- it is NOT dead, officially or otherwise, and will not be until
Ontario withdraws the offer, or Ontario and the Teme Augama
Anishnabai agree that it is "dead"; one of the very few helpful
things that Ontario has said or done over the last five months is
to confirm that the "offer is still on the table"
- it has not been just an "arduous three year effort"; it has 117
years of the TAA asking for a treaty, two decades in the courts,
and three years in negotiation
- the media has dubbed the MKA as the "traditionalists" fairly
recently; last summer, they were "the splinter faction" the
"breakway group", etc., and the media took great relish in
reporting their acts of vandalism, illegal logging of old growth
pine, etc.; now they've become the "traditionalists" - what's the
media message here?
- the MKA don't like the "deal", that's clear; _why_ they don't
like it is less clear, other than the reasons anyone wouldn't like
it, ie. that it is less than 100% authority over all of n'Daki
Menan; many of concerns the MKA express are not about the deal, but
are about past and personal grievances; many of the positions they
put forward are not what would generally be considered
"traditional", for example, at one point a spokesperson said that
they don't like that the deal would not result in the TAA lands
being a reserve, under the Indian Act, although it's not clear how
representative that was of those who identify themselves as the MKA
- "We're still going to be Indians yet, not citizens" might be an
accurate report of what Woody said, but why has the media _never_
reported that one of the principles of the TAA is to be Anisnabai,
not "Indians", ie. to reestablish that they are a self-determined
and soveriegn nation, rather than a "band of Indians" under the
Indian Act; why wasn't the quote of someone saying "We have always
been Anishnabai, not Indian Act Indians whose identity is on a
status card" (I am _not_ saying that Woody is a defender of the
Indian Act and through it the colonization of native people, but I
_am_ saying that the media reports and Ontario's responses simplify
and exclude to create false and negative impressions, and that they
use some of Woody's statements to do that)
- the Province's speedy move to go to court to have the caution
lifted was a fine example of how so many of their statements and
actions have served to undermine the treaty process and to create
division in the community; Ontario's immediate response to the
first negative vote, which took place less than two weeks after the
offer was finalized, was to announce that they were going to court
to have the cautions lifted, citing economic development etc. etc.
etc. as the reason - once again reinforcing the view of the
municipalities and business guys in the district that the area's
economic woes (stemming from the recession and the closure of local
mines and mills) had the caution as the root cause; the speedy move
by Ontario to the courts increased the many pressures within the
community, fanned the racist fires in the district (by suggesting
that the land caution was to blame for lack of "economic
development") and demonstrated either a naivety or lack of good
faith on the part of the province; an offer that is a few hundred
pages long and quite technical and legal in nature is available two
weeks before people are to make a decision that they have been
waiting for for over a century - and then Ontario is all upset when
the first vote is a "no"? Has "Ontario" ever negotiated a union
contract? Bought a house? Is the first "no" such a big deal?
- the Supreme Court of Canada, in their decision which said that
the Temagami people had "adhered" to the Robinson-Huron Treaty
(even though they hadn't signed it, some people had accepted the $4
treaty money, so the Court said they had adhered to the treaty) the
Supreme Court said that fiduciary obligations had not been met, but
were being negotiated through the treaty process; considering that
decision, Ontario seems falsely confident in their expecation that
"they'll have little trouble in convincing the courts to remove the
caution"