Chief Arlen Dumas
January 29th 2013
Chief, today is a great day for your people. You may not know it but
you have made more impact than all the protests across Canada and any
opposition comments made in the House of Commons yesterday. Now you are
standing between the White Man and his money. HudBay Mining is a public
company raising money based on international investor confidence in
Canada's reputation as a safe place to invest. With your actions
yesterday you have impacted the rate at which companies in Canada can
raise money on the international market. You are going to be under a lot
of pressure. The Winnipeg Free Press put your actions on the net and
this will have big impact.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Band-protesting-over-HudBay-Minerals-Lalor-mine--188695981.html
Your statement is absolutely brilliant.
In a prepared statement, Dumas said, "We totally reject HudBay’s
Environmental Act License Application submitted for the Lalor mine
without our consent. As the rightful owner, only we have the authority
to approve a license to extract our resources from our territories."
There are over 60 metals and minerals mined in Canada and all are
within a First Nation's traditional territory. If all First Nations in
Canada issued the same statement as you and if they carried out the
action you did, the Americans would be calling Harper immediately. The
United States business community provides 72% of all foreign investment
in Canada. Canada is an economic suburb of New York City. Toronto is
going to be calling AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo and Shawn will be
calling you if this affects the rate the investors demand from
investments in Canada.
HudBay does not only mine in Canada, it is a
world wide mining company and is mining a lot in indigenous lands in
South America. It has gotten in trouble in the past in several
countries. What you did yesterday is important to all Canadian business
that relies on investment confidence. Here is what the HudBay website
has as it mission statement,
Hudbay is committed to producing strong
investor returns and creating better futures for communities and
employees by finding, building and operating successful mines.
When
we blocked CN railway on January 16th near Portage La Prairie, they got
an injunction and that court injunction gives us an opportunity to be
heard in court as we fight the Title that CN claims to have in our
Treaty territory. We don't expect to win in an immigrant court of law
but we will leave on the court record our message to our children, our
grandchildren and the future generations of our people. CN knows it,
their title is the same category as the legal arguments made regarding
Terra Nullius, the concept of "empty land", the same type of legal
argument as Manifest Destiny and Papal Bull. The immigrants to our lands
have been conditioned to believe that they provide all the money that
First Nations live on. They are sadly mistaken and Manitobans especially
have no clue that the northern First Nations territory sends billions
of dollars a year south to subsidize the lifestyle of every one of those
people who make hateful comments in the media about "lazy Indians
living on the good graces of the Canadian taxpayer".
Terra nullius
(pron.: /ˈtɛrə nʌˈlaɪ.əs/, plural terrae nullius) is a Latin expression
deriving from Roman law meaning "land belonging to no one",[1] which is
used in international law to describe territory which has never been
subject to the sovereignty of any state, or over which any prior
sovereign has expressly or implicitly relinquished sovereignty.
Sovereignty over territory which is terra nullius may be acquired
through occupation,[2] though in some cases doing so would violate an
international law or treaty. Wikipedia
Canada is an exporting
nation and Parliament better wake up to the fact that the indigenous
people are getting international attention. Canada's image as a safe
place to invest is taking a beating. If your actions are carried out by
all other First Nations in Canada, Business Canada is in serious
trouble. Eighty-five percent of the natural resource base in Manitoba is
in the north. The First Nations in the north send billions of dollars a
year south but live in abject poverty. What you did yesterday sends a
strong message to the ones that need to hear it, the rich people who
invest in Canada, the one percent of Americans who make up the largest
percentage of the foreign investment in Canada.
What you did
yesterday takes Idle No More beyond round dancing, protests in the
streets and now that the Theresa Spence issue is out of the media, this
is what this movement needed. As I said in the 2007 National Day of
Action, Standing between the White Man and his money. We know we can
stand there because the White Man gets his money from our lands and our
natural resource wealth. The immigrants have forgotten who lives on
whose good graces. You just gave them a small slap on the face that may
awake them to that fact.
I am attaching a letter I sent to Harper
on the impact of Bill C45 on the Treaty. I am going after CN's title in
court. If you need any position papers or treaty arguments that can help
you in court, I will share my documents with you. I am also attaching
Doug Bland's Ottawa Citizen article. Bland is over 70 years old and for
years was the one who advised the Military leaders and RCMP. It is guys
like Bland that understand that they need to tread softly when
confronting First Nations, something the Judges and politicians may need
to learn.
I met with Doug Bland and read his Book. He writes in his article
In the Canadian/First Nations context, Canada’s absolute economic
dependence on natural resources (by some estimates equal to 30 per cent
of the Canadian economy) and the inescapable vulnerability of the
transportation infrastructure that moves these resources to the markets
in Canada and the United States, gives the First Nations enormous
new-found powers.
Chief, the $1.7 trillion GDP in Canada is
dependent upon us. Immigrants make no payment for our resource wealth,
the government has sucked the poor white people into believing that the
First Nations are feeding off the taxpayer. They want to believe that
but the government, industry and the Canadian Taxpayer Federation have
known all along that they were lying to the people. This is why I am
telling you, your actions have far greater consequences than we know
today. They will come to you asking you to be "reasonable" I just love
the Winnipeg Sun racist articles and editorials, it is making our people
mad but it is actions like yours that make the difference. WE need our
young people to document the racist comments made in the Canadian media,
it will be a permanent marker on record. This is like Mississippi in
the sixties, Canadians coming out with their racist attitudes. These
beliefs and feelings were always there, now our people are waking up to
the reality of what a lot of white Canada believes.
Terrance Nelson
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