NO RIGHTS FOR CREES?
I guess the moose crap hit the fan lately with Quebec Native Affairs Minister Guy Chevrette’s letter to the Crees. Basically the letter is an ultimatum to the Crees saying they were negotiating in bad faith because they were taking Quebec to court over forestry and were planning to apply for an injunction to stop all forestry operations in the Cree territory until the matter was resolved (see News, page 5).
Chevrette told the Cree leadership in the letter that, because of this, Quebec would not be negotiating or talking to Crees on the Memorandum of Understanding. MOU monies fund essential-services projects in Cree communities.
You can tell the Quebec government subscribes to H.L. Mencken, whose claim to fame is when he said, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace in a continual state of alarm (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing them with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
The imaginary hobgoblin in this case is that it is impossible for anyone to talk or negotiate while in court. What a concept. It goes against the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states in Article 10 that “everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.” This is reinforced by Article 30, which says, “Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.”
Thus, it would seem the courts are a recognized manner of settling differences between peoples without recourse to violence. It would also seem the last time I looked the Péqists were looking for recognition of their right to separate and claiming it under aspects of the United Nations.
How droll that they would subscribe to one section to support their claim while denying another people the rights guaranteed in another section. One might almost think they were becoming the English menace while the Crees were becoming the down-trodden French.
Perhaps it is time that the Crees separate from Quebec. Can their actions be any less than what they say they have suffered at the hands of the English?
Aristotle once said, “Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.”
In this case I applaud the Cree chiefs and Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come’s reply to the insulting letter received from Quebec. They are understandably angry at the right people for the right reasons and at the right time. A denial of fundamental rights and the withholding of monies required to complete essential-service projects is not just petty, it is dictatorial and cruel. It is a situation that would have Quebec yelling bloody murder if the Feds ever attempted the same.
It’s reminiscent of the old double-standard when adults used to tell kids don’t do this while doing it in front of you. Kids didn’t fall for it then and I’m glad to see the Cree leadership didn’t fall for it today.
