If you are anywhere near Victoria BC on August 24th, head down to Beacon Hill Park for a free salmon barbeque to celebrate the relationship between the T’Souke, Beecher Bay and Songhees First Nations and the neighbouring municipalities. The food is hot off the grill from 11:30 to 2:00 at the Cameron Bandshell.
Having worked this past year with the City of Victoria and the local First Nations there, I can say that this event will be a great time, with good food and interesting people making a real effort at strengthening relationships.
Those of you who don’t live in Canada probably haven’t yet heard of the stand-off between Iroquoian peoples and developers in Ontario. The dispute concerns a piece of land called The Haldimand Tract, the jurisdiction of which is under dispute. The Six Nations people who live nearby, and on whose traditional territory the land lies, moved to stop a housing development there five months ago, with the idea that until ownership over the land is settled, building houses wouldn’t be a good idea.
The dispute has been angry and a little violent, but recently, the provincial government and the traditional government of the Iroquois Confederacy have been in talks to resolve the situation. The province bought the land in question and has moved to compensate some local businesses as well. Conversation is the higher form of peace making, so this is all good.
But then yesterday a judge called David Marshall, inexplicably ordered the negotiations to end, and order the police to move in and arrest the indigenous people at the blockade. This seems completely screwy to me. Courts in Canada usually have to work hard to get governments to the table, not away from it. In fact, the move is so unprecedented that the Ontario government has moved to appeal it. The order has exacerbated the terrible strife between the indigenous and non-indigenous residents of the area.
What would lead a judge to order police to move in before negotiations, which were going well, by all accounts? Could the fact that he owns land within the tract in question have anything to do with it?
I hope the appeal succeeds and the parties are allowed to negotiate again. If not, it’s a sad day for Canadian justice, what little of it there is left for indigenous peoples here.
I haven’t posted much music lately, but here’s a track I was listening to last night. Gathered into this play list at Motel de Moka is a beautiful track from Alex Cline called Wreath of Rain. And here it is, an mp3 for your listening pleasure on a summer day when rain threatens.
A beautiful photograph of a beautiful sculpture made of paper, by artist Peter Callesen.
I love this because it is about flow and it required the same for its production. And it’s quite something to see where that little canoe is going!
PS. This is my 1000th post here at Parking Lot, give or take a few. Thanks for reading along!
Serendipity. Nancy White posted yesterday about why we seem to be suffering from a lack of innovation in the world, and whether it was all about the culture of control and fear. To which I replied – in several hundred words now – look at schools.
And then today, AKMA has a nice post on a talk he is due to give to some Christian anarchists about his family’s experiences with homeschooling, and it’s lovely and concise and carefully thought through and all that stuff that I love about AKMA’s writing.
Something’s in the air, eh?