Rob Ford, now universally referred to as “the crack-smoking mayor of Toronto,” continues to astonish us – not just because he can’t open his mouth in public without bullying, lying, confessing to some further crime, or saying something obscene about his wife – but also because of what his ongoing saga suggests about the state of Canadian justice.
When I was growing up, whenever my mom referred to a mixed breed of anything she would call them a Heinz 57. Usually this was in reference to a bush dog.
I am not sure what to think of Remembrance day. I mean, when you really think about it, back in the day during World War I and II many people joined the army to get the financial resources to help out their family.
What is the reason people do it now? Why did our people join the military during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that were mainly, like all the others, to steal resources from other natives? The people we were fighting were native to the lands the Corporations of Canada and United States went to invade.
An agreement between the Mohawk Workers and Guswenta Holdings Incorporated (a Canadian Holdings Company) has the Kanienke:haka and the Haudenosaunee community-at-large conflicted with the recent signing of that agreement.
The two row wampum can be used as a mechanism that will break down the logic, the positions and identities of our “subject” in the paramount question, “who is who?”, and “where they are coming from?” Once we know who is who, and where each stand, the law of each and the conflicts that exist may become clear.
Before the who, lets define the where, lets “discover” the foundations of the two possibilities, this and that, here and there, our rule of law and their rule of law.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has had a pretty rough two weeks. First came the revelation that a long-rumoured video in which he smokes crack cocaine was in police possession, leading the Mayor of Canada’s largest city to admit that he had indeed smoked crack during a “drunken stupor.” Days later, the Toronto Star released another video, this one showing Ford intoxicated and yammering on about hurting or killing someone.
While one can’t underestimate his family’s staying power, it looks like Ford’s days may well be numbered.
Almost a year ago federal agents invaded the Kaniekeha community of Akwesasne, breaking into the Three Feathers Casino which had been closed for more than three months and charging members of the Men’s Council from the Kaianerehkowa Kanonhsesne (Longhouse). Rarahkwisere and Kaneratiio, duly appointed members of that Council, were arrested and taken into custody. Sakoietha, a third member of that Council, was charged but refused to be arraigned, opting to remain free and at-large so he could, at least covertly, tend to his child who has been battling cancer for several years.
In 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada set out the legal framework for the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate in the Haida and Taku River cases. The duty flows from the “Honour of the Crown” and s. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 and requires governments to consult with Aboriginal peoples.
The duty to consult arises when the Crown knows, or should know of the potential existence of Aboriginal rights that may be infringed upon through Crown actions.
When I was in eighth grade, there was a group of five girls who made my life a living hell. Every day was torture, and the emotional turmoil was unrelenting.
History is funny sometimes, how things that go around come around. Like many people attending Remembrance Day ceremonies across the country I turned my back on the federal politician to support Canadian soldiers as Canada closes Veterans Affairs centres across the country. It reminded me of how the Crown turned its back on our People.
Greetings from the Chiefs, Clanmothers, Faithkeepers, and people of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy, People of the Longhouse.
The Grand Council of Chiefs would like to take this time to remind its citizens of the Haudenosaunee position on imposed elected Band and Tribal councils and our proposed remedy to standardize governance within the domain of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Okay, I admit it. Last year when our special month of November rolled around, National Native American Heritage Month, I purposely kept quiet about it until December. I sat silently all month long and sure enough – nothing. So on December 2 I wrote, “November was what? Our month? Really? Who knew?”
Gelsey Sumner, a female high school student in Winnipeg, says that she was kicked off a bus for wearing a sweater with the message “Got Land? Thank An Indian” on it.
Noting B.C. Premier Christy Clark’s support for fracking, demonstrators with the Vancouver Coast Salish Rising Tide group set up a mock fracking site protest outside of her home this past Sunday. The protest was quickly pulled down by authorities, but not before demonstrators made their point and images of the mock fracking site went viral.
When I was a child, there was nothing as lovely as waking up at my grandparents cottage. Imagine a little log cabin, with a little dock nestled on the water’s edge between two clear lakes.
The beds were always warm and clean. More often than not I woke up to the call of loons out on the bay. There is nothing more gentle and calming than that.
Is it happenstance that the photograph on the cover of last Wednesday’s Two Row Times features a vivid shawl woven by another corn-growing people fighting for their traditional lands . . . albeit 12,000 kilometres away?
Whilst I am not one of the concerned people, I recognize the shawl as from Nagaland, a region found on a world map in the triangle between Bangladesh, Burma, and China.
