Today the Canadian Mohawk and Oneida communities
have announced they are withdrawing from the Assembly
of First Nations (of which Mercredi is Grand Chief)
and are reorganizing themselves into the Iroquois League
in order to assert their sovereignity (the Mohawk
communities of Kahnawake, Kahnasatake, and Adwesasne
sat out the referendum--I am fairly sure of this--
because one way of asserting their sovereignity
has been to refuse access to the federal voting
list enumerators; enumeration is a must in order to
vote in Canada).
The Native Council of Canada reported today that
62% of its constituency voted "yes"--that would be
non-status and Metis. On the whole, however, it
was the status native communities who voted "no"
or sat out the election (Elijah Harper was one of
those).
I think it's useful to remember two or three things in
trying to make sense of the "no" vote:
One of the first groups calling for a "no"
vote was the Native Women's Association of
Canada.
National polls show a consistent high level
of support for Canadian First Nations
sovereignity.
The Indian Act can be repealed without
amending the constitution.
and maybe a fourth thing--the constitution if amended in
accordance with the accord as stated would have been
nigh-onto-impossible! to change ever again (and what we
do without our favourite bickering pasttime..? baseball??
yeah! go Blue Jays!)
Maureen Korp
University of Ottawa