Beau N. Darrow

I am still puzzled about the term "race-based". The term seems to mean that because we are of the same race then that is grounds for invalidating any collective approach we may take with governments. That concept is the foundation of the potlatch laws passed in 1920’s and dropped in 1952. Our forefathers were forbidden to meet in numbers greater than three and were charged with a criminal offence if they did.

We were taught not to speak ill of the dead… but. The term race-based was coined by Melvin Smith who has fortunately gone to his eternal reward. Since Mr. Smith’s demise there has not been a spokesman (they would not dream of having a spokesperson) for the rightwing arm of the B.C. establishment. Melvin made a good living writing and speaking about First Nations issues generally maintaining that we are fine the way we are out of sight and out of mind on our reserves and in the urban ghettos. The B.C. version of the Kanadian Konservative Klan are currently without a spokesman but that’s OK because we don’t have a leader or spokesperson either.

I wanted to repeat two items I wrote about over the years.

One is the DIA policy of providing support only for Status Indians living on reserve. I want to repeat that the policy comes from a legal opinion expressed by the late Bora Laskin, a U of T law professor, for the so-called Hawthorne report. The Hawthorne report was the completion of the Royal Commission on Native Affairs in the 1960’s. They were studying us then. There is a chapter in that report called "the Lagal Status of Canada’s Indians", written by Laskin who later became chief Justice of the Supreme Court. His opinion carried some weight but it is still just an opinion.

What Laskin said was that when the BNA Act (1967) gavc "Indians and Lands Reserve for Indians" responsibility to Canada it split that responsibility into two parts. The two parts are separated by the word "and". Laskin opined that because the responsibility was in two parts then the feds were responsible for the two together so that Indians by themselves were not the responsibility of the Feds. The Feds are only responsible for Indians who were on Lands reserved for Indians. Did that mean that reserved lands that did not contain Indians are NOT the responsibility of the Feds?

DIA makes its rules and regulations based on legal opinions and not on the law of the country and they accuse us of not following the rule of law.

The other thing is the nice land claims settlement that the Hudson’s Bay company got from Canada. It happened in the early 1900’s so don’t expect to read it in the local headlines.

The original HBC was called a "Company of Adventures" and they were given "Rupert’s Land" to trap in by the King of England. The land was suppose to be those drained into the Hudson Bay. They forgot the niceties of geography and made "Rupert’s Land" all of western Canada. By their reasoning the Fraser, Stakine, Nass, Skeena, and the Peace all drain into the Hudson Bay. Not only that but the right to trap was extended to mean complete ownership of Rupert’s Land. (Wouldn’t it be nice if they could follow the same line of reasoning in BC Treaties.)

Canada had to buy back Rupert’s Land in order to extend its sovereignty. It passed the Rupert’s Land Settlement Act. It Gave the Hudson’s Bay Company more than 10% of its annual budget in cash, and thousands of acres. There is a really neat twist in how HBC could choose the land. HBC could wait 20 years in order to see where the lands would be settled and choose choice locations in the downtown areas of the settlements. I am not making this up. (10% of Canada’s annual budget this year is 12 billion dollars and that’s the buying power given to HBC in the 1910 because of a charter written in 1772.)

So, my raced-based brethren and sisters, (almost said sistern) in this holiday season may you see the face of God in all things and especially in our youth and in our children.