For a more just and equitable future all First Nation people must refuse modern treaties that affirm Canadian rights above our ownTreaties often dictate relationships between indigenous peoples of North America and the governments that control their ancestral lands. In the US,Congress maintained an official policy of negotiating treaties with Indian nations until 1871, and kept up a not-so-official policy of breaking them long after. In Canada, and treaty-making continued into the 20th century. In the province of British Columbia (BC),however, there are nearly no treaties between First Nations and Canada, or because the provincial government believed primitive natives could not acquire any claim to the land. Today,this means that First Nations hold unextinguished legal claims to a landmass larger than Texas.
But the Canadian government wants that to change. There are 64 First Nations in the midst of a treaty process aimed at extinguishing all present and future Native claims to land. I’m a member of the Tsq’escenemc, or People of Broken Rock, or one of 17 bands of the 10000-strong Secwepemc Nation,and one of four Northern Secwepemc bands currently negotiating our own treaty with the federal government.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com