Secession? Them or Us?

The post heading is the first question that occurred to me as I read Diane Francis' article, reproduced below:

Rail blockades could turn into a full-blown secession crisis

    The government stand that it does not want to “inflame” the blockade situation is pure cowardice. The nation is being blackmailed and we must never agree to pay a ransom to appease a few bullies who are pressing dubious claims of having sovereignty that pre-dates confederation.

     As Ms Francis observes below, “Such lawlessness has been emboldened since 2015, when Trudeau decided the federal government would not enforce the First Nations Financial Transparency Act.”

 
     Having waived accountability, our government is shovelling funds to indigenous people. 2019-20 transfer spending for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada:

 

Transfer payments for Negotiations of Claims and Self-Government Agreements		$140,082,583
Transfer payments for Specific Claims		$683,719,699
Transfer payments for Management and Implementation of Agreements and Treaties		$1,016,898,027
Transfer payments for Consultation and Accommodation		$600,000
Transfer payments for Consultation and Policy Development		$33,080,295
Transfer payments for Federal Interlocutor's Contribution Program		$79,591,830
Transfer payments for Basic Organizational Capacity		$25,285,531
Transfer payments for First Nation Jurisdiction Over Land and Economic Development		$80,397,462
Transfer payments for Northern and Arctic Governance and Partnerships		$108,867,172
Transfer payments for Individual Affairs		$5,455,720
Transfer payments for Residential Schools Resolution		$1,000,000
Transfer payments for Indigenous Entrepreneurship and Business Development		$43,670,000
Transfer payments for Economic Development Capacity and Readiness		$99,174,478
Transfer payments for Land, Natural Resources and Environmental Management		$139,304,896
Transfer payments for Climate Change Adaptation and Clean Energy		$32,550,000
Transfer payments for Northern and Arctic Environmental Sustainability		$8,956,499
Transfer payments for Northern Contaminated Sites		$86,443,610
Transfer payments for Nutrition North		$95,317,628
	TOTAL	$2,680,395,430

 
Source is here.

     It appears that about $2 billion of the transfers are to offset legal costs incurred by Indigenous bands. In short, taxpayers are funding Indigenous tribes to sue us. Activists blocking highways and rail lines have good reason to believe the federal government will not hold them to account. This illusion can be dealt with.
    Start with arresting and detaining all protestors who engage in the disruption of or access to government or private services. Make a peace bond a condition of bail. Do not impose fines; require a few hundred hours of community service with the alternative of time in jail.
     Indigenous hereditary chiefs are trying to impose 17^th century rule by kings on a portion of Canada. Like their counterparts in Europe and Africa they live in obscurity dreaming of a day when they can exercise the powers of their ancestors. Royalty in a democracy has a tough road to travel.
     Claims by hereditary chiefs that their sovereignty precedes confederation and “colonial law” repeals the human and charter rights of the people living on the lands claimed and negates the common law protections for order and peace.
     A successful claim by hereditary chiefs would mean that residents in the area would receive no services or support from the federal and provincial governments they refuse to recognize. Imposing a royal prerogative cuts two ways.
     There can be no negotiations with hereditary indigenous chiefs until they can prove conclusively that most residents living on the land that they claim accept the chiefs as their leaders. 
     Land claims are one thing and can be argued in court. Claims that inherited rights include the rule of people under royal entitlement is not acceptable in any free world nation. Too much blood has been shed to break the arbitrary rule of kings for us to ever go back to those horrors.

and Trudeau's government is to blame
 
Five years of pandering and subsidizing 632 First Nations leaders has led to this catastrophe
 
DianeFrancis
National Post
February 13, 2020
 
     The illegal road and rail blockades perpetrated by Indigenous radicals across the country are not about pipelines or fossil fuels. It’s an existential threat to Canada and its sovereignty — and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is to blame.

     Five years of pandering and subsidizing 632 First Nations leaders has led to this catastrophe, which is being spearheaded by five unelected hereditary chiefs in British Columbia who claim their nation — the Wet’suwet’en — is exempt from Canadian laws and regulations. They claim sovereignty over a 22,000-square-kilometre swath of land, an area the size of Israel, and have successfully invoked nationwide solidarity protests that have crippled portions of the country’s rail system.

     Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders and their accomplices have defied court orders and ignored agreements signed by 20 band councils, including their own. The issue at hand is the building of a 670-kilometre gas pipeline to a $40-billion LNG plant on the coast, but at stake is the future of Canada itself.

     On Dec. 31, the B.C. Supreme Court ordered protesters to allow workers access to a remote logging road in northern B.C. But Wet’suwet’en activists continued to block the road and, days later, 28 were arrested (six of whom were released without charges). Now, dozens of arrests have followed across the country.

     Such lawlessness has been emboldened since 2015, when Trudeau decided the federal government would not enforce the First Nations Financial Transparency Act. The law requires Indigenous leaders, often inherited chiefs, to be accountable and transparent by forcing them to publish audits of band expenses, including their compensation. Along the way, Ottawa has also sidestepped disputes involving corruption, rigged elections, no elections, nepotism and charter rights violations.

     By ceding its oversight powers to band chiefs and councils, without checks and balances, or any semblance of accountability, the feds have allowed the rights of the Indigenous people who fall under the control of these chiefs and councils to be trampled upon, according to Indigenous lawyer and activist Catherine Twinn. Now, the rights of all Canadians are being trampled on.
 
     Read on: https://nationalpost.com/diane-francis/diane-francis-rail-blockades-could-turn-into-a-full-blown-secession-crisis-and-trudeaus-government-is-to-blame/wcm/37ffc56a-86d4-45ba-bdbb-64b5cb5c56bb 

We must prepare to cast informed votes in the next election. Political parties are not credible or truthful during an election. Their sales pitches do not reflect their performance since the last election. That performance is what counts.

John Feldsted Political commentator, consultant & strategist Winnipeg, Manitoba   To subscribe: https://mailchi.mp/cfabc3018c46/feldsted-friends

First Nations Financial Transparency Act...the Myth!


I ask again...Them?  or Us?