriginals groups do not respect the limits that non-aboriginal society wants to put on their entitlements. So long as they are aware that there will be serious consequences for our relations with Indigenous people, and possibly ongoing strife that could wipe out any savings. You do not go nuclear without causing damage, and that itself can be expensive. Is it not just a question of how the value of the properties will be established for compensation purposes ... how much ... what percentage of current value... It will be used ... you say that with some certainty of your decisions in that regard So ... it looks doable!

You misunderstood the calculations. A 14% tax increase would bring in $30 billion/year (assuming the economy did not slow down as a result). The total land claim bill could be $3-4 trillion dollars which would take 133 years to pay off at $30 billion per year.Paying it all off in one year or even 10 is not even an option. My apologies. Your right. Let's not give them a dime, I already pay enough taxes for people that should be working. I can no longer get my damned Tim Hortons in my neighbourhood past 9:00 because there are no workers. Let's get all the unemployed from reserves and make them give me my damned coffee, I get grouchy without it. No more mooola. I was hoping we could just pay them out, but you just made it clear it's not possible. Well, fortunately there is some middle ground between all and nothing, so I am glad we did that Riverwind. Umm Gregory ... where did you get your expertise on ... the Indian way ... Of course ... Riverwind we have forgotten the savings that offset! Indian Affairs can bite the dust finally, Band Councils mostly, health, welfare, all government services ... policing, education ... We have a ways to go yet before we have the bottom line ...

You misunderstood the calculations. A 14% tax increase would bring in $30 billion/year (assuming the economy did not slow down as a result). The total land claim bill could be $3-4 trillion dollars which would take 133 years to pay off at $30 billion per year.Paying it all off in one year or even 10 is not even an option. My apologies. Your right. Let's not give them a dime, I already pay enough taxes for people that should be working. I can no longer get my damned Tim Hortons in my neighbourhood past 9:00 because there are no workers. Let's get all the unemployed from reserves and make them give me my damned coffee, I get grouchy without it. No more mooola. I was hoping we could just pay them out, but you just made it clear it's not possible. Well, fortunately there is some middle ground between all and nothing, so I am glad we did that Riverwind. Umm Gregory ... where did you get your expertise on ... the Indian way ...

This is about the history of the land we call Canada ... and pre-history. Pre-European ... pre-contact ... Millions of people lived here ... Indigenous (First, original) people of Turtle Island (North America). They lived in Villages all over our land, in the most beautiful spots of course ... like Toronto Islands. They moved their villages every twenty years to avoid playing out the earth, if they were farmers, or the fish, etc ... practiced sophisticated conservation methods. Over the thousands of years ... 12,000 or more ...(we are a small 500 year blip in their long existence) they evolved into societies with participatory democracies where the people discussed ... respectfully ... and came to consensus ... and their leaders were chosen by clan mothers ... and they allied with other communities and warred against others ... and developed strong large scale governance over broad areas for peace among their nations. Six Nations Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy Council is one of these traditional governments, a thousand years old and thriving again. When Europeans arrived, Indigenous people were interested in their technologies and methods and trade, and allied with them through several treaties and Royal Proclamations, as sovereign nations. European presence here decimated Indigenous people with diseases they had no resistance to. Haudenosaunee allied with Britain in Canada and fought in the war of 1812, and without them we would be American today And more treatys ... and then the land started disappearing and their kids were tortured in residential schools and the next generation and the next generation... 6 generations of poverty, abuse, deterioration of a people ... And now that is all illegal and Canada is exposed ... And they are stronger and they are awesome ... and they want their treaty land back, where it is legally attainable, money where it is not, and they want to govern themsleves as sovereign nations again ... as per the treaties. It is a legal thing. Canada denied them their land rights and treaty rights for a long time, trying to get rid of them ... turn them into Canadians but they did not choose to be Canadians like our families. The government unlawfully made them surrender the land, so now the government (we) needs to pay up. So ... the short answer is .... because it is their land ... still is always was ... so we have to buy some of it. from the owners because we tried to wipe them out and they are still here to make us obey the law. Here are some stories... http://www.parrysoundbeaconstar.com/1149864016 http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/200...2703/news3.html

14% adds up to 1% GST and 2-7% increase in income tax. I am pretty sure the overwhelming majority of Canadians would say that is too much. I think that is perfectly reasonable and I believe the majority of Canadians would be happy to settle this longstanding shame in an honourable way. What is the alternative ...

If 3-4 trillion you simply give the aboriginals whatever they ask for. personal $167 billion corporate $50 sales $69 No matter how you wriggle you cannot escape the fact that the majority of gov't revenue comes from individual taxpayers so the majority of the burden of paying any claims will fall on them too. The majority is better than all of it! Well, I am no financial wizard ... but at 3t, it looks like an extra 30b per year is needed, about a 14% increase in personal and corporate taxes ... and of course, with increasing population that would go down each year. It is not a pleasant prospect ... but not out of the realm of possibility either. Much preferable ... in my mind ... as a means of restoring Canadian honour ... to the lies and distortion and spin and fraud of cheating Indigenous people out of fair settlements again, because that will come back to haunt our children and their children again.

Federal Government Revenue Sources for 2005-2006 (in millions) Personal income tax 103,000 Corporate income tax 34,530 Other income tax 4,645 Goods and services tax 31,940 Customs import duties 3,410 Other excise taxes/duties 9,970 The $200 billion figure I gave you earlier includes the provincial taxes. Ok ... and your estimate of the cost for land claims settlements is ... Just trying to recall ... ... and of course the provinces have had use of much of the land so their share has to be included, and ALL of the federal surpluses...

Does that mean all people are corrupt? Because it is people who elect other people to office. No ... it means our parliamentary system has been corrupted to serve the ego needs of politicians instead of the governance needs of the people.

Are you serious? This has nothing to do with the gov't or supporting Harper and the gov't, but after being away for a while am disappointed at how this board seems to have been taken over by trolls, although Greg is dealing with them now. This forum has both sides posting and doesn't represent one group or other, that is plain for anyone to see. The notion that Harper has a hidden agenda has long since been dispelled, he is proving to be an able leader and has surely disappointed the chicken littles who expected the sky to fall. Gee, last time I looked Canada was still functioning very well, sorry to disappoint though. Yes, I assume it is a Harper board, judging by the way other opinions are silenced by insults and party propoganda. Trolls ... meaning anyone else with views different than His Harpiness allows you to have... Harpers agenda is no longer hidden ... he wants to be a dictator... will not let anyone speak but himself, (so who does my MP really represent ... Harper ... not me...), and if he cannot win, he pouts and takes his toys (or legislation) home.