Speeches from the Crowd

  No treaties were made with the indigenous nations whose territories are now considered a Canadian province called British Columbia. Instead, a breathtaking policy of criminalization and assimilation has been vigorously carried out against them. 

Present day governments continue with processes that, although recently re-named and cosmetically improved, are unconstitutional and prohibited by the 1948 Genocide Convention: deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. 

The indigenous nations have never joined Canada but had citizenship imposed on them while the province has never fulfilled Canada's constitutional requirements of purchasing their lands before settling. BC's economy is 80% derived from extraction of natural resources from lands and waters that have never been ceded, sold or surrendered to them by their indigenous owners. 

The ongoing colonization of British Columbia relies on settler indifference to the indigenous. The Colonial Present documents the colonizer's manufacture of a new mythology to dehumanize the original peoples and strip them of their rightful places in the world. 

This book is an exploration of how such a stunning string of events continues unchecked, and British Columbians' continuing attempts to rationalize them. 

" This is history as it should be done."
WARD CHURCHILL

"This fascinating study provides a template not only for understanding but transforming colonial realities throughout North America."

- Natsu Taylor Saito, Professor of
International Law, Georgia State
University 

Short Stories

There is a deep churning within identity, 

where the devices of history, of humanity, 

are polished. 

One of the grindstones is the place we live 

and call home.
There is a growing commonality around the world, among individuals' sense of displacement. The search for belonging ensues. It is often negotiated through that tempest of dust kicked up along others' paths, as their identities suck and whirl and 

even offer shelter.

Some of these stories go to the impact of European imperialism on Indigenous peoples here in the west. Some turn back onto upheavals among Europeans which cracked ancient human codes, and dwelling places, in similar fashion. The road home comes up against borders real and imagined; physical and spiritual. Borders are sometimes advanced against us, and sometimes they are nailed up in defense by people who can no longer recognize us.Very often, after all we have been through to finally return, the old place just isn't the same. And neither are we.

Every Final Agreement produced in the BC Treaty Commission's "modern day treaty" process has been the subject of court action and human rights complaints, and has caused searing divisions within the Indigenous community engaged in it. 

Why are Agreements which are criticized in UN human rights committees still being sought by Indigenous communities? Because the present day alternative - abject poverty or open confrontations with the police and government - is forcing them to take the only means available to keep their people in houses, to start businesses, to access a small part of the wealth of their own lands. 

The BC treaty process affords loans and investment - and then results in the extinguishment of aboriginal title, the modification of all aboriginal rights, and a settlement package too small to sustain even the next generation of people. Meanwhile, Indigenous Peoples have the same rights as any other peoples in the world, and they have the right not to be subject to genocide: "deliberately imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the group." 

With excerpts from open letters, UN Human Rights Council committees, and press statements.