British Columbia First Nations are wasting no time in enforcing their claim on traditional lands in light of a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision recognizing aboriginal land title.
The hereditary chiefs of the Gitxsan First Nations served notice Thursday to CN Rail, logging companies and sport fishermen to leave their territory along the Skeena River in a dispute with the federal and provincial governments over treaty talks.
And the Gitxaala First Nation, with territory on islands off the North Coast, announced plan to file a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Appeal on Friday challenging Ottawa’s recent approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta.
The Kwikwetlem First Nation also added its voice to the growing list, claiming title to all lands associated with now-closed Riverview Hospital in Metro Vancouver along with other areas of its traditional territory.
No, not their money. The Supreme Court’s money.
h/t Kevin B.
Interference in the economic welfare of the country should have consequences, stop the flow of money to Indians according to how it’s affecting the tax paying people’s ability to earn a living.
They can have their sovereignty one day after they give up our money, roads, technology and hospitals.
Exactly right Chip but we know that will never happen, living off the land has an entirely different meaning than it’s original concept.
The elite do not have to live with their decisions.
Got wheel?
This whole coast belongs to the Haida as they used to raid from the Charlottes down to Vancouver and then up the Fraser River into the Fraser Valley plundering and taking slaves. The various native tribes lived in fear of them and were subservient to them
This will not end well. These first Nations, using our money and money from Tides, et al, will do their best to turn BC back to the year 1890.
This what happens when the dim wit PC crowd sits on our court benches.
Time for a Truth & Reconciliation Commission to address the pain and suffering of the Haida Slavery Legacy.
They should have to pay for their slaving sins. Whatever money they might get in land claims would be subject to slave claims.
I have lived and worked on Gitxsan territory for many years. I don’t anymore because, over the years, they have managed to drive out all heavy industry and investment. Their constant demand for handouts (bribes) has come home to roost. The entire area is a huge slum in northern BC with only a few people left trying to make an honest living. Everyone else is bought and paid for by the federal government. Say gooodbye to the pipelines, mines and logging. The only way to make money up there now is by selling plywood to board up the buildings.
I grew up in Gitksan territory. The name of Kitwanga village is “people of the place of rabbits”, thanking the spirits for the bountiful supply of rabbits that kept the village alive over the winter after the Haida burned down their previous village site and stole or destroyed all of their winter food supplies (throwing into the Skeena River what they couldn’t carry off in the war canoes). The Haida were upset because their early-autumn slaving mission was unsuccessful, as a very defensible position held in retreat led to the death of some of their raiders.
If we follow their oral history, having an armed group kick them out of their homes is what constitutes “this is our land”. Men of Medeek , The Downfall of Temlahem, there are a number of histories published over 50 years ago that show how the Gitksan dealt with foreign relations, natural resource management, and vendettas. When they dispose of their big screen TVs and rifles, then I’ll agree that they have some aboriginal rights. Until then, the massive welfare payments unequally distributed (how did the chief get so much nicer of a house?) comprise the purchase price, IMHO.
I also wonder how long it will be before they decide that “Gitxan” now no longer properly describes how they pronounce their name, and how they have always have pronounced it. Paging Winston Smith, another re-write needed in the colonies.
Reserves? Don’t Indians realize they were shit-holes meant to keep Indians off the streets of our towns and cities and away from our sons and daughters? – Bantustans to Africans. Now the separation has become a constitutional right. Interesting question – why do Supreme Court judges believe it within their jurisdiction to make judgements involving Indians. If the government is not free to manage Indians, why can a group of dick-head judges rule on them?
What won’t, but should happen, is if the leadership of the Gitxaala or other First Nation, should they violate existing agreements, any revenue foregone is to be deducted from federal transfers, since they don’t want the money after all.
People need to relax regarding the recent SCOC decision; it’s no big deal, the Court has held for decades that a duty to consult, and reasonably accommodate native bands on land claims and treaty issues exists for the federal government. Not, as some hope, nation-state to nation-state. Not going to happen.
Anyway, folks, this is the first step of coming bribery of FN. Pipeline construction will spur to new heights. Luckily Harper is making the pipeline companies pay for that. Still, lots of largesse for all; if JT attempts to use western money to bribe eastern voters he is in for a rough ride.
The former great supposed locus of the Canadian economy, Ontario, is a now has-been 2nd rate jurisdiction with deluded leadership, held hostage by “progressive” Toronto and their province addled by high energy costs, crippling taxes and regulation, with resultant runaway debt and lost jobs (34,000, mostly young people last report).
So it begins.
Remember friends that the whole thing can be overturned with nothing more than an act of parliament, notwithstanding anything the Supremes have to say about it.
Just as we have no rights before the Crown, so the Indians have no rights. The government giveth, the government taketh away.
That there has been no such act of parliament indicates that all the disruptive activities and scams perpetrated against Canadian industry by the Indian Industry is part of GOVERNMENT POLICY. The scamming and “big screen TV syndrome” is protecting assets, votes and income streams the Powers That Be want protected. Meaning of course Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver liberals.
This will continue until such time as it is no longer convenient. Notice the windmills in Southern Ontario were put up regardless of any fuss the Indians made. They did make a fuss, by the way. You just never heard about it because it didn’t make the papers and TV.
One item I forgot to mention: many if not most of the tribes in BC do not have signed treaties. The prairies and eastern Canada have treaty rules that can be used as a basis for future discussions. The question of whether sovereignty was ever extinguished is a large part of the current discussions in BC.
That sovereignty was extinguished with conquest was assumed until the Supremes started singing a different tune a few years ago. There was no basis in law for their judgement but now there is.
There will never be ‘certainty’ and there will never be ‘extinguishment.’ The First Nations will never agree to it.
I agree with both Scar and chutzpahticular. The lack of getting it in writing will make for some very fat leeches… er, I mean lawyers.
The new Immigrants will put a stop to this once they take over Canada. They have no treaties with natives. Only the white English have. Once there gone its tits up for the Native gravy train or land claims. Court or no court.
http://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/0973959207/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
A good read if you can find it.
BC Chief Justice McEachran ruled that rights and title were extinguished in BC over 20 years ago but the NDP would have none of that and intentionally blew the appeal. The rest is history.
Until the progressive culture recognizes that the judiciary is gradually enslaving non-FNs in a reverse apartheid hell, the extortion will continue. FNs, particularly the radicals, are now empowered into thinking that eventually they are our landlords and we their serfs. However, if one considers that the Supremes are gradually extinguishing sovereignty of the Crown, and in such an environment there is only the law of the jungle where whoever has the most firepower wins and where there is no point in obeying any laws including the paying of taxes, this will end badly for the 3% of Canadians who comply with 1/16 or better racial purity. There can only be one sovereign nation, theirs or ours!
As the Phantom has suggested, no federal politicians have considered fixing the problem since Trudeau and Chretien abandoned their White paper on how to do away with the Indian Act over 40 years ago. The alternatives to doing so will not end well.
The Government of BC shouldn’t even bother listening to the unelected unaccountable leftist politicians encrusted within the Trudeau Court. The BC Government should simply reject apartheid as a racist notion not worth bothering with. Handing Indians a special class of status apart from everyone else based on nothing other than they’re indians is about as racist as it gets. If the Trudeau Courts want to conjure up apartheid fiefdoms than the “Not withstanding” clause should be used as a way of rejecting court imposed racism… If not, BC should get the hell out of Canada as we don’t need unelected unaccountable courts re-writing history to comply with the imposed Trudeau Charter.
Just sitting here ruminating as though.
What would happen if the natives got their wishes and were told that there will not be enough money from the federales to give to them since they shut down the “tax stream”?
What would they say.
Of course the answer is: the low lifes would file suits to no end and the justice industry would make sure that the natives get their loot.
True. The tenor of the argument changes once Singh and Chen make a concerted effort not to care one iota what a corrupt band chief thinks.