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I have seen and been to Oz; actually walked the hallways. Not many people can say that.

I am not referring to the prison show on television, or that certain place over the rainbow. Oz is at the Machantucket Pequot Reservation in Connecticut, home to, not only the first, but also the largest, Aboriginal casino in North America.

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Two recent court decisions have sent a very strong message to the provincial government of British Columbia to change the way it deals with economic development projects that affect First Nations.

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Re: Tradition goes to court, as published in the March 2002 edition of Windspeaker).

Dear Editor:

It disturbs me to see the opinions of these women. There was a time when singers and dancers were initiated into the powwow circuit. Parents and family would save for a year for a give away. Elders would counsel the initiates.

I suspect this is not commonly practiced protocol any more. I was given a drum as a young woman, but do not play it. I have my teachings, and no court will force me to divulge those teachings to people who don't respect them.

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Professor, Department of Native American Studies

University of Lethbridge

The referendum on sovereignty-association in Quebec has found a kind of weird mirror image in British Columbia. Try as the Gordon Campbell Liberals might to deny it, they are no less anxious than Quebec's separatists to exempt their provincial government from those aspects of Canadian law they find inconsistent with their own vision of local autonomy.

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Two more huge court decisions in favor of Indigenous peoples this month met with instant appeals. Here we go again.

The Haida people caught the world's attention when they did the unthinkable and asked a British Columbia court to enforce Canadian law. The court obliged.

Gordon Benoit told us things were pretty lonely back in the early 1980s when he started his quest to force Canada to follow through on the terms of its contractual obligation to his Treaty 8 people. Even his own leadership in those days told him, "Don't rock the boat."

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One ruling in a taxation case in favor of an Aboriginal man in Edmonton's Federal court was balanced by another decision against an Ontario Aboriginal woman in March.

Gordon Benoit was successful at trial in his quest to have Treaty 8 people ruled exempt from Canadian taxation. Rachel Schilling's attempt to avoid having her off reserve employment income subject to income tax was brought to an abrupt halt when the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear her appeal.

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Native leaders in the Maritimes were furious when they heard the news that there would be no charges filed against the Department of Fisheries and Oceans crew members of the boat that rammed a much smaller fishing boat full of Burnt Church First Nation members on Aug. 29, 2000.

The event was captured on videotape by Burnt Church member Rick Dedam and shown widely, generating an almost unanimous expression of outrage among viewers across the country and around the world.

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The Department of Indian Affairs' First Nations governance consultation methods were not only inadequate, they may have ruined any chance of success for any further attempt at consultation, said Dr. Peter Douglas Elias, an academic who was hired by the Chiefs of Ontario to analyze the government's consultation process. His report was released on March 11.

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Minister of Indian Affairs Robert Nault announced the department is considering re-working the B.C. treaty process.

"The treaty and the treaty process is like anything else. It must evolve or die," Nault said.

Nault was speaking to delegates at the British Columbia Treaty Commission conference "Speaking Truth to Power III" in Vancouver on March 15.

The minister also suggested a willingness on the part of the government to walk away from treaty negotiations if First Nation negotiators don't show they're willing to make major concessions.

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The Assembly of First Nations' national chief is facing a credibility crisis of mounting proportions.

The issue became very public in an article in the April 3 edition of Frank, a semi-monthly satirical magazine based in the nation's capital that is feared and despised throughout official Ottawa.

The article hit the streets on March 19. It states Matthew Coon Come is spending more time on matters related to his Pentecostal Christian beliefs than he spends performing his $125,000 a year duties as chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN).