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.

You are evading the question - I believe that you are being intellectually dishonest. You spend all this time ranting about how the gov't has a moral obligation to honour these treaties but I believe you would say screw the treaties if it turned out that the only way to resolve them required you (and other non-aborginal taxpayers) to make big economic sacrifices. For you honouring treaties is a great idea as long as other people have to pay for it.So answer the question: how much of an economic sacrifice would you be willing to make in order to live up to these agreements? Riverwind, you are evading my question... how much does the canadian government receive in corporate taxes ... You said the government takes in 200b in income taxes so we use that to figure out everyones share ... and once we know what government takes in in corpôrate taxes, we can finish the calculations ...

Assume that legally it is impossible to get corporations to pay so they pay nothing and the entire burden must be born by indiviudals. How much would you pay to resolve land claims in that circumstance? How high would the bill have to get before you would flush your morals down the drain and simply say that it costs too much and you can't afford it? Sooooo .... what you are telling me is that the Canadian government receives no corporate taxes... and will try to foist the entire cost of Indigenous land claim settlements on the citizens through individual income tax.

It is such a ridiculous accusation that I feel no need to dignify it with a denial. The answer is obvious. You are here to promote an agenda. You have government information available to you. You have no interest in new information, except in how you will distort and reject it. You use the same sorry propoganda lines over and over again like a good party hack... if it looks like a duck... ... Oh come on ... deny it ... you are here to promote party or government propoganda ... convince Canadians not to honour Indigenous treaties... Ahhh I was hoping you would bring that up again... No I have not admitted that ... our discussion stalled because ... your question was how much am I willing to pay in taxes to settle Indigenous land claims ... and my question was ... How much does the Canadian government receive each year in corporate taxes ... so I can know what my fair share is .... do you have the answer yet ... I have asked several times ... I believe the corporations who benefit from selling resources from Indigenous lands south of the border, and who leave the land desecrated have an obligation too. I look forward to finishing this conversation.

I don't mind paying for something if it can be justified. Do you think a no bids contract can be justified in this particular case? Lets face it folks ... no matter what their political stripe our governments are all corrupt.

Six Nations are in negotiations with the federal government for the Haldimand Tract in lieu of court action, at the governments request. I think the case more relevant to Winnipeg is Toronto. The federal government has acknowledged aboriginal title of the Mississaugas Nations and is currently negotiating the price. I expect this is the model for settled areas ... unless the Indigenous Nation claims the land instead of compensation, BUT the government has covered itself there because it simply does not accept such claims. The Six Nations land reclamation occurred because - they know the court precedents ... in Canada and the International Courts ... are in their favour - the land was in private hands so the government would not accept a land claim - the land, a burial ground, was not occupied but was being desecrated by a sprawl development - In their culture, they have an obligation to the seven generations before and the seven generations to come. - The organizers are the seventh generation from those who were forced to give up the land. - It is about sovereignty.

You have a real problem accepting information that you do not want to believe. You want to believe that all of these issues related to aboriginal land claims are black and white where the gov't is pure evil and the aboriginals are pure good. Life is never like that and the facts of both residential schools and native land claims do not support the grossly exaggerated claims you are making. I have never said I speak for anyone other than myself - it is mystery to me why you keep making these accusations. I suggest you re-read your own posts and ask yourself if you are living up to the standards that you demand of others. I have made no exaggerated claims. The obligations of Canada are quite clear: Return the land the government stole from them, and acknowledge their sovereignty, as per the treaties and agreements for which Canada is responsible. I keep making claims that you are part of the governments propoganda machine ... because it is true and you have not denied it. The country I choose to honour has better morals than that.

Your callous response is a clear enough answer. The government of Canada is complicit because it was responsible for genocidal policy, mandatory attendance, and oversight of residential schools, but it intends to hang the crimes on the churches. Again, your response is a clear answer ... the Government of Canada has been instructed to find a negotiated solution ... or face the court s and lose. And there will be many cases.... and the missing children ... what investigation is underway to address this ... or does Canada think their families will just forget them... I am talking about the fact that you are part of the propoganda machine to convince Canadians that indigenous people are not entitled to legal treaty land, and you pretend to think that the residential schools were not systematically abusive ... but you are wrong and most Canadians already know that anyway. What galls me is ... this is the official line of the government that is my government. It disgusts me. This is the machine of a facist state, not a democracy. CBC did a movie called Butterbox Babies about a home for unwed mothers down east where the owner was found to be murdering the babies and burying them in butterboxes. CBC did not have the guts to tell the whole story ... my mother told me ... those were indigenous girls from the residential schools whose babies were killed. On the west coast ... a similar story ... the girls impregnated through sexual assault by staff went away ... and came back without their babies ... and some did not come back at all. The boy beaten with hockey sticks in Northern Ontario survived ... by escaping and outwitting the police and their dogs and finding his way ... at 11 years old ... 1,400 km through the bush to winnipeg where he lived on the streets until finally able to return home as an adult. He is at the Grassy Narrows blockade now, still having to fight for his rights. We expect people who commit crimes to show remorse and their sentencing reflects this. I expect Canada to show remorse, and to deal with Indigenous people honestly from then on. Our negotiations with them will go alot easier if Canada does the right thing. If Canada denies and hides ... negotiations will not go well. I believe our government is making the wrong choice. I believe there are many decent Canadians who agree..... Can we afford to settle their treaties ... Can we afford not to when our national honour is at stake ...

Child mortality rate was very high in society at the time and aboriginals had less resistance to certain diseases than non-aboriginals. The schools obviously made the situation worse, however, people did not react to stories of kids dying of disease in those days as strongly as they do today because kids died all of the time - it was expected. You cannot apply standards and knowledge of people today to judge the actions of people in the past.Failure to recognize how serious the problem was is another example of gov't incompetence, however, it does not come close to anything resembling deliberate genocide. Sorry j, but I will not allow this to go unanswered. The two examples I cited ... one child was kicked down the stairs to her death. The other was beaten by nuns with hockey sticks. READ THEM ... or are you too chicken !!!!!! If you put three Indigenous children in a bed, two without tb and one with, all carefully arranged that way ... yes ... they die of disease ... by intentional action. People did not hear stories of the children dying in those days ... they were covered up and are still covered up. - If Canada had no legal obligation to honour the treaties, Canada would let the Indigenous nations go to court and lose. Canada prefers to settle out of court, because Canada knows it is legally liable to honour the treaties. - If Canada had no complicity in the residential school abuses and deaths ... Canada would let Indigenous people take them to court ... instead, Canada prefers a blanket payout with an acknowledgement that is not an apology because an apology would leave it legally liable for complicity. Believe me ... this is the tip of the iceberg. Families were destroyed, children disappeared ... murdered or escaped but could not go home ... so they died in the city streets instead. I am tired of your shockingly ignorant defence of Canadian government complicity. IT IS MY GOVERNMENT TOO!!! I object to paying my taxpayer dollars toward your salary for you to spew racism and twist facts and manipulate people emotions and fears in a public discussion forum. Obviously the Canadian government is desperate to avoid detection ... but it is inevitable. GET A REAL JOB RIV!!!

True ... do they have treaty rights ...

Every immigrant child in Canada was:1) Forced to attend public school 2) Disciplined for not using English 3) Made to feel that any religion other than Christianity was inferior 4) Subject to various form of corporal punishment for bad behavior. What made the residential schools so bad was the fact that kids were separated from the parents and the gov't failed to provide adequate funding or supervision. This, in turn, led to incidents where individual administrators and teachers used forms of discipline that were not acceptable even at time and also allowed few pedophiles to abuse some kids. Gov't incompetence is not genocide. Crimes committed by individuals that had a duty to care for these kids is not genocide. The gov't is vicariously liable for what happened in these schools because it forced the kids to attend, however, it is ridiculous to say that the gov't sanctioned or even knew about the more extreme cases of abuse that were going on. Correction ... what made the residential schools so bad is that HALF OF THE STUDENTS NEVER MADE IT OUT ALIVE!!! It was not incompetence ... it was planned ignorance and intentional avoidance. Government officials knew of the high death rate and knowingly continued the program. That is complicity, not incompetence... An example here: http://sisis.nativeweb.org/resschool/dec1895cri.html Another example here http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/200...2703/news3.html Governments do not want the whole story told, because all Canadian governments are complicit in the genocide. Note the young mans statement at the end of the article ... These are the youth who grew up without the legacy of hopelessness ingrained by the residential schools. They know what Canada stands for in ideals ... and they know Canada has undermined its own ideals consistently. They are adults now ... and they are strong and they have Canadas number. I know there are many many Canadian who, like me, are horrified by the abuses that they KNOW happened. It is our time to stand and be counted among those who truly aspire to the Canadian ideal, so shabbily treated by our governments that no longer represent the people, but represent the worldwide interests of power and greed.