Attawapiskat chief goes on hunger strike

taxslave

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Spence should share part of her $300,000 annual salary with some of her 'poor' tribe mates. The average band members see very little of what the government gives the band every year. Its easy to see where it goes. By the way, she doesn't seem to be losing much weight.

If she is eating what petros showed a day or so ago loosing weight is unlikely. The stuff in the jar looks like Gletna or a fresh water equivalent. One could survive all winter on that alone although it tastes worst than cod liver oil.
 

petros

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If she is eating what petros showed a day or so ago loosing weight is unlikely. The stuff in the jar looks like Gletna or a fresh water equivalent. One could survive all winter on that alone although it tastes worst than cod liver oil.
It's fish broth. Broth has all the fats and fat soluble nutrients. You don't lose weight by living on fat unless it's your own.
 

Goober

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Not sure if this was posted yet.

How did we get to Attawapiskat? Go back to the 1905 James Bay Treaty | Full Comment | National Post

Attawapiskat First Nation chief Teresa Spence is not engaged in “terrorism,” as one Postmedia writer notoriously suggested last week. Terrorists blow themselves up. Ms. Spence, by contrast, is sitting in a snow-covered teepee on Victoria Island in the Ottawa River. Let’s not play the game of using the T-word to describe everyone we simply don’t like.

On the other hand, Ms. Spence isn’t a true “hunger striker” either, since she reportedly is drinking fish broth and various herbal potions. We don’t know how many calories she’s taking in on a daily basis, so we can’t discount the possibility that she really will starve herself to death. But she is not a true Bobby Sands-style hunger striker. Terminology is important, whether you’re talking about death by Semtex, or starvation.

Finally, Ms. Spence is not an icon of “grass roots” native rage — as some suggest. She is a band chief, with an office and salary paid for by regular Canadian taxpayers. Attawapiskat may be tiny and poor, but it has its own development corporation, airport, local services and homegrown management scandals. The band takes in millions from a local diamond mine. True “grass roots” organizations can only dream of such resources.

The century-old accounts of the government’s Treaty commissioners — Duncan Scott, Samuel Stewart and Daniel MacMartin — make for fascinating reading. In June, 1905, these men set out by canoe into the vast 90,000-square mile expanse of provincial lands drained by the Albany and Moose river systems, methodically traveling to isolated First Nations tribes one by one, such as Lac Seul, Osnaburg, Fort Albany and Moose Factory. Relying on local traders and missionaries who were fluent in Cree and Ojibway tongues, the commissioners methodically recorded the names of the 1,617 Indians they met, their discussions and rituals, and the amount of money they gave them to seal the Treaty.

(To a modern reader, it’s shocking how much these commissioners accomplished in a matter of mere months with a few canoes and a pot of cash. If this treaty-making exercise were performed today, by contrast, it would involve years and years of webcasted “stakeholders” sessions — all of which would come to naught when the Assembly of First Nations or some other group decided to boycott the proceedings on some pretext or other.)

What I am quoting here is the commissioners’ Nov. 6, 1905 report, not the actual text of the James Bay Treaty (which is brief). But it expresses the real nub of the intended treaty relationship: The natives would continue hunting and fishing for sustenance and trade, and receive annual payments from the government (four dollars, to be exact), while white men would have the right to put down their train tracks, mines, forestry operations and settlements. Some reserve lands were stipulated in a schedule to the treaty (“not to exceed in all one square mile for each family of five”), but the exact location of such lands was not then considered as important as it is now. That’s because the local Cree were semi-nomadic, and came and went with the hunt. (At Lake Abitibi, for instance, the commissioners reported: “We did not expect to find many Indians in attendance, as they usually leave for their hunting grounds about the first week in July.”)

And here we get to the massive problem that has taken shape in communities such as Attawapiskat, which were not originally intended to become static settlements that survive entirely as government-funded welfare states (with the pathologies that attend all government-funded welfare states, including unemployment, anomie and substance abuse).
 

Bremusa

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I stand corrected on Chief Spence risking her life with a hunger strike.
Apparently she is not on a "Hunger Strike" in the truest sense of the words. It is a sort of Nouveau Riche Scarsdale diet.

I now realize that she could well be damaging the Idle No More cause.

Watching a plethora of chiefs live on cbc today I wasn't so much impressed as depressed.

Bremusa
 

Goober

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I stand corrected on Chief Spence risking her life with a hunger strike.
Apparently she is not on a "Hunger Strike" in the truest sense of the words. It is a sort of Nouveau Riche Scarsdale diet.

I now realize that she could well be damaging the Idle No More cause.

Watching a plethora of chiefs live on cbc today I wasn't so much impressed as depressed.

Bremusa
But that does not detract from a number of facts
Poor to contaminated water.
Drug and alcohol abuse
Highest rates for certain diseases- Diabetes is one
Gangs that are operating on reserves that the band is powerless to confront or refuses to confront
Lands that cross borders at one time were used to smuggle cigarettes. They are now used for drugs, guns and other things. this has to be addressed..
Locations of reserves-
Corruption
Housing that is not even close to 3rd world
The US against them Culture
Treaties could be renegotiated - each region and band has differing needs and grievances.

Just a few points.
 

petros

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I stand corrected on Chief Spence risking her life with a hunger strike.
Apparently she is not on a "Hunger Strike" in the truest sense of the words. It is a sort of Nouveau Riche Scarsdale diet.

I now realize that she could well be damaging the Idle No More cause.

Bremusa
I told ya!

Gangs that are operating on reserves that the band is powerless to confront or refuses to confront
Correction Goobs....they are RUNNING SOME REZES.
 

Goober

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I told ya!


Correction Goobs....they are RUNNING SOME REZES.

When the band cannot confront them we know they are running things. Corrections Canada was the petri dish that germinated the various FN Gangs, they put then in a low number of prisons. Not hard to figure out that they learned to work together.
 

ChristianMN

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I find it frustrating that many native communities continue to believe that they are owed something for the past atrocities which have been committed against them. I understand a want and in some circumstances even a need for compensation. However, the fact is that there are many cultures and peoples around the world who have suffered the same if not worse fates.
I’ll take my own family as an example so as not to be speaking from some ivory tower. My family came to this country in the year 1806. We came here as a family of Highland Scots (Gaelic speaking) seeking a new life in the face of war, depression and the Highland clearances in our own country.
My family were Stuarts of Bute, and so our prospects weren’t very good. We were subject to absolute disdain by the majority of the British, and even the Lowland Scots, particularly in Edinburgh.
My family came here and opened canneries in PEI, served in this country’s military for nearly every war since 1812, and through all that hardship asked for nothing.
I could easily sit here and say that the British government owed me something, or the Americans for making my family fight a war against American irregulars fumbling through our shared great lakes….but I don’t.
What about my stepfather, whose family fled the Ukraine when Stalin killed forty million Eastern Europeans through starvation? What about the East Indians and Pakistanis who suffered through centuries of British rule? Why can’t I ask Germany for compensation for WWI or WWII?
The problem comes in when you begin to expect something based on what your history or culture has done.
I would hope most British don’t believe they have a right to rule the waves…I would hope most Spanish don’t believe they still have territorial rights to the Western half of South America….
Wars happen, people lose, and people suffer. Cultures are destroyed by these wars and other cultures are born from them. The Canadian and American cultures were born from war and hardship; many of these hardships and wars were created and brought to us by the aboriginal cultures among us.
We have to ask ourselves, is there enough of Aboriginal culture to save? The answer is probably not. Please, just look at the fact that Theresa Spence is staying in a teepee in Ottawa…Her people are Northern Ontario, not plains Indians. The same could be said of many other stunts my Aboriginal peoples and the view that they share some common culture.
They do not share a common culture, and much of the culture they claim is generic and or applies to other cultures. The Aboriginals of the Pacific did not share the same culture with the aboriginals of the Atlantic, and if they had met, would probably have fought.
Consider this. The Vikings are now a dead culture. However, at one point they had sailed all the way to North America and at one point attempted to build a settlement here. It is commonly held that the settlement did not survive because the local inhabitants killed them all.
War is a part of life, and cultures are usurped consistently in history. I truly believe in order to save the Aboriginal PEOPLE (NOT culture) they must integrate into the rest of Canadian society.
Traditions are nice, but beating drums, teepees, smudging etc. do not make a nation.
 

Goober

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I find it frustrating that many native communities continue to believe that they are owed something for the past atrocities which have been committed against them. I understand a want and in some circumstances even a need for compensation. However, the fact is that there are many cultures and peoples around the world who have suffered the same if not worse fates.
I’ll take my own family as an example so as not to be speaking from some ivory tower. My family came to this country in the year 1806. We came here as a family of Highland Scots (Gaelic speaking) seeking a new life in the face of war, depression and the Highland clearances in our own country.
My family were Stuarts of Bute, and so our prospects weren’t very good. We were subject to absolute disdain by the majority of the British, and even the Lowland Scots, particularly in Edinburgh.
My family came here and opened canneries in PEI, served in this country’s military for nearly every war since 1812, and through all that hardship asked for nothing.
I could easily sit here and say that the British government owed me something, or the Americans for making my family fight a war against American irregulars fumbling through our shared great lakes….but I don’t.
What about my stepfather, whose family fled the Ukraine when Stalin killed forty million Eastern Europeans through starvation? What about the East Indians and Pakistanis who suffered through centuries of British rule? Why can’t I ask Germany for compensation for WWI or WWII?
The problem comes in when you begin to expect something based on what your history or culture has done.
I would hope most British don’t believe they have a right to rule the waves…I would hope most Spanish don’t believe they still have territorial rights to the Western half of South America….
Wars happen, people lose, and people suffer. Cultures are destroyed by these wars and other cultures are born from them. The Canadian and American cultures were born from war and hardship; many of these hardships and wars were created and brought to us by the aboriginal cultures among us.
We have to ask ourselves, is there enough of Aboriginal culture to save? The answer is probably not. Please, just look at the fact that Theresa Spence is staying in a teepee in Ottawa…Her people are Northern Ontario, not plains Indians. The same could be said of many other stunts my Aboriginal peoples and the view that they share some common culture.
They do not share a common culture, and much of the culture they claim is generic and or applies to other cultures. The Aboriginals of the Pacific did not share the same culture with the aboriginals of the Atlantic, and if they had met, would probably have fought.
Consider this. The Vikings are now a dead culture. However, at one point they had sailed all the way to North America and at one point attempted to build a settlement here. It is commonly held that the settlement did not survive because the local inhabitants killed them all.
War is a part of life, and cultures are usurped consistently in history. I truly believe in order to save the Aboriginal PEOPLE (NOT culture) they must integrate into the rest of Canadian society.
Traditions are nice, but beating drums, teepees, smudging etc. do not make a nation.
Try to use paragraphs.
Oh yes- they are called First Nations for a reason.
 

ChristianMN

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I'm sorry, I wrote that in word in order to prevent this exact issue....

The Scots were a first nation...known as Caledonians. The Moors conquered the first nations of Spain, and then were defeated by Christian forces....Please....tell me what a first nation is?
 

Goober

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I'm sorry, I wrote that in word in order to prevent this exact issue....

The Scots were a first nation...known as Caledonians. The Moors conquered the first nations of Spain, and then were defeated by Christian forces....Please....tell me what a first nation is?

Not in Canada now were they. Google is your friend - But they were here first- we signed enforceable treaties with them. These treaties are recognized in the Charter and by the SCoC.
 

ChristianMN

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Those treaties are inherently racist. It would be like the British telling the Scots that they couldn't sell their own land, or that they couldn't integrate fully into British society because of their Scottish status.....


Oh wait....that happened...
 

Cliffy

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Beating drums and smudging are not just traditions. They are cultural and spiritual. They are part of their identity. Very few Canadian aboriginal people lost a war. Most were conned into signing treaties that were broken many times over. They were given the crappiest land in their territory for their reservations and if that land later turned out to be valuable to governments or corporations, those reserves were taken away and they were placed on even crappier land.

Canada was built by exploiting the resources it stole from the aboriginal people and treaty payments are nothing more than a fraction of the value of those resources extracted.
 

Goober

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Those treaties are inherently racist. It would be like the British telling the Scots that they couldn't sell their own land, or that they couldn't integrate fully into British society because of their Scottish status.....


Oh wait....that happened...

I will go easy on you- these are treaties signed by the Crown and then the govt of Canada. As I mentioned and you gave total disregard to these are covered under the Charter and upheld by the SCoC.

Clearly you are ill informed. Get informed.
 

ChristianMN

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Jan 4, 2013
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Beating drums and smudging are not just traditions. They are cultural and spiritual. They are part of their identity. Very few Canadian aboriginal people lost a war. Most were conned into signing treaties that were broken many times over. They were given the crappiest land in their territory for their reservations and if that land later turned out to be valuable to governments or corporations, those reserves were taken away and they were placed on even crappier land.

Canada was built by exploiting the resources it stole from the aboriginal people and treaty payments are nothing more than a fraction of the value of those resources extracted.

Identity of who? Who smudges? Please tell me of an exact aboriginal culture which smudges. Beating drums are a cultural expression of every people since we wrote paintings on the walls of France. Those things are not unique and not cultural. They are generic and do not express the ideas, feelings and artistic leanings of a people for the purposes of creating culture.

Yes, treaties were often changed, often at the behest of the natives. It is a common theme now that Aboriginal bands/tribes/"nations" request every possible advantage out of the Indian Act, and ignore the provisions which request responsibility and accountability.

Where is all the money going? That's the ultimate question. Regardless of whatever I've said or anyone else. Where is the money going? Even if we were to divide the money between every single individual Aboriginal across this country and ask where their assets were, it would still not explain it. So where is all the money going?

I will go easy on you- these are treaties signed by the Crown and then the govt of Canada. As I mentioned and you gave total disregard to these are covered under the Charter and upheld by the SCoC.

Clearly you are ill informed. Get informed.
Charter? Aboriginals are not covered by the Charter, at least according to their own leaders. They're like Quebec...they never signed.
 

Cliffy

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Nov 19, 2008
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Identity of who? Who smudges? Please tell me of an exact aboriginal culture which smudges. Beating drums are a cultural expression of every people since we wrote paintings on the walls of France. Those things are not unique and not cultural. They are generic and do not express the ideas, feelings and artistic leanings of a people for the purposes of creating culture.

Yes, treaties were often changed, often at the behest of the natives. It is a common theme now that Aboriginal bands/tribes/"nations" request every possible advantage out of the Indian Act, and ignore the provisions which request responsibility and accountability.

Where is all the money going? That's the ultimate question. Regardless of whatever I've said or anyone else. Where is the money going? Even if we were to divide the money between every single individual Aboriginal across this country and ask where their assets were, it would still not explain it. So where is all the money going?

You obviously know nothing about native culture. Smudging is part of their spiritual ceremonies. I smudge and just about every aboriginal person I ever met smudges. It is a purification ritual interpretation for a spiritual ceremony. Aboriginal peoples do not compartmentalize their lives like white society. Art, dance, work, pray are all interconnected. It is all part of their culture.

More than half of the Native Affairs budget goes to government bureaucratic management. The people for whom it is intended see less than half.
 

ChristianMN

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Look...

The ultimate point I'm trying to make is either accept them as a nation, and treat them as a nation. Or, accept them into the rest of Canadian society and expect them to become a part of it.

If they choose to be a seperate nation I respect that. In fact, I would support that and would look forward to the trade we could have with them (Although I would expect not another time to flow that way). I would expect that they would set up borders, that they would begin industry on their lands and hopefully take Canadian workers as foreign workers to build the skilled trades they desperately need.

If they choose to be a part of Canada. Welcome! Please join the rest of Canada. Let us work, as a developed nation working to produce real results in a community which has suffered immensely among great prosperity because our policies, and the policies of your chiefs have done nearly irreparable harm.

But stop....expecting to be a nation within a nation....

amongst great disparity.....I hate auto-correct...