FIRST NATIONS NEWS
SCHOOL DROPS 'DISRESPECTFUL' NAME
Copyright © 2005 CBC All Rights Reserved
Thanks to Dan and Jim Ennis for the lead!
Don't Be Afraid of the Word
Chief Terrance Nelson Chief Terrance Nelson
Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation
Box 30, Ginew Manitoba, Canada ROA-2RO
204-782-4827
June 2005 The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. says; There is no more secure supplier to the United States than Canada. Don Gillmor writing in the Walrus (April 2005) about the $15 price of oil attributed to the terrorist threat also stated Alberta is almost absurdly stable: Perhaps, Mr. Gillmor and Washington think tanks need to know more about Canada before they make such blanket statements. Knowledge of Canada, America's largest trading partner and now largest supplier of oil to United States, should be a matter of national security for all Americans. With increasing world demand for oil hitting over 70 million barrels of oil a day, United States finds itself competing to fill the demand for the 20 million barrels a day it consumes. Due to increasingly dwindling world supplies of oil, United States may be becoming vulnerable. Today America finds itself in unfamiliar economic straits. In 2001, United States economy was extremely healthy with a $128 billion surplus and expected $5.6 trillion worth of surpluses for the next ten years. Within four years the bright economic forecast has become a far different reality. In 2004, the United States deficit hit $412 billion and public debt was pegged at $43 trillion. Federally, US national debt was $7.7 trillion and in 2005 the expected deficit is $427 billion, an average $1.2 billion debt increase daily. The United States is by far the world's biggest economy, but no one realistically expects that United States can maintain it's current debt load. Even at current low interest rates it requires 80% of all money borrowed at the World Bank just to cover interest on the U.S. debt. America is faced with millions of retiring baby boomers at a time when they are fighting two very costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. By itself, United States spends as much on military expenses as the next 13 largest military countries in the world combined. Steven Maich reports in Macleans (March 02, 2005). Between 2001 and 2004, the annual budget for the Pentagon and domestic security rose by US87.1 billion, an increase of 27.5 percent in four years?. The cost of wars coupled with a future that includes 77 million baby boomers reaching their unproductive years, high medical costs, President Bush's staunch commitment to lower taxes, and Americans used to living on credit, is possibly Soviet Union deja vu. A major front-page article warned about China competing against US interests in the Canadian oil patch. New York Times in December 2004 nervously reported, China's thirst for oil has bought it to the doorstep of the United States. The tar sands of Alberta have become a tug of war between world superpowers. Almost absurdly stable? Alberta? Not quite! Not only should America worry about the Chinese, it should learn more about Canada's human rights problems and the way Canada treats Canadian Indians. Canadian Indians sit in poverty and watch from the sidelines as 3 million barrels of oil are pumped out of Canada every day. The tar sands hold a potential of 1.6 trillion barrels of heavy crude of which 174 billion barrels are listed as reserves, oil that is recoverable with existing technology. If access to oil is a matter of national security for the United States, it needs to know more about Canadian Indians. Oil companies like Syncrude and Suncor are spending billions of publicly financed dollars in Canada. Much of that investment comes from United States. Syncrude spent $28 billion in Alberta and is committed to $32 billion more while Suncor just announced another $10 billion investment. In every article ever written on Canadian oil, no one ever mentions the Indians. Every Indian is taught from birth about the treaties; as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow. Mystified white people wonder; What do musty ancient, hundred year old agreements have to do with Canadian oil? As Chief of a southern Manitoba Indian reserve with 77% unemployment and no oil, I have met with Alberta Indians that have no legally recognized royalties on oil within their traditional treaty territories. My advice to them is, quit being loyal Canadians. I helped organized a Treaty 1 to 11 gathering in Winnipeg Manitoba (February, 2005). I attended a subsequent Treaty gathering in Edmonton Alberta, followed by another meeting in Vancouver British Columbia. The result of these treaty meetings is that Canadian Indians are getting organized. In a private meeting with the Saddle Lake First Nation Chief and council in Alberta, I told them what I would do if I were in their shoes. I would write a letter to Suncor and Syncrude I would meet with all Alberta First Nations with oil in their traditional territory I would buy one share each of Suncor and Syncrude I would meet with US environmentalists and invoke the Jay Treaty in U.S.A. It will take two barrels of water to produce every barrel of oil in the tar sands. Who is financially liable for the destruction and pollution of the aquifer? Did Suncor and Syncrude present that information to their investors? Did anyone mention to investors, that underlying title to subsurface rights in all oil producing lands are held by the treaty Indians? Did Alberta and Canada, who license the oil companies, tell them that the Crown, in signing treaties in the late 1800s, knew nothing of the value of oil in the future and negotiated land only up to the depth of a plough!! If it were not for the new reality faced by United States and China, treaties would still be meaningless and unenforceable in Canada. If impoverished Indians quit thinking like loyal Canadians, Americans paying four dollars a gallon for gasoline will bring attention to Canadian Indian treaties. The way out of the American problem is to make a deal with the original owners of Canadian lands and resources. Canada has failed to understand that treating Canadian Indians as beggars in their own lands is foolish. By comparison, United States has made some right choices when it comes to American Indians. Thirteen thousand American Indians currently serve in the U.S. military, with 2,000 of those serving in Iraq. American flags proudly fly on the front lawns in many American Indian reservations like Ho-Chunk, Wisconsin and Navajo Nation in New Mexico. Making American Indians part of the American economic wealth by allowing casinos on Reserves has done more than some lame apology by politicians or some plaque can ever do. The proof is in the loyalty of the majority of American Indians. While some American politicians may naively wish for an end to the Indian casinos and special status of American Indians, Americans need to remember some truths. In last 60 years, not one American has been killed by a Japanese Kamikaze suicide bomber. At the end of WWII, President Truman won not only the war, but the peace that followed. Despite horrendous war crimes, both Germany and Japan became economic allies of United States. The policy of hope that America envisioned at the end of WWII is what turned former enemies into allies and why today those policies must be resurrected. In Canada, most Indian reservations have devastating economic statistics. The statistics are appalling especially in light of the fact that for seven straight years the United Nations determined Canada to be the best country in the world to live in. In the Nunavut deal, the Inuit signed away their resources to Canada. The 25,000 Inuit are the majority voting population in 1.3 million square miles of land in northern Canada. The only domestic way out the Inuit's current deal on resources is for Canada to come back to the table and renegotiate. Failing a domestic solution, the Inuit may want to listen to Americans who would rather pay $20 a barrel for oil than pay Canada $80. Canada needs to understand that it is no longer only the French separatists that they have to worry about. America needs to listen, not because they love Canadian Indians, but because, access to oil will become more than just a national security issue, it will become a world-wide issue as oil supplies continue to deplete at 70 million barrels a day. How long will Canada be almost absurdly stable? For now, it really depends on Ottawa's attitude but not for much longer. The loyalty of Canadian Indians to a nation that treats us like beggars in our own lands, as daily, three million barrels of oil and billions of dollars of other resources flow past us will send Canadian Indians searching for an international solution. When you have oil and land, someone is going to listen. All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, then to right themselves by abolishing the forms by which they are accustomed... United States declaration of Independence In the last NCAI Summit in New Mexico, I sat in the audience as 1000s of American Indians listened to seven of nine US Democratic Presidential candidates speaking to the forum. Most Canadians don't know how powerful American Indians have become, or that Canadian Indians are already recognized in United States under the terms of the Jay Treaty, Treaty of Ghent as American citizens.
Last updated on June 08, 2005