The Globe and Mail editorial last Saturday: "The law must prevail in the native dispute."
I'm all for the rule of law. But here the law is at the heart of the problem. You cannot study the history of the Six Nations (or practically any other First Nations community) without discovering how outrageously government officials plundered First Nations lands from the 18th through the 20th century.
The Six Nations in 1784 held unimpeachable title to almost 400,000 hectares along the Grand River in what is now the heart of Southern Ontario. Today they retain control of 19,000 hectares. Huge tracts were transferred by Indian agents and other Crown officials, always supposedly for the benefit of the Six Nations, into Crown land and delivered to settlers. Somehow the revenues always ended up in the Crown revenues, never in the Six Nations treasury.
Well, they should sue. Sure, but from the 1920s into the 1960s, First Nations were not allowed to sue without government consent. And even when they could sue, judges constantly ignored Canadian treaty commitments in favour of a concept of limitless Crown sovereignty that justified any predatory conduct of Canadian governments. The Six Nations could not get the Crown officials to accept their duties to the Six Nations, and they could not get the Courts to acknowledge this was wrong.
Look into the history of the piece of land that is currently contested, and you will quickly find a bogus transaction that removed it from Six Nations control without their consent and without benefit to them. Look further and you will find a string of court cases in which the judges declared that was just fine.
Sadly, the rule of law in Canada has worked for us and not for First Nations. When we call for the law to prevail, and never expect Canada to take seriously its treaty obligations to First Nations... well, we get the barricades.
