Who am I? I have a happy little existence with my husband, my large yellow lab & my two kittens. My dog is 100 lbs of bouncy joy. My male cat is addicted to "Greenies", catnip & thinks he's a dog. My female cat looks like a sweet housecat, but is a serial killer.
I took up fencing after I turned 40 & wanted to find a sport that would keep me active and fit into my old age.
I spend my time coaching beginners, training, & working at our vintage autosound business.
Note: Some of my blog entries are only available to my "Blog Buddies". They are either private in nature or about coaching. I make my coaching entries private because public entries can be read by the general public. While I never use names, the descriptions of the events can reveal information and I want to respect the privacy of my students. If you would like to be on my list, please PM me and I will add you.
Recent Comments
Perspective:
It's also a gravy train for governments with or without decriminalization. ...
As mentioned in previous years the area we camp in is about to become one of the largest pit mines in the world. Dropping into this area for 2 weeks once a year, has given us a unique opportunity to watch this develop. One of the things we noticed this time is the mounting hostilities between both sides.
Here’s a bit of history as I see it…
BC became part of Canada after many of the other Provinces and after treaties have been reached with their native populations. So first off, BC never resolved their land claims issues. To make matters even stickier in this area of the Province the Chilcotin Indians won the war against the British. They were never conquered; the government just treated them like they were and treated the area like the rest of BC.
To make this less debatable, the Supreme court of BC has agreed with the Natives. So the BC government is appealing to the Supreme court of Canada, saying they can’t run the Province if they don’t own the land. There isn’t enough money to pay off all the Land Claims…. Or enough land as many of the traditional Native territories overlap. Plus a resolution is long overdue.
With land ownership under dispute, the Natives don’t want resources removed especially if they are worth a big chunk of change. They can no longer afford to be lenient.
1) If they allow it, it sets a precedent, and that they don’t consider their land really theirs. They already have that problem to some extent.**
2) If the valuable resource is removed and their land claim gets resolved in decades from now… who pays them back? The mine is gone. The government won’t. So they’re fighting to prevent it from happening in the first place.
To make it worse, the BC government is currently Liberal and big business friendly. They want the economic benefit of a large pit mine, so they won’t even talk to the Natives about their land claims. Indian Affairs is simply refusing to discuss the matter.
The mine essentially did nothing wrong per se… they filled out all the right paperwork, did studies, tried to talk the natives into the benefits etc… Many non-Native and Natives in the area want the mine. The logging industry has been hit hard. A few years ago many of the mills closed when the US put a high tariff on our wood (because Americans prefer it over their own, so it gave us and “unfair” advantage) thus pricing us out of that market. The final blow to the few mills remaining was the pine beetle & wild fires this year and previous years. This area is starving for jobs.
The Natives feel backed into a corner. They are working with their legal options, but they are bracing themselves for another “Oka” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis
Unfortunately, things are going to get violent before they get resolved. I feel saddened that a community we feel close to is now so divided and that friends of ours will be on the front lines of a protest that may well turn bloody. On the other hand, a protest will draw attention to the issue and force the government to negotiate.
Notes:
**Native genocide has been attempted in several ways making it difficult for the Natives to always stand up against the government/ British.
1) Residential schools. Coming in and putting native children in church-ran boarding schools far away from their homes.
2) Chicken-pox. I have read there were 3 attempts were made to kill off the Natives with blankets infested with chicken pox.
The natives remember this in a more personal way.... One of the elders remembers coming across a village where there were two little girls crying. Everyone else were dead and the wolves were eating the bodies. Tears comes to his eyes as he passes their history on to the next generation.
It's hard for me to take the British side, despite knowing there were a lot of early leaders who treated the natives fairly. My own family would have never survived if not for the kindness & help from the prairie Indians. This respect has been passed down through my family. The anger at the British lost some of it's steam along the way however. I'm also not a big supporter of our current government.
09-10-2009 04:53 PM