Terrance Nelson
How Dangerous is the situation in Canada?
Written by Terrance Nelson,
March 2012
“One thing that police and the army know is that indigenous people
don’t have any real supply of guns. The supply of guns is controlled but what
the authorities don’t understand is that every one of the 633 reservations in
Canada has old cars. In Winnipeg thousands of cars were being stolen every
month, our indigenous youth who make up to 95% of the inmates in jail, were in
criminal “training schools” on how to steal cars. If ever there was a military
showdown between Indigenous people and the Canadian army, the first target
would be the railway lines and burning cars would be on every railway line in
Canada”
In 1990 during the Oka Crisis, four thousand Canadian troops
faced about 30 Mohawks in a tense situation where one police officer had
already died. The difference between twenty years ago and today is we
understand economics a lot better than we did twenty years ago. Two Ojibway
communities in northern Ontario blocked railway lines in support of the
Mohawks. Economics not military is what makes the situation in Canada
dangerous. The American economy could be blindsided by events north of their
border rather than by events in other parts of the world.
The National Day of Action on June 29th 2007,
exposed the fact that a month long national stoppage of railway traffic in
Canada would cripple not only the economy of Canada it would also destroy the
economy of the United States. The 2008 economic meltdown shows how vulnerable
the U.S. economy is today. The difference between a political action organized
by the Chiefs in Canada on the 2007 National Day of Action and a covert
operation by First Nation individuals is like night and day. A covert operation
involving burning cars on every railway line would almost be impossible to stop
despite all the Canadian military and police being alerted to the potential.
The Canadian Security and Intelligence Services and the CIA
are well aware of the potential for violence in Canada and are monitoring
indigenous people in Canada more and more. A recent novel entitled “Uprising”
by former Lieutenant Colonel Bland explores the potential for indigenous
violence. Bland is a trained military person who does not understand indigenous
people and how warrior societies function as individuals without an army type
hierarchy. Bland
’s book neglects to exam economic
consequences. Indigenous people in Canada aren’t in caves in Afghanistan, they
are here in the heart of the North American economy.
In the last decade, the 34 million people in Canada have
purchased over 2 trillion dollars worth of American exports. In those ten
years, Canada made over $500 billion in trade surpluses with United States. In
that decade, Canada sold Americans $2.5 trillion dollars worth of exports. Canada
pumps 2.5 million barrels of oil per day to the States and under the North
American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S. has “security
of energy exports”. Less known than oil coming from Canada is the entire
eastern U.S. seaboard is powered up by electricity generated in northern Quebec
and Ontario.
Cables released under the Wiki leaks show the United States
Embassy in Ottawa raised concerns with Washington regarding indigenous people
in Canada, “as long as Canada lacks a
clear definition of aboriginal rights or a uniform model for negotiations,
effective mechanisms to resolve aboriginal grievances in a timely manner will
remain elusive”.
Eighty-seven percent of all Canadian exports flow to the
United States and seventy-two percent of all foreign investment in Canada comes
from the United States. Canadian and American economies are intertwined, what
affects one, affects the other.
On August 18th 1999, Steven Leslie Pound, an
employee of Canadian National Railways, provided an Affidavit to the Court of
Queen’s Bench testifying to the negative effect that a railway blockade would
have on Canadian National Railway. At paragraph 17 of that Affidavit he stated
“I am advised by Dennis Cousineau from CN’s Office of
Economics and Financial Planning, and do verily believe, that the average
negative daily impact on CN’s revenue from a cessation of train operations in
and across Manitoba would be approximately $5.6 million”
That was thirteen years ago, but even then, negative daily
impact would have been $5.6 million, 5.6 million dollars a day on CN's revenue
but much more impact on all the business that depend on CN. That doesn't include
Canadian Pacific Railways, or the impact on other transportation services, this
was the impact in Manitoba alone, not a national railway stoppage.
At paragraph 18, he expands on who would be affected.
“A cessation of train operation in Manitoba would also
have a significant impact on CN’s customers and others. The main customers in
Manitoba affected by interrupted rail service include Dominion Malt,
PetroCanada, Shell Canada, Cargill Grain, Agpro Grain, Crown Packaging, Allied,
United Grain Growers, Pouwel and Gardenwine. Customers who would be affected by
an interference with time sensitive intermodal shipments include TransWestern,
Western Canada Express and Clark. A disruption in rail service would affect
grain shipments to various ocean ports, including Churchill and Thunder Bay,
impacting on the business operations of Saskatchewan Pool, UGG, Cargill,
Paterson, Agpro, amongst others, and could result in a shutdown of elevators in
Thunder Bay and Churchill”
In 1990 during the Oka crisis, Ojibway First Nations in
Ontario, Pic Mobert and Pays Plat First Nations supporting Mohawks blockaded
railway lines. The potential for a North American economic meltdown if Mohawks
were killed was very real. Americans are aware of the potential. On January 1st
1994 the Mayan uprising in Chiapas Mexico caused international investors to
begin pulling $8 billion dollars from stocks of American companies doing
business in Mexico. President Clinton was forced to lend Mexico $30 billion as
the American dollar tumbled in value.
The United States economy is much weaker today than it was
in 1994. The American ability to respond to financial crisis is far different
today than it was in 1994 and a conflict in Canada would have much more impact
to the American economy than the 1994 Chiapas uprising. The difference between
trade with Canada in 2012 compared to the 1994 trade between Mexico and the
United States is not even comparable. The economic ties with Canada makes it a
much bigger risk for the United States.
In 1994, the American economy was strong, the U.S. federal
debt was under five trillion dollars, today U.S. federal debt is over fourteen
trillion dollars. The 2008 economic meltdown left America in a situation where
they may not be able to respond as effectively to another severe economic jolt.
Americans can no longer just print more money or borrow their way out of the
next financial meltdown.
Something as significant as conflict in Canada would
blindside the Americans. There are numerous studies, including the Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry Report, and
Senate of Canada papers that warn of the potential for violence in Canada. Much
of these documents gather dust while the Government in Canada ignores solutions.
Peaceful Co-existence, a Treaty right of both whites and
natives
“ it is the desire of Her Majesty… to obtain the consent thereto of her Indian subjects inhabiting the said tract,
and to
make a treaty and arrangement with them so that there may be peace and good
will between them and Her Majesty…” “And the undersigned Chiefs do hereby bind
and pledge themselves and their people strictly to observe this treaty and to
maintain perpetual peace between themselves and Her Majesty’s white subjects,
and not to interfere with the property or in any way molest the persons of Her
Majesty’s white or other subjects”
Not to interfere
with the property… of Her Majesty’s white subjects is a treaty right granted by indigenous
people to the people who immigrated to Canada. It is a treaty right that is
contingent upon Her Majesty fulfilling the conditions of treaty.
CN's and
CPR’s title to the land railway tracks run on comes from the Canadian
government, whose right to grant deeds and titles within indigenous territories
comes from treaties. When Canada fundamentally breaches the treaty conditions,
titles and deeds granted by Canada is jeopardized. Even the Supreme Court of
Canada decided that indigenous people have inherent rights. “Aboriginal title is a legal right derived from the
historic occupation of Tribal lands by Native people. It is not something that
was given to native people by some government, by Royal Proclamation, or by the
signing of a treaty” Justice Dickinson, Supreme Court of Canada.
The government of Canada has no intention of returning to
the bargaining table as long as Indigenous people continue to allow Canada to
do whatever it pleases with treaties. As long as Canada can continue to export
natural resource wealth to the Americans without any payment to the indigenous
people, Canada will not negotiate.
The Tarsands of Alberta contain 1.4 trillion barrels of oil
and forty percent of that oil is recoverable under present day technology. At
one hundred dollars per barrel, that forty percent is approximately $60
trillion worth of recoverable oil. There are over 60 metals and minerals mined
in Canada, all done with little or no payment to indigenous people.
The lifestyle of
every Canadian is subsidized by the sale of natural resource wealth and as
indigenous people are kept impoverished at the 72nd of the United
Nations Living Index. There will be no solutions implemented until a crisis is
reached.
Not only are the railway lines vulnerable
to closure by covert operation but the oil pipelines now sending 2.5 million
barrels of oil per day to the United States would be a target if indigenous
people and the government of Canada were in military conflict. Pumping stations
like the Gretna Depot in southern Manitoba would be vulnerable as it pumps over
one million barrels of oil per day to Midwestern United States. Under its own
safety procedures Enbridge and TransCanada pipelines shut down after three days
of limited access.
Canadian Crude Oil Imports: Increasing
Importance To The United States
09/29/2010 01:15PM
U.S. consumers are sometimes surprised to learn that our
single largest foreign source of crude oil is
Canada,
which surpassed Saudi Arabia as the leading supplier to the United States in
2004 and has continued to hold that position. Since 1990, total U.S. crude oil
imports from Canada have increased by 1.3 million barrels per day, accounting
for 40 percent of the 3.1 million barrel per day growth in total crude oil
imports since that date. Over the last decade alone, the share of U.S. crude
oil imports coming from Canada has increased from 13 percent to 22 percent.
From January through June 2010, 2.0 million barrels per day of Canadian crude
oil were imported into the United States, of which 1.2 million barrels per day
went into the Midwest. According to the Canadian
National Energy Board, almost half of the crude oil
exported to the United States was either synthetic crude or blended bitumen
from the Alberta oil sands. Bitumen, a heavy, viscous type of hydrocarbon
extracted from the oil sands, is blended with lighter hydrocarbons to allow it
to flow through pipelines. It then may be upgraded into a relatively light,
sweet synthetic crude oil that can be used by most refineries.
The recent shutdown of two pipelines bringing Canadian crude oil to the U.S.
demonstrated the growing importance of these imports. On September 9, the
Enbridge Lakehead System had to shut down its Line 6A pipeline due to a crude
oil leak in Romeoville, Illinois. This incident followed the discovery of another
leak and a shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 6B late in July. Line 6A is a major
source of light synthetic, heavy, and medium Canadian crude oils for seven
refineries in the Midwest and Pennsylvania, and many of the affected refineries
have limited alternate supply sources. Fortunately for Midwest consumers,
Enbridge was able to restart Line 6A on September 17 and Line 6B on September
27.
While numerous factors may have been in play, markets apparently reacted to the
September 9 outage of Line 6A, as prices for benchmark West Texas Intermediate
(WTI) crude oil and Midwest gasoline rose discernibly until it became apparent
that the line would be returned to service quickly. WTI prices rose by $3 per
barrel in conjunction with the outage despite very high inventory levels at the
Cushing, OK hub. Wholesale spot conventional gasoline prices in Chicago rose by
25 cents from September 9 to 13, and EIA’s weekly retail gasoline survey
reported on September 13 that Midwest regular gasoline had risen by over 10
centsper gallon during the week, while the national average was up just 4 cents
per gallon during the same period.
Prices returned to prior levels after the restart of Line 6A and the price
impact of this incident was mitigated by the fact that the outage occurred as
gasoline demand began showing seasonal declines and refineries were going into
their planned autumn maintenance schedules with the available buffer of high
crude oil and refined product stocks.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
One of the biggest problems that United States has is that
they take Canada for granted. They let Canada tell them that there is no
problem in Canada.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Nelson in communication with the CN lawyer.
Jim Edmond
As legal counsel for CN, you were involved in the undertakings that
took place in 2007. There was absolutely no need for a train blockade in
2013 in Treaty One territory if the federal Conservative Government of
Canada had honored the agreements reached in 2007. You indicated
yesterday that you would convey what you termed my "request" to the
powers that be at CN, that there needs to be a more formal agreement
with CN, CPR, Enbridge and Transcanada to pressure Canada. You told me
"Terry, you are no longer Chief". My response is clear, if CN wants to
believe that the court has the power to enforce CN title and can order
police to arrest blockaders, you place all your eggs in one basket.
Seven rail blockades across Canada occurred on January 16th, if CN
thinks the courts alone will resolve this, they can't be getting very
good advice.
I attach for your information the letters and
documents that will form a small part of the Defence that I will file
with the court outlining the efforts we made to bring Canada to the
table in 2007. As you can see by the tone of my letters from 2007 the
frustration of trying to get Canada to do the right thing. The fact that
your client CN considers itself an "innocent" third party does little
to pacify the owners of the lands, the First Nations who signed treaty
with a thief. The treaties were a complete fraud, with the Crown
negotiators at the Treaty One having a Treaty already written previously
in Ottawa for signature at the Treaty "negotiations". The immigrants
wanted only one thing, to get the rightful owners to sign a treaty
ceding and surrendering all their lands and resource wealth to the white
people. They did this with complete fraud, promising many things that
they never intended to honour. CN has a title from the thieves and will
attempt to get that fraudulent title upheld in court. The court is a
creation of the government of Canada, using only the laws legislated by
the very government that seeks to uphold the fraud.
CN, CPR,
Enbridge and Transcanada are all in jeopardy, not because the First
Nations are unreasonable or impatient but because Canada has refused to
do anything about their legal obligations. Since our undertaking in
2007, my meetings with then Minister of Indian Affairs Jim Prentice,
there was conversion of 75 acres of land in Rosser Municipality for
Roseau River in June 2007. After that conversion in June 2007, I
promised Jim Prentice that I would not block railway lines for five
years from June 2007 to June 2012. We gave him and Canada time to
convert the lands promised under the 1996 Roseau River TLE Agreement.
Not even one acre of land was converted since June 2007 for Roseau
River.
In the RR 1996 TLE, the government recognized a
"shortfall" of 5,861 acres and up to 16,218 acres in ATR. Canada had
fifteen years to complete the conversion process. The deadline for
completion was April 2011. Almost two years ago the Roseau River TLE
agreement went into breach. If the Treaty terms and conditions are not
honoured, how can Canada expect to have any chance to legally uphold the
fraudulent title it gave to CN. Treaty One Territory is 16,700 square
miles and includes all the lands CN claims is theirs in our territory. I
am the Chairman of the Treaty Land Entitlement Trustees of Roseau River
as of fall 2012.
If CN sees itself as an innocent third
party, how can it be transporting billions and billions of dollars of
stolen resource wealth each year while the original owners of that
property continues to live in extreme poverty, an artificial poverty
that is a direct result of legislation put in place by the Canadian
government. CN pays nothing to Treaty One for access to our lands. The
court cannot hope to pacify the First Nations with threats of jail for
blockaders when the court refuses to allow injunctions for the First
Nations against Canadian business. These are the same business who
continue to steal our resources. While injunctions can be put in place
against the indigenous people, the whites can still steal our natural
resource wealth and sell it to the Americans. The United States
continues to deny international standards, refusing to sign on to the
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Canadians have purchased over two trillion dollars worth of United
States exports in the last few years. Canada is a $1.7 trillion GDP
country that is dependent upon the continued theft of the indigenous
people natural resource wealth.
As I have stated I have no
illusions about the court. The courts are not about justice, the courts
have become enforcers of the law regardless of whether or not the laws
are seen as justice or not. I will file my information and remind the
court of the obligations they have under the Royal Proclamation. I will
take the time to file a Notice of Constitutional Question which I expect
you will contest. This will be a long court battle.
If CN
expects to do business peacefully, they need to go beyond just trying to
get the court to uphold their fraudulent title to our lands. The
undertakings in 2007 prove that we tried to give Canada time, time they
used only to do nothing. I kept my word, despite provocations, I refused
to take part in any railway blockades for the five years I promised
Prentice. I shook hands with Prentice when I made my promise. They have
wasted their time and now they blame us for taking action. Chief Fox of
Onion Lake and other Chiefs would be prepared to meet with CN if CN can
bring Enbridge, Transcanada, and CPR to a more formal agreement.
Business Canada must be seen as more than just writing letters urging
Canada to do the right thing. We have given Canada all the time they
needed. No undertaking will be taken that only gives the immigrants what
they want, continued theft of our wealth. We are not in a position to
hold back our people who want justice and are prepared to go to jail to
get justice. We are not traitors to our people but we would accept an
opportunity to meet with Business Canada to see if we can work toward
justice for indigenous people.
I will present my documents and
information in court. I have no illusions about the courts. If CN
thinks that the court will settle this issue, Good Luck. There has
always been Chiefs who tried to hold back the young warriors, in the
past, they were termed the "hang around the fort" Indians, now the youth
are calling them the "sellouts". I hope that CN has Chiefs with
influence over the youth if things go as badly as the Judge believes
will happen if "violence:" occurs. I want to remind the white people,
violence is already here, we as First Nations have been burying our
youth, the murdered women, and the white jails are filled with our
people. If the Judge believes that the court has the power to order
peace with the people who are in 60 to 95% unemployment in their
communities, while all I say is we tried to avoid this. When the white
people talk of coming violence all they are saying is violence against
whites, because violence is already there for our people and has been
for decades.
Two sides are in court, CN with a title given to
them by thieves and the original owners of the land. Canada is no where
in sight, they hope the court they set up will not call the government
to answer any questions about the undertaking in 2007.
I have
tried over and over to warn Canada that this day would come when the
original owners would tire of the artificial poverty. I have written the
following as the first paragraph of the article I wrote entitled How
Dangerous is the Situation in Canada.
“One thing that police
and the army know is that indigenous people don’t have any real supply
of guns. The supply of guns is controlled but what the authorities don’t
understand is that every one of the 633 reservations in Canada has old
cars. In Winnipeg thousands of cars were being stolen every month, our
indigenous youth who make up to 95% of the inmates in jail, were in
criminal “training schools” on how to steal cars. If ever there was a
military showdown between Indigenous people and the Canadian army, the
first target would be the railway lines and burning cars would be on
every railway line in Canada”
If you are advising CN that the
Courts can protect them and the police can enforce the artificial
poverty on reserves, CN needs to rethink who they hire. Throwing our
people in jail and bankrupting the blockaders maybe good publicity to
the racists in Canada but in reality you invite confrontation that this
country does not want and you are part of the problem, not the solution.
Yesterday, the Winnipeg Free Press had an article of a CN train hitting
a grader and a serious derailment. We are not terrorists. We have been
peaceful far longer than any other people. No other people would have
put up with this situation as we have. The difference between 2007 and
2013 is night and day. In 2013, you see the anger of the people while in
2007 all you saw was the Chiefs speaking angrily. You would do well to
recognize that the Chiefs cannot order the people to be peaceful if
there is no real progress. Another undertaking like we did in 2007 will
not be enough to quell what is already here, if the Judge is correct,
things will get far worse and it will not be business as usual for CN or
anyone else.
Terrance Nelson
