And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 23:18:31 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Lynne Moss-Sharman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Canada 9/28/99 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" CONNIE AND TY JACOBS Tuesday, September 28, 1999 Jacobs feared foster care Family says child-abuse worries prompted shots at RCMP By NOVA PIERSON, CALGARY SUN TSUU T'INA NATION -- A lingering fear her children would be abused in foster care may have played a part in Connie Jacobs' decision to fire at a Mountie, her family said. "She made it clear to me she never wanted her children to be in the hands of social services," her sister Cynthia Applegarth told Jacobs' fatality inquiry yesterday. "She felt one of the children had been abused when they'd been apprehended, when they'd been in care." Applegarth and brother Brian Lambert testified they believe the decisions of two child-welfare workers and a tribal constable led to the exchange of fire between Jacobs and an Okotoks Mountie. The shotgun blast fired by Const. Dave Voller killed Jacobs and her nine-year-old son Ty instantly. Two Tsuu T'ina child-welfare workers and tribal Const. Tammy Dodginghorse, who testifies today, were trying to take Jacobs' four children and two grandchildren into custody March 22, 1998, before the shooting. "I'm not here to blame any one of the people," said Applegarth. "I'm here to find out what happened. If there's weakness in the system -- social services, the RCMP, the tribal police -- hopefully this inquiry will find them and strengthen them. "This could happen on any reserve in any community." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Margaret Wente wonders who pays for the sins of the fathers MARGARET WENTE Tuesday, September 28, 1999 Globe and Mail Floyd Mowatt's story is a tragic one. At the age of 8, he was sent off to St. George's, an Anglican residential school in rural British Columbia that was responsible for the education and religious instruction of native children. His dormitory supervisor was a sexual predator, who molested Floyd Mowatt and several other boys for years. That was nearly three decades ago. The man who preyed on Mr. Mowatt, Derek Clarke, was eventually tried and convicted for his crimes and is in jail for a good long time. But the issue of who should pay for Mr. Mowatt's suffering, and that of other residential-school victims, is not so simple. It is the messiest moral and legal dilemma in Canada today, and it is going to tie up the courts and lawyers and mediators for many years to come. The size of the out-of-court settlement reached with Mr. Mowatt is confidential, but it's believed to be around $200,000. Last month a judge ruled the liability should be split 60-40 between the church and the federal government. Not all that much money -- but Mr. Mowatt's is only the first in a flood of settlements about to hit the church like a giant tidal wave. Last week, the Anglican archbishop of B.C.,David Crawley, made front-page news when he said the local diocese of Cariboo could face bankruptcy because of the liabilities it faces over St. George's. To raise the money, it may have to sell off its church buildings in Prince George, Kamloops, and dozens of other towns in northwestern B.C. "It's a sad possibility," says the archbishop. "It's not a bottomless well, and it wouldn't take long to eat up the assets." In the 26 residential schools once operated by the Anglican church, there were four known sexual predators who have since been identified and exposed. Those four alone are responsible for more than a 100 current claims of sex abuse. Those are the simple, clear-cut cases, and neither the church nor the government are contesting their validity. Settlement of those cases alone will cost millions. In addition, thousands of other former residential-school inmates are also testing the system to claim damages for a host of other crimes -- anything from physical or emotional abuse to involuntary confinement and cultural deprivation. The Catholic Church and the United Church face their own sets of claims. And on it goes. The adversarial legal system is a terrible way to resolve these disputes. It's wasteful and expensive, and it pries open old wounds. It revictimizes the vulnerable, opens the door wide open to opportunists, and fails to address the underlying emotional issues of reconciliation and healing. On that, everyone agrees. But no one agrees on a better way. Ottawa is struggling to set up pilot projects in alternative dispute resolution. But there's so much wrangling over the terms and conditions that progress has been glacial. Meantime, plaintiffs' lawyers are heaping abuse on the Anglican church and the archbishop for trying to duck their obligations. But the church isn't trying to duck. It has no pot of gold. And the practical problems are monumental. Each diocese is a more or less independent financial entity and has few assets apart from its buildings. The governing body of the church, the General Synod, has been picking up the enormous legal bills but doesn't have any significant assets of its own. Perhaps the bishop of Cariboo can persuade the bishop of Toronto to sell off all his buildings, too. Or perhaps they can all borrow against the next 100 years' worth of offerings in the collection plate. "We need to acknowledge that our whole system of relationship with native people has been terribly flawed," says Archbishop Crawley. Is there not something also terribly flawed in crippling the churches of today to atone for the sins of the past? In the small native settlements of the Cariboo, people still go to church to marry and bury. Would they really be better off if the church weren't there? E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pay natives not to fish, says environmentalist Executive director of Sierra Club says lobster fishery cannot survive extra pressure By DEBORAH NOBES - N.B. Telegraph Journal 9/28/99 If Ottawa wants Mi'kmaq people to stop hunting and fishing, they'd better come to the negotiating table with their wallets open, says the head of Canada's most influential environmental group. Environmental lawyer Elizabeth May is executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, and says politicians and bureaucrats must begin talks with natives immediately to figure out a settlement package that respects both the recent Supreme Court decision and the province's wildlife. She says money is an obvious carrot that might convince natives to forfeit some of their rights to conserve threatened species. Ms. May, who is also a professor of environmental studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, says native people should tie up their boats as a gesture of good faith, and immediately begin talking with both levels of government. She says many resources - such as lobster or salmon - are on the brink of collapse and cannot withstand any extra pressure. But she also says native people shouldn't be expected to suffer because of decades of fisheries mismanagement from Ottawa, and must be compensated for what they might be asked to give up. "Essentially we owe them," she said. "There would have to be a negotiated package. What is the incentive for them to give up one of the few things they've ever won, which is a court decision saying they have an absolute right to fish year round? That's a lucrative right. They have it in law. If there is going to be a restriction on that right and if it has to be obtained through a negotiated process, it would seem to me that it would have to include saying 'We're going to compensate you because you've forgone your right to fish during this period.'" Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Mi'kmaq people can make a living from hunting and fishing, and are not subject to any government wildlife regulations. The ruling prompted natives in some communities around New Brunswick to set out in boats with hundreds of lobster traps, angering non-native fishermen who can't fish because the season is closed. Some believe the stage is set for a violent clash on the province's fishing wharves, between natives taking advantage of their long-denied rights, and non-native fishermen who believe the ruling is simply not fair and will upset the industry. The Maritime Fishermen's Union has demanded that the Prime Minister step in and suspend the ruling, and asked consumers and fish plants to boycott the native fishermen. This weekend, officials with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans met with native leaders across the Maritimes, asking them to stop fishing until some kind of deal is hammered out. Natives in some communities ignored DFO's request, continuing to set their traps and haul fish from the water. Ms. May, who is speaking this week at a fisheries conference in St. Andrews, says neither approach is acceptable. She says there is no evidence to suggest first nations people will not act in the best interest of the resource if they are given the power to govern it - and she says Ottawa has done an awful job of ensuring the future of Canada's fisheries. She says the best option would be for native and non-native fishermen to join together and wrest control of the resource from Ottawa, negotiating agreements on local a local level. That means bands would co-manage the fishery with non-native fishermen and conservation groups on a river-by-river, zone-by-zone level. "We have nothing to be proud of in the record of non-native fisheries management, but we tend to react hysterically to the news that natives have the right to fish or hunt outside of our existing unsustainable practices," Ms. May said. "I believe that if everybody just calms down and starts talking, that there will be a far more creative and better solution for everybody than anyone can possibly imagine right now." She says the provincial government's role in all this is to create a negotiation process, to build a structure where native representatives, politicians, bureaucrats and industry can come to the table and feel their opinions will be respected. "The government is sitting there like a bunny in the headlights but they've got to take responsibility and start finding people within the first nations community who can start thinking about the options that are out there," she said. Non-natives give DFO deadline By LISA HRABLUK - Telegraph Journal 9/28/99 Members of the Maritime Fishermen's Union have given the Department of Fisheries and Oceans until the end of business today to force the Mi'kmaq community of Burnt Church to control its fishery. At a weekend meeting between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia native chiefs and DFO officials,the chiefs were asked to stop fishing until the two groups can devise a way to merge with existing conservation practices the recent Supreme Court ruling giving natives the right to fish and hunt. Yesterday, many Nova Scotia communities complied; Burnt Church did not, much to the consternation of local non-native fishermen. What the MFU plans to do if the DFO does not act today is not known but at least one fishermen thinks the government's inaction could lead to confrontation. "I think they are waiting for someone to get hurt," said local fisherman Bill Loggie, who said the MFU weekend meeting attracted fishermen from Miscou Island down to Richibucto. "You get a group of 1,000, 2,000 men together, there's no telling what could happen." For the past 10 days, the DFO has been scrambling to find a consensus. Yesterday, MFU executive secretary Mike Belliveau and his counterpart with the PEI Fishermen's Union met with Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal in Ottawa and local DFO officials met with the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council in Fredericton. Philip Fraser, the council's aboriginal fishery co-ordinator, was not impressed with the government's message. According to Mr. Fraser, the federal Justice Department will likely advise the DFO that the Marshall ruling does not apply to non-status Indians or off-reserve natives. The news did not shock Mr. Fraser, who is accustomed to battling both the provincial and federal governments on behalf of off-reserve and non-status natives but he said the council will not accept the government's interpretation of the Marshall decision without a fight. "Where in the decision does it say to limit this to on-reserve Indians?" he asked. "It's like the government's approach to us is to say 'How do you harass them out of this so they don't exercise their rights.'" DFO spokesman André-Marc Lanteigne said a decision regarding off-reserve and non-status natives has yet to be made but admitted the government believes the right detailed in the Marshall ruling does not apply to people off-reserve. As for the MFU's ultimatum, Mr. Lanteigne says government officials hope fishermen will be patient while the DFO and native chiefs sort through the ruling. "We can't clean up the [lobster] traps of people who are fishing legally." Native fishing ruling in peril Cabinet to discuss suspension of court decision on 1760 treaty Rick Mofina The Ottawa Citizen 9/28/99 The federal cabinet is expected to consider suspending a recent Supreme Court decision that gave East Coast natives unlimited year-round fishing rights when it meets today. If the government goes ahead, the rare step is expected to alleviate increasing tension over fishing rights in Canada's Atlantic waters. The industry in the Maritimes is on the brink of chaos in the wake of the recent high court decision upholding a 1760 aboriginal treaty, said officials for several fishing groups, after meeting with Federal Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal yesterday. Mr. Dhaliwal said the federal government "is working around the clock" to resolve the situation. He urged "co-operation and restraint" after the 90-minute meeting yesterday with a delegation representing thousands of fishermen in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. The fishermen are calling for "suspension of the effects" of the Sept. 17 landmark ruling that gave natives year-round fishing rights and has led to upwards of 6,000 illegal lobster traps being set in the past week during the off-season, said Michael Belliveau, executive secretary of the Maritime Fishermen's Union. "The traps have to come out of the water. There's no question they have to come out of the water," Mr. Belliveau said after the meeting. He said the federal government is expected to make a decision within two days after first taking the issue to cabinet today. The federal government, fishermen and native groups will be meeting throughout this week. Angry fishermen met over the weekend in Yarmouth, N.S., and decided to give the government until next Monday to act on the traps, or they would start pulling them out of the water. Uncertainty over the ruling is causing chaos, Mr. Belliveau said. "We have a couple of situations in the Maritimes that are on the verge (of chaos) if not into it already," Belliveau said. "What we're asking for is a suspension of the effects of the judgment until reasonable fishing plans can be put into place. If that's 30 days or 60 days then that's what it should be." The Supreme Court's 5-2 ruling gave Mi'kmaq and Maliseets unfettered hunting and fishing rights, when it overturned the 1996 conviction of native Donald Marshall Jr. for fishing eels without a licence. Mr. Marshall maintained that under the treaty signed between the Mi'kmaq and King George II in 1760, he had the clear right to catch and sell fish without government intervention. The Supreme Court agreed, striking down Mr. Marshall's conviction, but stressing that the treaty limits the Mi'kmaq's fishing rights to daily needs, or what it called a "moderate livelihood" including "food, clothing and housing, supplemented by a few amenities." In its ruling, the high court itself theorized about the issuance of "communal licences" or new limits on the number of fish treaty fishers could catch. Fisheries officials said they are consulting with the Justice Department to clarify these aspects of the court's ruling. Mr. Dhaliwal pledged that federal Fisheries officials would be enforcing federal law against any aboriginal fishermen who violated conservation measures. In the meantime, Mr. Dhaliwal encouraged "all fishers and other stakeholders to remain calm and exercise restraint in this immediate period of uncertainty," in a letter sent yesterday to provincial Fisheries ministers, First Nations, aboriginal organizations and commercial fishing groups in Atlantic Canada. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Archeologists fail to find evidence of 17th-century Fort Jemseg By SARAH MARCHILDON - 9/28/99 Telegraph Journal LOWER JEMSEG - Sitting cross-legged on the banks of the St. John River, Arron Hannah hunches over a shallow dirt pit while he methodically scrapes the brown earth with a trowel. As he flicks the tool along the bottom of the pit, the flat blade repeatedly strikes objects buried in the dirt with a muffled clink. Mr. Hannah sets down his trowel and brushes off the objects for closer inspection. A piece of clear broken glass, a cigarette holder and pieces of pottery quickly pile up. None are significant finds. "We found this," he says, extending his palm. A tiny piece of 19th-century creamy earthenware flecked with blue rests on his dirt-caked finger. To the left and right of Mr. Hannah, the river bank is pockmarked with about 20 similar holes. Supervised by professional archeologists, more than 70 volunteers spent the weekend excavating a site believed to be one of the first British settlements in New Brunswick. By yesterday only a handful of volunteers remained. Unearthing remnants from the 17th century would constitute a major find and may put an end to the century-long search for Fort Jemseg. Provincial archeologist Chris Turnbull says he's looking for fragments of French ceramics because the fort was mostly under French hands. If enough remnants are found, he hopes to go forward with a full archeological dig that could uncover the historic fort. "So that way we get a sample of these artifacts and if they're 17th century, we'll know that we're in the right area of the fort," said Mr. Turnbull. "And if we're really, really, really lucky we would end up with maybe part of the interior walls." But, in an interview last night, Mr. Turnbull said no conclusive evidence of Fort Jemseg had been found. "As it stands now, there's not a hint of any 17ith-century material," he said. "We did not find fort Jemseg." But he indicated the search would continue next year. Fort Jemseg was established in 1659 by Sir Thomas Temple as a fortified fur-trading post with the Maliseet nation during one of the periods when Acadia was under British rule. Located on the east bank of the St. John River about 100 kilometres north of the river mouth, the site was deemed less exposed to marauders than a fort at Saint John. In 1662, Sir Temple was appointed governor of Acadia but his rule was short-lived. In 1667, the area was returned to French control and became an Acadian fort. The fort was raided by Dutch privateers but was again returned to French control, serving as the capital of Acadia for a short time. But the six-metre-tall structure was abandoned in 1701 after a severe flood and eventually collapsed and decayed over the years. In 1899, New Brunswick historian William F. Ganong purported to have found the site of the fort in Lower Jemseg based on the oral history of older residents in the community. The site was declared a National Historic Site in 1929. But an excavation in 1971 showed this was not where the fort once stood and was instead a Loyalist site. New evidence came to light in the second half of the 1990s in the form of old French maps pointing to the location of Fort Jemseg. A dig in 1998 turned up no direct evidence of the fort so archeologists tested a site closer to the river bank. "Let Us Consider The Human Brain As A Very Complex Photographic Plate" 1957 G.H. Estabrooks www.angelfire.com/mn/mcap/bc.html FOR K A R E N #01182 who died fighting 4/23/99 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.aches-mc.org 807-622-5407