$127 Million cut from reservation housing

[Michael Hardner]

As well we need only look at the requirement for full and honourable consultation as suppport for the idea that rights may very well be over and above our jurisdiction.

Ok, I understand now. So whether or not that concept is accepted, there still has to be a negotiation ? If the Supreme Court failed to recognize the Royal Proclamation of 1763, I could see it being decried with claims of "no jurisdiction" and if it succeeds, then there has to be a negotiation anyway.

If a decision on that is a precept, then where is that process ?

And, aren't there negotiations going on all the time anyway ? Maybe it's more practical to talk about what is happening at that level ?

[cybercoma]

He's got a right to a life. Didn't you follow the thread? Where have you been, loser?

Since you have nothing to add to the discussion but personal insults, I guess I can assume that Harper's actions are indefensible.

[cybercoma]

Pay him no attention. He knows nothing of what he speaks.

Are you for real? All laws created are subject to the Constitution and the Charter of Rights. It's the same in the United States. He knows exactly what he's talking about.

[cybercoma]

I don't get it. The rights of citizens of Canada come out of the law and the constitution.

The rights of Canadian Citizens come out of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution. All laws, which are created through legislation by Parliament, are only valid if they adhere to the Charter. Treaty Rights are within the "law" in the sense that they're part of jurisprudence, but they are the primary rules that guide the making of any laws and legislation as it pertains to the First Nations. In this sense, they're above the law in the sense that they are beyond legislation.

[g_bambino]

All laws created are subject to the Constitution and the Charter of Rights. It's the same in the United States. He knows exactly what he's talking about.

The constitution - of which the Charter is a part, not a separate and higher or parallel document - is law; the supreme law of the country. The rights of Aboriginals in Canada thus can't supercede the constitution of Canada. Of course, the position held by CR for some time is that First Nations are entirely sovereign entities, like South Africa, Brazil, the United States, and all the other independent states of the world, and, ergo, Aboriginals and their rights aren't subject to the Canadian constitution; the constitution only binds Canada and Canadians to regarding the rights of Aboriginals - people of a state foreign to Canada - as sacrosanct and unchangable (which, if it were true, would be rather redundant, since its taken for granted that the people and the government of one country can't legislate in any way, rights-related or not, for another sovereign country). It's therefore clear that he does indeed have no idea what he's talking about.

[charter.rights]

Ok, I understand now. So whether or not that concept is accepted, there still has to be a negotiation ? If the Supreme Court failed to recognize the Royal Proclamation of 1763, I could see it being decried with claims of "no jurisdiction" and if it succeeds, then there has to be a negotiation anyway.

If a decision on that is a precept, then where is that process ?

And, aren't there negotiations going on all the time anyway ? Maybe it's more practical to talk about what is happening at that level ?

The Supreme Court has upheld the Royal Proclamation 1763 - that is a given. However, the government still doesn't accept it as the beginning of any negotiation and at the end of the day is where most negotiations stall. The Crown (is Courts) has repeatedly informed the federal and provincial governments that is must consult with First Nations BEFORE any act or development is undertaken that may affect their rights, or title to the land regardless if there has been a land claim or notice of an issue. What that is saying, is that by law the government must approach First Nations on every development, approval, change or investment to see if they have an issue, and if so enter into negotiations, make accommodation - including compensation - and making sure that final decisions are reconciled with First Nations interest. Yet they routinely ignore this legal responsibility and only after occupation and protest interferes with the development do they then want to negotiate. Then if the natives issues are difficult to accommodate their tactic is to first paper them to death and then failing that, stall, obfuscate and walk away from negotiations as if they hold the upper hand.

Those rights exist without interference from the law or from our colonial interpretations. The Supreme Court has said that we must negotiate with First Nations on an equal footing, and the basis of that negotiation if we want some resolution is for them (and us) to recognize that the Royal Proclamation is the starting point. Once we understand that aboriginal title and rights exist we can then set out to prove that land was either surrendered...or not...and accept that if it is the latter we must find a way to reconcile our common settlement and interests in the lands. The provisions of a number of treaties set out to insure that native people, being displace from their land would have perpetual care - health, education and often annual allotments of flour and blankets. In a modern sense this has translated into free primary and secondary education (a right we all pretty much have) and free health care (which we also pretty much are guaranteed). So things like reserves - which are not Crown lands and which are free-hold First Nations lands)and health and education are off the table. All we are left with is trying to find out how to return tracts of lands that were reserved for them exclusively, or providing enough compensation for their loss of use and sale of those lands which cannot be returned.

Again, the legal history provided that the government inherited a First Nations Trust account of what is now worth over $2 trillion. The compounded interest alone had the government been honest enough to pay directly to each First Nation, would be around $35 billion a year - nearly 3 times the annual INAC budget (60% of which never sees reserves). Could you imagine that if that we paid them what we owe them, the benefit it would have not only on them, but on our own economic development as natives purchased goods and services to elevate them to the same status we enjoy?

We need reconciliation as much as they do, since the tax burden might be more difficult to bear in the future as land claim after land claim, and the exercise of their rights is extended and further protected by the courts. It is time that WE entered the 21st century and realized that the "Indian problem" is really rooted in our collective ignorance in law and history.

[charter.rights]

The rights of Canadian Citizens come out of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution. All laws, which are created through legislation by Parliament, are only valid if they adhere to the Charter. Treaty Rights are within the "law" in the sense that they're part of jurisprudence, but they are the primary rules that guide the making of any laws and legislation as it pertains to the First Nations. In this sense, they're above the law in the sense that they are beyond legislation.

The rights of Aboriginal people come from before the Charter, before the British North American Act and before the Royal Proclamation 1763. The inclusion of the recognition of these rights was to suggest that Canada rights and Canadian laws cannot abrogate or derogate from any of those aboriginal rights. And while the Indian Act has provided that the laws of general application are applicable on reserve, neither the Charter or the Supreme Court seem to support it. In Derrickson v. Derrickson the Supreme Court struck down family law on reserve. A recent letter from Indian Affairs legal department provided an opinion that Ontario Court orders are not applicable on reserve. And under the Royal Proclamation the Supreme Court has established that First Nations have an inherent and inalienable right to self-government. That suggests as well that First Nation people are outside the jurisdiction of of laws...a fact that is supported by the The Campbell Treaty 1736 which provided under the Silver Covenant Chain that Six Nations citizens would be extradited by the British to Six Nations Territory for any crime committed and British subjects would be extradited to British territories for any crimes committed by British subjects in either territory.

[cybercoma]

Thanks for that. Interesting stuff indeed.

[ironstone]

It looks like the Conservatives are shirking their responsibility to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada by cutting $127 million from housing on reserves. Conditions there are already abysmal, so what is more important than housing that they've decided to spend this money on?

http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/06/07/conservatives-cut-127-million-from-on-reserve-housing-liberals/

What percentage of the total overall budget for Aboriginals does 127 million represent?

[charter.rights]

What percentage of the total overall budget for Aboriginals does 127 million represent?

That is irrelevent. Housing is underfunded by more than 50% of the mainstream funding according to the Auditor General.

What also is important is that $127 million could build almost 1000 housing units for First Nations. With overcrowding and failing water and sanitary systems, that would put quite a dent into the native housing problem.

[ironstone]

That is irrelevent. Housing is underfunded by more than 50% of the mainstream funding according to the Auditor General.

What also is important is that $127 million could build almost 1000 housing units for First Nations. With overcrowding and failing water and sanitary systems, that would put quite a dent into the native housing problem.

MORE MONEY!THAT WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING WON'T IT?ENTITLED TO THEIR ENTITLEMENTS.

Not good for them,not good for us.

[cybercoma]

MORE MONEY!THAT WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING WON'T IT?ENTITLED TO THEIR ENTITLEMENTS.

Not good for them,not good for us.

Entitlements? Natives that live on Reserves are entirely the responsibility of the federal government. As such other Canadians receive more money per person from the three levels of government than someone on a reserve receives. It's hardly an entitlement. It's called equality.

[g_bambino]

Natives that live on Reserves are entirely the responsibility of the federal government.

And, yet, there we have charter.rights going on about how they're entirely sovereign of the federal government. Quite a conundrum.

[Sandy MacNab]

Entitlements? Natives that live on Reserves are entirely the responsibility of the federal government. As such other Canadians receive more money per person from the three levels of government than someone on a reserve receives. It's hardly an entitlement. It's called equality.

From the very beginning the treatment of natives has been racist and the reservations a form of apartheid. All this may have solved many problems in the 19th century, but it's now the 21st. The natives should be weaned off this paternalist and humiliating system. They are quite capable of managing their own affairs and fending for themselves. Then they'd be truly equal.

[RNG]

From the very beginning the treatment of natives has been racist and the reservations a form of apartheid. All this may have solved many problems in the 19th century, but it's now the 21st. The natives should be weaned off this paternalist and humiliating system. They are quite capable of managing their own affairs and fending for themselves. Then they'd be truly equal.

I think there is a lot of recent history to make me question that statement.

[charter.rights]

From the very beginning the treatment of natives has been racist and the reservations a form of apartheid. All this may have solved many problems in the 19th century, but it's now the 21st. The natives should be weaned off this paternalist and humiliating system. They are quite capable of managing their own affairs and fending for themselves. Then they'd be truly equal.

Wrong.

Reserves are not apartheid constructs. They are sovereign territories held back in deals made with the Crown. They belong to the First Nations and are entirely out of Canada.

[charter.rights]

I think there is a lot of recent history to make me question that statement.

Do you mean proroguing Band Council meetings? Or being found in contempt. Or Spending $1 billion on parties for themselves.

Ah yes corruption at the highest level.

[Smallc]

From the very beginning the treatment of natives has been racist and the reservations a form of apartheid.

I agree with that. It would do aboriginal people good if the reserve system went the way of the dinosaur.

[charter.rights]

I agree with that. It would do aboriginal people good if the reserve system went the way of the dinosaur.

It can't unless they willingly surrender it to the Crown...and they are unlikely to surrender since it is the last sovereign territory they hold.

And by the way, we don't have a reservation system in Canada. Their territories are "reserves".

"And We do further declare it to be Our Royal Will and Pleasure, for the present as aforesaid, to reserve under our Sovereignty, Protection, and Dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all the Lands and Territories not included within the Limits of Our said Three new Governments, or within the Limits of the Territory granted to the Hudson's Bay Company, as also all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West as aforesaid. " Royal Proclamation 1763

Edited June 12, 2011 by charter.rights

[lukin]

We won, they lost. Deal with it.

I'm of Ukrainian heritage. Can I sue all the invaders that trashed my forefather's lands?

Isn't it true that many Ukrainian Canadians were badly mistreated by the Canadian government during WWI?

[RNG]

ame='RNG' date='08 June 2011 - 12:03 AM' timestamp='1307513028' post='679243']

Isn't it true that many Ukrainian Canadians were badly mistreated by the Canadian government during WWI?

For all the bitching my relatives did, that wasn't a subject brought up. Never heard that one. The Russians and the Mongolians and the Polish and just about everyone else, but I'm not aware of any Canadian abuse.

[charter.rights]

ame='RNG' date='08 June 2011 - 12:03 AM' timestamp='1307513028' post='679243']

Isn't it true that many Ukrainian Canadians were badly mistreated by the Canadian government during WWI?

It has nothing to do with the subject matter.

[Shwa]

The constitution - of which the Charter is a part, not a separate and higher or parallel document - is law; the supreme law of the country. The rights of Aboriginals in Canada thus can't supercede the constitution of Canada.

You have it backwards:

25. The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any aboriginal, treaty or other rights or freedoms that pertain to the aboriginal peoples of Canada including

A. any rights or freedoms that have been recognized by the Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763; and

B. any rights or freedoms that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired.(94

35. (1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.

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.

Of course, the position held by CR for some time is that First Nations are entirely sovereign entities, like South Africa, Brazil, the United States, and all the other independent states of the world, and, ergo, Aboriginals and their rights aren't subject to the Canadian constitution;

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....

the constitution only binds Canada and Canadians to regarding the rights of Aboriginals - people of a state foreign to Canada - as sacrosanct and unchangable (which, if it were true, would be rather redundant, since its taken for granted that the people and the government of one country can't legislate in any way, rights-related or not, for another sovereign country).

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.

It's therefore clear that he does indeed have no idea what he's talking about.

Not based upon what you have presented above it isn't.

Edited June 12, 2011 by Shwa

[Tilter]

The Liberlas, progressive conservatives, conservatives and the First Nation are at fault. They made promises but never kept them. Have any of you ever watch the senate committee meeetings when the First Nation are there to speak their views? I did watch back early this early and they told the senate the promise of good drinking water never came.The conservatives promise a school in one area and they didn't deliver. If non-natives don't want the First Nations living and working among them, then at least Canada gave make sure they get the basics in life.

The way the Natives want it is that the government give them huge amounts of money & to let them spend it as they wish.

The way the system works now is that the government give them huge amounts of money & to let them spend it as they wish.

If anyone is to blame for the lack of anything on the reserves the natives should be looking at their leaders who waste the money not for the government to giver them more to waste.

[charter.rights]

The way the Natives want it is that the government give them huge amounts of money & to let them spend it as they wish.

The way the system works now is that the government give them huge amounts of money & to let them spend it as they wish.

If anyone is to blame for the lack of anything on the reserves the natives should be looking at their leaders who waste the money not for the government to giver them more to waste.

Not true.