National Post: Chief’s $800,000 payment was in exchange for abandoning large portion of land claim, document confirms
Mixed-Race Mohawks Ban Inter-racial Marriages
Little known fact: The Mohawk language has 1,000 words for “identity”, and none for “irony”.
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
An elderly B.C. First Nations chief and his ex-wife, along with one of their sons and a grandson, received more than $4.1-million in remuneration over the past four years.
Shuswap First Nation Chief Paul Sam, 80, gets a tax-free salary that has averaged $264,000 over that period to run a tiny reserve near Invermere, a resort community near the Alberta border.
The Shuswap have 267 members, of whom just 87 live on the reserve.
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
Justice Gethin Edward of the Ontario Court of Justice suggested physicians essentially want to “impose our world view on First Nation culture.” The idea of a cancer treatment being judged on the basis of statistics that quantify patients’ five-year survival rate is “completely foreign” to aboriginal ways, he said.
“Even if we say there is not one child who has been cured of acute lymphoblastic leukemia by traditional methods, is that a reason to invoke child protection?” asked Justice Edward, noting that the girl’s mother believes she is doing what is best for her daughter.
“Are we to second guess her and say ‘You know what, we don’t care?’ … Maybe First Nations culture doesn’t require every child to be treated with chemotherapy and to survive for that culture to have value.”
More from Jonathan Kay.
h/t Kevin B
The Sound Of Settled Science
From the results of early DNA studies in the late 1980s and early ’90s, scientists argued that anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa, and then expanded into Asia, Oceania, and Europe, beginning about 60,000 years ago. The idea was that modern humans colonized the rest of the world in a succession of small founding groups–each one a tiny sampling of the total modern human gene pool. These small, isolated groups settled new territory and replaced the archaic humans that lived there. As a result, humans in different parts of the world today have their own distinctive DNA signature, consisting of the genetic quirks of their ancestors who first settled the area, as well as the genetic adaptations to the local environment that evolved later.
This view of human history, called the “serial founder effect model,” has big implications for our understanding of how we came to be who we are. Most importantly, under this model, genetic differences between geographically separated human populations reflect deep branchings in the human family tree, branches that go back tens of thousands of years. It also declares that people have evolutionary adaptations that are matched to their geographical area, such as lighter skin in Asians and Europeans or high altitude tolerance among Andeans and Tibetans. With a few exceptions, such as the genetic mixing after Europeans colonized the Americas, our geography reflects our deep ancestry.
Well, it’s time to scrap this picture of human history…
h/t Kevin B
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
A list of reports on missing and murdered Aboriginal women. All forty of them.
h/t Orville
Pollspotting
A Winnipeg Free Press poll goes horribly wrong… “Does Canada need a national inquiry into the disproportionately high number of missing and murdered aboriginal women?”
h/t Orville
There’s One Too Many D’s In That Headline
Aboriginal men murdered at higher rate than aboriginal women
Between 1980 and 2012, 14 per cent of female murder victims with a known ethnicity were aboriginal, far exceeding their 4 per cent share of the female population, according to Statistics Canada.
But 17 per cent of male murder victims were also aboriginal during that time. In total, nearly 2,500 aboriginal people were murdered in the past three decades: 1,750 male, 745 female and one person of unknown gender.
[…]
The RCMP found that 105 aboriginal women were missing for at least 30 days as of last November in cases where the reason for their disappearance was deemed “unknown” or “foul play suspected.” StatsCan does not keep track of missing persons, and the RCMP declined to compile statistics on missing aboriginal men.
We Are All Treaty People
So did the Native Americans commit genocide against the pre-Native Americans?
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
Idle No More Co-Founder Nina Wilson Praises Zimbabwe Dictator Robert Mugabe. (h/t Kevin B)
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
So stop paying them: One week after a new legal deadline, nearly two-thirds of Canada’s First Nations have not yet provided Ottawa detailed financial information – including how much chiefs and councillors are paid.
Nice Work If You Can Get It
The chief of a British Columbia First Nation with 81 residents earned nearly $1 million last year:
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
Performing for their American paymasters; B.C. band now lays claim to water off Northern Gateway pipeline after success in court over rights to land.
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
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.
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
Now is the time at SDA when we juxatpose!
Assembly of First Nations, May 16th;
“Today’s RCMP report reaffirms the magnitude of the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada and clearly indicates the urgent need for action by many different players, including First Nations, governments, police services and others,” said AFN Regional Chief Alexis, who leads the AFN work in the area of justice and policing.
“We had the blessing of the chief, we had the blessing of the organization to come in and do a review,” said Pringle. “Then when I go out to Yorkton a week ago, I’m told by the FSIN that, ‘You’re an outsider. You don’t have any jurisdiction here. And we don’t have to talk to you and we’re not going to accept your report.'”
h/t Norm
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
The new chief of Roseau River First Nation has evicted the managers and staff at the Red Sun gas bar, saying revenue from the lucrative operation belongs to the band, not Terry Nelson’s family.
An eviction notice was posted on the door of the gas bar, located on Highway 6 just north of Winnipeg, Wednesday evening. Staff were sent home and security guards now occupy the shop.
At least four RCMP cruisers were there, but the eviction was peaceful. […]
Nelson’s daughter runs much of the operation along with former premier Gary Doer’s brother.
That would be this Terry Nelson.
h/t Allen Lasko
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
Three years ago, flooding forced hundreds of residents from their homes on Manitoba’s Lake St. Martin First Nation reserve.
The reserve was condemned, dozens of houses slated for demolition, and many residents have been living in hotels ever since.
Ottawa paid nearly $2 million to destroy the homes. But CTV has learned that as many as 40 of the buildings were lifted from their foundations, moved elsewhere and sold for about $20,000 each.
In some cases, the sold homes still contained their former residents’ belongings.
[…]
“That buyer told me he bought it from the Lake St. Martin chief,” Beardy said. “He admitted he bought it from Lake St. Martin chief, but he wouldn’t tell us how much and who pocketed the money.”
h/t TimR
I want me some of that.
See, you thought the category, “We are all Treaty people” was a joke. How dare the gov’t deny my heritage…which I discovered four years ago.
So many victims of colonization.
Edit: Missed the H/T to this from Wereallfirst Nationsnow in Reader Tips.