Shwa

Sounds like your typical Canadian.

Each.

No, he just eye-balled your post. LOFL! It's disgusting!

So, assuming you have read, or are reading this book, how did Simson determine that "her constituents wanted her to vote opposite?" Did she do some sort of constituency referendum or some sort of on-line poll? Did she canvass the neighbourhood, talk with community groups? Or did she do nothing?

Ah, anecdotal information about one of your "many times." Surely the same sort of reasoning used in the now infamous Shady's Law. Do you have any land-use statistics for the Oneida Settlement Shady? Or are you going to just eyeball this one too?

Just for fun CPCFTW, just for fun... Poverty Facts and Stats So what is "abject" poverty? $1.99? But I suppose those 100 million or so in the Orient need not worry about the other few billions. After all, they are making their bread. Except in Hong Kong the poverty rate is rising; South Korea too; Taiwan is doing OK. Poverty in Signapore is harder to source out. Probably considered rude to talk about such things. However, this little report seems to indicate that the Singaporians themselves are the reason for their success, not any massively benevolent multi-national spreading their altruistic joy around. Back to the facts and stats for this one: No, the multinationals don't discriminate at all.

No, no, no, no Shady. You are now backtracking, shirking away from your own assertion codified as 'Shady's Law' remember? You said that no one is stopping the natives from living like they did 300 years ago, where they practically farmed at will over vast tracts or arable land, hunted at will in vast forests, etc. Now, I introduce that notion into modern terms and all of a sudden there are modern conditions? WTF? Seems to me that Shady's Law is actually bunk.

Have we no Walmarts? Have we no Targets?

Well hell yes since, according to Shady's Law, no one is stopping them from doing what they were doing 300 years ago and that means trading their surplus goods with other people. So 10000 acres per person -naturally some would be left fallow for a few years, the rest could fetch a tidy sum in trading with the Americans.

And prisons! Don't forget more prisons!

Wow, this is so easy! I wonder why the government hasn't thought of this already! I mean, if the Mohawks see arrable land, you know - because it is already being farmed - they can simply go in there, take it over and start to farm it themselves. We'll call this 'Shady's Law.' And, according to Shady's Law, what was all that kerfuffle over the Douglas Estates in Caledonia, ON for? It was merely the Mohawks doing what they did 300 years ago. But someone tried to stop them. Good thing the government stepped in to assert Shady's Law!

300 years ago? In 1711? So you are saying that if the Mohawks wanted to plant hundreds of acres of corn, they could simply walk onto any farmland in the area and start planting?

see Guyser's response.

I don't doubt that the top of the food chain gets the most benefit, but surely you are not saying that incorporation has not benefitted society or civilization overall. One could argue - quite successfully - that the incorporation of specialization is one of the main drivers of Western civilzation and that any notion of an incorporate individual - those without any corporate ties - is a mere romanticism. But the natural citizen can only - in our present conception of it, at least - have rights and laws applied as a group and, in the eyes of the law, it is only by this association with others, as a 'body' of citizenry itself, that the natural citizen can derive their rights and laws. In other words, the natural citizen is only as powerful as the body to which it belongs. This might not be incorporation in our modern legal sense, but it is an embodiment of the concept nonetheless.

In Shady's world this appears to be true, yes.

Why should the Assembly of First Nations establish "some form of native government?" Should the United Nations establish some form of world government to make you happy? How about government by NATO? Methinks you sacrificed a little too much real complexity to try and render your hypothetical response as a self-evident truth.

Kind of like Canada and US eh?

Of course the "individual" you are referring to is an "individual" as incorporated by the state, yes? Which would include any "collective" that has been incorporated like General Motors, any City or even unions? Or, as you hand over private property to "the indivdual" are you advocating for a disembodiment of all corporations at the same time? The problem with your view is that any laws deemed to protect "the individual" - even as an unicorporate single citizen - would still be for the "collective good" since that protection would be extended to all individuals at once, as a group.

All true. However, even though the there are outstanding material breaches of treaties that originated in the past, those illegalities do not give the governments or First Nations the right to make new breaches. The point of the references to Aboriginal rights in the Constitution are a recognition of those problems and an attempt to correct them. I believe the "Crown" is on board with this perspective as evidenced by many rulings over these issues over the past few decades. Again, true. Which is one of the instruments used when the James Bay Cree used to squeeze the QC government over the James Bay hydro-electric projects.

"Until 1951" I think things have changed a little bit since then. That is the interesting point and is one of the dream crushing points that is always laid out before the starry eyed separatistes. IF the First Nations COULD withdraw from a long standing treaty with the Federal Government, then one would gather than the entire treaty area from which is at contention would revert to the First Nations until another treaty can be drawn up. That would leave "Quebec" as a thin slice of land along the St. Lawrence from which they could resurrect their seigneuries and vegetable gardens.

And you know, I purposely did not post this sentiment previously believing that you would and I would get to enjoy it. And I did. LOFL!

I heard an interesting explanation about this, at least from the British perspective: they don't have all kinds of nationally oriented holidays like the 4th of July, Canada Day, Bastille Day, etc. So Royal events - when they come along - are their expression of this national pride. I think our association with this type of British pride resonates along those old ties to the Empire and are a fascinating insight into who we are still, in a general way.

If they are a citizen with a SIN, it can be attempted and enforced when they touch down on Canadian soil. "Welcome back to Canada sir, now can you pay us the $25,000 in back taxes please."

You have it backwards: What this is saying is that the Constitution can't superceded Aboriginal rights. Many people make this mistake believing the Aboriginal rights are a posteriori, that come from the Constitution, whereas the Constitution says they are a priori and recognize that those rights have existed before the Consitution of Canada. This attitude is consistently applied in Courts now. One of the best examples of this is Delgamuukw v. British Columbia in which oral "text" was presented as evidence. As was their custom - and thus their right - the Gitxsan Nation and the Wetsuweten First Nations presented their case in a form of legally binding "text" that preceeded the definitions required by law up until that time. But the definitions of what was legal evidence in a court case up until that time could not "abrogate or derogate" from what the First Nations themselves considered legally binding textual evidence. That this form of evidence was accepted proves that the Canadian government - and all its subsidiaries -must alter their definitions of acceptable legal evidence. The First Nations did not since it was their custom already - and therefore their right - to present evidence in this way. You are being incomplete and misreading the Constitution here. What the Constitution does is bind Canada to the rights that existed a priori to the Constition, not any that have come into being as a result of the Constitution. One contentious "right" is mineral rights. Some claim that these rights did not exist in the Aboriginal world whereas fishing rights did. However, what is often overlooked is that Aboriginals were using copper fish hooks over 5,000 years ago. So now the contention is that those ancient Aboriginals didn't mine for the copper, merely surface collected. So Mineral rights devolves into "mining" rights. And so on.... Again a misreading and an injection of your own concept (i.e. using the word "foreign") into what the Constitution already says and that is pre-existing rights, not anything gained since. That Indian self-government has been a consideration of the Government of Canada for decades now should give an clear indication of how the Government of Canada views the concept of "soveriegnty" for First Nations. Not based upon what you have presented above it isn't.

I'd write them a letter and let them know. Of course "protecting the interests of their members" never includes "political activism" for anyone else. Right?