The Expert's Report that Damns the Northern Gateway Pipeline

Veteran energy analyst David Hughes calculates three reasons the project is bad for Canada.

http://the­­­­­tyee.c­a­/­O­p­in­io­n/­20­1­2­/­01/­12­/­Hu­g­he­­sRep­­ort/

Report itself:

http://for­­­­­esteth­i­c­s­.­or­g/­do­wn­l­o­a­ds/­HU­G­HE­S­_N­­orth­­ern_­­­Gate­w­a­y_P­i­p­el­i­ne_­No­v­­emb­er­_­­2011­.p­d­­­f

Hughes is neither a radical nor a foreigner. Nor he is an environmen­­­talist. In fact the no-nonsens­­­e geologist regards the oil sands as a strategic resource that should be developed measurably and carefully in the national interest.

His energy expertise is genuine and hard won. The rock hound worked for the Natural Resources Canada for 32 years where the senior researcher focused on analyzing coal reserves, shale gas and unconventi­­­onal natural gas supplies.

Harper is dirtier than the oil being extracted from the Athabasca tar sands. He doesn't care about the law or ethics or tradition or facts or the lives of people. The adversary is Harper. He is slick, oily and deceitful and destructive.

"Man is greedy, man will, can have a handful of money to survive but they still want more"
Practice what you Preach Pat. Getting paid 200 to talk about oil sands a hour seems greedy. But then again that's my opinion.

Our land is not been taken away, it's for sale. Who wants my land?

The Likhts’ams­iyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’­en First Nation

http://www.wetsuweten.com/

http://gatewaypanel.review-examen.gc.ca/clf-nsi/prtcptngprcss/hrng-eng.html

Wet'suwet'en News
Wet’suwet’en Written Submission to the Enbridge JRP

January 12, 2012

This report was produced by the Office of the Wet’suwet’en Natural Resources Department on behalf of all past and present Wet’suwet’en. This report was produced under serious time, money and capacity constraints.

Until such time as the Wet’suwet’en title and rights are formally recognized or a treaty is successfully concluded with the Crown, the statement of Wet’suwet’en title and rights and their potential infringements must, as the Supreme Court of Canada said in Haida Nation, constitute an interim and preliminary statement of Wet’suwet’en title and rights, not a final one.

The Office of the Wet’suwet’en retains all copyright and ownership rights to this submission, which cannot be utilized without written consent.

http://wetsuweten.com/images/uploads/WetsuwetenWrittenSubmission.pdf

http://www.wetsuweten.com/pipelines/

Tsartlip First Nation

http://www.firstnations.eu/development/coast_salish-spaet.htm

SPAET cave was finally and fully blown up at Christmas 2006. Two condemning reports have since been written: one by Songhees member and lands manager Cheryl Bryce on the failure of the Heritage Conservation Act to protect aboriginal sites like SPAET; the other by historian Ben Isitt on the murky political dealings behind Langford's Bear Mountain Interchange. To download these reports:

http://www.firstnations.eu/media/06-1-1-bryce-2.pdf

http://www.firstnations.eu/media/06-0-isitt.pdf

For indigenous reporting on the deliberate ruining of SPAET cave, see Bob Kennedy: Turtle Island Native Network.

http://www.turtleisland.org/culture/cave.htm

Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory

http://ocap.ca/supporttmt/media_072008.html

CN construction destructive, land claim unresolved:
Tyendinaga Mohawks targeted

Tyendinaga Mohawks are reviewing their options after federal officials ordered the Ontario Provincial Police to move against organizers of the 3 year old occupation of Culbertson Tract Lands.

Last week, in an unprecedented move, the OPP laid charges against 3 individuals for the "unlawful use of land" after a trailer was moved onto lands adjacent to the quarry. It was stated by police, at that time, that the "indians do not have the right to be on the land because the government (federal) has told them that the land will never be returned."

The government's use of police in enforcing its land claim position comes on the heels of the Mohawk community stopping the construction of a $700 million CN thirdline project running between Ottawa and Toronto. On January 25th, the project was brought to a halt after it was revealed that CN Rail had intentionally disregarded the construction guidelines and environmental recommendations put in place by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) pertaining to the protection of water tributaries serving the First Nations community.

A report issued by the Department, dated February 8, 2010, identifies CN's construction deficiencies and characterizes their work as destructive to wildlife and fish habitat. It goes on to say that the failure of CN to comply with environmental recommendations ..

Six Nations...

http://www.rickhendershot.com/history/how-the-iroquois-confederacy-got-to-the-grand-river/

read my comments...

http://activehistory.ca/2010/07/the-queen-among-the-mohawks/

As a historian, one is struck by Elizabeth’s choice of July 4 as a date to commemorate the 300-year relationship between the British Crown and the Mohawk Nation.

Further, given the contentious, sometimes even bloody, relationship between the Canadian state and the Six Nations since Confederation, the import of the Queen’s decision to pay such homage was not lost on the Mohawks present, or on attentive observers of indigenous-settler relations in Canada.

The silver bells that Queen Elizabeth presented on July 4 are engraved with the words The Silver Chain of Friendship 1710-2010; according to notes provided by the government of Canada, they “are symbolic of the councils and the treaties that originated between the English colonies in North America and the Iroquois Confederacy.”

Predictably enough, that historically replete moment at St. James was overtaken by news coverage of a woman approaching the Queen without permission; and of later visits to a horse race and the home of the annoyingly ubiquitous Blackberry. The next night Prime Minister Harper retreated to even safer ground when (following a black-out due to decaying infrastructure in downtown Toronto), he feted the Queen to a state dinner before an almost entirely caucasian crowd in a ballroom

Grassy Narrows First Nation wins legal battle over clear-cutting

Leaders of the Grassy Narrows First Nation in northwestern Ontario are declaring a major legal victory in their decade-long fight over clear-cutting in their traditional territory.

Ontario's Superior Court ruled Wednesday that the province cannot authorize timber and logging if the operations infringe on federal treaty promises protecting aboriginal rights to traditional hunting and trapping.

Grassy Narrows has long argued it only agreed in 1873 to sign a treaty with Canada involving the Keewatin lands north of Kenora on a promise that the federal government would protect its traditional ways of life.

Grassy Narrows' lawyers said the ruling would have reverberations across Canada for other First Nations fighting to protect traditional lands.

Ontario has provincial jurisdiction over timber and mining rights.

The provincial government has for years been selling timber leases to large forestry companies that have clear-cut large swaths of the region.

Superior Court Justice Mary Sanderson ruled Ontario has no right to infringe on rights protected by federal treaty — and urged governments to live up to their promises.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/08/17/grassy-narrows-legal-victory.html

&

http://archives.cbc.ca/environment/environmental_protection/topics/679/

then again..

As one native elder once observed about minning and forestry....First they take the trees then they take the rocks.

The Algonquins of Barrierre Lake:

http://pushedleft.blogspot.com/2009/05/lawrence-cannon-believes-democracy-is.html
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1803

Same old government tricks

Community members now believe Indian Affairs is up to its old tricks. In 2006, Jean Maurice Matchewan was re-elected Customary Chief, but a small faction ran a parallel leadership selection, claiming to have adhered to the Customary Governance Code. Indian Affairs refused to recognize Matchewan, and then put the community under Third Party Management – which mandates that an external consultant unilaterally run the community's finances and funding – claiming it was justified by Barriere Lake's large deficit and leadership uncertainty.

The Customary Elder's Council immediately challenged the decision in federal court, arguing the deficit issues could be cleared up if the money owed to Barriere Lake from the 1996 funding deprivation had been repaid as promised.

But in the yearly funding budget, negotiated by the Third Party Manager and Indian Affairs in 2007, the money owed by the government was simply struck from the record.

Associate Director Nepton refused to comment on the matter.

Superior Court Judge Paul confirmed the legitimacy of Matchewan's council in leadership mediation in spring 2007, calling the challengers a "small minority" who "did not respect the Customary Governance Code."

http://intercontinentalcry.org/wp-content/uploads/barriere_report.pdf

Among the First Nations groups mentioned in the documents as among those under surveillance were:

Tsartlip First Nation.
The Algonquins of Barriere Lake.
Six Nations.
Grassy Narrows.
The Likhts’amsiyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation.
Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory.

Diabo is publisher of the First Nations Strategic Bulletin, which first reported about the documents. Bulletin content features the writings of the First Nations Strategic Policy Council, a network of policy and legal analysts.

"Rather than listening to the needs of First Nations communities, Harper is making plans to use force to stifle the dissent that inevitably arises from chronic poverty and dispossession in native communities,” Diabo said Monday. “First Nations education and housing is chronically underfunded, but policing and surveillance of legitimate Indigenous movements is always a priority.”

BTW:

You only have the attention of the other if you are in dialogue and listening to one another. Surveilling does not constitute dialogue nor is it the same as listening.

Documents obtained through access to information by Russell Diabo, a Mohawk policy analyst - whom I worked for out of h/s in the early 80's & worked with while at Indian gov't. in the late 80's...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57758476/Aboriginal-Hot-Spots-and-Public-Safety-INAC-Presentation

&

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57758473/RCMP-Briefing-Re-Hot-Spots

MB

COMPLETED

Meagan Fiddler, APTN, (204) 947-9331 ext 481 - Reporter doing a story on INAC documents that have been given to them. The first is an 'Aboriginal Hot Spots and Public Safety' report from March 30, 2007. The other document is an INAC 'Issues Management Weekly Summary' which specifically mentions Kahnawake. Reporter would like to know the purpose of these documents and who are they prepared for? Call referred to HQ. (Jeff Solmundson)

ONGOING sinc June 8th 2012

Theresa Braine, Indian Country Today Media Network, (646) 432-6438, (212) 600-2086, tbraine@ictmn.com - Reporter called at 4:45 p.m. and indicated that she is doing a story about documents received through ATIP; 2 reporters saying that there was a concerted effort by this government to look for about aboriginal hotspots and that since taking office, the PMO asked to tightened up on security and gather intelligence about the First Nations.

ONGOING since June 8/2012

Meagan Fiddler, APTN, (204) 947-9331 ext 481 - Referred from MB region. Reporter is doing a story on some INAC documents that have been given to them. The first is an 'Aboriginal Hot Spots and Public Safety' report from March 30, 2007. It has a number at bottom, A0240846_107-000947, not sure if that will help track it down. The other document is an INAC 'Issues Management Weekly Summary' which specifically mentions Kahnawake. She is seeking comment on them. M. left the reporter a voicemail for her to call back and provide further details of exactly what she is seeking. Reporter has not yet phone back.

on a related note:

Reporter indicated that tomorrow FN leaders and children, from Attawaspiskat, Kitigan Zibi and supported by the Provincial advocate for children and FN Child and family caring society of Canada (Cindy Blackstock's) are going to be submitting a report to the UN and asking to look into educational inequities in the schools across Canada? She is seeking a comment on this. M. left her a detailed voicemail message indicating that we could not comment on a reporter we had not seen, but flagged that First Nation Education is a priority for this Government. We have taken action to improve the education outcomes of First Nation students. The Government announced, in December 2010, the creation of a National Panel on First Nation elementary and secondary education to lead an engagement process on the development of options, including legislation, to improve elementary and secondary education outcomes for First Nation children who live on-reserve. The upcoming engagement process will lead the way on next steps for First Nation elementary and secondary education.