First nations will blockade roads as part of 'Idle No More' protest

[Buzzard]

Chief Spence just doesn't get it.

Chief Louie does.

He's the one that should be an inspiration to Paul Martin and Canada's native people.

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/8thfire/20...e-louie-1.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1103739/

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Buzzard

Chief Spence just doesn't get it.

Chief Louie does.

He's the one that should be an inspiration to Paul Martin and Canada's native people.

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/8thfire/20...e-louie-1.html

I actually watched the whole 1/2 hour of that, he should be the national chief.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by peter12

If property owners want to sell, they should be allowed to sell. The fact that you don't think aboriginals deserve the same rights as other Canadians is incredibly appalling.

So you're saying there are no non-aboriginal collectives or co-ops in Canada? Someone should send Salt Spring Island a memo.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by rubecube

So you're saying there are no non-aboriginal collectives or co-ops in Canada? Someone should send Salt Spring Island a memo.

If people own their property and then decide that they want to form some sort of collective that is fine. I think the idea is that they would have the freedom to make the decision.

What are you referring to with Salt Spring Island?

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by peter12

If property owners want to sell, they should be allowed to sell. The fact that you don't think aboriginals deserve the same rights as other Canadians is incredibly appalling.

They have just as much right to own land as anyone else if they buy it. That doesn't mean all reserve land should simply be carved up into a bunch of titles to be bought and sold like any other piece of land. No other level of government operates that way so why should First Nations?

Any transition to to a fee simple property ownership situation will likely play out like the Nisga'a Treaty where most of the land is still owned by the band but residential zoned areas within the band's land are titled and can be owned, bought, and sold by anyone. It's a process that has to be handled carefully.

[FlamesAddiction]

BC is kind of a special case though. It was a separate colony and many of the First Nations never signed treaties and are negotiating without that legacy.

Chief Louie is also the first one to admit that his location helps a lot with the economic development. I like that he recognizes that more funding for actual development and not for social services is needed in a lot of communities, but he also makes a good point that a lot of the reserves are on crap land with access issues and few resources. How can those communities survive without being welfare cases? I would love to see it happen, but short of forced relocation, I can't fathom it.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

BC is kind of a special case though. It was a separate colony and many of the First Nations never signed treaties and are negotiating without that legacy.

Chief Louie is also the first one to admit that his location helps a lot with the economic development. I like that he recognizes that more funding for actual development and not for social services is needed in a lot of communities, but he also makes a good point that a lot of the reserves are on crap land with access issues and few resources. How can those communities survive without being welfare cases? I would love to see it happen, but short of forced relocation, I can't fathom it.

Um, they can move. AFAIK they aren't trapped on the land. These aren't prison camps. I don't know, if it's so bad they could always move, grab themselves some free university, get jobs and earn some money? That's what every other Canadian has to do when they find themselves in poor economic conditions (minus the free university).

What culture exactly do they even think they're preserving at this point? I'm pretty sure the plan wasn't for them to be supported by the Canadian government for 100s of years. My understanding of the reserves was they were so they could preserve their way of life by hunting and living in tipis apart from mainstream Canadian culture. Now a good number of these reserves just seem to be disasters.

I can't believe you'd ask how they can survive and not be welfare cases. It seems so defeatist. I survive by not being a welfare case because I live somewhere that has jobs and I get up and go to work every day. It's really not that hard.

[ricosuave]

There are about 150 of em currently marching south on 14th St NW by the Winter Club, backing traffic up back to 64th Ave...

[Nyah]

A prominent statue of Canada's first prime minister was vandalized on what would have been John A. Macdonald's 198th birthday.

Some time overnight, vandals wrote phrases such as, "This is stolen land," "Murderer," "Colonizer," "Sir John A. Killer" and "F--- Canada," across the statue

But...

Susan DeLisle, a French/Algonquin resident involved with the Idle No More movement in Kingston, said local demonstrators are disappointed that someone would deface the monument.
"That's something that we don't condone," DeLisle said. "This is a peaceful movement. It's not the kind of thing we need and it doesn't help our cause."

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Um, they can move. AFAIK they aren't trapped on the land. These aren't prison camps. I don't know, if it's so bad they could always move, grab themselves some free university, get jobs and earn some money? That's what every other Canadian has to do when they find themselves in poor economic conditions (minus the free university).

What culture exactly do they even think they're preserving at this point? I'm pretty sure the plan wasn't for them to be supported by the Canadian government for 100s of years. My understanding of the reserves was they were so they could preserve their way of life by hunting and living in tipis apart from mainstream Canadian culture. Now a good number of these reserves just seem to be disasters.

I can't believe you'd ask how they can survive and not be welfare cases. It seems so defeatist. I survive by not being a welfare case because I live somewhere that has jobs and I get up and go to work every day. It's really not that hard.

You'll never get the majority to just up and leave their homes, nor should you expect them to. Just like how people who live in tornado zones never leave. When a place is your home, it's difficult to give up even if there is poverty. People like being close to friends and family even if it comes at a cost. It's one thing to relocate from a place like Toronto to Calgary where you have reasonable direct travel between the 2 centres, but to expect someone to move from community with barely any outside access and isn't financially feasible to visit, it's a big sacrifice. Many of them might never see their family again. We don't bury our dead there, so it's really easy to disassociate ourselves.

The other side of it is that I really doubt that the government suddenly wants every impoverished First Nations person to suddenly take them up of free education and other assistance that would be necessary for integration.

Whether we like it or not, these communities exist and simply hoping that people decide to abandon them is never going to play out. The only choice is to develop their economies so they are sustainable, or to continually bail them out. And let's face it, some of those northern reserves have nothing to build an economy off of.

Of course, the other choice is to just let them linger and eventually die. I don't see that as a realistic option though.

The situation with the state of many of Canada's aboriginal people is complcated well past the "why don't they just move" point.

At any rate, I was commenting on Chief Louie's point of view that the government should be spending more on community develop instead of asisstance. Enticing people to leave their communities is actually the opposite of what he was talking about.

[FLAMESRULE]

Originally Posted by ricosuave

There are about 150 of em currently marching south on 14th St NW by the Winter Club, backing traffic up back to 64th Ave...

Yup, live in West Hillhurst and Kensington is backed up from Crow to 21st. Protestors have to be very careful because if they start interfering with other Canadians ability to work, get to the hospital, etc. this will escalate in a hurry.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by mrvee

*mod edit poor taste joke*

I know that you are making a joke and I don't want to be the morality police, but joking about ethnic cleansing/genocide of a people seems a touch over the top.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The other side of it is that I really doubt that the government suddenly wants every impoverished First Nations person to suddenly take them up of free education and other assistance that would be necessary for integration.

Whether we like it or not, these communities exist and simply hoping that people decide to abandon them is never going to play out. The only choice is to develop their economies so they are sustainable, or to continually bail them out. And let's face it, some of those northern reserves have nothing to build an economy off of.

Of course, the other choice is to just let them linger and eventually die. I don't see that as a realistic option though.

The situation with the state of many of Canada's aboriginal people is complcated well past the "why don't they just move" point.

At any rate, I was commenting on Chief Louie's point of view that the government should be spending more on community develop instead of asisstance. Enticing people to leave their communities is actually the opposite of what he was talking about.

You cannot 'make' a community sustainable, in fact the remoteness is not the cause of the unsustainability it is an effect of there not being any reason for any one to be there.

[guzzy]

Let's start a coddle no more movement. I am tired of supporting these bums. They lived off the land before we were here. Let them go back to that. No more money.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

I know that you are making a joke and I don't want to be the morality police, but joking about ethnic cleansing/genocide of a people seems a touch over the top.

Interesting to note going back to the White Guy letter that Minny put up where he talks about blankets being given to Canadian Natives.

That occurred during the battle of Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania, there's no historically proven notes that it happened anywhere else.

But I agree the comment was in bad taste.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

You cannot 'make' a community sustainable, in fact the remoteness is not the cause of the unsustainability it is an effect of there not being any reason for any one to be there.

I actually agree with this statement.

But let's not forget that many of these communities were relocated in their current locations during colonialism.

The fact remains, they are there now. What options are there going forward? Unless someone invents a time machine, then there is no point in lamenting without solutions.

[CaptainCrunch]

These reservations and the Indian Act are literally a suicide pact.

I think if the Native Chiefs and the Natives and the Federal Government were all honest with themselves they would look at the fact that a lot of these reservations are located where there will never be economic opportunities and they will never be sustainable and start finding a way to give incentives for Natives to either move to other reservations or leave the reservation system as a whole.

It might cost some extra money over the short term to do it, but in the long term it would probably be a solid investment.

I get the whole ancestral lands thing and the link to the area, but every human being has to choose between beliefs and survival.

That time is rapidly coming.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

These reservations and the Indian Act are literally a suicide pact.

I think if the Native Chiefs and the Natives and the Federal Government were all honest with themselves they would look at the fact that a lot of these reservations are located where there will never be economic opportunities and they will never be sustainable and start finding a way to give incentives for Natives to either move to other reservations or leave the reservation system as a whole.

It might cost some extra money over the short term to do it, but in the long term it would probably be a solid investment.

I get the whole ancestral lands thing and the link to the area, but every human being has to choose between beliefs and survival.

That time is rapidly coming.

The economic argument is already luring aboriginals away from reserves. The statistical evidence: http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion...266/story.html

Cowperson

[Regular_John]

Evidently the 14th street bridge was closed last night as part of Idle No More

Charges possible following Idle No More protest in Calgary

...
About 75 people marched seven kilometres from Nose Hill Park to the 14 Street Bridge where protestors waved signs and chanted while blocking traffic for several hours. Protesters remained on the bridge until about 10:30 p.m. MT Saturday night.
...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...-saturday.html

I actually got re-routed last night after picking my wife up from work and saw the bridge "road closed" signs at Kensington Road & 14th street there. But coming from the north and it being after dark all I could really see was police sirens quite a ways down, so I just assumed it was an accident.

So it's the second time I've encountered this protest, neither has really left with me a strong impression either way or left me better informed about the issues.

[VO #23]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

Evidently the 14th street bridge was closed last night as part of Idle No More



I actually got re-routed last night after picking my wife up from work and saw the bridge "road closed" signs at Kensington Road & 14th street there. But coming from the north and it being after dark all I could really see was police sirens quite a ways down, so I just assumed it was an accident.

So it's the second time I've encountered this protest, neither has really left with me a strong impression either way or left me better informed about the issues.

Encountering the protest itself isn't designed to inform you of the issues, it's designed to raise awareness of the issues through media reports, press releases, and generally having it become part of the public discourse.