Get your act together

With all the drumming, smudging and war whooping going on at the barricades in Northern BC, it's hard to figure out the issue?  Yes, yes, we know some Indians don't want a pipeline.  Ever.  Anywhere.  But who speaks for, and represents, them?  I thought it was the elected band councils who all signed on to the agreements, but apparently it's actually the "hereditary" chiefs -- the ones all up-in-arms at the moment.

Or not.  In fact, I read an article in 'The Globe and Mail' on the weekend entitled "Who's in control of the land".  Written by four "scholars" in the field, none could answer the question.  After two pages of head-scratchings and musings, no one could figure it out?  The truth is it's all Crown Land owned by the government, but lent to natives for their exclusive use.  Frankly, it could all be gone tomorrow at which time they would be forced to integrate into mainstream Canada.  But it won't and they won't.  Too much money at stake. 

Maybe the old ladies manning the blockades are really the ones in charge?  Or maybe not?  In fact, the Indians don't seem to know who's running the show either.  Were I an elected official, I would consider their undermining of due process a direct insult.  Either they have a democracy or they don't.  The old-lady chiefs are really ceremonial.  They would be akin to our GG, who has a role, but doesn't play it without the permission of the ruling government -- unless you're the imperious Michaelle Jean who, in a pre-1689-King George II move, had the unmitigated gall to hold up the Harper government and make the prime minister cool his heels in the front hall while she fiddled around checking google to see what other defiant move she could pull.  (He showed her when he appointed her something-or-other to Haiti, from whence she had come.)

The natives bray on about wanting self government and blah, blah, blah.  But they can't even manage to decide who's in charge of an illegal protest!  Here's a bulletin:  You'll get true self-government when you renounce the Indian Act, raise your own money, forego Canadian taxpayer funds, tax your citizens, raise an army, defend your borders, build your own schools, social services and health care systems, provide senior care, build roads, manage your water and sewage systems.....and on and on. 

It would be as if my teenage kids insisted on being dealt with on an equal footing on everything and that we treated them as independent beings, all while they were living under my roof, eating my food and taking everything I provided willy-nilly.  Basically, to be a "nation" you actually have to be a "nation".  Until then, don't talk about nation-to-nation anything.  It's all balderdash and BS.