Read Bulletin

negotiations according to our treaties: ROD March 6, 2008: Acknowledge the

positive dialogue from the Lands Resolution Side Table surrounding the

relationship between HSN and Canada including Canada’s recognition of the

Haudenosuanee Treaties

To some, that might not mean a whole lot. But to the Haudenosaunee it means a

great deal. For centuries we have endured the interference of the Crown in many

areas of our jurisdiction. Over our lands, over our ability to determine who our

people are, and over the laws that we inherently carry, as well as our ability to

support those laws through legislation that is consistent with our ancient covenants.

Indeed this was seen as a breakthrough. Especially when every day, we see many of

our people being criminalized for actions which, in accordance of our law, would be

perceived to be upholding their responsibilities and obligations in trying to stop the

further encroachment and theft of what little is left of lands within the Haldimand

Tract, as well as protecting our hunting and fishing rights throughout the beaver

hunting grounds.

It also supports what the Haudenosaunee have known all along……. that all of the

cries of extortion regarding the Haudenosaunee Development Institute and

demands by local MP’s calling for arrests of hdi members, or the recent attempt by

the City of Brantford to pass laws in an attempt to ‘control the indians’ , and by

their trying to use the police as political pawns in an attempt to threatening our

elders and people if they fail to stop their peaceful demonstrations……. are nothing

more than smoke and mirrors .

What they are really doing is trying to confuse people while they bide time and try

to figure out how to prevent an outright civil uprising by their own people. First of

all by the developers who are realizing every day that a development gets stopped,

that they have been frauded by the Crown; and that the recently purchased lands

that they intended for development, they’ve come to find out that the

Haudenosaune have underlying title and undeniable land rights. The second area of

uprising is coming from all of the Canadian citizens living on the Grand River who

have been frauded of their tax monies. They too are realizing that the life savings

they’ve invested and the money they are paying in taxes, that they really have no

security. Take a look at the fellow whose property buts up to the lands of

Kanonhstaton. Recently the press made it sound like he won some great victory or

precedent setting case in the court challenge he initiated. That case meant nothing.

All the court did was to state that they were upholding the ontario lands registry

system (they already were)…….but what the press neglected to report was the

other half of that ruling…….”w/o prejudice of the Six Nations Lands Claims”.

Meaning, we’ll have to wait and see what happens at negotiations. In other words,

nothings changed. His situation is no different today than it was the day before he

walked into that court, and he no more owns the land today than anyone else sitting

along side the plank road. Ontario has already admitted it ASSUMED

JURISDICTION over plank road and that they had NO LEGAL TITLE to it. Canada’s

half of the Crown will have no alternative but to admit the same because whether

they take until the fall (which they’ve said they need to search for documentation)

they will never come up with a surrender for those lands……..CAUSE IT DOESN’T

EXIST! The courts did exactly what they were expected to do. Continue to protect

and cover up the greatest conspiracy in the history of Canada. And that picture gets

painted clearer and clearer every day at the negotiating table. And everyday

another person of an Onkwehonweh Nation is charged and fined and thrown in jail

for defending their territorial land base is evidence to the length at which the

CROWN will go to COVER UP the FRAUD and EXTORTION that they have committed

against their own citizens as well as the fraud and extortion they have committed

against the Onkwehonweh.

Another important factor in the Crown acknowledging the Treaties, is the impact

that it has on all other Onkwehonweh Nations throughout Turtle Island. At the last

weeks round of talks the Crown was reminded that while other Onkwehonweh

Nations carry certain responsiblities such as medicines, prophecies etc., the

Haudenosaunee were given the responsibility of carrying and protecting the LAW.

What does that mean? That means that all those other nations, especially those that

the Haudenosaunee already have treaty relationships with, are entitled to the

protection of that law. They come under the umbrella of those great long leaves.

And by rights, it’s not only that they are entitled to that protection, the

Haudenosaunee are obligated to provide that protection, and historically, when

reviewing the minutes of our council meetings from the late 1700’s through the

early 1800’s, there is evidence of many nations throughout Turtle Island, coming to

Grand River to council with the Chiefs.

So having the Crown acknowledge and recognize that we are sitting at the table in

accordance with those ancient covenants was indeed a moment to be recorded in

history. And while they may try to deny, backpeddle and worm their way out of it,

not only is it recorded in the records of decisions of these historic negotiations,

witnessed by many Haudenosaunee and others who were in attendance that day;

more importantly, it was spoken aloud and recorded in Creation, and spiritually, it

has already been acknowledged.

So contrary to what the Crown negotiators may believe, in the eyes of the

Haudenosaunee, this is demonstrous progress!

As far as the accusations that the Haudenosaunee are somehow deliberately

misleading the people, what the Crown is talking about is the mere fact that we, as

resource for the Haudenosaunee negotiating team, set out to determine if what the

Crown has been saying to our Chiefs at the negotiating table, was in deed factual.

Throughout the past two years we’ve heard from the Crown three consistent things:

1. “Canada doesn’t have any land”.

2. “third parties will not be expropriated”.

3. “we can’t stop the development”.

So in line with our responsibilities, we did a simple google search to determine if in

fact any of those statements were true. What we were able to determine in one

simple search, was that all three of those statements were basically incorrect, and

that if anyone was trying to mislead the Haudenosaunee, it was the Crown

representatives. We found land that Canada has been holding land in Pickering

since 1972. Around 18,000 acres of land that it purchased for a potential airport.

They expropriated the land all around it, and we also found

development. Not only did they stop development, but they also did a trade of

land, because one developer didn’t want to sell, and so they offered him land

somewhere else, in return for the lands that they wanted. So what does that tell you.

It tells me that the Crown thinks that our people are stupid. It says loud and clear

that they try to play cute with words, even going so far as to state that we’re “just

going to have to accept it”. The Crown representatives were not happy to say the

least about our presentation. In fact, one of the Crown representatives got so angry

he was pounding his fist on the table, accusing the Haudenosaunee of using ‘an

amateurish play on what they mean by the Crown’ and suggesting that we’re trying

to mislead our people. And like most people who are caught, he tried to cover up

the dishonour by saying that ‘ I meant Canada had no land in the Haldimand Tract.’.

But even that statement is inaccurate. Bottom line is, the only ones who were

making an amateurish play on words and in representing the crown, was the Crown

representatives themselves.

Then they immediately went in to another standard tactic of bullying and

intimidating, and that was by way of threatening to pull the monies that they had

committed for the Haudenosaunee to take this 26m offer out to the people. He

made a statement, something about this being hurtful & if that’s what this money is

being used for……to me, that is what is called a veiled threat. And that’s twice in the

last two negotiations, that the Crown has used veiled threats to try and push our

people into compliance. The last time was only two weeks prior and it was the

provincial negotiators threatening to walk away from the table if we didn’t stop our

people from protesting.

The ironic part of the more recent threat and suggestion that we are somehow

misusing the monies that have been committed, is the fact that the Crown hasn’t

given a dime yet to this process of communications with our people. All of the

work that has been done to date on providing information to our people on the 26m

offer of welland canal flood lands, has been done by volunteers. The monies that the

Crown has committed for this communication process have only just been

transferred this past Thursday. The Crown hasn’t paid a penny in this process to

date. The other reality is, they have nothing to say about it. How we communicate

with our people, or the methods we use to provide them with a better

understanding of the Crowns offer, is none of their business. Especially when the

Crown refused to provide the basic information necessary, in an honourable way,

that would allow our people to determine if its an offer worth considering. Instead,

they ‘play cute’ with words, like “lawyer/client privilege”, and make statements like

“this is all your going to get”. We were left with no alternative but to try and

determine what they based this offer on. But unlike the Crown, rather than

providing our people with nothing, we set out to hire expert economists to examine

the offer of 26M made by the Crown. In fact, we hired one of the very experts that

the Crown has used in other ‘land claims processes’. You want to know what their

expert said

economic perspective, basically incorrect.

And that is simply the information that we have been providing to our people. No

tricks. No misleading. Simply providing the facts.

Beyond that, the other area that the Crown was either deliberately trying to play

dumb about, or simply didn’t get what we were presenting, was the statement that

was made by the Crown representative when he was hollering about how the Crown

was not about to buy or expropriate land within the Haldimand Tract on the

pretense of building an airport and then somehow turn it over to the

Haudenosaunee. HELLO! Nobody was asking them to! That is not what we said,

and again he’s making assumptions. First of all, not once throughout this

negotiating process, did the Haudenosaunee ever say that they only area being

considered for the return of land was going to be within the Haldimand Tract. In

FACT, our people have stated over and over again, why would we buy our own land

back?! So the assumption that somehow we are going to be restricted to return of

land within the Grand River Tract lands is INCORRECT! And the assumption that

we wanted them to expropriate land on the pretense of making an airport was also

ridiculous. We merely showed them that if this was a practice they used to acquire

land to build an airport that might not even happen; surely then, when they are

looking at it from the perspective of ancient covenants and treaties and setting right

the wrongs that they know the Crown has committed against another Nation of

people, SURELY they can use similar practices to restore to the Haudenosaunee

lands that were stolen. Besides, the Burtch lands that have been returned to us

already have a runway on it. If we wanted an airport, we’ve got the beginnings of

one there!

This coming week the Crown is suppose to provide their explanation on exactly

HOW it reached the figure of 26 million offer that it made in December. Finally, after

four months of jibberish, we might actually see what their reasoning is. We know

that the expert economists have shown clearly that the numbers have been

deliberately dumbed down, so it will be interesting to see how the Crown justifies it.

The Crown wants to say that we would have spent it. Historically, it has been

shown through the very leases that our Chiefs agreed to at that same time period,

that the Haudenosaunee were intelligent people, very much business minded, and

always looked out for the future generations. Perpetual care and maintenance.

Meaning FOREVER our people would be looked after from the monies derived from

the lease agreements. Why else would their Indian Agents be writing to the Crown

advising them that “if we do what the Indians have suggested, they will be the

wealthiest people on these lands”. And certainly the Crown couldn’t allow that to

happen! The other half of this picture is the fact that the Haudenosaunee were

never given the opportunity to make those decisions. The Crown was holding the

trust. It was making the decisions of what to do with our money, even when they

knew our people were starving. Not once did those monies ever come to the

Haudenosaunee so that our people could actually access them for our survival. The

monies were invested in many areas on behalf of the Crown, and quite frankly, went

into building this country that you call Canada. So, was our money invested wisely?

Maybe you should ask every single person who has come to know this land as home,

and then remind them that they should thank the Haudenosaunee for it. So I think

if the Crown wants to have something to go by to determine how the

Haudenosaunee would have invested the money, they can only look at what they did

with and from there determine the highest and best possible scenario. They are left

with no alternative but to assume every penny would have been saved cause to state

anything else, they must also show evidence where the Haudenosaunee was aware

of what was happening to their money. And basically, that is what our researchers

did, and what their experts did. That is how the range of compensation that the

Haudenosaunee research team came up with was close to 500M, and the expert

opinions we got to determine if the Haudenosaunee accounting was correct,

supported those calculations. The range received between the two economists went

from 479 Million to just over 1 Billion dollars. So, we are now waiting to see how

the Crown justifies their 26 Million dollar offer.

In the meantime, we will continue to take information out to the people, updating as

we get it, and will continue to seek the input on what, in the peoples’ mind, is a fair

and reasonable settlement on the welland canal flood lands.

And as the Crown continues with its blatant and obvious attempts at undermining

the unity of the people, as it manipulates & spreads its gossip and fear mongering

through the mouths of the knowing and the unknowing, as it attempts to stop and

destroy any progress of working together and presenting a united front of the

Haudenosaunee and all Onkwehonweh against the Crown, that too has been

witnessed by Creation and will be addressed accordingly.

In Love, Light & Peace,

Hazel.