From: warkenti@CAE.Mitel.Com (BJ Warkentin)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Bourassa is my hero
Date: 6 Apr 92 18:23:37 GMT
	<1992Mar31.200916.10960@mdivax1.uucp>
	<1992Apr03.162004.6949@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca> <jstewart.702325668@cunews>
Organization: MITEL, Kanata, Ontario, Canada
In-reply-to: jstewart@alfred.carleton.ca's message of 3 Apr 92 18:27:48 GMT

John Stewart writes:

   In <1992Apr03.162004.6949@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca> kmcvay@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca (Ken Mcvay) writes:
   >Perhaps because the government, knowing full well that its legal
   >position is untenable, usually just looks the other way. The Six
   >Nations accepted a treaty in 1664 (Two Row Wampum) which assured their
   >sovereignty - you'll find a picture of the wampum belt and a
   >description of the meaning of the treaty, on the cover of the report
   >released by the Canadian House of Commons Committee on Indian
   >Self-Goverment (1983). One of the things it says is this: "One, a
   >birch bark canoe, will be for the Indian people, their laws, their
   >customs, and their ways. The other, a ship, will be for the white
   >people and their laws, their customs and their ways. We shall each
   >travel the river together, side by side, but in our own boat. Neither
   >of us will try to steer the other's vessel."

   From a legal viewpoint, Canada may have inherited this treaty from the
   British.  However, the treaty just doesn't make sense anymore.  The 
   British were foreigners, relatively few in number and 
   certainly didn't regard North America as their home land.
   Today the vast majority of Canadians were actually born in Canada and are
   thus native Canadians.  Aboriginal people may be annoyed that they 
   represent only a small percentage of Canada's population now but that's
   the reality.  The land now has to be shared among the 26 million people 
   who think of Canada as their homeland.

   Aboriginal people in Canada do have serious problems but I don't think that
   treaties signed hundreds of years ago when the situation was vastly different
   than it is today offer any solutions to those problems.

I agree with your point regarding the usefulness of these treaties BUT
that is not really the issue. The appropriate government authorities
signed treaties setting forth certain rights and obligations. As the
years went by and the situation changed these treaties should have
been renegotiated to keep them current. As this was not done I would
think that the original treaties have the same legal right and impact
that they did at the time of their signing. However this legal
"rightness" has been convienently ignored in the past and will most
probably continue. The current dispute about the Great Whale project
is a good example of this. [Note: This is not a Quebec bash, other
provinces have equally dismal track records I just don't know as much
about them. However Quebec's position does seem rather hypocritical
given their stance on their right to distinctness] You or I can not
ignore and break laws whenever it suits us. Governments can and do,
though usually they do so by just changing the laws to suit their
current views and political mindset. For the most part, while dealing
with the native treaties they have not even bothered to pay this
amount of lip service to "legality".

You can look at the TROC versus Quebec situation in much the same
light. At the time the french and english makeup of Canada was roughly
50/50 and thus rights and guaranties were put into place. They don't
all make sense now but you cannot just wipe the slate clean and say
that since options XYZ now make most sense, we will adopt them without
putting the situation into the appropriate historical significance.

BJ...warkenti@CAE.Mitel.Com    |   XJ650K and DoD#0255
Kanata, Ontario, Canada        |   I want a new toy...
I really didn't mean it quite that way, or did I :->
Newsgroups: can.politics