Canada's First Nations - CF help, protests, solutions, etc. (merged)

[Pandora114]

Play it?  Danjanou owns land there. 

(He probably still has a red Star Trek shirt too)  ;D

So awesome

 

[Danjanou]

Play it?  Danjanou owns land there. 

(He probably still has a red Star Trek shirt too)  ;D

Yup JM put his spare shirt on eBay and I got the winning bid. Hey he needed the cash, that Magic the Gathering expansion pack was just too irresistable  8)

 

[foresterab]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/story/2013/02/15/sby-attawapiskat-debeers-road-block-injunction.html

While not on the first page it does illustrate some of the ongoing issues over sharing of revenues...in this case non-government monies.

De Beers wants Attawapiskat blockade injunction
DeBeers officials were to be in court Friday in an effort to end a road block to the Victor mine near Attawapiskat
CBC News Posted: Feb 15, 2013 3:05 PM ET Last Updated: Feb 15, 2013 3:30 PM



Attawapiskat unrest continues, despite De Beers investment
External Links
Canadian Business Ethics Research Network | First Nation Relationships with De Beers Canada
(Note:CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.)
The impact of the De Beers diamond mine on Attawapiskat8:48
DeBeers is taking legal action in an effort to end a road block to its diamond mine in northern Ontario.

The company has served blockaders with papers informing them of the legal action, said Tom Orsmby, director of external and corporate affairs with De Beers.

The company was to go to court Friday to request an injunction. Ormsby said the people involved in the blockade are named in the application.

A group of Attawapiskat residents have pulled down their blockade of the winter road leading to De Beers diamond mine. (idlenomore.tumblr.com)
The legal action follows a community meeting Thursday with the protestors and band council. Ormsby said De Beers informed everyone in attendance it would pursue legal options if the road block remained.

“To date, we have lost all or part of 10 days for our critical re-supply program for our Victor Mine,” Ormsby said in an e-mail to CBC News.

“A prolonged disruption to the program could jeopardize the health and safety of our employees and the future of the mine.”

The current blockade is the second demonstration in just over a week on the winter road between Attawapiskat and the mine.

"There are daily standby costs that we are now accumulating because the crews that are waiting to transport our freight and our fuel still have to be compensated and paid,” Ormsby said.

“We still have standby costs for those who are waiting to continue the maintenance of the road. Those are starting to pile up."

Attawapiskat signed an Impact Benefit Agreement with De Beers in 2005, but some band members have raised concerns the community isn't benefitting enough from the mining project.

The Victor mine will soon mark five years of production — roughly the halfway point in the projected lifespan of the mine.

No one at the band office in Attawapiskat was available for comment.

 

[57Chevy]

“To date, we have lost all or part of 10 days for our critical re-supply program for our Victor Mine,” Ormsby said in an e-mail to CBC News.

“A prolonged disruption to the program could jeopardize the health and safety of our employees and the future of the mine.”

Solution= DeBeers investing some diamond money here 

It's time to rethink the blimp...
...
there's room for certain kinds of them to play a new role in Canada, especially when it comes to reaching remote communities in the North, the transportation committee recommended in a recently released report.

"Hybrid air vehicles may one day provide a superior solution, as they can travel over snowfall, frozen water or impenetrable terrain, and require no roads or rail installations to operate," says the report.
...

DeBeers Blimp  ;D

 

[a_majoor]

Some changes in government, but will changing the minister actually change the outcomes? I suspect the last line about regional deals rather than pan Canadian "deals" might actually make a lot more sense.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/02/22/john-ivison-bernard-valcourt-part-of-new-conservative-strategy-for-dealing-with-aboriginals/

John Ivison: Bernard Valcourt part of new Conservative strategy for dealing with aboriginals

John Ivison | Feb 22, 2013 7:48 PM ET
More from John Ivison
Bernard Valcourt, Canada's new Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, has to handle the most intractable file in government.

What’s the reward for selling the Conservatives’ unpopular employment insurance reforms in Atlantic Canada? The answer, it seems, is to be handed the job of flogging the government’s equally unloved native policies as Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

Bernard Valcourt, who spent nearly six years in Brian Mulroney’s Cabinet, has been promoted to handle the most intractable file in government, following last week’s announcement that John Duncan had tendered his resignation for lobbying the tax court on behalf of a constituent.

Mr. Valcourt has been the Associate Minister for Defence since last July but that job has been hollowed out since the Auditor-General’s critical report on the F-35s, after which responsibility for most procurement issues moved to the Public Works department. In a deft piece of caucus management, Stephen Harper has moved Vancouver-area MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay into that all but redundant position – thus maintaining British Columbia’s Cabinet representation at four (James Moore, Ed Fast and Alice Wong being the others).

Related

    Stephen Harper taps Bernard Valcourt as new Aboriginal Affairs Minister
    Jonathan Kay: Natives hurting themselves with lawless diamond mine blockade
    Get more of National Post's Canadian politics coverage

Mr. Valcourt also held responsibility for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the burden for which will now fall on Gail Shea, the Revenue Minister, and La Francophonie, which will be handled by Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney.

Government officials said that Mr. Valcourt was being “under-utilized” at Defence. “The Prime Minister has confidence in him. He has been to the rodeo more than a few times and is a very practical ‘in the room’ kind of guy.”

Mr. Valcourt was first elected as a Progressive Conservative in the 1984 election and held a number of Cabinet portfolios, including Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Fisheries and Oceans and Immigration. He has had his share of controversies, including being tossed from Cabinet in 1986 after being involved in a drunk driving motorcycle accident in which he lost an eye.

After leaving federal politics in 1993, he was elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in his native New Brunswick and served in opposition to Frank McKenna’s Liberals.

He will be a busy man in the coming months. There are already stirrings of another Caledonia-type crisis at the Attawapiskat reserve in Northern Ontario, where native protestors are blocking the ice road to the Victor diamond mine, in defiance of a court order.

He also inherits a situation where relations with First Nations are at an impasse over a new education bill and economic development issues.

——

There are early signs that the government may be attempting a new strategy for dealing with Canada’s aboriginal leaders, who appear unable to agree among themselves about their priorities.

Earlier this week, Tony Clement, the president of the Treasury Board and the minister responsible for the FedNor, was announced as the government’s point man on the Ring of Fire mining development in Northern Ontario.

Meanwhile, Mr. Harper sat down with a number of native chiefs in Saskatchewan on Thursday. It suggests that the government will now concentrate on improving relations on a regional basis, rather than by trying to strike sweeping pan-Canadian deals with the Assembly of First Nations.

 

[larry Strong]

So her bluff was called in Ottawa, now according to a statement released, the International Indian Treaty Council along with Spence and the Mushkegowuk People of Attawapiskat First Nation have filed an 'Urgent Action' with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

Chief Spence asks UN to interfere with Parliament

http://blogs.canoe.ca/lilleyspad/general/chief-spence-asks-un-to-interfere-with-parliament/

Think what you will of Parliament and the Harper government, the fact is, Canadians had a say in who represents them in that big building overlooking the Ottawa river.

At the UN, we have no say.

Yet Chief Theresa Spence of Attawapisakat, who recently appeared in court to defend an illegal road blockade, is off to seek the assistance of a United Nations body.

According to the Council of Canadians website Spence will ask the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination ” to stop C-38 and C-45.”

Excuse me!

The chair of this committee is from Russia, the vice-chairs are from Algeria and Guatemala. Other countries represented include Togo, Pakistan, Romania and Burkina Faso – not exactly the countries that I want Canada taking advice from.

I’ve been warning against the United Nations for some time (see the lengthy list of videos here). This organization is not the global force for good intent of keeping the peace – it wants power and it doesn’t mind interfering in the affairs of one of the world’s oldest democracies to do it.

The CERD will apparently hear the complaint on Tuesday. If a representative of the Canadian government is in attendance their sole response to every question should be, “That’s none of your damn business.”

The UN has taken Canada to court to keep violent foreign criminals from being deported, it reviews Canada’s criminal laws and makes recommendations for change, it lectures us on food, it is calling for a global tax on shipping – without allowing for democratic representation.

It’s time for Canada to leave the United Nations.

Larry

 

[OldSolduer]

So her bluff was called in Ottawa, now according to a statement released, the International Indian Treaty Council along with Spence and the Mushkegowuk People of Attawapiskat First Nation have filed an 'Urgent Action' with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

[size=12pt]Chief Spence asks UN to interfere with Parliament[/



Larry

I smell desperation on the part of Cheif Spence, however given that the UN allows champions of human rights to chair some commitees I have no doubt where the UN will stand on this.

 

[Remius]

More attention seeking.

Can't wait to hear from the UN on this.... :

 

[Edward Campbell]

So an overfed, corrupt, buffoon, being denied lucre by Ottawa, goes to beg at "top table" where the real fat, really corrupt, murderously dangerous buffoons hold power: the United Nations.

 

[OldSolduer]

So an overfed, corrupt, buffoon, being denied lucre by Ottawa, goes to beg at "top table" where the real fat, really corrupt, murderously dangerous buffoons hold power: the United Nations.

Well that about sums it up nicely. Dollars to donuts that the UN will side with an over fed corrupt buffoon.

 

[dapaterson]

So an overfed, corrupt, buffoon, being denied lucre by Ottawa, goes to beg at "top table" where the real fat, really corrupt, murderously dangerous buffoons hold power: the United Nations.

Mike Duffy's going to the UN?

 

[Edward Campbell]

:goodpost:  :rofl:

 

[Remius]

He hasn't been on a hunger strike yet.  You guys are skipping a few steps here.

 

[my72jeep]

Now now at least, Mike said he will repay the money.

 

[larry Strong]

Now now at least, Mike said he will repay the money.

Seeings how the peasants were storming the walls, screaming for his blood his options were somewhat limited.



Larry

 

[dapaterson]

Seeings how the peasants were storming the walls, screaming for his blood his options were somewhat limited.



Larry

...especially since the driveway to the house in PEI hasn't been plowed all winter...

 

[GAP]

...especially since the driveway to the house in PEI hasn't been plowed all winter...

But the one to his apt in Charlottetown was..... :nod:

 

[Scott]

Seeings how the peasants were storming the walls, screaming for his blood his options were somewhat limited.



Larry

Still makes him smarter than Spence.

 

[The Bread Guy]

But the one to his apt in Charlottetown was..... :nod:

Yet, as of last Christmas, he still didn't have a health card for the province he "lived" in....

 

[dapaterson]

"There's no whore like an old whore." - B. Mulroney