The Ironic Canadian Sentinel
While balbulican unpacks, wrings out his socks, and catches up on things at home, I’ll take his turn at pointing out some significant irony over at the Canadian Sentinel – something that really belongs in that “if it wasn’t so sad it would be pathetic” category I keep talking about setting up.
In discussing CN launching a lawsuit against the Aboriginal people who blockaded the rail line CS pontificates
Civil people go to court. They don’t occupy other peoples’ land just because they think it’s actually theirs. Nor do they commit terrorism.
Really now, is that a fact? It seems to have worked well enough for the Europeans who showed up on the beach one day – and their ancestors to boot – doesn’t it?
What CS doesn’t understand, and it’s an ignorance that a whole lot of Canadians suffer from, is that the Aboriginal people of this country have been civil and patient for generations and generations. They were so civil and so patient that they were cheated out of their land, their resources, and their livelihoods, in the process of being civil and patient.
Civil people go to court? That is a really laughable statement made by someone who is obviously unaware that at the time that Aboriginal land was being expropriated by the government, and people shoved into back corner reserves until they could finally become “enfranchised” and join Canada as equals, it was against the law, under federal legislation, for an Indian to hire a lawyer to deal with land claims. Aboriginal people were not even allowed, until 1960, to vote in an election where their representative might change laws of that nature – well, they could vote, if they were willing to give up any treaty rights they may have had before going to the ballot box.
1960 for christs sake, that is within my lifetime – and I ain’t old by any stretch of the imagination.
I guarantee CS this, if some group of well armed foreigners had showed up in the beach in the times of my great grandfather, stole his land, tried to wipe out his traditions, relegated my grandfather, my father, and their communities to some shitty piece of dirt that the foreigners either didn’t want, or couldn’t see any potential in, and then hauled me off to one of their institutions where I was beaten for speaking the language of my parents and sexually abused for their pleasure and entertainment I would not be the least bit interested in civility.
As a matter of fact I think know that civility and patience would take a back seat to a whole bunch of very violent retribution…. and if people like the Canadian Sentinel are honest, or have any balls at all, they know that they would do the same damned thing.
That land claims have not turned into reoccurring and violent conflict is a testament to the civility and patience of the Aboriginal people of Canada, and people like the Canadian Sentinel, in their ignorance and arrogance, have absolutely no clue in the world how lucky they are that it has not.
I like how the definition of terrorism is expanded. Terrorism now means “producing the fear of being inconvenienced”
I think that what the immigrants with guns did when they arrived on the shore qualifies as terrorism quite easily – “do it our way or we’ll kill you and your family and take your land” has a somewhat familiar ring to it….
Hear, hear. Well said!
“Ironic”? Are you sure you didn’t want to replace that “i” with “mo”?
One would think commentators as astonishingly ignorant of Aboriginal affairs as the Scentinel would at least have the brains not to embarass themselves publicly like this, but we can be grateful they don’t: it affords us an interesting window into the way ideologues restructure, deny or ignore reality to protect an untenable world view.
For Scenty and the rest of the shriller URQ bloggers (Upper Right Quadrant), reality must be built on the foundation of certain unshakeable principles, the core belief being that Stephen Harper is Right In Whatever He Does. This necessity has led to the following tortuous position on Aboriginal affairs:
1) Aboriginal people who demonstrate, blockade or occupy in order to bring the federal government to the table for land claim negotiations are terrorists and should be prosecuted.
b) We NEVER negotiate with “Terrorists”, therefore as long as there are Aboriginal people demonstrating, we won’t negotiate outstanding claims.
c) It doesn’t matter whether a band in or seeking negotiations endorses the “terrorists”: we will assume that the actions of the demonstrators represent the will of all Aboriginal people in the community, and heck, probably all them Indians everywhere.
d) The OPP should arrest them. Since the OPP chooses in most cases not to, it’s the fault of the Ontario Government (which, conveniently, is Liberal.
e) All those treaties and land claims and stuff are old and inconvenient anyway, and should be junked.
It takes a pretty high level of wilful ignorance to swallow this bilge. You have to ignore a whole series of internal federal AND independent evaluations that find the Crown completely culpable of ignoring its claims and treaties-based obligation for years. More fundamentally, you have to ignore the nature of the relationship between First Nations and Canada.
I generally don’t get into those discussions very much any more, preferring to leave the challenge of educating the wilfully ignorant to people more articulate, informed and passionate than I am. But fools like the Scentinel continue to provide a useful object lesson in just how little some folks know about their country’s history.
Whooee! Yeah, there’s a lotta ignorance of Canajun history. I got a friend who’s Dutch an’ moved to Canada 30-odd years ago. We was talkin’ on land claims. He sez — “The Indians lost the war. They oughta suck it up.” I had to tell him that it was the Merkans who waged military war on the natives. In Canada, we negotiated and got treaty agreements. Then we broke our end of the deals.
I figger the Cowboys’n'Indians Hollywood version of history is what a lotta folks figger happened in both Merka an’ Canada. I wonder how many immigrant EuroCanajuns are operatin’ under the myth that we had Indian Wars in Canada and conquered people have no rights.
JB
You hit it right on, JB. The myth of the “conquered” First Nations of Canada seems to crop up every time Claims get discussed; folks get either angry or very confused when you ask them when and where Canada’s Indian wars are alleged to have occurred.
Another favourite misconception is that claims and treaties settlements represent some kind of “guilt money” paid out for the sins of our ancestors against Aboriginal people, as opposed to a negotiated payment for access to their land. The Urqs love that one: it lets them indignantly declare themselves to be guilt free, and thus not bound to pay for the access Canada negotiated.
The issue of guilt is an interesting one Balb. A few weeks ago on SDA, Kate posted an article under the heading “If you can read this, thank a Conquistador.” The story was about the discovery of a Toltec site where human sacrifices had been done. Fair enough.
Now the responses were all very, how do I say this, morally superior – oh, thank god we conquered those people/savages. All I did was meerly point out that it was rich for a people with our violent history to judge a group like the Toltec. Me, and a few other people, pointed out things like the Inquisution, Witch Burnings, and the fact that the Brits were publically executing ten times as many people per capita as the Aztecs in the 15th and 16th C (I was reading 1491 by Charles Mann – great book btw).
Now the interesting part, for me at least, was the responses to this point – people kept telling me they didn’t feel guilty for what had happened to Aboriginal peoples in the Americas even though I never said they should. Despite saying this over and over, this was people’s line of defence – we don’t feel guilty over what happened and we aren’t responsible for the past. I agreed.
I wondered with a friend afterwards whether or not some people really do feel guilty, hence the reason why they are so adamant that they aren’t. Either that, or is it just a way for people to wash their handsclean of all issues Aboriginal? I don’t know, but the knee-jerk reaction of “I don’t feel guilty” strikes me as odd. Thoughts?
I don’t know if it’s guilt, Dodos: I tend to assume that there’s a knee-jerk need to cast our own culture as the “Good Guys” in the Good Vs. Evil identification of other human beings. Many of our great mythologies are split along the lines of good/evil, and we like our villians identifiable by handlebar mustache, by eye-patch, by black spidey-suit, by skin colour. We have criminals within the culture – but can see other cultures as wholly corrupt.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote a book called “Infidel” which criticizes Islam as fundamentally oppressive. I find it very interesting the number of people who have suggested I read this for the touching analysis and story – far more than those who suggest I read Dwarkin or Daly or other western feminists who suggest that patriarchy is inherent in western thought and Christian teaching. I think both criticisms should be systematically considered – after all, religious systems do provide a framework and therefore a means to control – but the fact that Ali is a hero and Dwarkin is a radical speaks to our willingness to homogenize whole other cultures and individualize our own.
(Of course, the criticism that Hirsi Ali does get is similar to that that of Dwarkin; plus scorn that she’s pouring oil on an already roaring fire to help it spread.
That said, and the woman had her clitoris removed and her life threatened, both in the name of a religion. Consideration of the religion’s complicity is valid, I think; and it’s hard not to feel cynically that if men were being castrated in the name of … Morinkae, goddess of Plum-Fruit in the Religion of the Hose-Beast… that the religion of the Hose-Beast would be decried as a cult.)
(…Which doesn’t prevent religions from changing in interpretation and giving up their castrate-y ways. Becoming kinder, gentler ways of mythologizing, as it were. We all have mythology of one sort or another, and we’re all judgemental assholes and creatures of compassion; and any mythology we are attracted to can reflect the balance of our understanding.
Which is the problem with homogenizing Christianity or Islam or Plum Goddess Religions, the world over.)
I think Dodos may be talking about the kind of guilt that activists from ANY minority utilize in attempting to achieve social or political goals. Tom Wolfe described it well in “Mau-Mauing The Flak Catchers”: it’s the guilt that Germans can be made to feel as individuals about Naziism they didn’t live through, that white Americans can be made to feel as individual about slavery, or that the URQs want Muslims to feel as individuals about 9/11. Amusingly, many of the URQs most insistent that ALL Muslims take responsibility for the actions of lunatic few are the folks who angrily repudiate any sense of guilt for any actions of their ancestors vis a vis blacks, Chinese, or Aboriginal people.
I’m wary of the notion of heriditary blame or retroactive collective guilt, myself. It smacks a bit too much of Original Sin.
I’m with you Balb – I don’t believe in hereditary guilt – the actions of the past are there’s alone.
I don’t even know what kind of guilt I’m talking about to be honest, I just found it odd that the reaction to my point about all cultures being violent in one form or another (and thus, the justification of the destruction of the Toltec based on their own violence being absurd) was a collective right wing “we don’t feel guilty about what happened – I was puzzled by the response because I never said anything about anyone being responsible – I just pointed out what I thought was the obvious.
To be honest, I think the right carefully frames the argument as being about guilt. It’s a very good way to ensure nobody sides with the aboriginals – if you do, it must be because you are guilty of something. I don’t think guilt is necessarily the appropriate response, so we are all in agreement over that (nice to get the lefties and the righties on the same side, huh?).
I think justice, however, requiress first acknowledging our privilege and where it comes from, and who still suffers for it, and doing whatever possible to counteract it and fight for what’s right. That’s simply solidarity.
I was reading that the Canadian government spends something like 2.5 times less on each aboriginal person compared to each other Canadian. Yet, there’s this myth that aboriginals ride for free, on the taxpayers dollar, blah blah blah.
To be honest, I think the right carefully frames the argument as being about guilt. It’s a very good way to ensure nobody sides with the aboriginals – if you do, it must be because you are guilty of something.
That’s a great point. It just struck me as so odd that the reaction was what it was – now it makes more sense.
I think justice, however, requiress first acknowledging our privilege and where it comes from, and who still suffers for it, and doing whatever possible to counteract it and fight for what’s right. That’s simply solidarity.
I always share the story of an older man I met while giving a presentation on treaties – he asked me why he should feel responsible or guilty – I told him he didn’t have to feel either, but that I felt a sense of responsibility to ensure that Aboriginal peoples were treated fairly because the attempted assimilation had been done for my benefit (well, not just mine – but me and my white brothers and sisters). For me, it is, as you say Jenny, acknowledging my privilege and who had to suffer for it and who continues too.
And don’t you know that every Treaty Indians gets a free car every year?
“I think justice, however, requiress first acknowledging our privilege and where it comes from, and who still suffers for it, and doing whatever possible to counteract it and fight for what’s right.”
Exactly. We don’t pay rent or the purchase price of our food because we feel “guilty”: we pay because we have a contract and owe a debt. We cross or dwell on or prospect in Aboriginal land because our nation and their nation agreed on terms under which we do those things, in return for payment. Now it seems we’re trying to renege on the bill.
I hesitate to jump into the conversation as you guys always hand me my head on a platter with respect to Aboriginal issues, but here goes nothing.
First off, I think Red Jenny has nailed it. I don’t so much feel ‘guilty’ about the land claims, but I do think that wrongs need to be righted. I have no quarrel with the Musqueam Band going for higher lease payments in Musqueam Park in Vancouver, or taking UBC to court over whether or not they can sell the golf course. It was fascinating to me to learn that the “Endowment Lands” (as they are, or at least were, referred to in Vancouver) are the same lands the Musqueam claim. Given the value of housing on some of the disputed lands, I can see another Caledonia in the making if something isn’t resolved soon.
But how do you propose settling that? Seriously. If the province or federal gov’t is prepared to cut a cheque, but the Musqueam people want the land, instead, what do you propose? Does the province then write cheques to the homeowners and hand it over? Where do the people living there go?
That the government (both federal and provincial) has historically ignored and/or rewritten treaties is a given. How do you move forward without displacing thousands (and possibly across the country, hundreds of thousands) of people?
Ya know what, as harsh as it may sound, it would suck to be those folks who built on land that wasn’t theirs, but there ya go, they built on land that wasn’t theirs.
If that is the fault of either the federal or provincial levels of government then that’s where they need to look for what happens next.
The alternative is essentially forcing people to sell their land so other people can have it – is that something that is acceptable?
C., have you got a link to a reference that sets out the issue? I don’t know that particular claim, and don’t want to put my foot in it.
People who buy on the Endowment lands know the moment they land there that they’re on lease-hold – you have to lease the land, every year, to the tune of $7K and up, which is pretty darn cheap, actually, for the location.
(MLS shows these terms.)
University houses are cheaper, because of this: but the lease is more expensive than property taxes.
The government needs not write anyone a cheque if the band decides ‘that’s it, people, get lost’ after 2068. If you “buy” a house there, it’s quite well documented and explained how you don’t own the land, you’re leasing it – you only own the house. Therefore, if the band kicks you off, you can pack up your house on the back of a semi and move it along. Or maybe they’ll buy it from you. I dunno.
I find lease-hold a rather odd way of “buying”, since I’d rather own land than own a house. That said, and I can see the value in buying into a 59 year lease, if you really want long term but not indefinite security.
In fact, the Musqueam are providing benefit to the interim sellers, really. Land in Vancouver is why prices are so expensive here. I wonder whether the houses up there would sell for a half million dollars in Swift Current, Saskatchewan: or whether being right beside point grey/kits/pacific spirit park is a wee bit of the cachet.
In which case, those houses are probably overvalued as per house, and the lease is probably undervalued as per land. If you put that half-million dollar house in Nelson, is it still worth a half million?
The only reason I would buy on lease hold property is if that answer is yes, AND if I had the ability to move the house, should the lease situation change.
And what’s an URQ besides an Un-Registration Request?
Now it seems we’re trying to renege on the bill.
They started to renege on the deals 3 minutes after they signed them
Balbulican, I learned via Google today about the Endowment Lands; I’d heard rumblings about land claims around them while living in Vancouver. The issue I’m more aware of is in a very tony neighborhood along the Fraser River. Lots were being leased (for 99 years) at something ridiculous like $1-200/yr (and these were very large lots – I visited a home there and I recall the lease payment being in 3 figures, per annum – this was a bragging point for people living there, trust me), and people built great, gorgeous homes on them. The lease remained the same amount for decades, but in 94/95 or thereabouts, a new chief noticed the fine print that allowed for increases every 5 years based on market value. He wanted to jack the leases up by about $20k or so to bring it up to speed from the 50s & 60s. That wasn’t so much a land claims issue as a “sucks to be you” issue for those residing there.
I had little sympathy for the law partners et al, and some for the retirees who didn’t have a hope in hell of raising the funds and stood to loose everything, since no one was interested in buying the leases until the dust settled. From what I can tell via Google, some sort of compromise was reached for the lessees (if you feel like plowing through pages & pages, the initial lease/assessments seem to be addressed at musqueam(dot)bc(dot)ca/pdfs/96ASS11(dot)pdf). Doing a bit more digging, they may have addressed this via property taxes.
The Endowment Lands are not all that the Musqueam are laying claim to. From what I’m making of the map attached to the claim here (http www musqueam(dot)bc(dot)ca/pdfs/MIBdeclaration(dot)PDF) it looks like pretty much all of Vancouver south of False Creek, give or take a bit of Burnaby, New West and North & West Vancouver. I’m directionally challenged (and even moreso when trying to read a handwritten map).
If you look at the history of the Musqueam (on the website) and know the area, they pretty much covered most of the Lower Mainland. They are not the only ones laying claim.
Very, very messy. Nobody will “win” this – if the gov’t cuts a humungous cheque, the general citizenry will be up in arms. If the various First Nations want the land, Caledonia will look like a couple of high school kids setting fire to the bleachers at an abandoned school.
Arwen: URQ is the short form for Upper Right Quadrant of the political cube, the traditional left/right linear model is inadequate in this day and age for describing political inclination.
Google “political compass”.
Very, very messy.
I think I understand why you think so. But I like to reverse things every now and then, to try to gain perspective. You know, forget that guilt thing. Just consider for a sec that the roles were reversed.
The Musqueam built homes on land owned by settlers and their descendants. A 99-year lease is coming up, and the lease-holders have recently discovered that their agent (the Dept of Caucasian Affairs) has been low-balling them their rightful income from rent for decades. It’s charging almost the same rent it did 90 years ago! Aye carumba!
What to do? Raise the rent and risk the wrath of the Musqueam? Whoa! Who gives a flying flip?
The Musqueam don’t have big numbers, are not politically important or powerful, are not rich, are not connected, do not enjoy economic clout, do not benefit from a sympatico media, do not have powerful politicians or the police in their corner. Finally, they don’t have the courts on their side either (judges live in neighbourhoods just like these).
So, what is the right, proper, moral, legal, and just thing to do?
You know, forget that guilt thing.
See I told you! Raising the issue of guilt when none of us has said that anyone should feel guilty! I love it!
Aw, go ahead then. Feel guilty if you want. Allow it to wash over you like a warm wave in a cold pool… oops! Forget I said anything.
dissendat, I think we’re arguing the same 2 sides of the coin, at least on the lease issue. In re-reading my post, I can see how that happened.
There are 2 pieces to the Musqueam puzzle I’m talking about.
1) The ritzy neighborhood built by those leasing from the Musqueam.
2) Pretty much the rest of the Lower Mainland, which the Musqueam are laying claim to (or at least a big chunk of it – like I said above, me & map-reading is not something you should take to the bank, but from other things I read on my google search last night (musqueam “land claims” vancouver, I think), there are 4 other bands with active claims, so for the most part, about 1.5 million people stand to be displaced should any or all of the bands with claims choose land over cash.
For the ritzy neighborhood (1)? No sympathy. (Just as I’d have none in the reverse situation you describe.) Unfortunately, I am Jane Q Public and not in a position of power, so my opinion counts for squat. If, as noted above, the leases are now $7k per year, then they are much more “market oriented” than they were prior to 1995/96. The compromise took place after I left Vancouver in 2001, so it was a long fight. Did the Band win? I think so. As noted above, taking out a X-yr lease on land (developed or otherwise), is no guarantee you can renew after X expires. A few hundred dollars a year for prime, river-front real estate in Vancouver is a travesty. $7k is probably more than some could afford, but not outside the realms when you look at similar property prices in Vancouver.
For the rest of the Lower Mainland (2)? THAT has the potential to be very, very messy. Some of the properties are as old as the city(ies – since Vancouver is actually an amalgamation of 3 separate cities early on). Titles have changed hands numerous times. The governments’ (BC and Canada) only choice will have to be writing cheques. Can you spell HUGE DEFICIT?
It’s all well and good to say, in situations like Caledonia, that whoever approved the original land sale (the province or the feds) should reimburse the homeowners. With a few hundred, it’s manageable. When you get into the hundreds of thousands, not so much.
The end result, I expect, will be massive cheques cut, but I wouldn’t want to be the poor sap that authorized them. If I recall correctly, BC is a province that DID NOT have historic treaties signed, ever. So there is no base point for the government to start from (the Aboriginals can effectively lay claim to the whole damn province, and there’s no paper to show otherwise). The Nisga Treaty, that drew howls of outrage (at least in BC), is a classic example. The Band had been trying for over 100 years to get a treaty in place, but was blocked by various bits & pieces of legislation. IMHO, this is the “white man’s” superiority complex coming back to bite them (us?) in the a$$, and well-deservedly. By refusing to come to the table, they had nothing to BRING to the table. Serves them right.
Proof positive that ignoring a problem long enough will NOT make it go away, at least not all the time.
Hopefully this makes more sense.
There’s a certain reality quotient that eventually kicks in, C.
FNs have both the law and a certain moral leverage on their side. BUT governments can and will stall almost forever, which raises the pressure to settle. So bands inevitably settle for less than they want, and governments inevitably pay more than they want.
“So bands inevitably settle for less than they want, and governments inevitably pay more than they want.”
Well, I guess if everyone’s disappointed, it’s probably a reasonable compromise.