Celebrating the slaughter of all those Jews isn't evil because it's antisemitic. It's antisemitic because it's evil. A gathering darkness surrounds us.
Well that was an eye opener for me Terry. I was never a fan of the NDP and therefore had not paid much attention to their platforms and policies. This has opened my eyes to the depth of the problems we face. I have no idea how we return from this antizionist and antisemitic disaster that has allowed to go on under the guise of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. Similar to the decolonization movement in Canada and the anti christian evolution, that amazingly to me, is accepted and promoted in the churches. Its the demise of ones own identity, beliefs, and life, to a moral punishment and self loathing that is apparently to end in their own demise. Its absolutely amazing that the leftest leaning people are urging punishment for sins they believe we have been guilty of and that we should be punished, mentally, financially, physically, while setting ourselves up for our own complete anialation. With those deemed the guilty party cheering on the demise of the Jewish people, not realizing that they themselves are next. Its absurd, disturbing, and hedonistic. Yet here we all are. I dont know how we come back from all this or even if we can. Its penetrated every Institution in our country. We have become our own worst enemy.
Accurate comment and great article. It's been remarkable to see people realize the level of antisemitism around us in Canada and how progressivism will be the downfall of our society.
Terry, for now just let me congratulate you on the hours of research, contemplation and writing you so obviously put into these lengthy and peerless articles. Each one, with its possible lead-ins to supporting and background pieces, is damn impressive. Take your acolades, Sir, because you deserve them FULLY! Bravo!
Yes It is refreshing to see the truth exposed.. what is depressing is the fact that Liberals like Trudeau, Jennifer O’Connell, Mark Gerretsen et al will dismiss this as racist bigotry. The recent Oct 7 vile genocidal slaughter should have given them pause but it didn’t. They are like the “useful fools” and “fellow travellers” that Lenin and Stalin used and mocked. We have a gigantic “Chamberlain moment” growing in intensity. The ravaging flames of destruction are at our gates. Those that ignore history
Bankruptcy happens two ways: gradually, then suddenly.
That quote, attributed to Hemingway, describes how recent events have affected my feelings about the postmodern left. I was only disenchanted but now I'm disgusted.
No bloody wonder you’re exhausted! Thank you for trying to enlighten a corner of the world. You are a valuable (and useful) resource. This anti-Israel, anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, anti-Jews is a complete and utter evil sickness. It has been obvious to me for some time (me, who doesn’t pay nearly enough attention much of the time) that “Canada” (our federal LIB/NDP government) has become overtly against Jews and Israel while pretending not to be. Our “hate speech” laws don’t appear to cover calling for the elimination of Jews. I wondered aloud to my family and friends, why, again, were people so against Jews. Why were they ever against the Jews was and is another mystery to me. Is it envy? Jealousy? What could Jews possibly ever have done to deserve the cruelty that has been heaped on them? No one had answers. Of course, the real answer is nothing and they don’t “deserve” any of it. There cannot be peaceful co-existence of “two states” when Hamas openly states it wants to “exterminate” Jews and Israel. What now? What can I do besides call out the lies when I see/hear them?
There's little than can be done beyond the business of calling out lies at the moment. Reach out to your Jewish family or friends; check in on them. Remember the names of the awful people whose names show up in this newsletter. Be kind to people who are simply badly misinformed. Otherwise: Never forgive, never forget.
Thank you for your support of Jews and Israel. Thank you for exposing the moral and intellectual rot that permeates so many once-trustworthy institutions.
I am not sure this is true but if it is it gives me hope. A friend told me that during COVID the German churches got together, all denominations, upon hearing the government was going to close them down. In their gathering they agreed that the mission of the church was to be there for the people during crisis and this was a time of crisis. Accordingly, they told the government they wouldn’t shut down and the government did not force them to as a consequence.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned the German church many years before the war broke out that they must stand against the antisemitic laws being legislated or they would open the gates of hell. But they didn’t. Hell ensued.
If the German church learned its lesson and said we mean it, never again. Can we not too?
In 2015, Justin Trudeau proclaimed that Canada was the first post national state. It’s too bad he didn’t study History. They don’t last long. In the UK, for years one can’t fly the flag of St. George or teach that the Holocaust happened without complaints from certain quarters. Here, we’re destroying Canada’s foundation, eliminating our cultural symbols, changing street names, judging them by present standards and removing monuments to men who built the country. But we’re replacing them with something without a foundation. A old Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.
Also if your read the bible to someone struggling with their identity that can be considered ‘conversion therapy’ with a 5 year jail sentence. But the state can overtly fund grooming activities and it labels any push back as “hate speech” while also invoking the magic word “islamophobia” to pretend to “care” for a group deemed superior despite
Great piece Terry, as always. You are right to "pick a fight" with your fellow journalists and I will note that in your "defence" of the mainstream media over X (formerly Twitter), they have failed to warn Canadians of Trudeau's latest attack on journalism. When they get their way with Bill C-11 and C-18 the content you create will be even harder to access. Until then I'll continue to get my fill from you, Sam Cooper, Jonathan Kay and a small handful of other, whether through Substack, "X" or elsewhere.
Cbc is full of axe grinding grifters creating a vortex of disinformation. If i am here and appreciate what you’re doing, what makes you think i’ll believe every bad source on twitter? If i can find you, i can find other people worth listening to on any platform. Twitter is where i first saw proof the attacks were real. Of course I am constantly vetting source credibility whatever the channel.
Elon can’t immediately personally fact check billions of tweets. It is a platform not a publication. Join community notes if you want to be part of correcting errors on there. People driven by motivated reasoning will find support on any platform. You are working for the better of the mainstream sources. The National Post and Globe are generally ok.
I’ve often wondered if I would have had the courage to hide and help Jews during the Second World War, as many did. You are marked by your mezuzah,Terry, and your powerful, provocative pieces. You have my respect and prayers for protection.
Another incisive piece by journalist extraordinaire, Terry Glavin. There are so few real journalists remaining, most of them having become activists (perhaps hackavists more accurately describes them).
Thanks Terry (as always) for your unceasing efforts in ensuring that sunlight is being shone on those whose attitudes and beliefs are an abomination and an affront to decent human beings. The recent affair here in Ontario with NDP MPP Ms Jama should be an example of the degeneration of our politics and the moral bankruptcy of the current Left. I would add in passing that I am reading Laura Engelstein's "Russia In Flames 1914 - 1917". It is account of the fall of the Tsar, the failure of the Provisional Government, the Bolshevik seizure of power and the ensuing Civil War. There are some disturbing parallels to our own time I am afraid.
Johnathan Haight posted this on Twitter after October 7:
We are seeing the full flowering of Great Untruth # 3 this week, from The Coddling: “Life is a battle between good people and evil people”. It can lead otherwise good people to celebrate war crimes.
One of the most chilling books I've ever read was Ordinary Men, by Christopher Browning. It details how quickly and easily "otherwise good people" go from simply celebrating to actively participating in genocide. The parallels to current events are ominous.
An excellent but tough read. Goldhagen’s. ‘Hitler’s Willing Accomplices’ is even darker, broader and though difficult to stomach, really ought to be mandatory reading.
While Goldhagen leans toward that period being a uniquely German phenomenon, I am more aligned with Browning's view that it is a universal human trait. Lord knows we've seen enough examples across the globe. The Germans were simply more efficient.
I believe that we all harbour the comforting delusion that we would have been one of the courageous people who sheltered a Jewish family in the attic. The unsettling, statistical reality is that we would have been far more likely to have been a camp guard. A pathetically small number of people actually risked their lives to assist Jews. As an elderly German friend once confided to me, "In 1935, I was a proud Nazi and if you had been in that time and place, you would have been one too".
After seeing actual videos of the SS with their black boots, pistols and dogs patrolling the streets, I’m sure I would’ve done whatever was necessary not to attract their attention.
I’ve been thinking, aren’t we lucky that the indigenous people on the 600 plus reserves scattered among us, haven’t stormed the nearby towns, slaughtering the inhabitants, because we’re on their land?
To my knowledge, the last time Indigenous folks seriously took up arms and used them to defend their land (versus more symbolic standoffs of more recent origin) was the War of 1812. Their reward for helping defend (and create?) Canada against American invasion? Some 50 years later, in 1867 the new federal government unilaterally claimed jurisdiction over "Indians and lands reserved for Indians", and then unilaterally legislated the Indian Act a few years after that.
Poundmaker, Crowfoot and Big Bear chose to sit out the Métis rebellions that ensued, to bide their time for a more propitious occasion. Indigenous folks may simply prefer the long game and traditional treaty negotiations. The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701 or the Treaty of Niagara of 1764, and what I like to call the 3rd post-Confederation rebellion, section 35, 1982 which "recognizes and affirms" treaty rights, may perhaps be seen as all part of that longer game. The Métis rebellion negotiations led to the province of Manitoba 1870. In 2023, we have Web Kinew, the new premier of Manitoba, of Manidoo-Abi. For the longer game, it may be helpful to think in terms of circles of thematic recurrence, rather than strictly unilinear narratives asserting Crown sovereignty.
Oct 29, 2023·edited Oct 29, 2023Liked by Terry Glavin
Just for the record, my primary reason for citing the CBC piece, other than the utterly unremarkable example of the Indigenous interpretation of treaties being about sharing, was the use of the Anishnaabemowin in the title. A reminder of the narratives underlying the creation story of Canada and of the province of Manitoba in particular.
I was not attempting to make a claim about being or not being a member of team-CBC, which, I gather for some, is a thing. But irrelevant to the point I was attempting to make about narratives and the events cited.
The Assembly of First Nations has to demand that the reservations that are mired in hopelessness and despair be not only helped but revitalized. If there are no opportunities, economic or otherwise, these people need to be moved where they can achieve hope and opportunity. The Assembly of First Nations should be involved in those hopeless reservations where children are sniffing gasoline and put an immediate stop to this tragedy. They have the power and the money. Canadians would support them whole heartedly.
That’s a nice idea. I can tell you stories were the government tried to help but failed. Here’s one. John and his wife were hired to develop a business opportunity on a northern reserve that attracted tourists. He set up a graphics shop where local artists’ work was reproduced. His wife worked with the local women creating dream catchers and other small items. Things appeared to be going well and tourists bought these items. He thought everyone was happy. Then one morning he went to the workshop and found it trashed and the equipment destroyed. He and his wife left soon after and the project was cancelled. He said to me, “The only ones who can help the native people are themselves”.
And as for giving money directly to the reserves, as long as there’s no oversight (Trudeau removed the requirement to post band financial transactions online), that might not be the best idea.
Harper tried to make the native leaders accountable to their people by making them reveal their salaries and expenses. The horror - of course Trudeau couldn’t allow accountability because that is racist. The Assembly of First Nations should be the ones demanding accountability.
Didn’t AFN leader Roseanne Archibald who left the post, accuse that agency of financial shenanigans? I’m sorry Trudeau let this happen as band members now have no idea where the money goes.
If I remember history correctly, that was the gist of Trudeau Senior's infamous "white paper" - scrap the Indian Act and allow them to stand on their own feet. The biggest pushback came from the native leaders. Implementing it would have been the end of the gravy train that continues to this day.
Everybody gives lip service to this notion of Canada being a "rule of law country." Canada is a rule-of-law country. All law in this country derives from the sovereignty of the Crown, and despite the excesses of British imperialism and so on, aboriginal rights law in Canada derives from English common law and constitutional law (which long predated the 1982 Constitution, which Liberals, especially, prefer to forget).
Despite fashionable pleadings, Canada was not simply imposed upon Indigenous peoples without regard to their rights and liberties. Canada is not the "illegitimate racist colonial settler state" of highbrow melodrama.
Aboriginal rights - and aboriginal title - derive from Crown sovereignty, which is asserted most plainly in the context of treaty-making. We are not savages, like the Americans were when they "settled" the west.
In Canada. the Crown's fundamental relations with Indigenous peoples was determined primarily by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which the Americans abrograted after their revolt in 1776.
The "honour of the Crown" is at stake in all government conduct with respect to the rights and land title vested in Indigenous people by their own customary laws. Those rights are not absolute. Not even close. However:
The jumped-up Barbra Stresiand boyfriend with a messiah complex who thought he could just wave a magic wand and abrogate the rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada, and violate the solemn treaties the Crown entered into with the Aboriginal nations of this country, discovered that he was not as all-powerful as he imagined himself to be.
And that's why PET's 1969 "white paper" ended up in the dustbin of history, where it belonged.
Interesting read.Thank you. It's sad that they have to try so hard to get justice. From what I know, it doesn't appear to me that they're playing a long game. But if they are, they should've started a long time ago. Demographically, Canada is not the country they signed treaties with.
Thank you for your continued advocacy for an evidence and reason-based analysis of events and for your valuable research-based columns. I found myself nodding in agreement as you described the impact of relativism and Foucault's analysis of power as the fundamental driving force in a academic work today. In recent exams, student's have struggled to understand how historical veracity and truth can be discerned. Given the academy's retreat into relativism, the Trudeau government's cynical embrace of this nonsense for political reasons without any grasp of the potential consequences is even more problematic. At the same time, I am optimistic. Calling Canada a "so-called" state, suggesting that it is a genocidal, white supremacist construct, and that any form of barbaric resistance is permissible seems like it is perhaps a step too far. I see a few former progressive voices expressing concern. Some still deny that Hamas committed any crime; but others have found their voice.
Hang on to that optimism for dear life, Robert, and share it as often as you can in these threads. We all desperately need some of that hope. There have been a number of articles over on The Free Press that suggest, as you do, that the events of this past month may have shaken the woke out of their certitude, or at least removed the veil from some eyes.
Well that was an eye opener for me Terry. I was never a fan of the NDP and therefore had not paid much attention to their platforms and policies. This has opened my eyes to the depth of the problems we face. I have no idea how we return from this antizionist and antisemitic disaster that has allowed to go on under the guise of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. Similar to the decolonization movement in Canada and the anti christian evolution, that amazingly to me, is accepted and promoted in the churches. Its the demise of ones own identity, beliefs, and life, to a moral punishment and self loathing that is apparently to end in their own demise. Its absolutely amazing that the leftest leaning people are urging punishment for sins they believe we have been guilty of and that we should be punished, mentally, financially, physically, while setting ourselves up for our own complete anialation. With those deemed the guilty party cheering on the demise of the Jewish people, not realizing that they themselves are next. Its absurd, disturbing, and hedonistic. Yet here we all are. I dont know how we come back from all this or even if we can. Its penetrated every Institution in our country. We have become our own worst enemy.
Accurate comment and great article. It's been remarkable to see people realize the level of antisemitism around us in Canada and how progressivism will be the downfall of our society.
Yes, chaos is being created on a planet even they cannot leave.
Terry, for now just let me congratulate you on the hours of research, contemplation and writing you so obviously put into these lengthy and peerless articles. Each one, with its possible lead-ins to supporting and background pieces, is damn impressive. Take your acolades, Sir, because you deserve them FULLY! Bravo!
Yes It is refreshing to see the truth exposed.. what is depressing is the fact that Liberals like Trudeau, Jennifer O’Connell, Mark Gerretsen et al will dismiss this as racist bigotry. The recent Oct 7 vile genocidal slaughter should have given them pause but it didn’t. They are like the “useful fools” and “fellow travellers” that Lenin and Stalin used and mocked. We have a gigantic “Chamberlain moment” growing in intensity. The ravaging flames of destruction are at our gates. Those that ignore history
Thanks for commenting. Hopefully, I will have time to respond later today.
Amen to that!
BTW, I DON'T have a Substack. I just happened to hit a wrong key one night et, voila, j'ai une substack but really I don't! :)
Bankruptcy happens two ways: gradually, then suddenly.
That quote, attributed to Hemingway, describes how recent events have affected my feelings about the postmodern left. I was only disenchanted but now I'm disgusted.
No bloody wonder you’re exhausted! Thank you for trying to enlighten a corner of the world. You are a valuable (and useful) resource. This anti-Israel, anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, anti-Jews is a complete and utter evil sickness. It has been obvious to me for some time (me, who doesn’t pay nearly enough attention much of the time) that “Canada” (our federal LIB/NDP government) has become overtly against Jews and Israel while pretending not to be. Our “hate speech” laws don’t appear to cover calling for the elimination of Jews. I wondered aloud to my family and friends, why, again, were people so against Jews. Why were they ever against the Jews was and is another mystery to me. Is it envy? Jealousy? What could Jews possibly ever have done to deserve the cruelty that has been heaped on them? No one had answers. Of course, the real answer is nothing and they don’t “deserve” any of it. There cannot be peaceful co-existence of “two states” when Hamas openly states it wants to “exterminate” Jews and Israel. What now? What can I do besides call out the lies when I see/hear them?
There's little than can be done beyond the business of calling out lies at the moment. Reach out to your Jewish family or friends; check in on them. Remember the names of the awful people whose names show up in this newsletter. Be kind to people who are simply badly misinformed. Otherwise: Never forgive, never forget.
Thank you, Terry. I will do my best.
Thank you for your support of Jews and Israel. Thank you for exposing the moral and intellectual rot that permeates so many once-trustworthy institutions.
G-d bless you and keep you, Terry.
I am not sure this is true but if it is it gives me hope. A friend told me that during COVID the German churches got together, all denominations, upon hearing the government was going to close them down. In their gathering they agreed that the mission of the church was to be there for the people during crisis and this was a time of crisis. Accordingly, they told the government they wouldn’t shut down and the government did not force them to as a consequence.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned the German church many years before the war broke out that they must stand against the antisemitic laws being legislated or they would open the gates of hell. But they didn’t. Hell ensued.
If the German church learned its lesson and said we mean it, never again. Can we not too?
In Canada, Pastor Artur Pawlowski was jailed for operating a church during Covid.
Worse than that, he was charged for feeding the homeless on the streets.
What a country we live in now!
Yes but have we learned from that? If it were to happen now how many more would defy orders? I hope many.
I “hope” many, as well, but I don’t have “faith” or “believe” that they would. Covid is my reference.
In Canada, the Liberals are getting rid of Chaplains in the military, as reported this past Saturday in several MSM sources.
In 2015, Justin Trudeau proclaimed that Canada was the first post national state. It’s too bad he didn’t study History. They don’t last long. In the UK, for years one can’t fly the flag of St. George or teach that the Holocaust happened without complaints from certain quarters. Here, we’re destroying Canada’s foundation, eliminating our cultural symbols, changing street names, judging them by present standards and removing monuments to men who built the country. But we’re replacing them with something without a foundation. A old Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.
The collaboration between Islamic and Left-Wing / Marxist forces is driven by a common agenda: hatred for democracy and western civilization.
Also if your read the bible to someone struggling with their identity that can be considered ‘conversion therapy’ with a 5 year jail sentence. But the state can overtly fund grooming activities and it labels any push back as “hate speech” while also invoking the magic word “islamophobia” to pretend to “care” for a group deemed superior despite
Its objections.
To be blunt, it appears the Liberal Party view is the following.
Christianity is bad, burning down Christian churches is okay, nobody gets arrested.
Islam is good, and anyone who disagrees is an Islamophobe, and probably a bunch of other sorts of -ist and -phobe, and needs to be locked up.
We are living in upside down topsy-turvy crazy clown world and this needs to end soon.
Great piece Terry, as always. You are right to "pick a fight" with your fellow journalists and I will note that in your "defence" of the mainstream media over X (formerly Twitter), they have failed to warn Canadians of Trudeau's latest attack on journalism. When they get their way with Bill C-11 and C-18 the content you create will be even harder to access. Until then I'll continue to get my fill from you, Sam Cooper, Jonathan Kay and a small handful of other, whether through Substack, "X" or elsewhere.
Cbc is full of axe grinding grifters creating a vortex of disinformation. If i am here and appreciate what you’re doing, what makes you think i’ll believe every bad source on twitter? If i can find you, i can find other people worth listening to on any platform. Twitter is where i first saw proof the attacks were real. Of course I am constantly vetting source credibility whatever the channel.
Elon can’t immediately personally fact check billions of tweets. It is a platform not a publication. Join community notes if you want to be part of correcting errors on there. People driven by motivated reasoning will find support on any platform. You are working for the better of the mainstream sources. The National Post and Globe are generally ok.
I’ve often wondered if I would have had the courage to hide and help Jews during the Second World War, as many did. You are marked by your mezuzah,Terry, and your powerful, provocative pieces. You have my respect and prayers for protection.
Another incisive piece by journalist extraordinaire, Terry Glavin. There are so few real journalists remaining, most of them having become activists (perhaps hackavists more accurately describes them).
Blessed is the day my friend Barb Kay recommened The Real Story to me, Terry.
Greetings from Goa.
Thanks Terry (as always) for your unceasing efforts in ensuring that sunlight is being shone on those whose attitudes and beliefs are an abomination and an affront to decent human beings. The recent affair here in Ontario with NDP MPP Ms Jama should be an example of the degeneration of our politics and the moral bankruptcy of the current Left. I would add in passing that I am reading Laura Engelstein's "Russia In Flames 1914 - 1917". It is account of the fall of the Tsar, the failure of the Provisional Government, the Bolshevik seizure of power and the ensuing Civil War. There are some disturbing parallels to our own time I am afraid.
Johnathan Haight posted this on Twitter after October 7:
We are seeing the full flowering of Great Untruth # 3 this week, from The Coddling: “Life is a battle between good people and evil people”. It can lead otherwise good people to celebrate war crimes.
One of the most chilling books I've ever read was Ordinary Men, by Christopher Browning. It details how quickly and easily "otherwise good people" go from simply celebrating to actively participating in genocide. The parallels to current events are ominous.
An excellent but tough read. Goldhagen’s. ‘Hitler’s Willing Accomplices’ is even darker, broader and though difficult to stomach, really ought to be mandatory reading.
Agreed!
While Goldhagen leans toward that period being a uniquely German phenomenon, I am more aligned with Browning's view that it is a universal human trait. Lord knows we've seen enough examples across the globe. The Germans were simply more efficient.
I’m with you. The line between good and evil runs through every human heart, to paraphrase Solzhenitsyn.
It CAN be a universal human trait. Mao and Stalin were even more efficient, if you look at total mortality.
Most of us don’t know ourselves.
I believe that we all harbour the comforting delusion that we would have been one of the courageous people who sheltered a Jewish family in the attic. The unsettling, statistical reality is that we would have been far more likely to have been a camp guard. A pathetically small number of people actually risked their lives to assist Jews. As an elderly German friend once confided to me, "In 1935, I was a proud Nazi and if you had been in that time and place, you would have been one too".
After seeing actual videos of the SS with their black boots, pistols and dogs patrolling the streets, I’m sure I would’ve done whatever was necessary not to attract their attention.
I’ve been thinking, aren’t we lucky that the indigenous people on the 600 plus reserves scattered among us, haven’t stormed the nearby towns, slaughtering the inhabitants, because we’re on their land?
Just a thought.
To my knowledge, the last time Indigenous folks seriously took up arms and used them to defend their land (versus more symbolic standoffs of more recent origin) was the War of 1812. Their reward for helping defend (and create?) Canada against American invasion? Some 50 years later, in 1867 the new federal government unilaterally claimed jurisdiction over "Indians and lands reserved for Indians", and then unilaterally legislated the Indian Act a few years after that.
Poundmaker, Crowfoot and Big Bear chose to sit out the Métis rebellions that ensued, to bide their time for a more propitious occasion. Indigenous folks may simply prefer the long game and traditional treaty negotiations. The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701 or the Treaty of Niagara of 1764, and what I like to call the 3rd post-Confederation rebellion, section 35, 1982 which "recognizes and affirms" treaty rights, may perhaps be seen as all part of that longer game. The Métis rebellion negotiations led to the province of Manitoba 1870. In 2023, we have Web Kinew, the new premier of Manitoba, of Manidoo-Abi. For the longer game, it may be helpful to think in terms of circles of thematic recurrence, rather than strictly unilinear narratives asserting Crown sovereignty.
The long game... https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/manidoo-abi/
The CBC is not an unbiased source of information.
Just for the record, my primary reason for citing the CBC piece, other than the utterly unremarkable example of the Indigenous interpretation of treaties being about sharing, was the use of the Anishnaabemowin in the title. A reminder of the narratives underlying the creation story of Canada and of the province of Manitoba in particular.
I was not attempting to make a claim about being or not being a member of team-CBC, which, I gather for some, is a thing. But irrelevant to the point I was attempting to make about narratives and the events cited.
Of course not. And no need to claim that they are.
The Assembly of First Nations has to demand that the reservations that are mired in hopelessness and despair be not only helped but revitalized. If there are no opportunities, economic or otherwise, these people need to be moved where they can achieve hope and opportunity. The Assembly of First Nations should be involved in those hopeless reservations where children are sniffing gasoline and put an immediate stop to this tragedy. They have the power and the money. Canadians would support them whole heartedly.
That’s a nice idea. I can tell you stories were the government tried to help but failed. Here’s one. John and his wife were hired to develop a business opportunity on a northern reserve that attracted tourists. He set up a graphics shop where local artists’ work was reproduced. His wife worked with the local women creating dream catchers and other small items. Things appeared to be going well and tourists bought these items. He thought everyone was happy. Then one morning he went to the workshop and found it trashed and the equipment destroyed. He and his wife left soon after and the project was cancelled. He said to me, “The only ones who can help the native people are themselves”.
And as for giving money directly to the reserves, as long as there’s no oversight (Trudeau removed the requirement to post band financial transactions online), that might not be the best idea.
Harper tried to make the native leaders accountable to their people by making them reveal their salaries and expenses. The horror - of course Trudeau couldn’t allow accountability because that is racist. The Assembly of First Nations should be the ones demanding accountability.
Didn’t AFN leader Roseanne Archibald who left the post, accuse that agency of financial shenanigans? I’m sorry Trudeau let this happen as band members now have no idea where the money goes.
If I remember history correctly, that was the gist of Trudeau Senior's infamous "white paper" - scrap the Indian Act and allow them to stand on their own feet. The biggest pushback came from the native leaders. Implementing it would have been the end of the gravy train that continues to this day.
Um. . . no.
Everybody gives lip service to this notion of Canada being a "rule of law country." Canada is a rule-of-law country. All law in this country derives from the sovereignty of the Crown, and despite the excesses of British imperialism and so on, aboriginal rights law in Canada derives from English common law and constitutional law (which long predated the 1982 Constitution, which Liberals, especially, prefer to forget).
Despite fashionable pleadings, Canada was not simply imposed upon Indigenous peoples without regard to their rights and liberties. Canada is not the "illegitimate racist colonial settler state" of highbrow melodrama.
Aboriginal rights - and aboriginal title - derive from Crown sovereignty, which is asserted most plainly in the context of treaty-making. We are not savages, like the Americans were when they "settled" the west.
In Canada. the Crown's fundamental relations with Indigenous peoples was determined primarily by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which the Americans abrograted after their revolt in 1776.
The "honour of the Crown" is at stake in all government conduct with respect to the rights and land title vested in Indigenous people by their own customary laws. Those rights are not absolute. Not even close. However:
The jumped-up Barbra Stresiand boyfriend with a messiah complex who thought he could just wave a magic wand and abrogate the rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada, and violate the solemn treaties the Crown entered into with the Aboriginal nations of this country, discovered that he was not as all-powerful as he imagined himself to be.
And that's why PET's 1969 "white paper" ended up in the dustbin of history, where it belonged.
Best explanation I’ve heard.
It seems at odds with what is commonly heard in the media from many activists and activists, though.
Alberta set to take lead on Trans Mountain Sale to Indigenous Groups. https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/alberta-set-to-take-lead-on-trans-mountain-sale-to-indigenous-groups/49818
Interesting read.Thank you. It's sad that they have to try so hard to get justice. From what I know, it doesn't appear to me that they're playing a long game. But if they are, they should've started a long time ago. Demographically, Canada is not the country they signed treaties with.
Thank you for your continued advocacy for an evidence and reason-based analysis of events and for your valuable research-based columns. I found myself nodding in agreement as you described the impact of relativism and Foucault's analysis of power as the fundamental driving force in a academic work today. In recent exams, student's have struggled to understand how historical veracity and truth can be discerned. Given the academy's retreat into relativism, the Trudeau government's cynical embrace of this nonsense for political reasons without any grasp of the potential consequences is even more problematic. At the same time, I am optimistic. Calling Canada a "so-called" state, suggesting that it is a genocidal, white supremacist construct, and that any form of barbaric resistance is permissible seems like it is perhaps a step too far. I see a few former progressive voices expressing concern. Some still deny that Hamas committed any crime; but others have found their voice.
Hang on to that optimism for dear life, Robert, and share it as often as you can in these threads. We all desperately need some of that hope. There have been a number of articles over on The Free Press that suggest, as you do, that the events of this past month may have shaken the woke out of their certitude, or at least removed the veil from some eyes.
When I was twenty something and idealistic a wise elder told me “sh1t floats to the top”. Seeing lots of that in Justin Trudeau’s Canada.
You left out Jean Chretien saying the Americans provoked 9 11, but a masterly take nonetheless.