Dear Editor,
Everyone knows that you file your taxes on April 30 and you can be rest assured that your bill will be in the mail within eight weeks. Very quick turnaround isn’t it?
File an Indian Status form or an update to change lists and two years later you are. . .
still waiting to hear from them. Why is that?
There are Bands that under the Indian Act are Section 11 Bands. This means that according to the Indian Act, they have left it up to Indigenous Services to decide membership.
According to The UNDRIP:
Article 9
Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right to belong to an indigenous community or nation, in accordance with the traditions and customs of the community or nation concerned. No discrimination of any kind may arise from the exercise of such a right.
When your parents come from a town around Italy, you’re known to be Italian. When your parents come from a town around Greece, you’re known as Greek. When your parents came from a town around Maniwaki and were Indian, forced to live where the government said you must, and if you did not and chose to hunt, trap and gather for your family to survive, you were no longer considered Indian.
Now you must fight to regain who you were born to be and although your parents were Algonquin, Têtes de Boules, Cree or any other Nation of Indian, you must submit hundreds of documents, wait years and maybe, just maybe, the government will allow you to be what you were born to be.
Where is the reconciliation? Where is the justice?
According to UNDRIP:
Article 26
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or other-wise used or acquired.
2. Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired.
3. States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.
The land that our ancestors settled on in Pontiac in 1870 was unoccupied, unceded territory that was passed down from generation to generation.
The government stole the land and severed it into lots, allowed for the harvesting of timber in the area which in turn depleted the fur harvest and food.
This is Indian land and always has been. The Ministère D’Energie et Des Resources Naturelles are denying our land tenure rights and refuse to issue our title to our land.
Where is the reconciliation? Where is the justice?
The proof is in the documented evidence of several anthropologists including Frank Speck.
Minister Bennett, Minister Miller, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau why are you not enforcing our hereditary rights?
Jenny Lacroix, Sudbury, Ont.
