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-- Unrepentant: The Unknown Genocide of Canada's Native Peoples
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I applaud this move by Ottawa - let natives protest, let them burn the tires and pollute the air. As long as there is no violence. They can wave their flags too. And I still think Canadian government should double the funding to the natives in the entire Canada, for the sake of its image and making natives happy (which I doubt it will). I am sick and tired of hearing money surplus this, budget surplus that - billions of extra bucks and they keep raising taxes, f*ckers.
One thing I have to comment on - natives for centuries were able to survive on their own and without the white man. They had and still have great traditions and though their values and culture have eroded pretty badly, its not too late for them to protect their culture. There's nothing in the Canadian law that says they cant strengthen their culture - they have their own schools and they control their own reserves for Christ's sakes - they have the power. In a great and advanced and prosperous and rich G8 country like Canada there shouldn't be people living like shit and smoking glue and drugs like too many natives do. The government is not shoving the drugs to those natives. Its the natives fault, they need to clean up their act and take a hold of their communities. Its not the issue of money, its an issue of poor management. But money is a factor in their problems. Natives DESERVE and SHOULD receive good federal funding, for the sake of honour and respect for what the natives did for this great country and the land.
There are so many opportunities in Canada, and there's absolutely NO EXCUSE out there for living such shithole lives that they do - unless a person is disabled, injured, hurt, etc. = any healthy bodied persons should give no excuses for their inactions - and too many young natives are smoking glue and shooting/hurting each other. Its not the fault of Canadian government. Why not? Its because Canadian government doesnt have the JURISDICTION to interfere in native affairs. Native reserves are controlled by natives. Give natives double the money, and cross fingers and hope for the best (though many Canadians will tell you that all that is bullshit - hardly anything's gonna change even with money injection).
Anyhow, here are couple great articles.
http://www.thespec.com/article/364340
quote:
A Changed Perspective
After years of confrontation, some Canadian leaders are acknowledging native rights and the need to negotiate
May 05, 2008
Joan Walters
The Hamilton Spectator
(May 5, 2008)
A new attitude -- at least among some politicians -- is taking hold in Canada on the right of Aboriginal Peoples to protest, occupy, blockade and take other action in support of historic grievances.
Against the daily turmoil of the Six Nations dispute in Caledonia and a tense recent standoff between armed OPP officers and natives at a quarry near Belleville, some politicos for the first time are publicly acknowledging native protest rights.
The latest is former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, who says that as long as disputes don't become violent, natives have every right to protest, even if they disrupt or inconvenience the public.
"There must be no violence," Martin told a Toronto business group.
No one wants to see blockades or occupations take place, he said, but they're a reflection of the federal government's inaction on aboriginal issues and land claims.
Today an opposition MP and no longer responsible for any part of Canada's response to native issues, Martin is now in sync with aboriginal leaders like Phil Fontaine.
Fontaine, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, is co-ordinating a national day of protest this month and warning long-term that native activists are primed to target the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
"We're ignored," Fontaine said. "Our proposals are dismissed. Our efforts to establish a healthy, respectful relationship with government obviously are not compelling enough."
Those sentiments have resonated at the United Nations, where federal Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl told the UN last week that Canada is indeed committed to upholding native rights.
Strahl's appearance came amid continuing criticism of Canada's decision to vote against a UN declaration of aboriginal rights last fall. The Conservatives said then they could not support the UN measure because its wording was too broad and conflicted with Canadian law and practice, especially the sections on land claims.
But aboriginal experts say it's the continuing failure of governments to address native grievances that has made protests the choice of last resort in current times.
That was the clear view of Justice Sidney Linden, commissioner of the Ontario inquiry into the death of native Dudley George during an occupation at Ipperwash in 1995.
Linden's 2007 report repeatedly warned that protests would continue, and potentially escalate, until tensions between government and natives are properly resolved.
"The flashpoints for Aboriginal protests and occupations are likely as intense today as they were during Ipperwash, Oka, Burnt Church or Gustafsen Lake," he wrote.
"The fundamental conditions and catalysts sparking such protest continue to exist in Ontario, more than a decade after Ipperwash. Indeed, it appears that flashpoints for Aboriginal protests and occupations may be intensifying."
Dalton McGuinty's government is another arena where peaceful native protests are now an acknowledged right.
Ontario is scrupulously following Linden's recommendations and officials cite his findings whenever criticism of Ontario's lack of action on Caledonia comes up.
McGuinty said the Ipperwash report stressed negotiation in situations like Ipperwash or Caledonia.
"The only way to make real, lasting and substantive progress is to keep talking," the premier said.
The spectre of Ipperwash has coloured Ontario's approach since McGuinty took power in 2003.
The Ipperwash inquiry, called by McGuinty just months after his election, included the first thorough examination of the origins and dynamics of Canadian native protest and its consequences.
Disputes over land have been a feature of the history of Ontario since its inception, the report said.
"Ipperwash revealed a deep schism in Canada's relationship with aboriginal people and was symbolic of a sad history of government policies that harmed their long-term interests," Linden said.
The federal government has since initiated some actions to try to help speed up the country's massive backlog of unsettled land claims.
Six Nations has launched 29 land claims with the federal government in 25 years. One has been settled.
In total, Ottawa has 1,366 claims on its books. It is estimated up to 1,000 more will be filed.
Canada and its First Nations have been tussling over some claims since the British Crown was in charge of treaties in the 1700s.
Protests are a logical outcome, politicians are acknowledging.
Six Nations spokesperson Hazel Hill says it's important that people are starting to recognize that First Nations have rights that must be respected. "That kind of comment from politicians is good, but talk is cheap," Hill said.
Until true respect for the sovereignty of First Nations is taken seriously, peaceful demonstrations are going to proceed, she added.
But for communities affected by aboriginal upheaval, action by government would be preferred.
Caledonia Mayor Marie Trainer says her town and surrounding Haldimand County remain hostage to a never-ending series of talks that has no end in sight.
She derided Martin's stance that occupations are appropriate. "I do not think they should be allowed at all."
David Peterson, one-time Ontario government emissary in Caledonia, partly agrees. "When you close down roads or close down a community, you're going over the top," Peterson said. But native rights "are the great moral question of this country."
And since Canada's aboriginal people have problems that are not getting better, "there is no choice but to engage" in finding answers, Peterson said.
"You can't walk away, because it's only going to get worse."
http://www.thespec.com/article/364286
quote:
Aboriginal protests date to civil rights era
May 05, 2008
The Hamilton Spectator
(May 5, 2008)
Statistics on aboriginal protests in Canada are hard to find.
Ontario's Ipperwash inquiry was one of the first attempts to try to assemble solid numbers.
Justice Sidney Linden reported in 2007 that protests "are much more common than most non-aboriginal Ontarians likely realize."
Researchers for Linden concluded the Canadian protest trend began in the 1960s, at the same time as the civil rights era in the United States, spurred by the emergence of the American Indian Movement there.
University of British Columbia expert Rima Wilkes reported to the inquiry that protests and occupations grew steadily in the 1970s and skyrocketed from the mid-1980s to 1990, the year that Oka occurred.
Until Ipperwash in 1995, activism somewhat tapered off. From the mid-1990s, though, there has been an increase in activity.
Linden said that without a formal national inventory of such events, it's impossible to log all conflicts.
But existing research shows more than 600 significant incidents between the 1950s and the year 2000, including disputes over burial sites, land claims, harvesting hunting and fishing rights.
Some events are familiar to most Canadians. They include:
Oka, Que.: 1990
The confrontation began after Kanesatake Mohawks set up barricades in March to block a golf course expansion onto land they claimed was a burial site. In July, a provincial police officer was shot and killed and the Canadian Army was called in. The standoff ended after 78 days.
Ipperwash, Ont.: 1995
Native protester Dudley George was killed by police after the OPP moved in on Stoney Point First Nation activists who had occupied the park. A police sniper was convicted of criminal negligence in the death.
Gustafsen Lake, B.C.: 1995
Thousands of shots were fired at police during this standoff between 400 RCMP officers and a small group of natives in the B.C. interior northeast of Vancouver. Protesters claimed the land was sacred and had never been ceded to the Crown. A negotiated settlement was reached after 31 days.
Burnt Church, N.B.: 1999
When Canada's Supreme Court upheld the native fishing rights of Donald Marshall, a Mi'kmaq, the RCMP spent $5 million trying to maintain order in the ensuing battle between native and non-native fishermen.
In 2002, a federal committee recommended dropping all charges and compensating fishermen for lost traps and boats.
And so I call on the Canadian government to really do something in the next couple years to attend to the disputes with the natives and settle them properly - I am sick and tired of the government's inaction and ignorance, for which many ordinary Canadians pay when getting trapped / becoming hostages of the native protests and disputes. Its not difficult at all to fix these issues. Douglas Creek development land dispute in Caledonia to me was the perfect example of how EASY it was to find a solution (by giving that disputed land back to the natives, and since it was uninhabited land - not hard to do that!!!).
OR ELSE, I can assure you than natives will mount a strong protest for the 2012 Olympics in Vancouver, inspired by the Tibetan protests (I can almost guarantee you that in the future other minorities for other Olympic events will play this card). Better plan ahead. Many Canadians right now are jumping on the anti-Chinese bandwagon, but wait till the hypocrisy really kicks in around the Olympics time in Vancouver 
I didnt see the whole Shaolin's documentary ... but I doubt it talked about this major problem on the reserves (which is not the fault of the Canadian government which has NO jurisdiction on the native reserves). This article speaks volumes and deserves a documentary of its own, because the native reserves are so poorly run, they need government's help in running them. Or - do the native supporters have a better suggestion - please let me know, I'd like to hear it.
Because the way I see it - its not the Canadian government that killing off natives and their culture and forcing natives to leave their own native reserves - but its the natives themselves who hurt their fellow people.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...Story/National/
quote:
Armed posses spreading violence across Prairie communities
In remote native communities on the Prairies, residents are growing increasingly fearful of intimidation tactics. One woman has been beaten twice, had her windows smashed and survived a shooting after being labelled a 'rat'
JOE FRIESEN AND KATHERINE O'NEILL
From Friday's Globe and Mail
May 9, 2008 at 5:00 AM EDT
THE PAS, MAN, HOBBEMA, ALTA. � Sitting outside her home in the blue light of dusk, Christie Jebb lights a cigarette with shaking hands. She can't afford to sleep at night any more, she says. She's afraid the gang that has been terrorizing her here on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation reserve will return to finish the job.
In the past three years she has been beaten twice, offered bribes not to testify in court, labelled a rat by members of her community, had all her windows smashed while she slept and seen a neighbour's house burned to the ground. Last week, she was hit with a shotgun blast while standing on her front step.
Ms. Jebb is a target because she dared to stand up to the Indian Posse, one of Canada's largest gangs. In the past five years, aboriginal gangs, as they are classified by the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, have surpassed outlaw motorcycle gangs and Italian organized crime syndicates as the largest single group held in federal prisons, with 536 members serving federal sentences. Ninety per cent of them are doing time on the Prairies, dominated by three established gangs: the Indian Posse, the Native Syndicate and the Warriors.
Ms. Jebb's ordeal began three years ago when she was brutally beaten by a member of the Indian Posse for refusing to allow him to enter a party. The gang tried to bribe her not to testify, but she refused to bend and her assailant was convicted.
Enlarge Image
Christie Jebb stands last month in front of her neighbour�s house on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation reserve in Manitoba. The house has been fire bombed by local gang members. (Dustin Leader for The Globe and Mail)
A year ago, another member of the Indian Posse barged into her home, punched her and knocked her unconscious. Once more she went to the police; that case is still awaiting trial. Whenever she went out in her community, she would hear the taunts of "rat" from the gang's legion of members and associates. And one night in January, a group of thugs wearing red masks smashed every window in her house as she lay in bed, terrified.
Two weeks ago, the violence escalated. As she tells the story, she points a finger a few metres down the dirt road that runs between her modest home and the bush, saying that's where the gangsters stood when they opened fire. A group of eight or more, their faces covered by red bandanas, were shouting "Indian Posse" as they approached.
"It was 8:45 p.m., we were sitting outside here, smoking. I saw them coming and told my neighbour to phone the cops. We just stood here. They stopped and they were yelling, 'Indian Posse, let's get her,' " she said. "I saw the gun in the air and then he pulled it down and boom, boom, we felt the pellets hit us. I was too shocked to hit the ground or anything."
Ms. Jebb, 29, was fortunate not to be hurt. The shotgun barrel was sawed off, and fired from far enough away that the pellets stung but didn't break the skin. Her worst fear is that her home will be torched while she sleeps, as happened to a neighbour a year ago.
"The intimidation is really bad," she said.
Spreading westward
The recent history of aboriginal gangs began when the Indian Posse was formed on the streets of Winnipeg in 1988, followed in 1991 by the Manitoba Warriors. The rival groups clashed in prison, and the necessity of having some gang protection led unaffiliated inmates to found the Native Syndicate in 1994.
All three gangs spread westward from Manitoba as a result of the federal parole system, according to Detective Grant Goulet of the Winnipeg police organized crime unit. Because of their violent behaviour, many of the offenders ended up in Edmonton's maximum-security prison and were released there on parole. A group of notorious Indian Posse armed robbers adopted Edmonton as their new home, and began setting up chapters nearby.
One community, Hobbema, has become the poster reserve for a growing gang problem in recent years. The 12,000-member community, which is home to four Cree reserves, has been racked with gang-related violence and crime, including the disturbing drive-by shooting last month of a 23-month-old girl.
Asia Saddleback was in her home on the Samson Cree reserve, 80 kilometres south of Edmonton, eating dinner when a stray bullet hit the toddler just below the abdomen.
Police suspect the shooting, which was the reserve's 12th gun crime since March, was gang related. An 18-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy were charged in connection with the crime.
The little girl has since been released from hospital, but doctors couldn't remove the bullet for fear of causing damage to her spine. Candace Saddleback, the girl's 25-year-old mother, has told reporters she's too scared to return to her reserve. "I've been living there all my life and I'm sorry it took [the shooting of] my daughter ... for people to understand that it's a bad crisis in Hobbema," she said.
Thirteen gangs are trying to control the drug trade and other illicit activities, including prostitution, in Hobbema. They range from small groups such as the Spoon Crew, a tight-knit group of female cousins, to the powerful Indian Posse.
The Samson reserve is a hotbed of crime because it's the largest of the four reserves, with about 6,500 members. The reserve has also witnessed considerable wealth in its history, reaping energy royalties from its large deposits of oil and natural gas. With the big bucks came increased demand for illegal drugs. The drug of choice on the reserve today is crack cocaine, which is called kona, the Cree word for snow.
However, Hobbema RCMP Corporal Darrel Bruno said it's a "false perception" that everybody on the Samson reserve has money. Unemployment is about 85 per cent.
Many residents feel like prisoners in their own homes.
Enlarge Image
Christie Jebb stands last month in front of her neighbour�s house on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation reserve in Manitoba. The house has been fire bombed by local gang members. (Dustin Leader for The Globe and Mail)
Trish Simon, a 21-year-old unemployed single mother, rarely lets her six-year-old daughter Chanise outside to play for fear she'll get caught up in a gunfight. Even on a warm spring day, a large playground in a park behind their house is empty.
Ms. Simon, who has several cousins who belong to the Indian Posse, desperately wants to leave the reserve, but she has no money.
Last month, Ms. Simon moved houses because the last place she lived was constantly being fired at during the night. "We slept on the floor. We didn't want to get hit," she said.
She said while her new home is located in one of Samson's roughest neighbourhoods - she calls it a ghetto - the nights have been quieter.
"So far, so good," Ms. Simon said, as she looked out a front window pierced by two bullet holes. A curfew for anyone 17 and under that was imposed after Asia Saddleback was shot has helped, she added.
She plans to paint over a large tag reading "Indian Po$$e" that was on the front of the small blue house when she moved in. "I need to get that done. People keep coming to the door trying to buy crack," she said.
Ms. Simon, who dreams of one day finishing high school and becoming a teacher, doesn't know whether anything can be done to stop the gang violence for good.
"Too many bad things have happened. These people hate each other. I don't know how you can stop that kind of hate," she said.
Sergeant Patrick Olson of the Manitoba RCMP's gang intelligence unit describes the Indian Posse and Native Syndicate as primarily street gangs - slightly less sophisticated than the Warriors, whose organization and structure are modelled after the Hells Angels. All three gangs, police say, are run by councils of senior members in jail who communicate with the outside world via three-way calling. They make their money primarily from cocaine and prostitution.
Both the Warriors and the Indian Posse are expanding in an effort to become national gangs, Sgt. Olson said. One high-ranking IP member was recently arrested in British Columbia, an area traditionally outside the Posse's turf, wearing a back patch that included a map of Canada, which the police take as a sign of the gang's growing ambition.
"Right now the Indian Posse is a very, very violent street gang. There's many associates that are involved in homicides in the city of Winnipeg, as well as thefts and home invasions. They've really pushed their territory out," Sgt. Olson said.
Court cases in Saskatchewan have been disrupted by IP associates placing a symbolic red bandana on the gallery railing and walking out to intimidate witnesses, he added.
They are armed with guns obtained in home invasions or smuggled from the United States through native bands in Ontario and Quebec that straddle the border, Sgt. Olson said. Their primary source of income is the sale of crack cocaine, which they buy mainly from Asian organized crime groups that move the product through B.C. ports. "It's a quick money-maker for them. It's quick to sell, it's small, it's easy to conceal compared to pounds of marijuana," Sgt. Olson said.
The gangs' connections to reserves and small, northern communities where their membership flourishes are lucrative because of scarcity pricing. In Winnipeg, a rock of crack cocaine sells for $10 to $20. In The Pas, it's $50 to $70 for a rock the same size. Farther north in Thompson, Man., it's $100 a rock, the RCMP says. "It's pretty easy to see how fast you can make money," Sgt. Olson said.
Gangs are a fact of life on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation. The reserve, which sits just across the river from The Pas, a pulp-and-paper town 600 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, is one of the most prosperous in Manitoba with a casino, hotel, shopping mall and a successful junior hockey team. Still, estimates of unemployment are close to 50 per cent, and for young people with few prospects, the allure of gang life is difficult to resist.
Detective Jerry Nutbrown of the local RCMP said it's quite common for young gang associates to earn $100 a day as drug mules, delivering packages by bicycle to customers who dial the number of a dealer's disposable cellphone. The drugs arrive in The Pas by road from Winnipeg, Saskatoon or Prince Albert, Sask., usually carried by people chosen because they won't be noticed by police. Dealers also hang around the local mall carrying Baggies of crack cocaine in their mouths, with a water bottle close at hand in case they need to swallow the drugs at short notice, he said.
The RCMP say there are 15 or 20 senior Indian Posse members in The Pas and OCN, but each of those members has three or four prospective members, known as strikers, operating beneath him, trying to outdo one another with acts of violent bravado to earn membership in the gang. It's the strikers who hold the drugs and dish out most of the violence, police said.
Enlarge Image
Christie Jebb stands last month in front of her neighbour�s house on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation reserve in Manitoba. The house has been fire bombed by local gang members. (Dustin Leader for The Globe and Mail)
Chief Glen Ross said a child on the reserve was recently caught carrying $20,000 worth of crack. Another band member who was trying to leave gang life was slain in Winnipeg last year, his Indian Posse tattoos carved from his skin.
Mr. Ross said he hopes the completion of an RCMP detachment on the reserve, expected in the next few weeks, will give the band "that much more of a hammer to curb the violence." But the detachment is off to a rocky start. It was burned to the ground last summer, allegedly by youths who threw a Molotov cocktail, and the RCMP said they believe the fire was ordered by the leadership of the IP.
One of the youths arrested for the fire fought his way out of the RCMP detachment by overpowering a guard. In a further embarrassment for the force, a month later he and another man are alleged to have committed a shocking killing in Saskatchewan, when assailants stormed into a house in Fort Qu'Appelle after a fight in a bar. Witnesses said the men yelled "that'll teach you to mess with the [Indian Posse]" before opening fire, killing two people and injuring three.
Mr. Ross, who has been the chief at OCN for a little less than two years, says dealing with the gangs is a priority for his community, second only to the need for more housing.
"It's getting out of hand. Gang kids are carrying most of the social problems that affect our people on their shoulders," he said.
A few years ago, his community banished a number of known gang members, cutting them off from any social assistance or housing and forcing them to leave. They also published a list of the banned gangsters in their newspaper, and anyone who saw them around the reserve was encouraged to call police. Some, including Ms. Jebb, say it's time to revive that practice.
While he speaks of the need to clamp down on crime, Mr. Ross knows increased enforcement will put more aboriginal youth in jail, where they are already overrepresented.
"It means more OCN kids are going to jail, and they'll come out in worse shape. Over the years they'll probably cost more in social services," he said. "When we talk about gangs on OCN I say, 'These are our kids. They're not monsters. All of a sudden we put a gang label on them and they're shootable?' "
The chief said those who join the gang need to feel a part of something, and some feel they're fighting back against a discriminatory system.
"There's pride in the outlaw," he said, "pride in fighting what they see as the government, the enemy."
Guide to gangs
Indian Posse
The Indian Posse was formed on the streets of Winnipeg in 1988 and quickly grew into a large street gang. In addition to the group's base in Winnipeg's north end, it has chapters in Saskatoon, Edmonton and dozens of smaller prairie towns and reserves.
They trade cocaine and weapons across provincial boundaries. They will also import crews to commit violence and quickly leave town before police are aware of their presence.
"The Indian Posse are still just focused on threatening violence and reputation; they haven't evolved as a gang. Native Syndicate, the same thing. Straight thugs," Detective Grant Goulet of Winnipeg police said.
Members earn status in the gang by completing "missions" such as armed robberies, arsons and homicides. The first stage is an IP tattoo, followed by a more senior level known as "arm bars," a large tattoo that reads Indian on one arm and Posse on the other. Senior members will also get a shield tattooed on their neck.
Manitoba Warriors
Described by police as the most sophisticated of the three main gangs, the Manitoba Warriors modelled themselves after the Hells Angels with a three-piece back patch to denote levels of membership, as well as a president and a sergeant-at-arms.
The Warriors are less likely than the other groups to be involved in low-level street crime, and are the smallest in terms of the number of inmates serving in correctional institutions. Their members also mark status levels by tattoos. One ex-member said the day he got a Warriors shield on his shoulder was "the most overwhelming day of [his] life."
Native Syndicate
This gang formed in prison in 1994 as a response to the growth of the Indian Posse and Manitoba Warriors (and later Saskatchewan and Alberta Warriors). Inmates who weren't in either of those gangs felt they needed to protect themselves and banded together. Their members are spread across the Prairies, although their strength is in Saskatchewan and parts of Northern Manitoba.
"They are literally the bottom feeders. Hard-core thug criminals, high propensity for violence, mostly armed-robbery guys," Det. Goulet said.
Members are marked by tattoos, starting with a distinctive NS on the web of the hand between thumb and index finger.
Joe Friesen
AN EX-GANGSTER'S STORY
Crime and brotherhood
Gilbert Genaille came to gang life as a 14-year-old growing up in Winnipeg's inner city. He had been in and out of foster homes since birth as his mother struggled with addiction. He dropped out of Winnipeg's Gordon Bell High School before completing Grade 7, and turned to a life of crime and brotherhood in the Manitoba Warriors.
His first conviction was for aggravated assault on a cab driver. He held a knife to the cabbie's throat and pulled it, he said, because he didn't have the money for the fare.
He spent most of the next 17 years in and out of jail, earning a reputation as one of the toughest members of the Warriors. He has few teeth because he was involved in so many brawls. He was part of the group involved in the Headingley jail riot of 1996, and was moved to Edmonton's maximum-security prison, where he survived being stabbed in the back of the neck.
"What's leading you into the gangs? Everything in society today is for white people," he said. "Everything was taken from us 200 years ago and set up to suit the white people."
Although he said he has given up gang life now that he's 32, married and works as a roofer, he said he would never turn his back on the idea that lies at the heart of the Warriors: standing up proudly as native people.
"They were the most solid type of guys you've ever seen," he said. "Built like Chevy trucks, some of the best gangsters ever."
Joe Friesen
THE MONEY TRAIL
Big profits, modest living
Where does the money go?
Both the RCMP and Winnipeg city police say they've always been somewhat puzzled by the question of where aboriginal gangs spend their profits.
They say they can't rule out the possibility that senior leaders hide funds in offshore accounts, but are surprised to find that most gang members live fairly modest lives.
"Where does it go? That's a huge question," RCMP Sergeant Patrick Olson said. "In some of the traditional organized crime it goes to houses, to cars, whereas that's not an issue here.
"It obviously goes somewhere. It's always there to buy more product, for one thing. But there's a lot of [drug and alcohol] consumption, a lot of abuse. That's why a lot of gang members are kicked out. ... One of the leaders of the Indian Posse said, 'The reason you don't look at us is because we can act and appear almost like a bum on the street. We're overlooked. I don't drive a Mercedes, I don't own a fancy house, but I carry on my business and it goes unnoticed.' "
One former gang member said that at his peak he earned $15,000 a month, much of which he shared with friends and family. The money came and went quickly, he said, but he enjoyed being generous and making others happy.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Magnetonium I didnt see the whole Shaolin's documentary ... |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Magnetonium but I doubt it talked about this major problem on the reserves (which is not the fault of the Canadian government which has NO jurisdiction on the native reserves). This article speaks volumes and deserves a documentary of its own, because the native reserves are so poorly run, they need government's help in running them. Or - do the native supporters have a better suggestion - please let me know, I'd like to hear it. Because the way I see it - its not the Canadian government that killing off natives and their culture and forcing natives to leave their own native reserves - but its the natives themselves who hurt their fellow people. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...Story/National/ |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by shaolin_Z Yes, I find it ironic that most seem to be commenting here on an entirely different subject... and they haven't even watched the documentary relevant to the thread. That's an entirely different issue altogether and has nothing to do with the subject at hand. It a defensive non sequitur infused with nationalistic, institutional, and cultural bias at best. |
Progress?
http://www.thespec.com/article/368645
Bill aims to speed up native land claims
Smaller cases would go to tribunal if they're stalled after three years
quote:
May 14, 2008
Sue Bailey
The Canadian Press
Ottawa (May 14, 2008)
A bill to ease tensions and speed up native land claims passed the House of Commons yesterday.
All parties endorsed the new Specific Claims Tribunal Act, despite lingering concerns. It must now clear the Senate to become law.
At issue is the fact that only cases worth $150 million or less will be eligible to go before a panel of impartial judges if talks are stalled after three years.
The Liberals and NDP have also raised concerns that Ottawa alone will choose the mediators whose binding rulings will be final when negotiations fail.
Still, Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl called the bill -- co-written by the Assembly of First Nations -- "a great step forward."
Sweeping comprehensive land claims, such as those affecting much of Ontario and British Columbia, will be dealt with separately. Such cases can be incredibly complex and hugely expensive.
A claim filed yesterday by the Whitefish Lake First Nation near Sudbury says Ottawa owes the community about $550 billion for losses linked to its assertion that the reserve should have been five times larger.
The whopping figure "is based on an amount owing for all mineral and timber extraction that has taken place from 1850 to date" on that disputed land, it says.
The specific claims legislation would commit $250 million a year for 10 years to beef up cash available for compensation without forcing the tribunal to seek additional approvals.
"And that gives them a lot of freedom to do the right thing in a quick manner," Strahl said. "It's good for First Nations but it's good for Canada, too, because it gets these behind us in a hurry."
The bill was passed quietly as the government prepares for native demonstrations planned across the country on May 29.
National Chief Phil Fontaine has called for an educational day of peaceful protest urging Canadians to pressure Ottawa to lift often bleak native living standards.
A similar event last June 29 was marked by blockades in Ontario and Quebec, including an 11-hour shutdown of Highway 401 near Kingston.
Liberal aboriginal affairs critic Anita Neville says her party's support for the specific claims legislation was hardly wholehearted.
She says the government was in no mood to consider amendments to increase the worth of eligible claims or allow First Nations input into judge selection.
"It was certainly made clear to us that if we tried to put any substantive changes in, that we would lose the bill. And it was also clear to us that this was an important bill for the (Assembly of First Nations). So, we went forward."
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