Posit

The BNA was intended as a sort of Atlantic Union. Preamble: "WHEREAS the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom: And whereas such a Union would conduce to the Welfare of the Provinces and promote the Interests of the British Empire: And whereas on the Establishment of the Union by the Authority of Parliament it is expedient, not only that the Constitution of the Legislative Authority in the Dominion be provided for, but also that the Nature of the Executive Government therein be declared: And whereas it is expedient that Provision be made for the eventual Admission into the Union of other Parts of British North America: (1) " The best bet of obtaining a union of Atlantic Provinces would be to renegotiate confederation. Things have changed from that first idea. However, you will need a consensus of all the provinces first t open it up....and then watch out!

I just love it when the Harper apologists come out of the woodwork after the CPC does "another" illegal thing. It is so entertaining to watch how some of them try to close their sphincters tight to protect their poster boy.

Aboriginal people are not "given" any rights over and above Canadians. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms "recognize" the pre-existing rights of aboriginal peoples. That means they cannot restrict native people by law or otherwise where a practice or treaty right existed before Canada became a crown corporation. There is a huge difference.

"When you have leaders who are basically running a mafia as band leadership you have problems. " I agree. When are you going to focus on the corruption of our institutions in Ottawa who siphon money and offer privilege appointments to their mafia friends? Harper joined the club last year an all ready is shooting for God Father. Natives respected people who were good liars. Wrong again. Making such generalizations makes you appear below 72 on the intelligence scale. In fact if you HAD studied and researched you would have found that the to the Iroquois lying was once of the greatest crimes. In a system with a participatory democracy, trust and honour are important traits and when they are violated, you discredit not only yourself but you harm the entire community. The monies received from the Casino pact can only go to projects that benefit the community as a whole. Go to any of the bands that are partners in the Ontario pact and you will find new health centres,, community and recreation complexes and sports fields all built partially from the Casino money. However the operations of these centres must come from general revenues and so many of these impressive buildings remain under utilized. Still the Ontario government receives over 50% of the revenues from casinos, that they do not opening account for. Sure the Trillion Foundation doles out small amounts here and there for community capital projects but our politicians also take the liberty of granting themselves a 30% increase in salaries. On the other hand the big black trucks you see on the occasional reserve are bought and paid for by the Chiefs and Councilors who are earning a steady wage as band politicians. And while many on the reserves are impoverished, it is the result of underfunding, poor education and crappy health services because the federal government keeps their community begging for simple basic necessities like clean water and effective waste treatment. Wealthy Canadians pay proportionally less taxes then the rest of us middle income Canadians. We carry the bulk of the tax load, while the rich control the loop holes and tax rebate schemes to their own benefit. As well in many instances where there has been a political choice between say setting minimum wages and providing funding for a new art gallery that only the rich will enjoy, we all know where the politicians have turned in the past. What you don't seem to realize that the taxes aren't yours. They belong to the government long before you ever earned the income your employer donates on your behalf. That you can use some magic math to snivel back a few bucks is admirable, but you never really earned the money in the first place. It is just a trick of corporate wizardry that by taxing you the companies you work for get to write off all sorts of employment expenses and save their tax cream from floating into the toilet with yours and landing in their pockets instead.

However, in Canada squatters rights do not exist. The "owner" of the land can have them evicted. Very rarely in any assertion of land claims rights have First Nations targeted regular Joe homeowner and told him to vacate. Instead, First Nations have strategically targeted vacant or semi-vacant lands to halt development, tree cutting or resource extraction as a means to exercise those claims. Sure Canadians have been inconvenienced, but that does not compare (nor can compare) to the injustice of having the lands stolen, squatted upon, abused and polluted and having complaints fall on deaf ears. I hear lots of people complain "why now?" Up until about 1956 Indians were not considered human beings. They were prohibited from voting, from obtaining lawyers to fight land expropriations and could not even walk into a bar for a social evening. It has taken them about 5 decades to recover from the mal treatment, educate themselves and become knowledgeable about the same Canadian law they were told was preventing them from participating in society. Certainly a rational person could agree that 5 decades is a remarkable time for aboriginal people to advance themselves despite being held back by archaic laws, institutionalized racism and bigoted bureaucrats. In the last 20 years or so First Nations have researched the thousands of lands claims and found many of the dealings with the government less than honourable. I acknowledge your point about inaccessible and remote communities suffering from the same ills. However, First Nations living adjacent to large centres still suffer from the same inequities, while the larger centres prosper. That is racial disparity. There should not be a water quality issue with a First Nation living close to our mainstream technological centres except the large towns and cities usually find a way to dump their sewage and garbage away for their own homes and upstream of a First Nation community. Until 20 years ago no one listened to their complaints, or recognized the diseases and early cancer deaths could be attributed to pollution that was outside of their control. Something did change 20 years ago. Along with finding culturally sympathetic lawyers and university schooled natives, the aboriginals started to complain by blocking roads, posting information pickets on vital bridges and holding bulldozers and backhoes from destroying woodlands. The fact that we notice their plight (at least some of us who are willing to see what our history has done to aboriginal people) is directly related to the active protests and stand-offs First Nations people have had to take. I once heard this one native guy say "that they didn't like to use civil disobedience, but it was a necessary and effective way to bring the government to the table and that was where these issue would be solved" to paraphrase. We know the government doesn't listen to us and are only our friends when the election rolls around. How do you think they would treat as insignificant, sub-human, lazy bums living at their teet? And yet these myths prevail and are perpetuated ignorant xenophobic and entrenched in laws and attitudes in government that make it impossible to get their attention about misappropriated lands and money. The Senate Sub Committee on Aboriginal Affairs warns us that native people are becoming increasingly frustrated with the pace at which their grievances are heard and ignored. They warn that violence could erupt as generations of aboriginals lose patience with decade of incompetent and expensive challenges to their claims. So far we have survive the relatively peaceful protests but I am concerned that we could be heading towards a civil uprising by native people. As citizens we have managed to stay out of the ruckus for the most part but should their concerns not be addressed we could very well become the reluctant targets of a bomb, drive by shooting or gang assault by youth that neither have the patience or the understanding of the complexity of the issue that our government refuses to acknowledge and correct.

"There is a history of corruption and mismanagement as well as plain old lack of skill." That describes our government and the British government before them to a "t". The fact is the Band government system is modeled after our federal system (they are actually an arm of our government) and it stands to reason that if the parent is corrupt and has gotten away with it, then the children will turn out corrupt also. Band governments are the children of our federal government. "But the bottom line is before "whitey" came there was no concept of poverty." There was no concept of corruption either. That came with our colonial ancestors, as well. Your research no doubt involves reading few tidbits on the internet - hardly valid research - more just propaganda than anything else. However, the Senate Committee, the UN and the numerous studies continue to deploy Canada's treatment of aboriginal people. I am more apt to rely upon their research than to take your feeble opinion as anything near accurate. The remote communities receive their divide of that casino money just the same. You must be afraid to take on a real challenge. I do suppose that it is better to pretend and blame someone else than to take responsibility to learn from first hand experience. Why are some greedy wealthy Canadians not helping Canada's poor people? When you find the answer to that you can then sit in judgment. I once visited a family of 8 native people and with very little to eat they still have the graciousness to ask me for dinner. From what I have experienced on visits to a number of reserves, most native people are more generous than Canadians, generally speaking.

Maybe you need to do some research. Even the Senate recognizes the underfunding of aboriginal services. As to the billions going to Indian Affairs that often gets cited here, more than 80% of INAC budgets get consumed by public employees, administration, and programs that have absolutely no benefit to First Nation communities. Many First Nation communities receive less than 50% of the transfers that equal size communities receive for administration and services and that does not include the aboriginal people caught in the vacuum in cities and towns remotely located from their home reserves. While casino money has helped some communities build infrastructure, there is a limitation to what those funds can be used for. They cannot be used for the daily operations of the native community - which is at the heart of the underfunding. On some more remote reserves where outside employment is not always available, there is a higher per capita rate of social assistance, but as a whole it is not more than similar places in Newfoundland. Welfare barely covers the food and housing and tax-free status to an over population of people living under the poverty level means squat. If you think that First Nations people have it better, I think I could arrange a one year exchange for you to a remote reserve, give you the same opportunities and services and see if after a year you have the same opinion. My bet is that you wouldn't leave your privileged life to face that reality, nor would you survive given the same discrimination.

Actually native people are institutionally discriminated against by the very government we depend upon to look after our interests. Statistically aboriginal people have less access to health care, education and are more often sent to jail over issue that mainstream people would get off with a fine. Social programs, health and education are underfunded in comparison to the mainstream in some cases nearly 50% below the average mainstream community. That is what I meant by equity. As long as there is such a huge gap in providing equitable services to First Nations people there will be no equality. And don't believe that this is isolated to reserves either. The same inequity occurs as aboriginal people seek service sin the big cities and they are still discriminated against. As far as hand-outs I would bet that you had access to student grants, bursaries or loans that are not available to aboriginal students, had a family doctor, had free books, pencils and erasers in some of your educational upbringing, or had access to clean water and communal sanitation. All of these privileges advantaged you compared to native people. While we are all to be commended for making good livelihood from our frail beginnings it is arrogant to suggest that you did not take advantage of the opportunities that were offered, including those that come with location. The difference is that many aboriginal people are not offered the same opportunities, having been oppressed, legally castrated by the ineptitude of government and blamed for not making better for themselves. Equity must be offered before we can demand equality.

BTW did we tell you that we are going to locate a mega-farm in your neighbourhood? Yep. Its on the smaller side with only 50,000 hogs.

Huh? I doubt it is generosity since 3000 acres doesn't compare to 50 very well in any reasonable way. I would suggest that maybe our government sees the 50 acres it as valuable development land and can easily give away Dunville where everything is dead. Either that or it is "hush money" being paid to the natives to see if they will keep quiet about our government's culpability.

No. It is more like Canada and the Israelis are occupying the lands of others. Palestinians have offered their political support for Six Nation's reclamation. Six Nations however, is in a better legal position since the British kept meticulous records of their transactions. Six Nations has proven with not only the oral history but with the British records that the Plank Road was never sold, ceded or leased. The feds simply say "we think it was" but have not offered any proof so far. There are about 3000 acres on the table that the government has offered in exchange for the turn-over of the Plank Road lands. Doesn't make sense to me that a government would make that much of an offer in negotiations if they really believed the lands were sold in 1840. As well they have admitted at the table that they realize that much of the Haldimand tract was never properly deeded and are now thinking up ways to address that problem with Six Nations. It might be a warning to anyone thinking of moving in the area to check their deeds back to the Haldimand proclamation. If they can't trace it back, it is likely not really theirs. On the last note, a lot of development has been halted in the Haldimand tract, since they must now seek Six Nations approval, and they must be able to prove it is not under land claim. The speed of which development resumes is directly related to the speed at which our government make reasonable and acceptable offers. At the rate we are going it may not be settled for 20 years and I'm not sure the economy of the region can survive either the loss of development or the uncertainty of ownership.

If we just reverted to two governments it wouldn't be much different. Very likely government would be bloated even more than it is now. As one federal government there would be a need to divide the administration and government down into territories, districts, regions, and finally municipalities with over lapping jurisdictions. With less government comes less opportunity for the electorate to participate in the government, to scrutinize politics in general, or to understand how the system works, since it would be buried in layers of administrative bureaucracy. At least with the fed-prov-reg-munic. systems voters get a chance to questions some of the politicians about local issues. With a strong federal system the politicians become centralized and untouchable, which opens the door for more corruption and incompetent decisions.

Of course they wouldn't! They would have to give up their "white" privilege. We all know that this is the real argument against First Nations claims to rights and lands. It is also the same argument when it comes to immigrants and brown people, whom the "white" majority feel peck away at their higher status in the "system". Those who claim to want "equality" never agree with "equity" which are intrinsically linked. So the point of the equality movement is to ignore all basic human rights and give control back to the Anglo-European western Christian white male majority. Very rarely do we ever hear of the Anglo-European western Christian white female ever make the same "equality" argument since they are one the other targets of the former even though they carry their status just below the men.

Ya? Well before the last election didn't you think Harper was your Savior?

In my view they aren't "our" representatives. They are "party' representatives for the constituency. This is not a participatory democracy. It is a simple aristocracy.

Of course the announcement is an election ploy. The timing of the announcement is not unlike Martin's. Harper knows an election is inevitable - if not in early summer then the fall. He is simply positioning himself in case his government falls, or he strategically calls the fall election in an attempt to get a majority. In the end he'll never have to pay out the $1 billion since some crisis will be invented if his government gets re-elected, or he can blame the opposition for the death of the program if he doesn't. As to farmer's poor economy, maybe they should privatize all their lands, divide them up into little plots and sell them off for subdivisions, garbage dumps or open pit mines. Seems to have worked well for Ontario Farmers....

Correction 9 billion dollars to Indian Affairs. less than 1% of that ever makes it to the Indians. Band governments receive less that $5000 per person to handle administrative, community, social, education and health services. In comparison, the average city receives $12,000 per year per person which doesn't include health services. Factor in city health services and it is more like $25,000. No it isn't native welfare. It is deliberately keeping First Nations as a ghetto state. Apartheid. Institutionalized racism. Genocide.

Way to go..More farmer welfare...Just what we need...

Ah Canaduh is a racist state. Where else in the world do they centre a race of people out assign them a number and place them on apartheid reserves? Yep Nazi Germany did that just before they exterminated 60 million Jews and same with South Africa to displace the natives from their land. It is about time that the UN started to crack down on Canada.

"I also pointed that anyone other than aboriginals would have ZERO rights in a situation like this because too much time has passed. If this were true then Canada could not exist since the British North America Act was way past its time.

This is a LEGAL issue not a race issue. You have certainly tried to make it a race issue and that puts you clearly in the camps with the White Supremacists that do the same thing, Mark.

Another let's not comply with the law series. So it is really Anglo-Canadians that are exempt from their own laws? Or can we narrow this down a bit to maybe "Western Anglo-Canadians" or "Right-Wing Anglo Canadians". Seems you guys are pretty tough on "make-them-comply-with-the-law" issues but shirk away from complying with it yourself.

The LAW ISN'T changed. So are you going to comply with it or are you going to claim an exemption? That is the issue. Who cares if the law can be changed? The point is, it IS the law today and tomorrow. There can never be equality when inequity is present nor can justice prevail where there is an injustice present. These are the tenets of law and our system. Now what we do have is negotiation - honest and honourable negotiation. If we fail that then we fail equity and justice. As to you assertion that the government holds documents concerning the sale of the lands you are wrong. All our government has said is that they think it was contained in the documents but have so far failed to meet that burden of proof. Six Nations just introduced a copy of sales that prove that the British were selling land (not by the authority of the Crown mind you) to the Plank Road at least six months before they said they had Six nations sign away the land. How can you sell something that doesn't belong to you? Ah yes ignore the law and then cover your tracks - just as you have suggested. Ignore the law and then change the evidence to say your theft was legal. I can see where that mentality comes from. What shocks me is that people like you still think the same way.

Keep telling yourself that. I'm sure you'll eventually convince yourself that Harris had nothing to do with it. And while your head is stuck in the sand could you see if my diamond ring is there? I dropped when I fell down laughing the last time you had your head there.

So...what you now are saying is that it is ok to ignore the law until you get a chance to change it to justify your breaking of it? Ya right! That's exactly what fascists do. The law is the law. It is not special, nor in a civilized society does the government or its citizens have the luxury of picking and choosing when it is applicable. Otherwise citizens could easily just redefine and change laws they do not agree with - just like you are advocating now. How about I steal your car, change the ownership on it and call it mine? Do you think you would have a right to claim it back? The land title is Six Nations. That has been recognized by the Crown and the British Government before that. How we come to a redress of the thefts is a matter of negotiation - the same negotiations that are taking place in Caledonia today. It may end up in money or land or both. We cannot magically produce forged documents and claim they are real, anymore than we can justify breaking the law of the land when it suits us. But I see you are not an honourable citizen, so it doesn't surprise me you endorse a two tier system - one for Canadians and a separate more strict one for Indians. If I'm not mistaken that you fit you into the "racist" category.