By Kirk M. Wellum Good grief! Is there no end to the foolishness? Last night there was a fire in one of the unfinished homes on the disputed lands of the former Douglas Creek Estates; a fire that was fortunately put out by somebody before things got out-of-hand. And all this took place a day after the media carried reports of native occupiers asking for building supplies and money so they could finish the houses and have shelter over the coming months!
That this dispute is still ongoing is a testimony to the incompetence of everyone involved. Federal and provincial governments need to uphold the law and settle the dispute one way or another. That this sorry state of affairs drags on is incredible and shows what a pathetic lack of leadership exists in this country. As I have said before on this blog, if the land belongs to the natives, as they claim, it should be returned to them immediately. If the land does not belong to them, those who are occupying the land need to be removed immediately. All that is in dispute is who owns the land! Surely this is not too difficult even for a group of lawyers to figure out!
The larger and more important issue is the relationship between Canada and its native peoples. The present system does not work. No group should be sustained by government hand-outs, no matter how long their ancestors used to live in this part of the world. Encouraging them to moving in the direction of "gaming" is equally damaging to the social fabric of native society. Somehow these peoples need to integrated into mainstream Canadian life in the 21st century so that they can contribute in a meaningful and important way to the nation and the world. There is a better way than what we currently seeing being played out in Caledonia, but it will never emerge until everyone is prepared to sit down and honestly look at the situation around them. The status-quo is bankrupt. It is time for a radial reconfiguration of relationship between people who are in the end, human beings.
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