This is the future of governance, says Premier Campbell

We now know where the NDP under Carole James stands on the Tsawwassen Treaty.

They like it.

Sad that her opinion fits so snugly into the Tyee graph showing how much more, more, more we're spending on M.L.A.s

The Tsawwassen Treaty process also fits right in with "Campbell's new way of doing politics and business" (The Globe and Mail, July 24, 2007 by Gary Mason).

Speaking to "a powerful group of business and political leaders from the Pacific Northwest who gathered in Anchorage, Alaska," Gordo said,
"We don't need permissions from our federal governments. We can't wait for them. We have to act. If we don't, we'll lose."

He really thinking about port facilities, as in Shanghai ... but also in Deltaport, Roberts Bank. It worries him that Shanghai has 7 times the capacity that B.C. has right now. You can feel his pain.

So his plan is to implement SPP, NAU, whatever it takes to "look at this challenge as a group ... to see what we can do collectively. "How can we collaborate and improve all our economies at the same time? That is what we need to start doing more of. Not waiting for federal governments to step in ... This is the future of governance."

Sedition? Treachery? Revolution?

What was Carole James thinking.

Isn't this the same Premier who also

Isn't this the same Gordon Campbell who also said - 'Are we a country or not?' in a slightly different context.

However, I think it is perhaps well past time for BC citizens to question the kind of province and country Gordon Campbell does believe in.

There are strong and growing indications that the WE Gordon Campbell talks about doesn't include 80 - 90 % of the Us who actually live and work and send our kids to school here and who are forced against our will to pay the robbers' ransom this man and his automatons 'think' they are worth.

Anyone believe that perhaps it might be time for another recall campaign? This is a man who seems to have completely lost touch with the electorate and the basic principle and philosophy of government of the people by the people...and for the people. Not just for his small and shrinking circle of friends.

He has payed for his 3

He has payed for his 3 friends money, power, greed not a great legacy. We as a free people had better start now taking back our God given rights to be free of tyrants!
Scary shite and not a word in msm!
http://www.canadians.org/media/DI/2007/11-July-07.html
We can gather 1/2 a million people to watch fireworks you'd think we could muster 1 million to march for Our Freedom and demand a recall on gordo and his lame duck boyz!

What the hell are USA

What the hell are USA soldiers doing in Canada? I smell a treasonous rat S Harper and Fed Liberals, Fed NDP, Gordo, C James, E May a very sad day for Democracy traitors all, shame.
I guess CAP is the only one with nads?
http://canadianactionparty.ca/leader_m.html
http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/03/26/01439.html

Carole James..........

........why can't someone put her out of her misery? This REMOVED FOR LEGAL REASONS BEFORE THE EDITOR HAD A CHANCE TO SEE IT leader of the opposition isn't, she hasn't a clue to what an opposition must do and that is to oppose.

Urgent message to the NDP, get rid of James fast and do not care how messy it can get, no one gives a damn!

Respect Carole?

If we should respect Carole for her respect of the Tsawwassen should we disrespect her for her disrespect of the Maa-nulth?

Realistic man tells us that

Realistic man tells us that some NDP want to keep the Indian Act so the governments can tell them what to do.

This week the federal NDP are arguing against removing parts of the Indian Act with Bill 44. The Bill is to allow band memebers access to the Human Rights tribunals. I can recall a number of times that the Liberal government with some support by chiefs and AFN tried changes to the Indian Act.The provincial NDP were of the opinion that some of the federal Liberal changes were good. On each occassion the federal NDP argued against those changes. Back to the Canada Rights and Freedom. A subsection of sect 35 was added at the insistance of guess who. The federal NDP. So only one sction of the act can not be overridden . Go read the section and keep telling us that certain segments of the NDP like the Indian act. Darn right some do. The Federal branch of the NDP, that's who. A number of us spent a lot of time talking up modern treaties. The NDP provincially had a policy on ALR Land useage. The same government had a policy paper on ALR Land removal and the deal was that land since it was not origional reserve land, would be subject to provincal laws. Any law the band wrote had to equal or better Provincial and federal law. So Carole did jump right in and blew the policy of the party, and the policy that was set years ago. If the negotiating teams under the past NDP Government had been allowed to drop the policies, heck we would have a number of treaties right now. If you want to blame some party members simply look at the elected ones. So keep tlling yourself Carole was real sharp on this deal and we will continue laughing
Hecik, the present leader cna't even be consistant. her story of we will tell you later, we have to decide ended up yesterday with , we decided long ago but wouldn't say. If she had stopped maybe she could have made it look real. But oh no she then tells the medai she supports the bands voting today. Toughful person? I'm not that sure is she is or not, or is she over her head.

Tsawassen & ALR

Let's not forget that most of the resource extraction in this province occurs on lands never surrendered or ceded by treaty by First Nations peoples--and we are all the beneficiaries of that (much moreso than First Nations peoples). Moreover, a goodly proportion of the population of this province lives on land that was once formerly productive farmland (i.e. before the ALR). Let's not be hypocrites here. Treaty making involves making some compromises, and allowing the TFN to use their newly acquired lands for revenue producing ventures is certainly better than more years of poverty and massive unemployment. The government could open up crown land for agriculture to a larger degree than it does and place it in the ALR. Certainly good farmland is finite, but clearly we haven't tapped it out yet, especially in the north, where milder winters are making agriculture more feasible.

B.C. band backs Maa-nulth treaty

From the Glob & Mire - B.C. band backs Maa-nulth treaty

Compromises

There is nothing wrong with using ALR lands as part of the treaty settlement. And there is nothing whatever hypocritical about pointing that out – as several BC Chiefs have been doing.

The point is simply that they should not be alienated from their highest and best use - and that is not as a parking lot for shipping containers.

Nothing hypocritical about that.

Furthermore, if you'll read the treaty documents themselves, you may soon realize that a lot of liability goes with this settlement and that a good deal of treaty lands will soon move to fee simple tenure.

Whether or not this treaty actually inures to the TFN's benefit is a highly debatable question.

Anyone who's actually followed the way the treaty negotiations to this point have been financed will be aware that this may very well end up working against the Tsawwassen people in the end.

As someone else pointed out elsewhere, Gordon Campbell led a filibuster against the Nis'ga treaty....leopards do not change their stripes - I think Mr. Campbell's in on the deal this time for not entirely altruistic reasons.

Must we be paternal?

As an Indian leader said the other day, "It's Indians that should decide on how to use Indian land".

This is a tough one for those in the NDP that seem to wish to pick up the mantle and tell the Indians what to do. Gordon Campbell and his Liberals have another success in yesterday's overwhelmingly positive Maa-Nulth vote. Perhaps the Green Party do have an opportunity.

As I've written before

The only reason the Campbell Government is in the treaty business is because their friends in the business community told them that treaty questions, given the SCC decision in Delgamuuku v. British Columbia, had to be settled so business as usual could proceed and those same friends could continue their project of alienating all British Columbians (not just First Nations ones) from their birthright as citizens.

If there's any hypocrisy in these matters, that is from where it stems. NDP policy has always been to restrict the use of prime agricultural land for other than agricultural uses. That is the correct policy and it needs not conflict with treaty settlement procedures at all. The driving force in this negotiation has been Campbell’s Gateway strategy. Carole James, despite your naïve support of her position, has subverted two generations of progress and enlightened thinking in the interests of all the people who actually live here – as opposed to the interests of the shadowy ‘investors’ who use our assets to alienate us, as citizens, from our own future.

What Gordon Campbell has done and is doing in this regard is overwhelmingly negative and, relative to the TFN treaty, you don't have to listen to me to affirm that conclusion: You can find all kinds of spokespersons in First Nations Communities who are saying exactly the same thing.

As I told you before, one needs to look at who is holding the hammer in these negotiations. I think you'll find it's not the First Nations people as a collective entity. By the way, no one I agree with is saying the Tsawwassen don’t have the ‘right’ to make this decision; we are saying they have made a serious mistake that will have repercussions for both themselves and their neighbours – as well as the agricultural sustainability of this province for decades to come. And, some of them, like me, are also saying that the Campbell government never does anything which is in the best interests of anyone outside of a small circle of friends.

Sadly, I think this will prove to be the case once again. A few members of the TFN community will end up doing very well out of this agreement but the real winners are Campbell and the masters of the universe. Just wait and see.

Without even looking to the mortgage on this deal which hangs silently over the future of the new Tsawwassen First Nations ‘Government’. A year and a half ago, the treaty settlement process had already eaten up more than 60 % of the anticipated value of all the financial rewards that were meant to grow out of these settlements.

It will be interesting to discover what the next, more up to date, accounting of this cost/benefit situation reveals….

Of Course

Of course, you won't hear any serious discussion about this in the press and, given Ms James's compromises with her duty as leader of the opposition and the defender of rational and sustainable policies for this province, you aren't likely to hear much about it in the legislature either come the 'celebratory' fall session.

Nothing at all 'paternal' about that.

Alright

G West says that it's not a paternal posture that says what they should do with their land, it's a mistake, "...we are saying they have made a serious mistake that will have repercussions for both themselves and their neighbours – ..."

A mistake. There, is that better now.

Not at all realisticman

There is nothing paternalistic about a program that says there are 'values' which are so important that all British Columbians ought to observe them whether they are native or not.
First Nations people, once they have achieved self-government, will not and do not issue their own money, give themselves drivers' licenses or administer their own criminal law - among other things.
There are ways to get land out of the ALR.
There is a process through which one goes - the hypocrisy here lies in the fact that this government in Victoria was not willing to go through that process.
So anxious was the Campbell Government to get that farmland into the hands of its friends that it subverted the Provincial ALR rules AND the BC Treaty Process to do it.

Now THAT is paternalistic.
Moreover, YOU should know better.

If you are familiar with the BASI VIRK case

You'll be aware that there is an ALR angle to what Mr Basi was has been alleged to be trying to arrange for some friends of the government in Sooke as well - again for money.... to get lands there out of the ALR.

That's the key with the Campbell Government R/man - just follow the money - because this government has NO other principles.

Far too many sensitive and intelligent people - when they see the way things actually 'work' in this province - have an unfortunate tendency to close their eyes and put their hands over their ears and repeat loudly "La, La, La, La, La - I don't want to hear about it."

Such naïveté is quite touching – but sadly unfortunate in one who otherwise seems moderately intelligent.

Tsawwassen

Before my family moved to Williams Lake in 1973, we lived in Tsawwassen, a beautiful rural community that was rapidly sub-urbanizing (my old home became a parking lot in the Reed Shopping Centre). As someone whose earliest childhood memories were of a cow's field in the back yard, and a chicken farm behind Boundary Bay Elementary School across the road, I viscerally support the view that Dave Barrett's Agricultural Land Reserve as one of the most far-sighted pieces of legislation ever passed in this province.

To be fair to the NDP, it is equally the father of both the ALR and the Treaty process--and it is understandable that it should be torn. But the message that should be blasted loud and clear in the media is that the Campbell government did not negotiate this particular deal because it cares more about native treaties than the NDP does. It did so because it cares LESS about the ALR than the NDP does. The government's actions around the deal in Burns Bog and Roberts Bank Deltaport Expansion--reflecting Campbell's longstanding preoccupation with property development--are at odds with the historic role of the ALR and indeed the municipality of Delta.

I would have supported this deal, but with the very big difference that those 207 hectares remain in the ALR. A small First Nation Community supposedly attuned to keeping the land in its pristine state could then lease the land for agricultural purposes. That would be a sensible compromise for the party of Dave barrett and Mike Harcourt--the party that created both the ALR and the Treaty Process in a province where the Socred/ Liberals would not have created either

Absolutely correct Mark Crawford

I'd urge you to look at the terms of the TFN treaty settlement as well because I think the devil also hides in some of the details relative to the likely final disposition of lands and fee simple title that may obtain several years down the road.

Further, the costs (which are far from trivial) of the treaty negotiations, although financed by the province and the federal government, are also meant to be allocated against the final settlement proceeds - something that was not lost on the auditor the last time a progress report was tabled.

Mark Crawford Re: Boundary

Mark Crawford Re: Boundary Bay Elementary School! I went to Boundary Bay E. School in 52-54 then it was all huge privately owned agricultural farmland, (Spetifor farm, Sheryl farm, the Rocky Mountain Farm etc, but sadly now all subdivided for a few greedy rabid mad dogs! I only hope that when the "ship hits the sand" and it will, that the only thing they have left to eat is their money.
Anything Gordo is in favour of We have to be very, very careful, as this exceptionally poor excuse as a member of the human race and his little band of lesser vermin will all have to pay in the end to their/our maker!
Grand opening in September 2007!
It's open now and very interesting and Truthful!
http://therealnews.com/web/index.php

realisticman, this must be for you.

 

Treaties just theft under another name
Times Colonist
Published: Friday, August 03, 2007

It's clear to me now, after hearing the "leaders" and "elders" from Huu-ay-aht and Tsawwassen comment on the ratification votes in their communities, that this issue of treaty-making is far beyond politics or even rationality.

These agreements make no political or financial sense from a First Nations perspective, yet they are being ratified nonetheless.

Why? Because First Nations will simply do whatever it takes, including surrendering their lands and sacred heritage of nationhood, to shed themselves of their Indigenous past in the hopes of becoming acceptable to the white society.

Canadians are once again preying on the original peoples of this land, this time not stealing, raping and brainwashing their children, but lying and manipulating in a different way to the same ends as in previous times: Stealing land and destroying culture.

If Canada were a country with a moral centre, its citizens would not be celebrating the achievements of the B.C. treaty process; they would be shouting out in anger against the immoral actions of their governments and the fact that they are taking advantage of weakened peoples who are in the midst of social and spiritual crises to enrich themselves, yet again.

Taiaiake Alfred,
Director, Indigenous
Governance Programs,
University of Victoria.

Democracy

It's good that we live in a democracy where people can vote in a referendum on issues that govern them. Those that defer to those voting should be applauded, to do otherwise has at the least a tint of paternalism.

When any vote is tallied there will always be those that are unpleased with the result. It is a mark of our civility that we accept losing in a graceful manner. That's what makes our democracy so eminently tolerant.

You're starting to repeat yourself R/Man

Have you actually tried to learn and understand what was going on relative to this treaty and its background? Do you think that fetching people from far and wide and letting them determine 'who' should be qualified to vote - or what one had to agree to even before being permitted to 'register' to vote entails is democratic?

There is and was nothing democratic about the process and your ideas of paternalism are extremely selective.
And two can play that game:

God help up when people of nominal good will can be so blind.

Nice of you to be so generous about winners and losers and civility - how quaint - especially when applied to the First Nations people we robbed the land from in the first place.

Give me strength! As Somerset Maugham said: “Tolerance is only another name for indifference.”

You made me do it

Only repeating myself because you repeated someone else.

.
Sorry to hear that you consider yourself a robber.
.
"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it."
H. L. Mencken

There appears to be a problem with reading comprehsion

The phrase was:

Please note the clause at the end of the sentence - "...in the first place."

I'm not interested in 'ruling' anyone and Mencken's phrase is NOT universal. Please note the 'almost always'.

In my opinion, a society progresses and changes when people behave in ways that are not, strictly speaking, selfish and self-centered... from the behavior of our government, acting on my behalf, I sense nothing but fear about the eventual outcome of these matters. And I am not alone in this – especially as regards the TFN treaty and the ‘partners’ the Campbell clique has set up in this ‘deal’ – in fact far from it.

That's why our culture is going backwards so depressingly fast and your young friends can' afford to buy a decent pace to live anymore. What we could have learned from collective and cooperative societies and examples from the past is diminished when the dominant group - European and North American corporate insular culture - has no respect for other ways of seeing and living in the world.

This misuse of the tools of democracy and PR to serve corporate agendas is appalling – whether the targets are Native Peoples or the 80% of the families in this country who are struggling against a similar corporatist agenda, in my opinion. The fact that some normally thoughtful people are being manipulated and ‘managed’, as they clearly have been in this case, is just another example of complacency and laziness.

As for repetition, good ideas need to go out and be seen in the world and I'm happy to repeat these words of Taiaiake Alfred's again:

If Canada were a country with a moral centre, its citizens would not be celebrating the achievements of the B.C. treaty process; they would be shouting out in anger against the immoral actions of their governments and the fact that they are taking advantage of weakened peoples who are in the midst of social and spiritual crises to enrich themselves, yet again.