Once, after I’d written about the standoff at Caledonia, Ont. — in which a group of Mohawk squatters took over a subdivision, intimidated local residents, blockaded roads and assaulted police until the Ontario government bought them the subdivision and gave it to them — an aboriginal activist wrote to my editors insisting I didn’t understand the relationship between First Nations and the rest of Canada.
Aboriginals were not like other Canadians, she insisted. Their communities were not just ordinary communities. “We are like two canoes together in the same stream, each separate but sharing the same current.”
That may sound meaningful, even poetic, but it is largely rubbish.
If aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians are like two canoes, how come we non-aboriginals largely paid for both canoes and do most of the paddling in each, too?
All payments to Indian bands involved with this nonsense should cease. They are flagrantly flouting the agreements that they entered into when they signed those treaties, which specifically forbade them to interfere with commerce or the freedom of Canadians to travel and work. I see no reason why they should have a claim to taxpayers’ dollars while they attempt to cripple our economy.
