Book Launches: June 3+6

A new collection of articles by journalist and author Kerry Coast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVQrmdvPa5M

Thanks to very special guests for bravely sharing their lived experience of "intent"

Carol Thevarge, N'Quatqua - medicine maker and land defender; 

Lyn Crompton, former lawyer for George Manuel and the Lil'wat roadblockers of 1990-91; 

Rosalin Sam, Lil'wat - defender of Sutikalh, community leader and advisor to St'at'imc Chiefs Council; 

Marilyn Baptiste, Tsilhqot'in - land defender, community Chief; 

Annie Ross - Native American artist, teacher, and investigator in the impacts of the nuclear industry in the South West; 

Gunargie O'Sullivan, Kwakwaka'wak - legendary Co-op Radio producer; 

with author Kerry Coast. 

This chat discusses the contents of the book. Please listen and learn the seriousness of the ongoing threats to Indigenous Peoples' lives, lands, families, freedoms, and futures. 

Forced attendance at Indian Residential School was a crime worthy of a nationally observed day to mark it, and yet it is only one part of an endless strategy to destroy the Indigenous Peoples "...until every Indian is absorbed into the body politic of Canada and there is no Indian...".

That objective continues to date. The absorption of an Indigenous person into the body politic of Canada to be the Governor General, or the Minister of Justice, or a Department Chair, does not contradict that objective. Colonial narratives to deny or dismiss the situation only add insult to injury, while masking the ongoing crime.

This book is a collection of articles originally published in The BC Treaty Negotiating Times, The St’át’imc Runner newspaper, and the Vancouver Media Co-op, by author Kerry Coast.

The selected articles report on Canada’s modern pursuit of the destruction of Indigenous Peoples. The “picture of intent” brings a multitude of incidents into a composite view. These articles describe the impossible, everyday situations of Indigenous Peoples - which they continue to defy at great pain and cost. The impossible situations are not naturally occurring. They are thoughtfully designed and manufactured by agents of Canada, hand in hand with an ongoing counter-narrative of denial and dismissal in Canadian culture. Such jargon as “reconciliation” and “new relationships” and “modern day treaties” are the velvet glove which conceals an iron fist. The situations stay the same while the settler story keeps being rewritten for posterity. The popular narrative and the actual situations should be considered together.

“Reconciliation” is not a good word to describe the culpability of Canadians and their state in connection to irreparable harms wreaked against Indigenous Peoples. That concept must be understood in its original usage by Canada’s Supreme Court judges, when they explain that the device of “aboriginal rights” is meant to effect “the reconciliation of the prior occupation of North America by distinctive aboriginal societies with the assertion of Crown sovereignty over Canadian territory.” The word is used as a teeter-totter in place of law, basically mitigating outrageous injustices with paltry and conditional concessions.

What Canadians and Indigenous Peoples need is a remedy. A legal remedy. And no one can be a party to the dispute and the presiding judge.

The purpose of this collection is to help Canadians recognize the need for intervention in their affairs. Assistance from an independent, impartial, third-party tribunal to hear the Indigenous complaint and avail international remedy is required. 

Monday July 1 at 10am, in Lil'wat at the Ts'zil Learning Center, Istken Hall

See video of the launch at:

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuzsKb6zjkQaXWt8E0n7Ysw?view_as=subscriber 

Speaking their truths and supporting Bruce's book and his work on exposing the bias manifest in the Canadian judicial system are: Rosalin Sam and James Louie, of Lil'wat; Ron George, of Wet'suwt'en; Dr. Roland Chrisjohn, of Oneida, connecting with us from New Brunswick, and Dr. Bruce Clark, who will video conference from his home in Ottawa.

“Bruce Clark captures the issue with the title of this book. It may shock those who do not understand the connection between the  denial of Indigenous Peoples’ rights by the Canadian judiciary and the consequences of that denial, which amount to genocide, but the shock can only turn to shame as the reader follows the historical, legal, and constitutional record that prove his argument: the occupier's legal system seeks to erase indigenous national sovereignty.  

     This collection of essays shows how the legal system, which is supposed to provide order and justice to the people is, in fact, in the case of the indigenous nations, used to destroy peoples and their cultures, to create disorder and injustice. Although Clark relies on legal arguments and references to case law, the average lay person who is interested in the subject will be able to come to their own conclusions. Every student of law and politics, of indigenous rights and history should have a copy of this book. So should any citizen interested in Canada and its true character as an imperial power.”     

- Christopher Black, international criminal lawyer

“Justice is a concept that is higher than the self, thus Clark took on the establishment to seek justice for his Indigenous clients. In the end he was punished. Here, Clark presents the legal case for Indigenous sovereignty so the layperson can readily grasp the argument." 

- Kim Petersen, former editor of the Dissident Voice and Original Peoples section of the Dominion newspaper

"Bruce Clark's rigorous analysis of the genocidal unconstitutionality of Canada's treatment of the native peoples and appropriation of their land is a great service in the pursuit of truth and justice. The essays in this book document the abandonment by the legal establishment (judges and lawyers) of the principle of the rule of law, in the service of Empire. This provides needed insight about the current state of Canadian institutional integrity to all who seek a society that actually adheres to democratic and humanistic principles. 

- Joseph Hickey, M.Sc., Ph.D. candidate, Executive 

Director of the Ontario Civil Liberties Association

This book is available in print and in e-book formats. Click the cover above to shop the book.