Ottawa Core

i am sorry to hear of the emotional connection you have made to this woman's heart. this is not a place to express these concerns (as you have seen). bless you and your cousin for hearing the children's cries. nyah weh.

dear diedrie, there's no cause for anyone to highjack this thread, since from the outset i've tried to presume individuals outside the fray of other emotionally driven native threads on this site (ones based more on philosophy than facts) could learn the details of the government department assuming administrative control over those programs beneficial to the aboriginal communities of canada if you want me to enter your scene please respect my uneasiness to join. this project should lead to information i will present from work i have done compiling data on the full department's staff, title, and responsibilities. any disputes on its veracity can be entertained as long as we are all seeing the same thing (without emotional rancour). until i can enter more facts, i'd prefer not disputing your valued contribution to other threads. here, i'd appreciate you "getting to me" with more appropriately concentrated concerns as i have delineated them as the originator of this post. if you wouldn't mind.

i hear they are still dunking witches there.

in time my friend. the department is heavily populated. i'm cutting and pasting as fast as i can and as time allows. eventually i will present it in a spreadsheet format. at present it's html tables. i will endeavour to establish the whole department's pay based on public servant class ranges (from low level CRs all the way up to the minister). whatever is funnelled through the department for various programs will be harder to come by. let's see just what kind of a life we pay our people to have first.

i've found a site outlining all the various offices for indian affairs. i am compiling it and will post a link soon. the complexity of this department is astounding.

I did not write that article, but I'm assuming that if the Toronto Star, a paper with a notably left-wing orientation is referring to "Unseen backroom negotiations at the treaty table and claims discussions to resolve aboriginal disputes" there must be some nonpublic activity that some would find alarming.in that lies the trap. we can't substantiate, no matter our political afflilations, just how valid their suppositions are unless they show their sources. as i ask everyone here, the best i could do would be to write them and ask for theirs. without concrete examples of real world situations we're just feeding the rumour mill. i can't say one way or the other whether is is true. if i did, without proof by example, there's always a counter argument based on nothing to discount it. hence, the need for knowledge, accurate, reliable sources. good, not saying you did. have a look see in the other native threads and you'll come away as shocked as i have. not here, if i can help it.

i am trying to narrowly focus the discussion to emphasise factually based information. i've seen other threads where the personalities launch into diatribes of vitriole if it has anything to do with natives. it is my interest to curtail that form of conversation. points brought up should be validated through sources. suppositions and bias don't help to understand.as for your point. i'm not sure of the process. if you are saying that the claims negotiations are not public knowledge to the stake holders then please provide evidence that that is the case. i am currently looking over the department to find out the various methods land claims come to their offices. it's quite a long process of discovery. i will eventually post my data but in the interim i can't comment on something that has not been shown to me as valid. i don't want to waste my time chasing rainbows and arguing logic. the JOB of land claims is being done. it's easy to criticize. it's doubly hard when you have set yourself the task of constructively working within the system to ensure the process is accomplished to the benefit of everyone concerned. could you give an example of where the "secret" process has taken place?

Maybe you should stop beating around the bush and just come out and tell us what you want said.reread the initial post soliciting your attention. please don't address personalities or surmise counter intentions than to discuss aboriginal land claims. i will not address apparent hostilities, just looking for information we can all share.

while i don't necessarily want to curtail all speculation and opinion i would like posts to have a factual or evidentiary base. i can understand our need to chit chat about the extreme cases confronting the office but it does nothing to further our understanding of the processes. if we're going to fix it we have to know how it works.

this is quickly devolving into a philosophical discussion more appropriate elsewhere. i stated that your reconciliation or reparation plays no part in processing claims. fair or otherwise, the departmental staff shouldn't be hindered by nebulous concepts not written in law. if that's the case, the process will amount to endless committees and social affairs outside of the parameters of official policy. i appreciate and admire the defence of your argument but the thread's focus is to clarify and possibly improve the process we currently have in place for land claim processing. bureaucrats don't set law, they follow it. interpretation is outside the grunt work. oh, and thanks for stopping by my site. i'll certainly participate in that thread should you venture to initiate it. however, i'm hoping that this thread will lead to actual knowledge of the process as it is presently. any thoughts on altering the process from a perspective of real political change, and all that that constitutes must be considered within the framework of the existing setup. we're not going to revolutionize the department are we?(that simplistic platitudes was a great line, i'll have to use it, thanks)

these budgeted governmental programs are not land claims. i want to concentrate strictly on land claims with this thread. as i've indicated previously, i'd like everyone's thoughts on how the department processes the claims not if it's right or wrong to process them at all. as it is, no matter how much other substantial social programs are out there supplying whatever funds our government has established for the native communities, it's not relevant to the focus i'd like to maintain here.

no, that's not relevant in this thread. we are not dealing with reparation, that's a completely different department. this is how to ensure fairness for land claims throughout the department's purvue (coast to coast to coast). i can only speculate on the six nations claim. i haven't seen any documents. i've heard wild assertions, but these are not backed up with official documentation. however, if their claims are based on 300 or 400 year old documents (and their oral history has been established as valid by the supreme court) then we must accept their evidence as supplied. if we have records establishing that previous treaties or agreements have been superceded then that invalidates their claim. case closed. if we have no records that do that, their claim is valid. awarding them compensation is the next step. what are the criteria for awarding compensation? we must honour our agreements no matter how old they are. it's a principle and foundation of our civilization. we can't just throw them out at a whim, there has to be legislation passed in parliament to give us that right. until that happens, until the citizens of canada comprehend the claims (and i'm still not prepared to acknowledge these wild claims are true) we have to continue the process in existing law. if the political will, as the people know and understand it (as put to the electorate through our parliamentary representatives) is to invalidate previous claims with a stroke of a legislative pen without due compensation and acknowledgement that the historical claim carries some weight we'll lose faith with a large segment of the population and ALL of the goodwill built up in the native communities. let's try to limit ourselves to analysis of the issue, not our personal feelings. i want to make this discussion strictly based on reviews of existing law/policies. no matter what any of us feel, we're trying to make the situation understood from a departmental point of view. from the grunts in the department. they have to follow the law. let's see if we can see how easy and/or hard the process is and how to make it fairer and speedier.

okay, we're back on track. no more sooth-sayers working in the department. the present criteria for processing land claims will remain the same but the established compensation would be monetary. i think the claims are a little more complex than that but let's stick with what we know. if we implement your system changes we would have to do an historical analysis of prevailing evaluations at the time set in the application. this seems onerous on the clerical end of things. we'd have to emply historians who would dig into the land values at every time throughout our time here. you have to know how difficult and time consuming that would be. i'm not sure of how the system is constructed presently. perhaps someone more knowledgeable could supply us with relevant links to the department's procedures. my response to this proposal is that it's too difficult to set the value of a land mass back through time. are there even records dating back to when we hit the shores? and, how would these times be established? can we just set an arbitrary date or must we have a significant event determine just when the claim will be; such as a treaty, proclamation, order, or other mechanism of agreement between the Crown and the indigenous people over any particular tract or parcel of land.

this is a well noted position. in that this thread is an attempt to resolve issues besetting our manner of resolving land claims i would surmise that you would not allow for any sort of land claim whatsoever. if we follow your feeling on this would we have a team of sooth-sayers within the department determining from their sense just whose claim is warranted to pursue, or should claims be abolished outright?

i've just recently joined the board and have perused the native issues currently open for discussion but they seem to devolve into racist tit for tat name calling and denigration of the personalities involved. i'm opening this topic in the hope that all the intelligent and thoughtful folk here would enter their valued perspective on the issue of land claims (without the rancour). one must admit, with the media coverage skewing the caledonia situation into a localized dispute, albeit relevant to the nation as a whole, that the current manner our government has for handling claims is due for a review. maybe we could start it in this citizen's forum. the portfolio being handled by minister prentice doesn't seem to be putting out much information as it regards the six nations claim or anything else for that matter. please, if you could provide your opinions as to how this department is doing, good, bad, or indifferent your input would be appreciated to all those interested in this very significant issue.