For our feature interview, we talk to Arthur Manuel, a member of the Secwepemc Nation, in the South-Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, who served as Chief of the Neskonlith Indian Band for eight years and the Chairperson for the Shuswap Nation 
Tribal Council for seven years. Manuel also headed the Interior Alliance and currently serves as volunteer Chairperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade (INET), and is part of the Defenders of the Land network.
We talked to Arthur Manuel about the results of the First Nations-Crown Summit on January 25, 2012, a dissect the Conservative govt’s claims that First Nations will be given greater autonomy, which will actually amount to the liquidation of the land base of First Nations communities through municipalization and privatization of land through the ‘fee simple’ process.
Click here to link to podcast or listen to the interview directly from the Mp3 player at the bottom of your BASICSnews.ca window.
Lucien Lazarus to BASICS – 3 December 2011
Editorial Note: In early November 2011, the Attawapiskat Cree First Nation reserve declared a state of emergency due to a desperate housing situation, with some families of multiple generations living in tents for as long as two years. These aren’t the heavy tents such as those used by many of the Occupy movements, but uninsulated tents unable to handle the -20 degree weather in the very isolated Northern Ontario community. The existing houses are overflowing and falling apart; the plumbing and running water situation is terrible. After making national headlines, questions are being asked about how many other issues the community is dealing with, and how many other indigenous communities face the same neglect by the Canadian government. BASICS received this message from Lucien Lazarus, an Attawapiskat community member, activist, and author of the blog Smoke Signals From Cree Yellow Legs (creeyellowlegs.myknet.org).
Hello everyone! I am a member of the Attawapiskat First Nation in Northern Ontario. The community I live in has about 2,000 people. We can only go down south by aircrafts in the summer time and some by vehicles only on the winter road in the winter time. Believe me when I say travelling by air is very expensive and the transportation costs are very ridiculous up here.
Seeing the great amount of news about Attawapiskat having housing problems is compelling me to write this small article. I will write about two things which I know is most important. Of course, everyone knows what one of them is already: it’s plastered all over the news stations and sites online, and that is the lack of housing.
Yes, Attawapiskat does have housing problems but it is impossible for someone to fix their homes instantaneously. Just by trying to figure out where to get the housing materials is a problem. Where are the places that have the most reasonable prices? We do not have these businesses that sell housing materials like down South. That is why Attawapiskat continues to have these problems in housing today.
There are a lot of homes that are decaying in Attawapiskat. Even if people are employed, it does no good to try and keep them in good shape. The problem is, it is the way they were or are still been constructed. Attawapiskat receive grants from the government to build cheap housing. Take my home for example, it was only constructed by two-by-fours, five inch thick of insulation on the sides, above and below, aspenite plywood
for flooring. No wonder our homes are falling apart.
The other problem we have up here is with our healthcare system. The people in care up here are suffering and dying. Like I have said previously, Attawapiskat First Nation is an isolated community and even the health organization that looks after the sick is inadequate, which is the result of both levels of government. They have made tremendous cutbacks on our travels and care.
What I mean by that is, we now have some sick people that are being dropped off in Moosonee, Ontario and shoved into trains and when they reach their destination in Cochrane, Ontario, they then are shoved into buses for that long journey to the hospitals in Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, etc.
In conclusion, I want to say that the Cree people from the isolated James Bay communities are swollen with pride people. Just by telling them to move to a better life down South is not going to do any good as they already have been living here for thousands of years. Wachiiyay!
Indigenous leaders from the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (K.I.) First Nation community drew over one hundred attentive listeners on the evening of November 22 for a downtown community event as they presented their case for the defense and future of their lands and environment in the face of their newest adversary, a mining corporation that goes by the name God’s Lake Resources.
Located about 600 km north of Thunder Bay, K.I. is a fly-in community of pristine boreal forests, waters, and wetlands. Big Trout Lake (661 sq. km) is central to the life of these Oji-Cree people. The closest urban centre is Sioux Lookout, hundreds of kilometres to the south. Like so many northern Nations, the population is relatively impoverished, and the community infrastructure largely inadequate or sub-standard. Typical also of such communities, there is a substantial corporate interest exploiting their land-based resources.
K.I. Chief Danny Morris opened the community event and K.I. Spokesperon John Cutfeet filled in the history and details for the presentation at the Ryerson Student Centre as part of the program for Indigenous Sovereignty Week. Chief Morris along with five others (to become known as the K.I. Six) were imprisoned in 2008 for defending their territory from Platinex, a mining company with platinum prospects in the K.I. territory. They were subsequently released when in July of 2008 the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned their sentences.
Platinex was found to be in operation on K.I. territory in 2006 without any prior consultation with K.I. representatives. An interim injunction was obtained by the K.I. First Nation with the intention of working out some mutually viable arrangement, but after being worn out bureaucratically and fiscally by the demands of an oppressively lop-sided Ontario-Platinex agenda, K.I. decided it could no longer continue the process. Soon after withdrawing from the process, the courts awarded Platinex “immediate and free access to the territory” and the infamous stand-off ensued. Eventually, the Ontario government paid off Platinex to the tune of $5 million plus mediation and legal fees to pack up and end the ordeal.
Presumably as some lip-service to this debacle, the Government of Ontario promised a reform of the Mining Act (which is as yet unavailable) and they introduced the Far North Act, which spelled out the necessary consultation requirements with First Nations for any prospecting or developments on First Nations jurisdiction. One might assume, as Cutfeet suggested, that the Far North Act was developed precisely because the federal government knows that it has no legal jurisdiction on most First Nation territory. In response to the K.I. filing of a land claim, however, the Ontario government stated that the entitlement claim “was tenuous at best…and without merit”.
Much of the debate over land entitlement goes back to the James Bay Treaty of 1905, known as Treaty 9. The Crown likes to assert that this Treaty is clearly defined by a notion of “cede and surrender” while in actuality there is not even an equivalent word for “cede” in the Cree native language. As a simultaneous translator by profession, John Cutfeet should know. He said that even today, he is hard-pressed to translate such terminology as “cede and surrender” for there is really no equivalent terminology in their language, and he insists that the elders of the community, by their oral tradition and life experience, offer no recollection of ever giving up the land. They rather insist that all agreements in fact assumed a continued relationship and steward of their land, in co-existence with the colonial government.
By this time the K.I. had had enough of government and corporate agendas challenging their land rights and destabilizing their community. In an impressive surge of sovereignty they conducted a referendum for their nation on July 5, 2011 that overwhelmingly approved their Water Declaration and Consultation Protocol. The referendum was approved by 96% of ballots cast. Under the Water Declaration, thirteen thousand square miles of watershed were announced as being autonomously protected and declared untouchable by industry. The Consultation Protocol established a process by which outside interests must conduct themselves in negotiations with the K.I. for land-use. While groups like the Council of Canadians and Greenpeace signed on to their Declaration, it was virtually ignored by the Canadian Government.
And then along came God’s Lake Resources. In a surprisingly arrogant insult to the K.I. people they initiated exploration a short crow’s fly from Big Trout Lake in pristine watersheds and threatening the site of a sacred burial ground with at least 31 graves and more in the surrounding area.
On November 14, 2011 the K.I. broke talks with the Ontario government after it became clear that there was not a mutual and sincere dedication to a proposed resolution via a KI-Ontario joint panel, as the Ontario government was unwilling to impose an immediate halt to the mining comopany’s explorations while the panel ensued. K.I. issued a press release with the inclusion of the following statement:
“We need a reasonable process to protect our sacred areas. That process cannot take place without assurances that GLR will not access the land and where the sites are. We cannot talk with your government while GLR desecrates.”
During his introduction, Chief Donny Morris contemplated the scenario with the company: “We don’t know if it’s going down that same road, where it wants a pay-out from Ontario, …this is something that we have to try and prevent too – that’s a sure way for a company to get a quick pay-out, to use us that way…” And with an election on the horizon at the time, one has to wonder if there wasn’t some deliberate scheming for such a consolation prize.
Regardless of motive, the K.I. are faced now with a serious threat from a mining corporation that seems intent on desecrating their territory, clearly in defiance to prior Supreme Court jurisprudence which deemed essential some due “consultation, negotiation, accommodation and reconciliation” with the community (this from the July 2008 Ontario Court of Appeal decision overturning the prison sentences of the K.I. Six).
Chief Morris made no bones about his hope and intention of expanding the K.I. cause to activists and others in our region: “We are moving forward, we’re looking for support … we’re looking at all avenues, we’re not going to stop half-way now, we’re going to go all the way … and here in the GTA, that’s where our support is …”
For more information on how you can help: http://kilands.org
New workshop series on indigenous history coming out of Barrio Nuevo
by Santiago Escobar
This past October 12, the First Indian Film Festival was kicked off in Toronto to commemorate the Day of Indigenous Resistance.
From the perspective of the celebrants of European colonialism, October 12, 1492 is viewed as the day Columbus ‘discovered’ the American continent. From the perspective of the colonized, those civilizations and societies in the ‘Americas’ that were more populous than Western Europe in 1492 (100 million people by some accounts), this day marks the beginning of the most atrocious crime in world history: the beginning of history’s greatest genocide. The mass killing of millions of indigenous peoples, followed by the mass enslavement and trade of Africans, went hand-in-hand with the destruction of an untold number of societies that were stripped of their territories, beliefs and social organization. So it was only appropriate that this past October 12 be the day chosen for the First Indian Film Festival to be kicked off.
We mark the 519 years since the beginning of Indigenous Resistance as the victims of European colonization are still paying the price for the dismantling and looting of our already established societies at the hands of those who boasted of having ‘discovered’ the new world. We continue to pay the price for the geographic ignorance of the sailors who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his adventure in search for shorter routes to the Indies (Asia) from Europe.
The colonization and marginalization of our peoples, especially indigenous people, persists into the present. No one can doubt that we are advancing in the fight for true freedom, true independence, and we are now seeing the emergence of progressive governments throughout South America reflecting the accumulation of indigenous peoples’ struggles. But it is still a long way to achieve the desired independence and true freedom.
The Toronto screenings created a space for debate and reflection about the struggles of the indigenous peoples of Central and South America. It must be noted that the films presented were 100% produced and created by indigenous people, transmitting their worldview without intermediaries and without distorting the indigenous and popular struggles. This point is important to stress because normally these kinds of documentaries are produced by foreigners, who are distant to the reality of daily life of indigenous people. Foreigners tend to tell these stories from a liberal perspective and are inclined to represent the Indians as an almost magical subject, perfect, or as a folkloric and romanticized object, ignorant of the deeper meaning of their struggles, which is against colonialism and imperialism – or as it is popularly known, globalization.’ Many of these liberal perspectives overlook or disregard the significance and centrality of the organizational and social formations of indigenous people’s – a basis for the success and achievements of many of these people’s movements.
The attendance during the film festival was vast and generated an awakening of awareness, especially among the Latin American audiences. It created consciousness for public struggles in an historical and cultural context, related to the living spaces claimed by fellow Indians of Central and South America.
The documentaries shown were accompanied by follow-up discussions and analyses from the audience with the aim of understanding and exchanging ideas about indigenous struggles. Recognizing the need to learn more about Central and South American history, the audience unanimously supported the development of a series of workshops dealing with indigenous peoples before the Spanish conquest, during the conquest, throughout the period of the nominally ‘independent’ neo-colonial republics, and the last 30 years of resistance by the indigenous peoples and other social movements from Mexico to Patagonia.
With this wide support from the Latin@ community, we will soon be starting an educational series to address these topics.
To register for this workshop series please write to us at barrionuevo.canada@gmail.com.
BASICS Community News Service - Published Sep. 2011
“The national oppression of indigenous people in the Cordillera has reached ethnocidal proportions” - Simon 'Ka Filiw' Naogsan, Spokesperson of the Cordillera People's Democratic Front (Image of Ka Filiw with Steve da Silva of BASICS, in Mountain Province).
On August 1, 2011, journalist Steve da Silva with the people’s media organizations BASICS Community News Service (Toronto, Canada) interviewed Simon ‘Ka Filiw’ Naogson, the Chairperson of the Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF), an underground and revolutionary mass alliance of indigenous people and organizations in the Cordillera region and a member organization of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
Ka Filiw discussed the increasing militarization, mining plunder, and national oppression facing the indigenous people of the Cordillera as the US-Aquino regime approves more mining concessions for the region and consequently intensifies its Oplan Bayanihan counter-insurgency campaign to repress the revolutionary movement.
The interview with Ka Filiw was conducted in the western region of Mountain Province, Cordillera in an undisclosed location, given the underground status of Ka Filiw’s activities. It was conducted as part of a forthcoming book by Steve da Silva, People’s War in the Cordillera, an in-depth look at the people’s resistance and revolutionary struggle in from the vantage point of one region in Mountain Province, Cordillera within the overall context of the revolutionary movement in the Philippines.
Art from 'Ka Libre' of the Leonardo Pacsi Command (Mountain Province) of the New People's Army. The eight spears of the CPDF logo represents the eight ethno-linguistic tribes that make up the Igorot indigenous people.
Steve da Silva / BASICS: Can you tell us what Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF) is, including its relationship to the people’s struggles in Cordillera, and to the broader revolutionary movement in the Philippines?
Ka Filiw / CPDF: The CPDF was founded in 1981, it launched its Political Congress in 1987, and its Organizational Congress in 1989 and ever since then it has been in operation. The CPDF is the revolutionary united front of all the national minorities and non-minorities in the Cordillera. There are three features of the CPDF. First, it stands as the National Democratic Front in the Cordillera. Second, it as an alliance of all revolutionary mass organizations in the Cordillera. Third, it acts as the people’s revolutionary government in areas where the revolutionary movement is building and consolidating.
The revolutionary struggles being launched by the CPDF in the Cordillera is closely linked with the National Democratic Revolution. First and foremost, because we are all Filipinos. We cannot detach the struggles of the Cordillera peoples and the indigenous peoples from the struggles of the Filipino peoples. Such being the case, our revolutionary struggle here in the Cordillera is directly linked with the National Democratic Revolution. Of course, secondarily, we are waging a struggle to address the historical national oppression suffered by the national minorities and indigenous people here in the Cordillera. Read more…
by Steve da Silva, BASICS Community News Service (Published September 2011) www.basicsnews.ca
On August 13, 2011, BASICS interviewed Gwendolyn Longid, an indigenous Igorot activist and a leading organizer with the Cordillera People’s Alliance in Sagada, Mountain Province. We discussed the struggles of the Cordillera people against imperialist mining plunder and the U.S.-Aquino regime’s militarization of the region under the banner of its ‘Oplan Bayanihan’ counter-insurgency scheme. Longid also explained the difference between the bogus ‘autonomy’ that the national government is trying to impose upon indigenous people versus the genuine self-determination and defense of ancestral domain that the peoples of the Cordillera are struggling for.
This interview is part of the research for a forthcoming book by Steve da Silva, People’s War in the Cordillera, an in-depth look at the people’s resistance and revolutionary movement in the Cordillera within the overall context of the revolutionary movement in the Philippines.
Steve da Silva / BASICS: Can you briefly describe the structure and political work of the Cordillera People’s Alliance?
Gwendoyln Longid / CPA: We have a General Assembly that is made up of members from different provinces and chapters and it elects our Executive Committee. We also have chapters in Kalinga, Benguet, Baguio City, Mountain Province, and Abra, each of which also has its own Executive Committees. We are both a mass organization and an alliance, since we have not only organizations who are part of the CPA but also individuals. CPA Mountain Province has a membership of 37 people’s organization in over 10 municipalities, as well as several other IP [indigenous people's] advocates.
The political work of the CPA is for the defense of our ancestral land and our self-determination. Since the early 1960s when ‘national minorities’ of the Cordillera first faced the threats of the Chico River Dam Projects under the US-Marcos Dictatorship, the CPA has been working to empower indigenous peoples.
Aerial view of the Sagada rice terraces. The rice terraces of the Cordillera are recognized UNESCO world heritage sites for their masterful feats in engineering and agricultural.
From the point of view of the national government, all land with a slope of over 18% or 10.2º degrees is declared public land, making 81.4% of the land in the Cordillera state-owned, or at least that’s their claim. Of course, the indigenous people have a very different point of view on this, considering this is their ancestral land. So the CPA is struggling to defend this ancestral lands. Read more…
by Gwendolyn Longid (Cordillera People’s Alliance) – 9 September, 2011
Defying the approaching Typhoon Mina on August 26th, a dozen community activists and grassroots journalists from the Sagada region of Mountain Province in the Cordillera, Philippines came together for a day-long seminar on the foundations of community radio broadcasting. The workshop was attended by members of the Sagada Environmental Guides Association (SEGA), Sagada Genuine Guides Association (SAGGAS), the Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management Program (CHARMP), the Montañosa Research and Development Center (MRDC), and the Cordillera Disaster Response and Development Services (CorDis RDS), along with Radyo Sagada staff and volunteers. The activity was conducted through the initiative of Cordillera Peoples Alliance of Mountain Province and CorDis RDS, and was facilitated by Steve Da Silva of BASICS Community News Service, a people’s media organization from Canada that has a radio program on CHRY 105.5. in Toronto, Ontario, along with a regularly produced newspaper. BASICS carried out the workshop as part of a project of their own known as the School of People’s Journalism.
The day-long seminar was geared towards providing basic skills in community broadcasting for the various sectors and organizations in Sagada. The day’s activities covered technical aspects as well as the principles of community radio, with an emphasis on what distinguishes a people’s media organization from commercial radio. Da Silva from BASICS stressed that “a community media organization that doesn’t recognize that its heart and soul is the community – is the people – will very quickly find itself looking like commercial radio or dying out. If the corporate media served the people’s true interests and addressed their needs, then we wouldn’t need to create a people’s media apparatus.”
The participants engaged in various worshops and formats throughout the day. Gareth Likigan and Ben Calpi of SAGGAS role-played a mock interview with a student who does part time work as a tourist guide to meet ends meet. Others simulated a round table discussion focused on Sagada as a tourist hotspot. Brenda and Gaodan Angway of SEGA did a review on Sagada culture done by Brenda of Radyo Sagada and Gaodan Angway of SEGA. All participants were challenged in the art of improvisation – such as through simulated phone-in questions – a feature of radio broadcasting that sets it apart from other forms of media.
Through the activity, the organizers hoped to encourage more organizations to take on time slots at the recently formed Radyo Sagada station. The SAGGAS intend to have a radio show which delves on environmental issues. The SEGA has so far shared in the weekly program on solid waste management and regular volunteer work as anchor and newscasters at the radio.
Steve da Silva of BASICS Community News Service spent over a month in Mountain Province researching people’s struggles and indigenous struggles for self-determination against foreign mining companies and militarization. Da Silva, who was in the Philippines for the 4th International Assembly of the International League of People’s Struggles in Manila in early July, also joined Radyo Sagada for a series of interviews discussing some of the links between Canadian imperialism and the Philippines. From August 23-25, da Silva joined hosts Ma Karl, Habibi, and others for a series of back-to-back-to-back interviews, one on Canada’s notorious record of genocidal policies towards indigenous peoples in Canada, which continue up to the present day. “If the Canadian state can carry out a genocide of indigenous peoples in the present day right in its own country, then how do you think Canada is going to operate abroad when it confronts other indigenous or colonized peoples, such as the Igorot people here in the Cordillera.” Another discussion dealt with the widespread human rights violations associated with the overseas operation of Canadian mining companies, which also operate in the Cordillera, such the corporation Ivanhoe, which is heavily invested in Benguet-based Lepanto Mining.
On the final day, the interview covered the links between Canadian ‘development’ aggression around the world and the migrant worker programs in Canada that so many Filipinos and others around the world are trying to get in to. The conversation drew attention to how the policies of neoliberal globalization which displace peoples from their homelands create large pools of cheap labour for imperialist countries like Canada. The programs discussed included Canada’s Live-In Caregivers, the Seasonal Agriculatural Workers, and Temporary Foreign Workers.
The torrential rains that began to fall at the day’s end did not put a damper on the event, which ended on a high note with a lively discussion on the challenges but necessity of building a genuine community media organization from the ground up and through the people.
Writing and researching for BASICS Community News Service while in Mountain Province, Steve da Silva has a number of pieces coming out on the Cordillera that will be published at www.basicsnews.ca throughout the month of September 2011.
By M. Cook
On Friday, May 13, a group of Native rights activists began occupying a sacred burial site at the south-east end of High Park.
“For us it’s more than a sacred site, it is also a ceremonial grounds,” Harrison Friesen, a peace keeper from Red Power United, told BASICS.
For several year, bmx riders had begun excavating the mounds to build dirt bike jumps. In response, the Iroquois community have been asking the city of Toronto to protect the burial site for over eleven years.
“This has been an issue that has been going on for eleven years. Trying to get these jumps taken down. Trying to get the city to enforce the by-law and keep the bikers out,” Friesen says.
“It came to a head last week when we had a meeting with city hall and the Toronto police. A decision was made amongst our peace keepers that enough is enough.”
And so on Friday, a group composed of people from Cree, Ojibwe and Seneca communities, as well as non-native people in the surrounding community began to occupy the site.
“we are here as peace keepers from Red Power United, Native Rights movement…to be peace keepers of the site, which we know is a 3,000 year old Iroquois burial site.”
Friesen says that “at first it was very stand-off-ish with the city and the police, they didn’t want us in here.”
“We basically had to let them know that we don’t work for the city, we don’t work for the police. This ain’t nine to five for us, this is part of our culture, part of who we are as native people.”
“We said we’re going in to remove those jumps and we’ll be there 24 hours a day to keep those bikers out if need be.”
“We want to restore it [burial site] to the way it was, to natural mounds in here. We’re asking that the fence be put up to keep people out. The growth and restoration of the area can take place once again.”
Surprisingly, there appeared to be no animosity directed towards the bmx bikers.
“We’ve had bmx riders come up to the fence. We have been very diplomatic, we’ve been educators – educating people on the history and what’s taking place here,” said Friesen.
The group were not against the bmx riders themselves. Instead the group argued that the government should be providing youth with special parks for bmx riders. Just don’t put the park on top of a burial ground.
Seems like a more than reasonable request.
Much of the media has questioned the validity of the groups claim to the site being a burial ground. And the city of Toronto is conducting tests.
Friesen says that he’s not concerned with the cities tests, as “we follow our traditions and oral history – the things that are passed down from generation to generation – tell us that this is our sacred burial site.”
He also puts into question the validity of the city of Toronto’s tests, “we don’t agree that they’ve tested in this area. They say they’ve done 40 tests in here, but it wasn’t in here. It was around various parts [he points outside of the area]. And the guy that did the testing wasn’t licensed. He didn’t have a license to do the testing.”
After eleven years, this Tuesday, the city of Toronto employees were at the site, putting up the requested fence.
One of the native rights activists remarked, that he had never seen a fence go up so quickly. Apparently, the city won’t listen to you, unless you act.
The group has received a lot of support from the community. On Saturday, there was a stream of people who showed up to help out and offer food and water.
The group is inviting families come out to the site this Saturday and help restore the sacred grounds and participate in a feast with elders of the community.
Barriere Lake Algonquins say “No” to mining exploration on their land, Cree workers agree to leave site
RAPID LAKE, QC – Last week, Barriere Lake community members discovered that Val D’Or based Cartier Resources has begun line-cutting in preparation for mining exploration on their unceded Aboriginal lands. According to their website, the mining company claims that their “100% owned” land base of 439 square kilometers boasts rich copper deposits ripe for exploitation.
The so-called “Rivière Doré Project” was undertaken without obtaining the community’s free, prior, and informed consent – the minimum standards set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), which Canada has endorsed in words but not in action. The mining project also violates the community’s own environmental protection regime, the Trilateral Agreement, which was signed in 1991 by Barriere Lake, Quebec, and Canada and has yet to be honoured.
The workers on site, predominantly Crees from the Mistassini and Oujebougamou First Nations, agreed to leave when the Algonquins traveled to the proposed mine location and explained their opposition to the development. The larger battle with the Cartier Resources, however, looms ahead.
Barriere Lake community members will return to maintain a presence at the proposed mining site and stop all further developments. Please stay tuned for further developments and action call-outs.
REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE INDIAN ACT BAND COUNCIL
The community remains largely in the dark concerning the activities of the band council. Illegitimate in the eyes of most people in the community, this band council rose to power through the imposition of an Indian Act provision (Section 74) that gives the Minister of Indian Affairs discretion to overthrow Indigenous customary government systems.
One thing is clear, though: Barriere Lake is open for business now. Mining companies, logging companies, and costly Hydro electrification and reserve housing development have all been green-lighted by the band council.
While investments in reserve infrastructure are badly needed, they are coming at the price of burying the larger issue of land management of the whole territory.
by S. da Silva – 28 February 2011.
February 28 is not just the anniversary of Canada’s invasion and military occupation of Haiti, and the kidnapping of Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Feb 28, 2004). It’s the anniversary of an colonial struggle against Canadian imperialism within Canada’s (illegitimate) borders. On February 28, 2006, protesters of the Six Nations reserve began a protest against the unceded land upon which was being constructed the suburban housing development known as the Douglas Creek Estates.
Support for the small protest quickly grew amongst the people of Six Nations, especially after April 20, 2006 O.P.P. raid at the reclamation site which led to the arrest of 21 people. Later that day, hundreds of people from Six Nations reclaimed the site and drove back the police officers.
Five years later, the dispute has yet to be resolved, and reclamation site remains open.
Yesterday, Sunday February 27, a small demonstration was organized by Gary McHale, a long-time outside agitator from Richmond Hill who has worked to turn Caledonia’s white residents against the struggle of the Six Nations people. McHale’s demonstration – more of a media stunt than anything else – had planned to erect a monument at the Douglas Creek Estates that offered an “OPP Apology” and “Six Nations” apology to the people of Caledonia. McHale’s supporters were no more than 15-20 and were outnumbered by some one hundred non-Native supporters from Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, and Toronto, including delegations from the United Steelworkers and Canadian Autoworkers.
Gary McHale, surrounded by Six Nations supporters, Feb 27, '11
McHale has worked tirelessly to whip up a rightwing populism that paints the residents of Caledonia as the the victims of Six Nations “terrorists” and “thugs” and victims of the seeming indifference of police forces and the provincial and federal governments to the issue. McHale’s calls for the “rule of law” to be implemented in Caledonia does not include a support for those treaty obligations that Canada and the British Crown have made in the past with Six Nations.
Afterwards, supporters of Six Nations attended a pot-luck at the reclamation site for a couple hours before returning home.
