Should Canada lose the UK monarchy?

The death of Queen Elizabeth has prompted The Tyee's 'quick quiz' poll asking if we think Canada should cut ties with the monarchy - @ this link:

https://thetyee.ca/Polls/2022/09/08/Canada-Cut-Ties-Monarchy/?results=true#poll-results

Here's my - kinda lengthy! - (optional) comment explaining why we must CUT THE CORD🤞 (esp. now that Charles the adulterer & his 'queen' are in)

Consider the following truths, which flowed from the gut - & the heart - because keeping well-informed is as essential to me now as breathing..

Canada's govts all talk about 'Reconciliation' without owning the genocidal atrocities VS. 1st Nations people by colonisation - carried out "by the Queen's men". 

Decolonization & honoring U.N.D.R.I.P. are ways to properly "reconcile" with FNs -- by addressing not just burying/ denouncing early colonial Govts' widespread land grabs (= why FN kids were forcibly removed from their families/ homes & put into jail-like residential schools that condemned & replaced their ancestral FN oral histories/ truths with Govts' false narratives of 'valid' control..) 

White 'settlers' were the main beneficiaries of colonial Govts' land-grabs/ power theft, while FNs were victimized & vilified, & corralled into Govt-ordered 'reservations'. Unlike other provinces, BC's founding officials didn't bother signing treaties for unceded FN land - they just appropriated & began enriching themselves by their unsustainable development/ extraction.. 

Colonial Govt-ordered apartheid/ oppression/ segregation of residential schools & reservations produced new generations of compliant Anglicized FN who returned as foreigners to their families, stripped of their elders' culture/ knowledge/ language/ traditions.. 

Many other FN kids were adopted by WASP families in an underhanded process that confirmed Govts' total disdain for indigenous rights - eg. the '60s scoop', info on which most non-indigenous citizens - & possibly many FN - are woefully ignorant.. 

Fast-forward to today & the past few years of Govt-claimed Reconciliation: 

●While backing assimilated pro-logging, pro-industry FN bands, the BC-NDP has steadfastly ignored legit opposition by hereditary FN leaders (jurisdiction holders of vast territories outside of bands, affirmed by the Supreme Court) to industrial mega-projects like CGL pipeline built thru their lands without consent; 

●Govt's automatic response to rightful FN protection of their own lands VS. CGL's many ongoing violations (reported on BC Govt's website: LOOK IT UP & be appalled!) has been to send in RCMP troops in military gear to suppress their eco-activist-backed peaceful protests - by all accounts, the same-old ugly harassment, intimidation & violence as b4.. despite BC-NDP's adoption of U.N.D.R.I.P. into BC law.. 

(It's to hereditary FNs' credit that they've resisted cont'd colonial oppression/ victimization & kept their cultural values, to inspire 'land protectors' of all stripes fighting for healthy communities & ecosystems against all odds: RESPECT)

 Point is, our Govts (& main 3 political parties) have been hypocrites & liars favoring polluting big-industry/ globalization over interests of citizens & communities for too long.. & still push ecocidal, risky & polluting projects on Crown land - in which the Queen has never intervened or shown concern. Clearly, they don't care about Cdns - & it shows. That's unacceptable in 2022! 

Yet when elected, officials pledge allegiance to the Queen instead of to serving their constituents, giving Govts even more of an excuse to work for corporations & not people. A true democracy is governed by its people - not answerable to a distant uninterested monarchy or any other entity.. 

Canada must be the only British colony that hasn't requested independence from the Crown!  And that's a sad reflection of Cdns' apathy/ complacency - of which our govts have taken enough advantage (ie. Screwed us over repeatedly!) 

We have never been so desperate as now to have the Greens - with or without a distant monarchy - lead Canada toward a better, healthier & happier destiny for everyone - but esp. for our kids & future generations...

(Let that sink in)

FAX BLITZ: to BC-RCMP/TC Energy gooFs..

 (You can too - in fact, PLEASE DO:  For justice!  Here's the link from the aws Wilderness Committee:  https://www.wildernews/ChannelYrRage

& here's my letter, for inspiration:

I'm writing to express my profound horror that you & TC Energy back the BC-RCMP's deplorable treatment / trespassing of Wet’suwet’en 1st Nations to make way for your (CGL) pipeline : Whatever you may believe/ were told by the BC-NDP, THESE are the FACTS:

●Article 10 of U.N.D.R.I.P. (UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which BC HAS instated) is V clear that “Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories": NOW U KNOW

●RCMP action on Wet’suwet’en territory is a shameful violation of Indigenous rights & ignores the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that recognizes Aboriginal title TO THAT AREA

●Pointing machine guns at unarmed women & journalists is totally unacceptable! These officers must be held accountable for putting civilians at risk & continuing to use force where they have NO JURISDICTION 

●That the RCMP saw fit to carry out this crass operation on behalf of a gas pipeline co. EXACTLY WHEN emergency resources were needed for flood relief in southern BC proves who the force - & YOUR CO. - prioritize (& it's NOT US BCers!)

●TC Energy has exhibited nothing but entitled arrogance since starting this "economic dud" (experts' words, not mine) - a reckless endeavor which belies ALL science re. Fracking/ LNG: I.E. it's polluting, uneconomical, unsustainable.. & ruins ANY chance we have at meeting BC's/ Canada's climate goals

PLEASE: Quit acting like you're God's gift to BC (you're not even BCer-approved, let alone lawful.. or even liked!) DO THE RIGHT THING & STAND DOWN. Leave Wet’suwet’en territory & the Yintah - as you were asked, by its rightful leaders/ residents, many times. Abide by the Courts & allow the Chiefs to exercise their sovereignty - before you spark an ugly war.. (YOU are the criminals here, & will lose!)

Consider yourselves warned, by just 1 of the MANY who support the Wet’suwet’en people defending their hereditary lands from your diabolical operations.

FYI: informed BCers oppose ALL fracking, LNG & new FossilFuel projects in this province. So you know.

Thank you very much.

SARAH (SAZ) CHESTERMAN

RECONCILIATION day: The REAL Truth of BC's Beginnings..

[Written to Ecojustice the day after Canada's 1st Truth & Reconciliation day]

Subject:  Appeal to back Old-Growth forest defenders in legislating a transition out of destructive deforestation & into protection of BC forests

[excerpt from a Mclean's mag article - full article @this link: McLean's article ]

How a smallpox epidemic forged modern British Columbia

Article by Joshua Ostroff  August 1, 2017 (excerpt)

On Mar. 12, 1862, the San Francisco steamer Brother Jonathan pulled into the colony of Vancouver Island, a former Hudson’s Bay Company fur trading post that had exploded in population after a mainland gold rush.

  

Along with merchandise and mules, the ship carried 350 passengers to Victoria — home to 4,000 to 5,000 colonists, with slightly more Indigenous people from various nations camped nearby for trade and work. Most of the passengers were heading to a new strike on the Salmon River...

But along with his pickaxe and gold pan, one of these miners brought another piece of unexpected cargo: smallpox.

The man was quarantined. But the British Colonist noted that, without preventive measures, “we fear that a serious evil will be entailed on the country.” And the measures the colonial government chose —limited vaccination efforts, and declining to try a general quarantine, which would have kept the crisis localized— wound up leading to an epidemic when police emptied the camps at gunpoint, burned them down, and towed canoes filled with smallpox-infected Indigenous people up the coast...

Over the next year, at least 30,000 Indigenous people died, representing about 60 per cent of the population — a crisis that left mass graves, deserted villages, traumatized survivors and societal collapse and, in a real way, created the conditions for modern-day British Columbia. Less than a decade before BC became Canada’s sixth province, the colonial response to this crisis formed the basis for the fraught relationship between First Nations and government...

“The smallpox epidemic […] changes everything in British Columbia,” says John Lutz, the head of the University of Victoria’s history department and an Indigenous-settler relations specialist. “The citizens of Victoria, one could say, panicked. Or, one could say, with a less charitable view, that they deliberately drove the Indigenous people out of town, and that spread the disease back to their home communities up and down the coast.” 

It was a betrayal that hasn’t been forgotten by many Indigenous people. “The sad thought is, if they had contained those people who contracted smallpox within the Victoria area, the Indigenous population would be far, far higher today,” says Marianne Nicholson, a Victoria-based 1st Nations artist and anthropology Ph.D.  “The colonial authorities […] knew that would spread smallpox throughout British Columbia,” she says. “That was an act of genocide against Indigenous people.. At that point the [government] wanted to be able to claim those lands without having to compensate or recognize Indigenous title."

That thinking —that the colonial response was part of an active land grab as opposed to a tragedy they made much worse and took advantage of— is pervasive. And while there is no concrete evidence of it, historian Robert Boyd did argue in his landmark book The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence that “the Whites knew” the epidemic was avoidable, and that it “paved the way for the colonization of their lands by peoples of European descent.” 

The Colonist even reported at the time that First Nations were worried Governor James Douglas “was about to send the small pox among them for the purpose of killing off the tribe and getting their land.” (Douglas dismissed this at the time as a hoax)

Taken together, the smallpox response, the creation of the residential school system and a ban on the potlatch —a tradition that helps pass on oral histories— have been seen by Indigenous people as efforts to force them to “accept the colonial grand narrative that British Columbia acquired Indigenous lands fairly and in a legal manner,” says Nicholson.  “The significance of the 1862-1863 crisis lies in the presence of a rapidly expanding white population due to the Gold Rush...  newcomer numbers surged as Indigenous populations fell by as much as 90 per cent in some areas." 

Whether or not smallpox began as a colonial conspiracy, settlers started occupying the flat, fertile land that was left seemingly abandoned as devastated Indigenous communities consolidated with hopes of later returning home, says Lutz. “A lot of First Nations village sites were lost to that.”

A belief in terra nullius, or the settlement of “empty land,” spurred land commissioner Joseph Trutch in 1864 to refuse recognition of Indigenous title, kiboshing treaty-making and reducing reserves mapped out pre-epidemic by 92 per cent. “The Indians have really no rights to the lands they claim,” he argued, doling it out instead to settlers, miners and loggers.

That’s why, unlike the rest of Canada, the bulk of B.C. is built on disputed, unceded land; there are almost no treaties establishing rights.

One Indigenous nation, though, did fight back in defence of its land. In 1864, the Tsilhqot’in declared war after being threatened with smallpox by the foreman of a road being built through their territory. This battle, the Chilcotin War, ended with the hanging of six chiefs, an act that then-premier Christy Clark apologized for in a 2014 speech that acknowledged that “there is an indication [smallpox] was spread intentionally.”

“If one applies generally the principles of the Tsilhqot’in title case, British Columbia is a province unlike the rest in that it owns comparatively little of its natural resources,” says Tom Swanky, a Quesnel, B.C. author of books that allege that the epidemic was a “war of extermination” for land.  Without smallpox, B.C. would look like the numbered treaty provinces, Swanky believes. “The Crown eventually would have purchased native title, little by little or territory by territory, as needed and, under the Canadian system, the province now would have had some more understandable claim to resources.”

While Indigenous consent is an issue across Canada —the Supreme Court recently ruled on the Crown’s duty to consult Indigenous people on development projects— few First Nations have as much leverage today to address environmental and economic concerns as those in B.C. because treaty-less land is in legal limbo; governments can still overrule opposition, but now must prove “development is pressing, substantial and meets the Crown’s fiduciary duty."

[END ARTICLE EXCERPT]

Surely, current forestry/logging practices cannot be proven as fiduciary nor pressing -- although they are substantial enough to jeopardize our thriving future.. 

Since Ecojustice was instrumental in the groundbreaking Tsilquotin Nation treaty process, it makes perfect sense to support the Fairy Creek forest defenders in their (/OUR) efforts to save our precious biodiversity & old-growth forests from disastrous DEFORESTATION by logging operations.. Unless that'd require a separate process of which I'm unaware?

I leave you with one last link, to an excellent article which shows BC Forestry is NEITHER economical NOR sustainable:

https://www.focusonvictoria.ca/issue-analysis/35/

Selective, sustainable harvest - i.e. what NO BC forestry co. has EVER done, nor been required to do by our Govt. - apparently hasn't been proposed by ONE of the logging giants operating in BC:  clearly they intend to keep on honing the status quo, which is most accurately described as SYSTEMATIC WIPING-OUT OF OUR RARE & VALUABLE 1,000-YEAR-OLD GROWTH FORESTS ALONG WITH EVERY DEPENDENT LIFEFORM IN A DESIGNATED CUT-BLOCK.  One thing is clear:  if we don't stop this unconscionable rape of our only protections against cont'd degradation --> extinction, it won't be long b4 the forestry industry will bring that eventuality by their stubborn refusal to upgrade their activities to align with required climate action (incl. emissions reductions) 

Thanks so much for considering! I look forward to hearing your response..

SINCERELY,

SC.

My [removed] comment on a Narwhal article..

WOW: it's discouraging that this happened in The Narwhal, a paper considered one of the most hard-hitting among 'alternative' media, & one that's gained my respect.. Did I GO TOO FAR/ HIT BELOW THE BELT? Express too much emotional & not enough 'factual' data? Maybe.. [I dunno].. 

FACT IS, I respond IN KIND to aLL an article conveys --& may carry over other built-up feelings/ opinions from recent related articles/info to form a 'Big Picture' gleaned from accumulated sources. And with recent in-depth exposes on the BC Govt. abounding, THIS piece REVEALED iN 3D just how dangerous & dishonest our Govt. iS.. 

Given the BCNDP's obvious heinous disregard for BC's future & acTuaL 'Reconciliation' with 1st Nations peoples --& the false public image with which they (& the corporations to which they consistently pander) MISLEAD the public, again & again-- as a dedicated BCer rallying to protect our native biodiversity & our precious old-growth ecosystems from destruction via BCNDP permits handed out recklessly like candy, I feel my response is MILD in light of Govt's obvious [UNETHICAL & UNJUST] trajectory.. & the clear conclusion that our provincial Premier Horgan & Co. are USING the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to 'get away with' heinous corruption & eco-crimes -- i.e. BIZ AS USUAL for BC Govt's shameful history of corporate pandering & indigenous GENOCIDE.. [Just sayin'..]

EXTREME DISHONOUR & DISRESPECT FORCE EXTREME REACTIONS-!?


The Narwhal piece in question hit me square-on with realization that compounds cumulative essays upon news items upon commissioned reports ETC. over the past year & a half of murderous ECORUIN aided & abetted by the BCNDP [directly opposing their elected platforms/ promises] -- so yes, I responded with blatant honesty & open eyes to the appalling direction the BC Govt. is dragging this province --i.e. DOWNHILL, FAST-- as reported in THIS Narwhal article:

B.C. orders Coastal GasLink to stop pipeline construction near protected wetlands

[Here's my comment:]

Where are the BC Greens when they're desperately needed to step in & OPPOSE the BCNDP's reckless issuance of permits to corps B4 they fast-track catastrophic destruction of important natural ecosystems?

It's SICKENING that Horgan's SHAM BC Govt. (like those b4) are letting forestry/ O&G corps get away with widespread ECO-RUIN --including clear-cut logging of our last remaining precious old-growth forests-- while claiming to be on track with their 'CLEAN BC' "plans": WHERE's Govt's compliance with their self-proclaimed respect for indigenous rights? Where's Horgan's [promised] Species At Risk law protecting BC's threatened wildlife habitats??

Equally heinous is Coastal GasLink's reckless --illegal-- disregard of their own "wetlands mgmt. plan" (?), along with their LiES (eg. "Environmental protection is a top priority for us"). Since CGL have already cleared 80% of the pipeline's "right-of-way" without a single concern for ANY of the 300 protected wetlands subsequently harmed, HOW can Govt's confidence in "resolving these issues" be trusted --esp. as the Wet’suwet’en's opposition IS UNCHANGED?

Bottom line: Govt.'s benefit agreements [/MOUs] coerced from some #1stNations are clearly A FRAUD (proven repeatedly w/ past resource rapes) & Govt's pipeline push --for a toxic LNG-soaked future that refuses 1st Nations autonomy AND reconciliation-- is ANOTHER BETRAYAL THAT DENIES EVERYONE A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE.. (SHAME)

[OK, i feel slightly better now..]