The Aboriginal Newspaper of British
Columbia & Yukon
Top News - November -2001
Published November 12, 2001
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Photos by Paul Barnsley |
Band unity saves lake from development
Experts suggest new vision for treaties
Government moves on school compensationThis is only a partial listing of the stories featured in the November 2001 issue of Raven's Eye. If you are not receiving your own copy of Raven's Eye, then you have missed out on a lot.
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Band unity saves lake from development
Joan Taillon
Raven's Eye Writer
OsoyoosThe chiefs of the Okanagan Nation Alliance say it is the first time they can remember the federal government keeping a promise, but now that the seven non-treaty bands have had their sacred lake returned to them they are commending federal negotiators for a job well done.
The federal government will pay $720,000 to purchase Spotted Lake, near the town of Osoyoos, on behalf of the Alliance. The deal was announced on Oct. 26, said Osoyoos Chief Clarence Louie.
The British Crown had agreed in the 1860s to set aside the land the lake is on for a reserve, and permitted the bands to put a fence around it in 1911, but the province sold it in 1930.
Now the matter of ownership is resolved, Louie said, they are planning a celebration.
"The bands have committed time, effort and resources, and a planning group to organize the celebration date in the spring," he said. "One would be private, just for the Okanagan people, and one would be public . . . because the general public was very supportive of the Okanagan people getting this lake back." He added he got phone calls and e-mails from people from all walks of life, including teachers, business people, government members and local media. "Both celebrations will be pretty special."
The former holders of title to the lake, the Smith family, had refused to meet or speak with the Okanagan chiefs, and had demanded $1.2 million for the land through their lawyer.
In commercial terms, the property was believed to be worth $250,000 and the Alliance had previously offered half a million.
In the end, it was "money" that brought the two sides to a settlement, said Chief Dan Wilson of the Okanagan Indian band.
The Okanagan Nation had tried to get the government to buy the property for years, as the government had committed to do, but the issue became critical when the Smith family indicated they intended to turn Spotted Lake into a cash cow.
It had already been exploited: As a result of mining for minerals used in flares for the First World War effort, the lake lost its unique rainbow colors.
Wilson said their Elders told them that the lake had lost its rainbow colors "because it was not being respected." Now the color is starting to return.
The Alliance was aghast when an invitation to tender bids to haul 10,000 tons of mineral mud from the lake was placed in the Osoyoos newspaper, although Wilson now believes that was a pressure tactic to get the federal government to meet their demands.
The issue caused the seven bands to strengthen their ties and to raise money for their cause and gain public support.
Not only that, but for the first time in more than 100 years, they built their exceptionally fast, dugout cottonwood canoes to make a "unity trek" from the head of Okanagan Lake down to Washington, where the Okanagan River empties into the Columbia River. This was their response to a vision by one of their Elders, who said if they didn't make this trip they were "in danger of falling apart as a people," Wilson said.
Eleven months ago, the Alliance said that under no circumstances would they allow the Smiths to mine the mineral-rich mud from the 365 pools in the lake and sell it for spa and cosmetic purposes.
Band members kept watch to make sure that didn't happen. The situation threatened to get extremely ugly.
Rising tension in the Okanagan Nation as a result of the proposed commercialization of the lake caused the federal government to fast-track the purchase.
"By acting as a nation, we were able to get the province to bend and Canada to bend, and I think it should be an example to all nations out there to get united and start acting as a nation," Wilson concluded.
Experts suggest new vision for treaties
Paul Barnsley
Raven's Eye Writer
VancouverAll sides have to change the way they look at things if treaty talks are to accelerate to an acceptable pace.
That's the message that emerged after two days of high level discussion about ideas that might be able to drive treaty negotiations towards reconciliation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous interests in Canada and around the world.
The Indigenous Bar Association's annual conference provided the opportunity for the discussion. More than 220 students, lawyers, government officials and band officials attended the IBA's annual get together in Vancouver this year on Oct. 19 and 20. Approximately 50 law students were among the delegates-the IBA funds the travel and accommodation costs for Canadian Aboriginal law students to attend its conference each year.
Many speakers talked about adjusting the vision of the treaty relationship.
Former Ontario Ombudsman Roberta Jamieson took time out from her election campaign (she's running for chief of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, her home community) to deliver a much lauded speech during the lunch hour of the first day. She skillfully captured her audience by recalling the optimism and enthusiasm they all have or had in their law school days.
"And we, armed with our law books and degrees, we were the ones who were going to change the world for our people," she said. "We underestimated what we were up against. We underestimated how deeply rooted, how firmly entrenched in modern Canada were the values and attitudes brought here by those who colonized our lands and people."
She said it was time to manage assumptions and re-evaluate the nature of the struggle.
"We assumed that because Canadians generally are generous, fair-minded, accepting of diversity, and that they place a high value on justice and fairness, this would translate into support, even pressure, for changes in unjust, unfair and inequitable government structures, policies and practices which affect our people," she said.
While admitting many of her contemporaries have become tired and frustrated-with, she admitted good reason-the Mohawk lawyer urged her colleagues to look for creative solutions. Now, more than ever, she said, the Canadian public must be made to see and understand the issues.
"The public is told by the government that it really wants to make things right, but the public is not told that the government is ignoring the recommendations it receives whenever it asks for advice. We ourselves are frustrated that our message doesn't seem to get out; slick communications experts are assisting Indian Affairs to advance a point of view which until recently has appeared only in the realm of the far right. Without any comment to the contrary, we read in the nation's media, calls to do away with reserves. 'Make them move to the city and get jobs!' If leaders weren't so corrupt, there would be no poverty on reserves, it is proclaimed. This is the kind of simplistic, jingoistic thinking that is behind the minister's 'new' governance act. Those of you who have been around a while will recognize much of the act as a rehash of unsuccessful and ill-advised initiatives which have emerged over the last 25 years.
"But the answer is not more legislation cut from the cloth of colonialism put forward by a department itself unwilling to be held accountable or to accept responsibility for the measures it insists our communities adopt, unwilling to adopt for itself the same standards it wishes to impose on us."
She challenged lawyers and law students to fill the policy vacuum created by government dithering and finger pointing by looking at the problems with new eyes. Jamieson advocated new institutions to monitor the federal government's performance as a fiduciary. She urged lawyers to take strategic action in legal matters, work to educate the public and push for better performance on international agreements made by Canada.
Hugh Breaker, a lawyer from the Tseshaht First Nation on Vancouver Island, said the vision that needs to change is the way courts see Native people.
"Courts romanticize us," he said. "They see us the same way as the explorers viewed Aboriginal people when they came here hundreds of years ago. As long as Aboriginal people move within a predictable milieu, the courts will move to protect our rights."
Moving outside the Euro-centric comfort zone changes the game, he said.
"So when we want gambling rights, suddenly the court throws its hands up saying, 'Wait a minute. This isn't the Indian in feathers bounding on his horse through the woods. This is an Indian who wants to control financing, taxation and some of the other parts of capitalism.
"Delgamuukw, in its claims of self government, was sent back for re-trial because it stepped out of the romanticized notion of what we were. It went beyond the boundaries of what the courts think of Aboriginal people."
Jean Teillet, the great grandniece of Louis Riel, is a Métis lawyer with practices in Toronto and Vancouver. She said in strong words that the Crown has to take a close look at its tactics.
"Never underestimate the depths of the dishonor of the Crown," she said.
Teillet said the lawyers on the government side in Powley, the landmark Métis hunting rights case in Ontario which she litigated, called First Nations leaders in the province and told them the case would negatively affect their hunting rights.
"I consider that to be despicable and dishonorable action on behalf of the Crown to sew dissention between us," she said. "I'm outraged by that action."
She also said that the judge ruled Métis people have hunting rights in the province and then suspended the decision for a year so the government could work out an arrangement with the Métis.
"In spite of the court of appeal decision, the Crown went ahead and allocated the entire moose harvest . . . without a single moose for Métis people," she said.
The stay on the decision was put in place by the court so the province and Métis could negotiate. Teillet said the province is using the stay as an excuse not to allocate any harvest rights to Métis people.
"It is short-sighted beyond belief," she said.
Assembly of First Nations British Columbia vice chief Herb George recalled the advice of an uncle who told him the most important job of this generation of leadership is to give the young people a sense of confidence and pride.
"Our job here is to put a new memory in the minds of our children," his uncle told him.
"We tell stories of pain, we tell stories of hopelessness, of helplessness, and then we blame somebody else for it," he said. "The point he was making when he said we've got to start putting new memories in the minds of our children is we've got to start telling different stories. We've got to start telling stories for our kids about being successful, about accomplishing something, about being proud of who they are. Putting the belief in their minds that they can strive and they dream to be the best and there's nothing that's going to stand in their way. There's nothing that's going to stop them."
Government moves on school compensation
Paul Barnsley
Raven's Eye Writer
OttawaCanada will pay 70 per cent of the total damage amounts owing to victims of physical and sexual abuse in residential schools, but only if the victims get involved in an out-of-court settlement or an alternative dispute resolution process.
The decision was announced on Oct. 29 by Deputy Prime Minister Herb Gray. Gray was appointed to head a government body that was created especially to deal with residential school compensation issues-the Office of Indian Residential Schools Resolution-in September 2000.
Recent court decisions-so far all involving cases where an employee of a residential school was convicted of criminal charges, where the government is clearly liable-have divided the liability of the church and government in varying ratios where the federal government's share ranged from 40 per cent (in a case where the judge found the church especially negligent) to 75 per cent. After more than a year of discussion between Gray's office and the various churches appeared to be going nowhere, the government arbitrarily pegged its share of liability at 70 per cent.
The churches reacted to the announcement by saying the talks should continue.
"While the government's offer is a reasonable first step, the solution needed is not just about money," said Archdeacon Jim Boyles, chair of the Ecumenical Group on Indian Residential Schools, a group representing Roman Catholic, Anglican, United and Presbyterian church organizations. "It's about bringing justice to individuals harmed and healing to communities affected."
One member of the group said a neutral third party should be invited to help the government and the churches work out an agreement.
"Regrettably the government didn't want to discuss our proposal. Perhaps it's time to invite a mediator to get us talking again, "said the Reverend David Iverson of the United Church of Canada. "Former students deserve it, the churches need it, and surely the government has a broader obligation than to simply wash its hands of the matter."
The Assembly of First Nations vice-chief who looks after the residential schools portfolio, Manitoba's Kenneth Young, agreed that the government move is a good first step. But he offered several reminders and suggestions to the parties. Young said he had grave concerns about the government excluding people involved in cases going to trial from the settlement offer.
"Many former students misunderstand the announcement to mean that the church and the government have jointly agreed to pay the 70/30 split," he said. "That is not the case. Many of the former students don't understand it does not resolve anything for them unless they are in out-of-court settlement discussions or within the ADR (alternative dispute resolution) process after validation. All parties need to recognize that as time passes, former students are dying without being given the opportunity to continue on their healing journeys-that must change."
Young also said the government must look at the issue of loss of language and culture, a by-product of residential school policies that the government has refused to deal with so far. Lawyers say the government avoids that issue because it would be tremendously expensive to compensate people for that harm. Several cases are being prepared to test the courts on that issue.
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