419 replies to this topic

[Rob Randall]

maybe that type of progress is why they never invented the wheel. or written language.

 

The flip side to the "elected chiefs are a colonialist construct" is this:

 

It ignores the possibility that First Nations wouldn't or couldn't modify their governance structure based on what they observed of the colonists. We know BC's Aboriginal peoples modified many aspects of their life and culture based on contacts with other cultures and this cross-pollination of ideas has been going on for thousands of years. 

 

Aboriginal culture may appear timeless compared to western culture's breakneck pace but anyone saying western influence in FN governance is a colonial imposition is being condescending.

[Bernard]

The flip side to the "elected chiefs are a colonialist construct" is this:

 

It ignores the possibility that First Nations wouldn't or couldn't modify their governance structure based on what they observed of the colonists. We know BC's Aboriginal peoples modified many aspects of their life and culture based on contacts with other cultures and this cross-pollination of ideas has been going on for thousands of years. 

 

Aboriginal culture may appear timeless compared to western culture's breakneck pace but anyone saying western influence in FN governance is a colonial imposition is being condescending.

 

It also ignores the fact that about 1/4 of First Nations in BC operated with elected chiefs before contact and other BC First Nations had no set governance model at all.   

 

At the time the English first arrived in North America the monarch had something closer to absolute power than anything else.    Russia has barely had an open and democratic government at any point and China is actively opposed to an accountable, open and elected government.   None of those examples make autocracy part of a valid cultural tradition to keep.  

[Mike K.]

The grave of Sir James Douglas has been desecrated at Ross Bay. Yes, one side of the grave has a giant penis graffitied on it. Photos on our Facebook page via Old Cemeteries Society.

[Victoria Watcher]

what do we know - at this point - about the historical size of sjam's penis?  

 

 

 

(asking for a historic friend)

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 February 2020 - 02:10 PM.

[Bernard]

The grave of Sir James Douglas has been desecrated at Ross Bay. Yes, one side of the grave has a giant penis graffitied on it. Photos on our Facebook page via Old Cemeteries Society.

Given Douglas' support for First Nation rights and that his wife and kids were all First Nations people, and finally that Douglas was a blackman, I have to wonder if this act can be seen on either side of the Title and Rights issues

[Nparker]

...Douglas was a blackman

Perhaps I am not understanding the term "blackman", but SJD looks rather white to me. I suppose his mother's heritage* comes into play in describing his ethnicity.

*Douglas' mother, Martha Ann (née Ritchie, later Telfer), was a Barbadian Creole. Ritchie was classified as "free coloured", which in that time and place meant someone of mixed African and European family history, who was not a slave. https://en.wikipedia...glas_(governor)

[Bernard]

By American laws of the time and English convention, he would be considered a blackman  

[Victoria Watcher]

well.  here we go.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...riday-1.5471095

 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 February 2020 - 02:13 PM.

[mbjj]

I was reading that the former Alliance Against Displacement is now Red Braid something-or-other. I think they are involved in many of these protests so I thought, oh I'll have a look at their Twitter. Lo and behold, I was blocked, lol. Strange as I never even heard of them until yesterday. Anyways, I just went with a different browser and was able to read their tweets. That seems to be how a lot of people hear where they're supposed to go to occupy this or that office. Yesterday I think it was the Minister of Education. Anywho, I thought that was quite amusing to be blocked by someone I never heard of!

[FawltyVic]

I was reading that the former Alliance Against Displacement is now Red Braid something-or-other. I think they are involved in many of these protests so I thought, oh I'll have a look at their Twitter. Lo and behold, I was blocked, lol. Strange as I never even heard of them until yesterday. Anyways, I just went with a different browser and was able to read their tweets. That seems to be how a lot of people hear where they're supposed to go to occupy this or that office. Yesterday I think it was the Minister of Education. Anywho, I thought that was quite amusing to be blocked by someone I never heard of!

Yeah it's called a block chain. I'm a bit of a nerd and because of this I have encountered this type of thing many times on Twitter from comic writers/artists working at Marvel and DC. People who I've never heard of or heard of and had no contact with chain block myself and others for two reasons:

 

1. Because we follow people with the wrong political view.

and

2. Because we follow comic/YouTube critics who are actually critics and not arse kissing cheer squad members who dare call themselves critics.

 

Most likely you follow someone they don't like and for that you're being shunned.

[FawltyVic]

CN and CP both have police forces, and they have as much authority and power as any other police force. Where are they in all of this?

Probably mixed in with the layoffs.

[Victoria Watcher]

if you dig deep enough you will find some credible information that the mohawks causing the blockades in the east have been told to take down their protest - or their illegal pot industry will get a  lot of attention.

[Victoria Watcher]

if you dig deep enough you will find some credible information that the mohawks causing the blockades in the east have been told to take down their protest - or their illegal pot industry will get a  lot of attention.

 

more news sources now reporting there is a midnight ultimatum tonight or the protestors "will be criminally investigated".

[Mike K.]

What a bunch of nonsense.

[Victoria Watcher]

The Ontario Provincial Police have told Mohawk First Nations demonstrating at a railway in Tyendinaga, Ont. that they have until midnight to clear the rails, or they could face police investigation and charges, according to footage from Real Peoples Media.

 

In a video posted to Real Peoples Media on Sunday, an OPP officer tells Mohawk demonstrators that “CN has made us aware that, as the complainant, they’re willing to not have the OPP investigate any criminal charges as long as everything from the site is cleared out by the end of today.”

 

The Mohawks of Tyendinaga have been demonstrating since Feb 6. in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in the wake of the B.C. RCMP enforcing an injunction in unceded Wet’suwet’en territory to allow Coastal GasLink workers to start construction on a pipeline that hereditary chiefs say they have not consented to.

 

https://www.ctvnews....ckade-1.4824371

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 23 February 2020 - 06:19 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

50 police officers have arrived to remove the ontario blockade.

 

arrests have begun.  now.  was that all so hard?  we waited 3 weeks for this?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 February 2020 - 05:35 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Dr. Kelly Black, Executive Director

 

As Wet’suwet’en people and their supporters resist the incursion of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Coastal Gas Link into their territories, I am reminded that there is a direct link between these events and our historic house museum in Victoria, 1200 kilometers away.

 

Point Ellice House was home to Peter and Caroline O’Reilly, and their descendants, from 1867 to 1975. From 1880 to 1898, Peter served as Indian Reserve Commissioner (IRC) for the provincial and federal government. Writing on O’Reilly’s IRC work, historian Kenneth Brealey titled his article “Travels from Point Ellice: Peter O’Reilly and the Indian Reserve System in British Columbia.” Brealey notes that Point Ellice House, the historic site, is a “touchstone for another, more tangible, colonial space, but one that can only be exhibited when we bring Peter O’Reilly back, so to speak, onto the lawn at 2616 Pleasant Street.” (1997/1998, p. 182). That colonial space is the Indian Reserve.

 

In September of 1891, Peter O’Reilly allocated over 25 reserves in Wet’suwet’en territories. O’Reilly travelled the province extensively in his job as Indian Reserve Commissioner, but he always returned to Point Ellice House to complete the paperwork necessary to settle the ‘Indian land question.’ Working from his study overlooking the Selkirk Water/Gorge Waterway, O’Reilly copied out his minutes of decision and corresponded with premiers, prime ministers, Indian agents, surveyors, and chief commissioners of lands and works. When British Columbia joined confederation with Canada in 1871, O’Reilly’s brother in law, Joseph Trutch, gave Canadian officials the impression Indian reserves and treaties were established and generous in the province; the situation, however, was anything but.

 

And so, in 1891, O’Reilly carried on with the work of allocating reserves that began under his predecessors, the Joint Indian Reserve Commission, in 1876. As in many other places he visited, O’Reilly made quick work of assigning reserves in Wet’suwet’en territories. In most cases, this involved interviews with First Nations leaders, interviews with Settlers, and consideration for First Nations pursuit of agricultural projects or wage labour employment; easing pathways to assimilation and providing certainty for an emerging Settler state were O’Reilly’s key objectives.

 

O’Reilly’s minutes of decision for the “Ha-gwil-get Indians” (today, the Hagwilget First Nation, a member of the Wet’suwet’en) record the following:

 

his last sentence is key. Without a treaty, and despite the well documented resistance of First Nations in the region, O’Reilly was responsible for clearing the way for the “progress of the country.” If O’Reilly was following the ‘rule of law,’ it was one being more or less made up on the fly. Both Canada and British Columbia disagreed with how reserve creation should proceed and both governments frequently altered what O’Reilly could and could not do in the field. Decisions O’Reilly thought he had the authority to make were often overturned; a Settler complaint or a potentially rich resource site were often factors in alterations to the ‘rule of law’ and questions of land (see for example, Cole Harris, Making Native Space, pp. 193 to 200). Through O’Reilly, and with the tacit support of Canada, BC pursued dispossession in the name of “progress.”

 

 

The Indians on these reserves number 236, they possess a limited number of horses and cattle. There are no white settlements in the neighbourhood, nor are these allotments likely to interfere in any way with the progress of the country 

 

When O’Reilly returned to Point Ellice House, the physical space of a reserve was embodied in his notes and sketches. I have no doubt that the paperwork of Wet’suwet’en dispossession (and countless other First Nations) was compiled in, and passed through, Point Ellice House.

Today, efforts to build a pipeline in northern British Columbia may seem distant. Yet, as Wet’suwet’en supporters are demonstrating, solidarity blockades bring it much closer.

As I have written elsewhere, “The O’Reillys went about their lives gardening, painting, cooking, and entertaining, as a colonial project unfolded around them, and because of them.” Colonization is ongoing and it is a part of everyday life in Canada – a fact that I am reminded of each time I walk into Peter O’Reilly’s study.

 

https://pointelliceh...en-territories/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 February 2020 - 12:49 PM.

[Bernard]

In BC there was a Joint Reserve Commission created in 1876 with one representative of the Feds, one from the province, and one they both agreed on - the Fed choose AC Anderson, the province A. McKinley, and from both GM Sproat,    The commission was created outside of any legal framework and was unconstitutional.    In 1878 this became the Indian Reserve Commission with only a single person.   There was no process for the First Nations to negotiate or appeal decisions.   When the commission came by, if the community leadership was not around the commission would just find what ever Indian they could to make a decision.

 

I have read a lot of the decisions by the commission and they deliberately chose limited and small pieces of lands for First Nations in BC.   O'Reilly, as far as I can tell from his notes, did not care if he did his work well and had a dislike for First Nations.  The scale of land made into reserves was not nearly enough to allow the communities to economically sustain themselves which the feds fixed by making it almost impossible for First Nations to take part in the economy.

 

The response of First Nations in BC was to actively push for treaty negotiations in the late 19th and early 20th century.  The federal government dealt with this by making it illegal for First Nations to advocate for title and rights and forbade lawyers from representing First Nations.

 

In 1914-1916 there was the McBride-McKenna commission in BC which was created with the goal of revoking as many reserves as they could.   The argument was that if the land was not being actively used the Crown should take it away.    This ignored that by 1914 First Nations were economically excluded from the economy.  They lacked water rights to farm and ranch in many areas, the government Indian Agents controlled any attempt at businesses ventures by First Nations, First Nation members that got more education were required to give up their status and could not return to their community, etc, etc, etc.

 

Interestingly there was no McBride- Mckenna commission for unused lands owned by settlers or businesses.  It was only Indians that were required to show that they were making use of the land.

[RFS]

https://www.thestar....in-alberta.html

 

On the heels of a surprise move that saw an application for a $20.6-billion oilsands project pulled at the last minute, Premier Jason Kenney announced he’ll table a bill on Tuesday to create “stiff penalties” for anyone who “riots on or seeks to impair” significant infrastructure in Alberta, including railways. It will be Bill 1, the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act.

[Victoria Watcher]

A second Wet’suwet’en hereditary subchief is denouncing the hereditary leaders at the heart of the dispute over the future of the Coastal GasLink LNG project in Northern British Columbia.

 

“These five so-called hereditary chiefs, who say they are making decisions on behalf of all Wet’suwet’en, do not speak for the Wet’suwet’en,” Gary Naziel said. “They are neither following nor abiding by our traditional laws. They are changing them to suit their own purposes, to benefit themselves,” he told The Globe and Mail.

 

In doing so, Mr. Naziel adds, many hereditary chiefs and matriarchs are being disrespected, bullied and targeted. This echoes what Rita George, a hereditary subchief and expert in Wet’suwet’en law, said on Thursday. Mr. Naziel, from the Laksilyu (Small Frog) Clan who was groomed for leadership from birth, says the Wet’suwet’en name “is being dragged through the mud and used by other First Nations across Canada to wage their own battles.”

 

https://www.theglobe...concerns-about/