AFN proposes expanding reconciliation commission panel

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081115.TRUTHANDRECON15/TPStory/National

JOE FRIESEN

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

November 14, 2008 at 9:45 PM EST

The Assembly of First Nations has suggested expanding the residential schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission to five members in an effort to extricate the panel from the mess left by Mr. Justice Harry LaForme's resignation. The parties to the settlement are still trying to find a new chair after Judge LaForme's resignation last month. Louise Arbour, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, was approached, but declined to pursue it, said Ken Young, director of the Indian residential schools file for the AFN. Edward John, grand chief of British Columbia's First Nations Summit, a long-time aboriginal leader, lawyer and residential school survivor, is now seen as a leading candidate. The AFN proposal would expand the commission from its original structure of two commissioners and a chair to four commissioners and a chair. It would dilute the influence of remaining commissioners Jane Brewin Morley and Claudette Dumont-Smith, who Judge LaForme said had undermined his authority and tried to outvote him on every issue. Their determination to stay on as commissioners has become a source of controversy, as several native groups have called for a clean slate, and candidates for the top job have expressed reluctance to step into a dysfunctional situation.

Mr. Young, who has been an adviser to national chief Phil Fontaine, said some of the churches support the idea of a five-member panel, and Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl did not oppose it when the national chief raised it. “The chair has to be replaced and we have to do it as quickly as possible. If there's an appetite for five commissioners, we'll appoint two new commissioners and a chair and have five,” Mr. Young said. “It's beginning to look like more of a possibility as time goes on.” Mr. Young also said a movement has been launched among chiefs across the country calling for Ms. Morley, a lawyer, and Ms. Dumont-Smith, a native health-care worker, to be removed from their posts. He has urged the two commissioners to defend themselves against Judge LaForme's criticisms, but they declined to be interviewed Friday. Instead, a commission spokeswoman supplied a statement from Oct. 21 in which the commissioners said they were saddened and disappointed by Judge LaForme's resignation. A motion on removing the commissioners is expected to be brought forward at an AFN special assembly in Ottawa next month. Mr. Fontaine has so far expressed his support for Ms. Dumont-Smith and Ms. Morley, but if the resolution passes, he will have to accept the wish of the majority, Mr. Young said. “It's best that the two commissioners do something positive with respect to their interests as appointed commissioners. And they ought to do it quickly,” Mr. Young said. He added that the AFN at one point believed that Ms. Arbour might be interested in stepping in as chair, but was told she felt she didn't have time. Mr. John, who attended the Lejac residential school near Fraser Lake, B.C., said it's an honour to be considered for the job. “I've been involved in these issues in B.C. going back to the 1980s, so I have a good understanding of the issues,” he said. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has a five-year mandate to gather the stories of the 80,000 residential school survivors in Canada. The parties to the settlement have been meeting with former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci in an effort to negotiate a process for selecting a new commission chair. They are expected to meet again next week, but a new chair may not be named until 2009, Mr. Young said.

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For what it's worth ... http://allcreatorsgifts.blogspot.com/2008/08/when-pedophile-judges-fear-exposure.html Ed John, a native leader accused of using Mafia tactics, and running cocaine and child prostitution rings, was actually named Minister of Child and Family Services in the NDP (socialist) provincial government in 2000. ... Beautiful Vancouver B.C., site of the 2010 Winter Olympics, was described by the "Christian Science Monitor" in 1997 as "a pedophiles' paradise," a place known for its "notorious sex trade," with an international reputation "as a city where it is easy to find a child for sex." In 1999, UNESCO named Vancouver one of the world's top three centers for sex trafficking, child porn and pedophilia because of "suspected judicial protection for child sex offenders." In 1994, Renate Andres-Auger, an aboriginal lawyer and single mother of six girls, found irregularities in a land claim case that were very damning to the judicial process. She also charged certain judges and lawyers with a criminal conspiracy to aid and protect pedophiles. She and her own lawyer Jack Cram presented evidence, including photographs and eye witness accounts that two Supreme Court judges were engaged in pedophilia and were using their office to protect other pedophiles. She named the prestigious "Vancouver Club" as a center of this pedophile ring. (Kevin Annett, "Hidden From History: The Canadian Holocaust," p. 147-150) The Judge ordered Auger removed from the court. "The sheriffs dragged Andres-Auger out of the court and you could hear her thumping down the stairs behind the judge's bench." Then the Judge ordered the sheriffs to remove her lawyer Jack Cram. Police were called to clear the courtroom of about 80 supporters. According to a press release (http://sisis.nativeweb.org/clark/cram.html), this is what happened when Cram took the cause to the public: "One night at about 11:30 p.m., after finishing a radio interview, Mr. Cram returned home, parked his car, and while walking to his apartment building five policemen emerged out of the bushes and leaped on him. He was put in an unmarked van and as soon as they got him in they "shot him full of something" and he was transported to the psychiatric ward of Vancouver General Hospital -- as a "no information" patient. ... In Canada? You bet! Take off the blinders, folks. Indigenous children in Canada, their families and communities devastated by the ravages of residential school traumas and the poverty Canada imposes on them, have been 'apprehanded' from their homes and bought and sold as sex slaves whose lives were expendable since Europeans first arrived here. Live 'snuff' shows involving children have been reported. In Quebec, it is well known that the Catholic church sold children (of unwed Catholic mothers; 'Duplessis Orphans') into the MK ULTRA CIA mind control experiments ... SOLD CHILDREN FOR MONEY. If the Catholic church would sell 'their own' children in Quebec ... it stands to reason that Indigenous children in other provinces would also be treated as commodities to bring money into the Catholic church.

Studies show that in British Columbia, an aboriginal child is about six times more likely to be taken into state care than a non-aboriginal child.

Of all B.C. children in state care, 51 per cent are aboriginal, yet aboriginal people represent only about 8 per cent of the provincial population.

Ms. Fraser's office also called for better research on what happens to aboriginal children placed in the care of the state.

http://inshuckch.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!50E40D6025443FD4!1818.entry Until this situation is thoroughly investigated by external bodies, and it has until now only been shoved under the rug by threatening people who tell the truth, imo Ed John has no business holding the reins of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In addition ... In September 1992, when the tripartite agreement to create the BC Treaty Commission was signed Grand Chief John was one of the signatories to the agreement on behalf of the BC First Nations Summit. Grand Chief John was elected for a two year term to the three member political executive of the First Nations Summit, the Summit Task Group, in 1993, 1996, 1998, 2000 and again in June of 2002. The BC Treaty Commission process attempts to extinguish Aboriginal Rights upon negotiation of a treaty. This is illegal under Canadian and international law, and that fact has now brought the treaty commission to its knees as the courts uphold Aboriginal Rights regardless of treaties. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081017.RBRETHOUR17/TPStory/Business Ironically, Canada's courts uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples better than Ed John: Ed John signed away/gave up the rights of Aboriginal people in BC, without their consent. It is clear to me that Ed John does not represent traditional Indigenous Peoples, and thus cannot address their interests on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In fact, Ed John also would not represent the interests of Canadians in such a position either as we expect the whole truth. Ed John might represent the interests of some 'powerbrokers' like himself, but that is directly in opposition to representing the interests of ordinary people in Canada, aboriginal and not. IMO, granny

"It's how he keeps control - by terrorizing his own people." Anonymous 2008

The 'enrolment' game ... Someone is lying! The federal government says about 100,000 to 150,000 students were enrolled in Canada's 'Indian' Residential Schools in total, over the entire 100 years. The Anglican Church says 75,000 to 100,000 in its schools alone, accounting for only 26 of the 80 schools. (It does not appear that the Catholic and United churches have provided their enrolment numbers.) Records in the National Archives indicate death rates of 50% and up. Conservatively, 50,000 children died in the schools. 80,000 survivors are still alive today. Were there really only 50,000 to 75,000 students in the remaining 54 United and Roman Catholic schools? I think not. If all residential schools were populated at the same rate as the Anglican ones, taking 75,000 as their estimate, then there would have been over 230,000 students in total, not 100,000 to 150,000 as claimed by the federal government (INAC). Someone is lying and it appears to be the federal government. Why? Because if the total enrolment was 230,000 or more, and the death rate was 50% or more, then well over 100,000 children died in Canada's 'Indian' Residential Schools. That's hard to explain when you claim to have had altruistic but misguided purposes. Could it be the purposes of Canada's 'Indian' Residential Schools were neither altruistic nor 'misguided'? Could it be that the high death rate of children in the schools was the purpose? Certainly Duncan Campbell Scott, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at the time, thought the high death rates were right on target:

"It is readily acknowledged that Indian children by habituating so closely in the residential schools, die at a much higher rate than in their villages.

"But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards the final solution of our Indian Problem."

*(DIA Superintendent D.C. Scott to BC Indian Agent-General Major D. McKay, April 12, 1910).

Will the truth be allowed to come out during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? So far it is not looking good.

Healing Canada? ... Gardens? For whom? This CNN piece below has me thinking about 'healing'. What does it take to heal a nation from its own crimes of genocide? Certainly reminders ... public acknowledgment, commemoration ... Public gardens are appropriate for reflection ... but ... for whom?

Cathedral offers garden to sex abuse victims From Peter Ornstein CNN OAKLAND, California (CNN) -- Terrie Light stands outside Oakland's stunning new modern cathedral in a first-of-its-kind garden that honors victims of clergy sexual abuse. She was abused by a priest at age 7.

For the first time, the Catholic Church has offered a garden that honors victims of clergy sex abuse.

"It's a really small, important physical representation of a horrific thing that happened in many places," she told CNN.She says the garden's centerpiece, a symbolic low stone sculpture that's broken, is fitting for those whose lives were shattered by priests. "The energy that the artist put was this circular stone trying to pull itself to become unbroken. That is our journey. That is what we try to do every day -- is to try to be unbroken."The garden is placed near a wall of the Cathedral of Christ the Light, which was consecrated September 25.Two low-curved benches bracket the sculpture, one facing toward the cathedral, the other facing away. The benches are surrounded by hedges. Watch the bishop of Oakland apologize to victims »The bench placement is deliberate and takes into account the feelings and needs of abuse victims.Those who choose not to face the cathedral end up facing a small lake across the street.Father Paul Minnihan, the provost of the cathedral, says it was important to have the garden -- for the victims, and for the church to atone for the sins of its past."Part of the church's mission is to make sure we bring healing to people who are in need of it, even if we were the cause of it," he says. "Having this garden on the campus says we are serious about our desire to help in your healing process on whatever level. As this cathedral will be around for 500 years, so will that garden as a place of healing and hope."

Nowhere is it even suggested that the guilty church institutions and the church members who sustain them without proper oversight would also benefit from the reminder, from use of the garden to humbly reflect on the misdeeds of the church. Perhaps a noble gesture ... or perhaps just more patronization? Isn't the church the broken one in need of healing? Back to Canada ... 'Indian' Residential Schools ... Children who suffered ... Children who died ...

While many community leaders, including elders and a former United Church minister, have spoken of unmarked graves on the sites of residential schools before, this is the first time federal researchers have attempted to compile documentary evidence as to the extent of these discoveries.

The material obtained by The Globe and Mail was completed by two researchers at Indian Residential Schools Resolutions Canada.

Their findings, submitted in an April, 2008, report, reveal several schools had cemeteries on school grounds.

The reason for the placement of cemeteries on the school grounds is not given in the research documents. But in the case of two schools in particular, the researchers found detailed documents describing graves without markings.

Graves without markings, at the residential schools ... How many died? ... Why? Why were their families never informed? Children who escaped ... Did they survive? Some did ...

2003 Grassy Narrows ON: CLEARCUT DEFIANCE

http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/032703/news3.html

Another warrior, Charlie, 48, has a soft and slow voice that can be difficult to follow, but his stories are worth the effort. He was put in residential school at the age of seven and escaped several times, each time getting sent to a school further from home. Four years and six escapes later [1966], he was in a school near Sault Ste-Marie, where the nuns beat him unconscious with hockey sticks. He still has the scars.

"I knew that if I stayed, they'd kill me, so I escaped again. I made it to Winnipeg [1,450 kilometres away] on foot through the bush, living off the land, fooling the police dogs in the woods. They didn't catch me that time until I was 21," he says. The other men his age have similar residential school stories. Nothing can happen to them in jail or in a gunfight that's worse than what already has.

And some did not survive the escape ...

https://lists.mayfirst.org/pipermail/bearwithoutborders/2007-December/001594.html

But I wonder: How much will Canada pay for Joey Commanda, walking in fear along an isolated stretch of train tracks, shuffling his way homewards hundreds of miles in the distance, wishing his Akwesasne pals were there to show him the way. Maybe the lawyers can chip in and buy him a decent memorial. Or perhaps, they can stop the rumbling train in my mind before it hits Joey and drives his nearby brother Rocky insane.

And some are still finding ways to survive ...

http://cfar.proboards104.com/index.cgi?board=discuss&action=display&thread=166&page=1#563 For the participants of today's rally, just confronting the church without fear was enough of a victory. "It made me happy for the first time in a long time, you know?" said an older survivor from the downtown eastside. "Did you see the way even the cops stood back and didn't stop us? I didn't get scared when I saw them show up. Not even that f ... ing priest scared me. I guess being here all together like this was like, the start of our healing."

I believe in public gardens to commemorate the children who suffered and the children who died in, or because of, Canada's 'Indian' Residential Schools. I believe it would help to inform Canadians, because we cannot begin to heal until we know the truth, a place to pause and reflect on our responsibility to oversee the work of our governments and institutions, to be sure that in working in our interests they are never again infringing on the rights and lives of others ... never again taking children from their parents and their ways, only to abandon them to unmarked graves ... thousands of graves ... all across Canada.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.

- attributed to Edmund Burke

So far, this is the history of Canada ... evil flourishing against Aboriginal People ... children ... while we Canadians did nothing to stop it. A garden ? ... well ... it's a small beginning.

My favourite view in Canada - 'Sleeping Giant', north of Lake Superior. I don't know why but this view really draws me into the land somehow. Uncover the legend of an Ojibway (?) chief turned to stone by the Spirit of the Deep Sea Water at Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. Hike to the top of the park's massive granite cliffs for a stunning view of Lake Superior. Or you can just drive the Trans Canada and pull over in a lookout. It is an unbelievably awesome view, that can't be conveyed in a picture, the hugeness and magic of Lake Superior itself, and the mysteriously calm and reflective giant in the water. -------------------- GrannyRantsON