Manitoba chief wants cell phone revenue

[noahbody]

Have a read:

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/05/3...-cellphone.html

[M.Dancer]

Good luck.

They should barricade the signals till they get their money...if they can do that.......

[guyser]

Get off the pipe Ovide !

That is hilarious and good for him. Great service to all the FN's , make them a laughing stock .

Dont worry, Posit will be along anytime now to tell us all about how this is written and agreed on centuries ago...before cells were invented.

[guyser]

Good luck.

They should barricade the signals till they get their money...if they can do that.......

Think they can get a bus up that high? And what would they burn?

[Canuck E Stan]

Good luck.

They should barricade the signals till they get their money...if they can do that.......

Maybe Tinfoil Hats could scamble the signals.

[Keepitsimple]

Not a bad idea. I'm sure I can snag some calls that cross my property. I guess I can just deduct it from my phone bill.

[geoffrey]

You give an inch, they'll take a mile. Wait until an activist judge upholds this.

[Michael Bluth]

You give an inch, they'll take a mile. Wait until an activist judge upholds this.

Wouldn't the next step be to charge airlines for flying over head?

[Remiel]

Why is it some natives feel that it is absolutely necessary to make it as hard as humanly possible to sympathize with them at all?

[Michael Bluth]

Why is it some natives feel that it is absolutely necessary to make it as hard as humanly possible to sympathize with them at all?

Brilliant!

[Catchme]

This is Bush's and the USA's fault, they insisted that the air space over their country was theirs all the way up. Just so they could accesss names and flight records of everyone flying over.

FN reserves are nations within this nation, if our air space is our air space, so is their airspace their airspace.

[geoffrey]

A nation isn't a state and Indians don't have sovereignty over their land until they learn to pay their own bills. As long as the majority of Canadians fund the government that hands them billions annually, they have no right to even think about such a proposal.

[Riverwind]

FN reserves are nations within this nation, if our air space is our air space, so is their airspace their airspace.

I kind of hope a judge is dumb enough to rule in a FN group's side on this. It would go a long way towards building public support for the complete termination of all FN special status. I wonder what people would think if they got a cell phone bill with an 'Indian Tax' as a line item.

[geoffrey]

I kind of hope a judge is dumb enough to rule in a FN group's side on this. It would go a long way towards building public support for the complete termination of all FN special status. I wonder what people would think if they got a cell phone bill with an 'Indian Tax' as a line item.

I'd send an invoice to the nearest reserve office with a 'living in my social security system for free' tax.

[stignasty]

I'd send an invoice to the nearest reserve office with a 'living in my social security system for free' tax.

Do you believe that every person living on the reserve lives off of "your" social security system?

[geoffrey]

Do you believe that every person living on the reserve lives off of "your" social security system?

Well, considering the unemployment rate amongst Indian populations in Canada is so high (plus all the other cool stuff they get, free school, ect.), I can promise you a great number are living off the taxes the rest of us pay.

All of them? Probably not. Alot of the successful ones leave the depressing environment of the reservation system though... few successful First Nations people ever came out of a government program, you'll find they found success on their own.

I can tell you they take far more than they pay. And then to demand that I pay for radio transmissions over their land?! It's absurd. Can the government of Canada tax them in return for their transmissions (I'm sure at least a few have cell phones) over our land?!

[kimmy]

This is not the first I have heard of something like this, as I recall natives claiming that "the white man is stealing our wind" (in regard to wind-power turbines) so I guess it was only a matter of time.

It goes without saying that this will end the same way any other dispute with First Nations goes. Whitey will open up his wallet and the First Nations will be happy, at least until they cook up some other scam to feign outrage and demand compensation for.

Since electromagnetic waves propagate through the free space between the molecules that form "air", the cell phone transmissions are not, in fact, making use of the natives' air. Therefore, this claim is utterly without merit.

-k

[August1991]

Well, considering the unemployment rate amongst Indian populations in Canada is so high (plus all the other cool stuff they get, free school, ect.), I can promise you a great number are living off the taxes the rest of us pay.

Native Indians are a perfect example that throwing money at a bureaucracy will not solve other people's problems. (OTOH, lotteries are an example that throwing money at people generally does solve their problems.)

More pertinently, for a society to succeed, individuals must co-operate. The success of western societies is that individuals can co-operate anonymously using market prices.

Too many Leftists, and Aboriginals and others in this world, don't understand this form of co-operation.

[stignasty]

Too many Leftists, and Aboriginals and others in this world, don't understand this form of co-operation.

Generally, when we talk about market prices we talk about competition, not cooperation. The idea of the market system is that if everyone works in their own self interest, everyone benefits.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old cloaths which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old cloaths which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, cloaths, or lodging, as he has occasion." - Adam Smith (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations)