Editor:
Re: Indigenous rights matter, Feb. 19 letters
I couldn’t agree more with letter writer Phil Harrison.
Prime Minister Justin “Pontius Pilate” Trudeau has talked the talk again and pronounced the Indigenous ‘problem’ to be in the hands of the RCMP, the OPP, and the QPP.
From the times of building the Trans-Canada railway until the very recent use of residential schools run by religious orders, with the collusion of the Canadian federal and provincial governments, attempts were made to control, kill-off, or assimilate the First Nations and deny them their culture and use of their languages by taking away their children and forcing them onto reserves, or the gifting of blankets exposed to the smallpox virus.
In many cases their land titles still have not been recognized. They must be recognized as nations within Canada, just as Quebec is seen as a nation within Canada.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault’s government will not allow the building of a Trans-Canada pipeline through Quebec and the federal government could not force it to. The Wet’suwet’en Nation also has the right to stop the Coastal Gaslink pipeline from crossing their territory.
The federal and provincial governments must stop catering to the corporations; SNC Lavalin, Bombardier, Trans Mountain Pipeline, and the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline and focus our tax dollars on the needs of all Canadians and the future of life on our planet. At one time, our governments declared mining asbestos as being essential to our economy.
Do we want another Northwest Rebellion, or Oka or Ipperwash crisis?
I don’t think so.
Phil De Rosa, White Rock