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Our soldiers slighted The names of all the Squamish veterans are listed on the memorial behind veterans Jimmy Hahanee (right) and Steven Wright (centre). In a photo of last year's Remembrance Day ceremony, the Squamish Nation veterans remembered their departed comrades. Wright passed away this year. Aboriginal veteran Edward Aragon, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, shares the moment bearing his country's flag. Nahanee believes Canada should apologize to Aboriginal veterans. " ...official recognition should happen now, before the last of them are gone," he said.Photo Credit: Matthew Stewart |
Editorial: Why not apologize, Canada? by Paul Barnsley
The Bitter Root - Let's get ready to RUM-M-BLE! by Arnie Louie
"Our soldiers slighted" - Aboriginal veterans by Mathew Stewart
Union Chiefs meet by Paul Barnsley
Stewart will listen to Summit by Paul Barnsley
Here is a full list of additional stories featured in the November, 1997 issue of Raven's Eye. If you are not receiving your own copy of Raven's Eye, then you have missed all this information.
Click here for Raven's Eye subscription information.
Aboriginal two year-old may be taken from family
No visible action yet on Royal Commission on Aboriginal People report
Former medic salutes vets
Tillicum Haus Native Friendship Centre in Nanaimo
Family conquers grief with memorial ball tournament
Family conquers grief with ball tourney
Tom Jackson's Huron Carole tour dates
Citizens' Voice representative explains his views
Extinct British Columbia First Nation fighting for rights
Corporation meets needs of provinces north
By Paul Barnsley
Raven's Eye Writer
OTTAWA
Extinguishment will be at the top of the agenda when Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart sits down face-to-face with representatives of the First Nations Summit in a meeting scheduled for early November.
The Summit is the organization made up of chiefs of First Nations that are participating in the British Columbia Treaty Commission negotiation process. Those chiefs sent letters to the Indian Affairs minister, the prime minister and the provincial premier in early October which called on Canada to abandon plans to include extinguishment of Aboriginal rights as a condition of any modern-day treaties.
The issue became prominent when the first final offer under the treaty process was made to the Sechelt First Nation in September. The terms of the offer included a requirement that the Sechelt people give up their tax-exempt status in exchange for a land claim settlement treaty with Canada and the province.
At a Summit session on Oct. 3, the chiefs harshly criticized the policy.
"This policy is absolutely a non-starter for First Nations taking part in the B.C. treaty negotiations process," said Summit Grand Chief Edward John. "We will continue to reject any thought on the part of the government that the extinguishment of Aboriginal rights is a means of achieving certainty. This federal policy clearly violates the principles of a fair negotiations process. Canada must show First Nations involved in this process that they are committed to fair negotiations by overturning this abhorrent policy."
Summit staff say several chiefs were to travel to Ottawa for a meeting with the Indian Affairs minister during the first week of November, after press time. They hoped to get an answer to their letter at that time.
Indian Affairs sources told Raven's Eye there has not yet been any official reply to the demand for assurances that extinguishment will not be required for the treaty process to continue.
Peter Baird, a spokesman for the Federal Treaty Negotiation Office, said the trouble is that the parties haven't been able to agree on how to achieve certainty.
Certainty, when applied to the modern-day treaty process, is a word which has a very specific meaning. Baird defined how the word is used during treaty talks.
"It's a way to establish the rights and authorities of the First Nations," he said. "What the parties want is a way to clarify the Aboriginal rights to land and resources. That will lead to investor comfort or certainty."
"It's an ongoing discussion. I don't think Canada has an extinguishment
policy," he said. "The parties are looking for a way to establish
certainty without using the cede, release, surrender language."
By Paul Barnsley
Raven's Eye Editor
I noticed a long time ago that Nov. 11 is a big day in most First Nations communities. It seems to be a bigger deal on the rez than it is in the mainstream, in fact.
That always confused me, to be honest with you. I didn't understand why such a disproportionate number of Elders in the various communities I visited were so proud to put on their uniforms and march once again each year on Remembrance Day. I saw real tears every year as veterans of every major conflict of this century (right back to a few long-lived survivors of the First World War) remembered their fallen comrades and thought about what had been and what could have been.
I read with dismay of the treatment the Aboriginal veterans received when they returned home stripped of their rights and denied (through sheer bigoted, horribly shameful ignorance) the same gestures of gratitude that non-Native veterans received. When I read and heard those accounts I was deeply ashamed to call myself Canadian.
But when I read Ken Williams column (see page three) everything came into focus. That fierce pride I saw in the eyes of those old Aboriginal warriors was not just the well-earned pride that non-Aboriginal veterans display. There was more, so much more, to it.
These men gave their gift to a nation and a people that they knew would not be grateful. They may have been shocked by the ingratitude that met them when they returned from their war, but they weren't surprised.
They went because their sense of honor, duty and courage told them they had to. Upon their return, they wore (and wear! There's been no apology, yet) the discrimination they experienced just as proudly as any of their most hard-won medals and campaign ribbons. They did the right thing and in return the entire country they had served so well did the wrong thing. The dignity they displayed distinguished them and their peoples.
One of the most valuable cards that Aboriginal leaders can play as they attempt to seek redress for the centuries of injustice that First Nations people have endured in this country is the dignity and the contribution of Aboriginal fighting men - true heroes and patriots who give those tired old words new prestige and vigor.
I don't feel I have to ask you to remember them on Nov. 11 because I've seen the way First Nations communities honor their veterans and war dead.
It gets more important each year to remember the horrors of wars past and to keep the spirit and memory of our heroes alive. It's getting to a time when there will be very few of the people with first-hand experience of the Second World War still with us and, as someone much wiser than me once said, if we don't remember the mistakes of the past we are doomed to repeat them. Already, the younger generations are so far removed from the war that it seems unreal to them.
Time has a way of erasing history. Truth can be revised and distorted. That's why it's important to keep pushing for an official apology to First Nations veterans.
Official recognition that gross injustice was what most Aboriginal veterans received as their thank you from Canada won't change anything but it will right a wrong and place the mistake in bold print in the history books where the future generations can read it and remember and - one would hope - avoid a similar mistake in their time.
A ceremony that would properly welcome home the Aboriginal veterans would be an important moment for all the Elders who have had to deal with this bitter memory for the last half-century.
By Paul Barnsley
Raven's Eye Writer
FORT RUPERT
The 29th annual gathering of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs began with a speech from President Saul Terry that set the mood for the entire three-day affair.
In opening the UBCIC Annual General Assembly, the man who speaks for the First Nations in the province who do not support the treaty negotiation process took shot after shot at both the process and those chiefs who are participating in it.
"Many of our people are living well on borrowed money. Some of our leaders have the arrogance to think they can negotiate their way around extinguishment and genocide," Terry said.
He was referring to the fact that First Nations which participate in the treaty process will eventually have to pay back 80 per cent of the money spent to negotiate their treaties. He also referred to the increasingly apparent trend - seen in both the Nisga'a and Sechelt offers, the only government offers to date - of including the extinguishment of Aboriginal rights in all modern-day treaties that are being negotiated in the province.
"We must always be wary of these different strategies that all have the same agenda - to disinherit us and separate us from our homelands," Terry added. "All of these processes have the same intent, which is to take away our lands and our resources forever."
Chiefs who oppose the treaty process believe the negotiated end of Aboriginal rights in modern-day treaties is just the latest version of a long history of attempts to eliminate Aboriginal people as a political problem for the mainstream governments. They call it genocide.
"Genocide is being perpetrated against Indian people," Terry said. "Indigenous people cannot continue to exist if the processes of termination continues to be practiced."
The UBCIC position has been criticized as extreme and inflexible.
"Some people say we are taking too hard a line," Terry said, dealing with his critics. "My God, if our future is in jeopardy, we must state that and stop the dangers in the treaty process and other government initiatives now offered to us."
By Mathew Stewart
Raven's Eye Writer
NORTH VANCOUVER
This Remembrance Day, at North Vancouver's Victoria Park cenotaph, non-Native veterans will formally recognize the contributions made by Aboriginal veterans.
At last, Aboriginal veterans and their families would say.
Aboriginal people in Canada have established a proud history of military service to their country, fighting battles alongside their non-Aboriginal neighbors, getting wounded and even giving up their lives.
When the battles were over and the wars won, Aboriginal servicemen and women were, in the words of Squamish Nation Elder and Second World War veteran Jimmy Nahanee, "just put back on the reserve and forgotten."
Nahanee lives among his people on the Mission reserve in North Vancouver where he was born in 1925. When war broke out, as all the non-Native kids were going off to war, Nahanee and other young Aboriginal people like him wanted to do their part.
Though exempted from conscription by the Indian Act - according to the British Columbia chapter of the National Indian Veterans Association - more than 6,000 Canadian Natives enlisted in the Second World War.
Nahanee served in the Royal Canadian Engineers, dismantling land mines and booby-traps in Holland and Belgium. The dangers of his work finally caught up with him one day in Holland and sent him to hospital for three months with a damaged hip and arm. Nahanee was unemployed for a time after he returned to Canada in 1946. But he and his wife, Freda, still managed to start a family during his first year back. That family eventually grew to include 14 children. There is some bitterness in his voice as he recounts how they were cut off from any benefits that should have resulted from his war service.
"The non-Native vets were getting real help," he said. "They got their education, their tuition and living expenses covered by the government. When I went and asked for the same I was told the benefits were 'non-available.'"
Consequently, Jimmy paid out of his own pocket to get his high school diploma through an American correspondence course.
Non-Native veterans were offered government grants to start up their own businesses and to purchase farms. Jimmy and Freda Nahanee struggled over the years to get by on his earnings from logging, fishing and lumber mill jobs.
Non-Native veterans received low interest housing loans in the post-war years and over the decades were able to pay them off and subsequently sell the houses for more than triple their original purchase value.
"We started off in a shack on the reserve," Nahanee recalls.
When the surviving Squamish veterans realized they wouldn't get any respect from the outside world - they weren't even recognized in the Remembrance Day ceremonies for the non-Native vets each year - in 1986 they erected their own granite monument to their departed comrades. The monument is located by the historic mission church on the reserve.
Even now, more than 50 years after the end of the war, the same recognition and benefits that non-Native veterans received for their service have still not been offered to Aboriginal vets.
"I'm still angry," Nahanee said, "but it's too late now. I'm not as angry as I used to be. I calmed down after all the years because I realized it was hopeless. Even the Japanese got better treatment than us. They finally got their apology and cash compensation. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Veterans travelled around the country on the government expense account, and when they were through these senators recommended that an apology be extended to the Aboriginal veterans."
Nahanee still hasn't received any letter of apology and he thinks the recommendation was "a bunch of crap."
He believes Aboriginal veterans should receive retroactive benefits including disability pensions for the 20 per cent who returned from the war with long term injuries, He also feels the benefits should be paid to any surviving family members of those who have passed on.
Some things have improved, the veteran allowed, although solely because of the persistent efforts of the Aboriginal vets themselves. He is pleased that Nov. 8 is now observed as National Aboriginal Veterans Day. This year, survivors are meeting in the Fraser Valley town of Mission to remember their fallen comrades. Aboriginal veterans and their families from all over the province are expected to attend.
Nahanee strongly believes official recognition should happen now, before the last of his comrades are gone. Now that the rest of the world is acknowledging their part in the war, the government should reach out to Aboriginal veterans, Nahanee said.
By Arnie Louie
Raven's Eye Columnist
I cannot believe how we have conditioned our minds to think we could possibly negotiate in good faith with any Canadian and/or provincial government. The more we try to ask governments to address our issues, the more they just ignore us. The great writer Kafka once said, "If you lay down with dogs, you'll stand up with fleas."
When was the last time you did a bug check? If you haven't noticed, the politicians aren't listening.
The recent announcement of the new British Columbia gaming expansion policy has not addressed one First Nation concern. In fact, all the media attention on First Nation casinos during the last few months was nothing more than re-fried beans. The British Columbia government is not interested in First Nations gaming and the kind of economic stability it could bring to reserve communities. All it's interested in is control and domination. The gaming expansion policy reflects an attitude that's no different today than it was 100 years ago.
A request for proposals was sent out on July 31 to the 197 bands of British Columbia. The bands have a 120 day time-frame to respond.
The cut for gaming facilities will be two-thirds of net revenue to the provincial government, one-sixth to the operator, and one-sixth to the band.
The Mafia gives better deals. Unbelievable.
The government spends nothing and takes the lion's share. Doesn't this sound familiar? They gave nothing and took 98 per cent of our traditional territories.
All this policy does is cater to the existing equity establishments like Vancouver's Whistler Ski Resort, or maybe the Grand Hotel in Kelowna, or any other existing capital ventures. It does nothing for those First Nation groups who are starting from nothing. Maybe one or two First Nations can bare-bones a collecting effort of conservative money and put up four walls and a roof. But how are these proposals going to compete against British Columbia's already existing casinos?
The policy has already scared away the more credible and secure government-endorsed licensees that have been working with First Nations. There's no money in it for them. The only way it will work from a First Nations perspective is for the First Nation to be its own licensee (like Westbank First Nation) and hire cheap technical expertise to work with a limited budget. So much for the first-class international destination resorts.
And still, two-thirds goes to the province!
When compared with other casino revenue splits in North America there is no comparison. More than 100 tribes belong to the National Indian American Gaming Association in the United States and the standard split with these tribes is at the most 10 per cent to government, 30 per cent to the operator, and 60 per cent to the tribe.
In Minnesota, at the second largest Aboriginal-owned casino in the world, the Mystic Lake Casino gives nothing to state or federal governments and keeps everything.
The local deal is ridiculous. Where is our political front on this policy? Where are our provincial and/or national Native leaders?
Where else? Their faces are buried so deep in the bread crumb trough they haven't seen daylight in years. Rather than fight for our case, all they're interested in is protecting their turf, or worse yet, compromising what few rights we have left.
I guess this is a real job for real people. It's a job for community-based chiefs with a grassroots approach. We need a war council that involves people. We need a process that's based on getting people involved. The spirit of involving people is invincible. I'd rather be standing on a road fighting for my rights than sitting at a table in a tie and suit compromising pennies for thought. Where other bands and provincial Native leaders call down the Penticton Indian Band and other confrontational bands in British Columbia, it doesn't take much wisdom to know that it's bands like this that force governments to the table.
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