Indigenous News
[eaglewatc
Why are these people smiling???
Has Bob Rae completely hypnotized them and dulled their senses???
FYI
Why are these people smiling???
Has Bob Rae completely hypnotized them and dulled their senses???
Why are these people smiling???
Has Bob Rae completely hypnotized them and dulled their senses???
Matawa First Nations chiefs drop Ring of Fire legal challenge
Most Matawa communities hope negotiations assisted by Bob Rae will also address their concerns about environmental assessment
CBC News
Posted: Sep 11, 2013 3:44 PM ET
Last Updated: Sep 11, 2013 3:39 PM ET
The Matawa Chiefs Council has announced it will stop a legal challenge to the federal environmental assessment of the Cliffs chromite project in the Ring of Fire. Pictured here in a file photo are, from left to right, Chief Johnny Yellowhead-Nibinamik First Nation, Chief Harry Papah-Eabametoong First Nation, Chief Cornelius Wabasse, Webequie First Nation, The Honorable Bob Rae, Chief Allan Towegishig-Long Lake #58, Chief Sonny Gagnon-Aroland First Nation, Chief Celia Echum-Ginoogaming First Nation, Chief Roger Wesley-Constance Lake First Nation, and Chief Peter Moonias-Neskantaga First Nation. (Supplied)
The Matawa First Nations chiefs have withdrawn a legal challenge to the federal environmental assessment of the Cliffs chromite project in the Ring of Fire.
The case was set to be heard by Federal Court later this month.
In a news release Wednesday, the Matawa Tribal Council said that when it started the court case in late 2011, there was no negotiation table, and it was pushed into a corner.
"There's a forum for discussions with Ontario now and it's going to look at the environmental assessment question, as well as other issues," Aroland Chief Sonny Gagnon said.
Talks with Ontario began recently with Bob Rae representing the First Nations, and Frank Iacobucci negotiating for the government.
Matawa said it expects that mining companies and the federal government will also be involved.
Matawa's announcement came one day after a declaration by Marten Falls First Nation, also a member of the tribal council, that it had withdrawn from the court challenge.
The Matawa Chiefs Council has announced it will stop a legal challenge to the federal environmental assessment of the Cliffs chromite project in the Ring of Fire. Pictured here in a file photo are, from left to right, Chief Johnny Yellowhead-Nibinamik First Nation, Chief Harry Papah-Eabametoong First Nation, Chief Cornelius Wabasse, Webequie First Nation, The Honorable Bob Rae, Chief Allan Towegishig-Long Lake #58, Chief Sonny Gagnon-Aroland First Nation, Chief Celia Echum-Ginoogaming First Nation, Chief Roger Wesley-Constance Lake First Nation, and Chief Peter Moonias-Neskantaga First Nation. (Supplied)
The Matawa First Nations chiefs have withdrawn a legal challenge to the federal environmental assessment of the Cliffs chromite project in the Ring of Fire.
The case was set to be heard by Federal Court later this month.
In a news release Wednesday, the Matawa Tribal Council said that when it started the court case in late 2011, there was no negotiation table, and it was pushed into a corner.
"There's a forum for discussions with Ontario now and it's going to look at the environmental assessment question, as well as other issues," Aroland Chief Sonny Gagnon said.
Talks with Ontario began recently with Bob Rae representing the First Nations, and Frank Iacobucci negotiating for the government.
Matawa said it expects that mining companies and the federal government will also be involved.
Matawa's announcement came one day after a declaration by Marten Falls First Nation, also a member of the tribal council, that it had withdrawn from the court challenge.
The case was set to be heard by Federal Court later this month.
In a news release Wednesday, the Matawa Tribal Council said that when it started the court case in late 2011, there was no negotiation table, and it was pushed into a corner.
"There's a forum for discussions with Ontario now and it's going to look at the environmental assessment question, as well as other issues," Aroland Chief Sonny Gagnon said.
Talks with Ontario began recently with Bob Rae representing the First Nations, and Frank Iacobucci negotiating for the government.
Matawa said it expects that mining companies and the federal government will also be involved.
Matawa's announcement came one day after a declaration by Marten Falls First Nation, also a member of the tribal council, that it had withdrawn from the court challenge.
Judicial review not worth the expense
Cliffs Natural loses on Ring of Fire highway route; may appeal
Wed Sep 11, 2013 3:57pm EDT
TORONTO (Reuters) - Miner Cliffs Natural Resources Inc has lost a key land dispute at a Canadian tribunal that could cause more problems for its already troubled Black Thor chromite project in northern Ontario's mineral-rich Ring of Fire.
Cliffs cannot build a proposed highway to the wilderness region without the consent of tiny rival KWG Resources Inc, which has staked claims along the route and wants to build a railway instead, the Ontario Mining and Lands Commissioner said in a decision dated September 10 and posted online by KWG.
Cliffs spokeswoman Patricia Persico said the iron ore miner is considering its options, including appealing the decision. It was not immediately clear what body would hear an appeal.
"It does put the project in jeopardy," said Persico, who noted that the highway is a "necessary" part of Black Thor.
Cleveland-based Cliffs suspended its work on the $3.3 billion Black Thor project in June, citing stalled talks with the provincial government and other political and regulatory problems. It has struggled to win over aboriginal communities in the region.
The Ring of Fire is a cluster of mineral deposits that political leaders in Canada have said could support a century of mining. But the remote region, about 1,500 km (1,000 miles) northwest of Toronto, has no rail lines, highways or reliable power.
Chromite, which is refined into ferrochrome and used to make stainless steel, is heavy, so infrastructure is a major challenge. A highway could open up the district for smaller companies such as Noront Resources Ltd, but Cliffs is not willing to shoulder the full cost of building it, pegged at about $600 million, without government help.
TSX Venture-listed KWG, with market capitalization of about C$35 million ($34 million), is exploring for chromite in the Ring of Fire, and says a rail line offers better value for money. The two sides are fighting over a single route because there is very little high ground or gravel in the swampy region.
($1=$1.03 Canadian)
(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Janet Guttsman; and Peter Galloway)
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Wed Sep 11, 2013 3:57pm EDT
TORONTO (Reuters) - Miner Cliffs Natural Resources Inc has lost a key land dispute at a Canadian tribunal that could cause more problems for its already troubled Black Thor chromite project in northern Ontario's mineral-rich Ring of Fire.
Cliffs cannot build a proposed highway to the wilderness region without the consent of tiny rival KWG Resources Inc, which has staked claims along the route and wants to build a railway instead, the Ontario Mining and Lands Commissioner said in a decision dated September 10 and posted online by KWG.
Cliffs spokeswoman Patricia Persico said the iron ore miner is considering its options, including appealing the decision. It was not immediately clear what body would hear an appeal.
"It does put the project in jeopardy," said Persico, who noted that the highway is a "necessary" part of Black Thor.
Cleveland-based Cliffs suspended its work on the $3.3 billion Black Thor project in June, citing stalled talks with the provincial government and other political and regulatory problems. It has struggled to win over aboriginal communities in the region.
The Ring of Fire is a cluster of mineral deposits that political leaders in Canada have said could support a century of mining. But the remote region, about 1,500 km (1,000 miles) northwest of Toronto, has no rail lines, highways or reliable power.
Chromite, which is refined into ferrochrome and used to make stainless steel, is heavy, so infrastructure is a major challenge. A highway could open up the district for smaller companies such as Noront Resources Ltd, but Cliffs is not willing to shoulder the full cost of building it, pegged at about $600 million, without government help.
TSX Venture-listed KWG, with market capitalization of about C$35 million ($34 million), is exploring for chromite in the Ring of Fire, and says a rail line offers better value for money. The two sides are fighting over a single route because there is very little high ground or gravel in the swampy region.
($1=$1.03 Canadian)
(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Janet Guttsman; and Peter Galloway)
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Cliffs spokeswoman Patricia Persico said the iron ore miner is considering its options, including appealing the decision. It was not immediately clear what body would hear an appeal.
"It does put the project in jeopardy," said Persico, who noted that the highway is a "necessary" part of Black Thor.
Cleveland-based Cliffs suspended its work on the $3.3 billion Black Thor project in June, citing stalled talks with the provincial government and other political and regulatory problems. It has struggled to win over aboriginal communities in the region.
The Ring of Fire is a cluster of mineral deposits that political leaders in Canada have said could support a century of mining. But the remote region, about 1,500 km (1,000 miles) northwest of Toronto, has no rail lines, highways or reliable power.
Chromite, which is refined into ferrochrome and used to make stainless steel, is heavy, so infrastructure is a major challenge. A highway could open up the district for smaller companies such as Noront Resources Ltd, but Cliffs is not willing to shoulder the full cost of building it, pegged at about $600 million, without government help.
TSX Venture-listed KWG, with market capitalization of about C$35 million ($34 million), is exploring for chromite in the Ring of Fire, and says a rail line offers better value for money. The two sides are fighting over a single route because there is very little high ground or gravel in the swampy region.
($1=$1.03 Canadian)
(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Janet Guttsman; and Peter Galloway)
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
[UNA-News] Digest Number 1731
Sept 2013
Friend us!
Waatebagaa-Giizis (Leaves Changing Moon) 1, 2013
Dear Friends,
This fall, I am going to stand up against big oil, and I need your help. I am going to join with my brothers and sisters to say no to tar sands oil, no to dirty coal and fracking, and yes to a future which will nourish us. Please join us – we need your support.
This fall, I am inviting you to join us in this battle, which we are sure is the struggle to protect our Mother Earth, keep fossil fuels in the ground, and renew our covenant with both the Creator, and the generations to come. We are going to work very hard this year :
1. To oppose the expansion of tar sands and fracking imports (in particular
the Enbridge Pipelines in Minnesota)
2. To support the Lakota nation in it’s opposition to the KXL pipeline, which crosses their territory.
This is my invitation to you. My sister and I, joined by friends, are going to ride our horses along the Enbridge Pipeline route, as it passes through our l855 treaty area, as it passes our precious lakes rivers, wetlands, and towns – which are already burdened by high rates of cancer related to pesticides and oil. We are going to pray with our horses, and send that oil back to Canada and North Dakota in our prayers, and we are going to pray for safety.
We are going to talk to people along the way who will want to have their voices heard. We are going to have a spiritual ride to send that power back, and we are going to have an educational moment to inform landowners and towns, as well as our tribal nations, as to the actual possible impact of this pipeline. We will ride at the end of September, just a few of us, but we will have more who will support us.
At the same time, our brothers and sisters of the Lakota Nation will ride their horses in the land not yet tarnished by a pipeline – that is Lakota territory. This is a prairie once full of 250 species of grass and 50 million buffalo. It does not need a tar sands pipeline. And the people who live in the north near the Athabascan River, do not want to see more mining done.
There will be around 5 of us riding here in Anishinaabe Akiing, but the Lakota people are a horse culture, and will be riding together with 20 or more. Their ride will span 200 miles – against the flow of dirty tar sands oil to their land.
They will ride from the Rosebud to the Cheyenne River. They will ride between two
proposed man camps, because they do not want the camps to threaten their women and children, and they do not want the oil. We wish to support them, and
we wish to bring our prayers to the land.
We will ride two times. And we will oppose the devastation that the proposed Enbridge Sandpiper pipeline would cause in our home community of White Earth. We will be working in coordination with partner organizations and allies to launch a media campaign and public education effort against the Alberta Clipper expansion and the Sandpiper pipelines. We will also join our Lakota relatives to ride in the west.
Our plan is to pair our media work with both the rental of two billboards on Highway 2 and I-35, and a speaking tour through our northern communities, which will feature impacted peoples from the Kalamazoo spill and community leaders from our land. This will draw attention to the Enbridge and Sandpiper proposed expansions in northern Minnesota.
We will consider a similar billboard in South Dakota regarding the Keystone XL pipeline.
We will continue our grassroots organizing and advocacy around the issues that disturb our Mother Earth. Please consider joining us. The terrain is large and our hearts and courage are in this struggle. But we need your help. This work needs funding.
So, I am asking you to consider a donation, to sponsor these rides, and support our media and educational work. I am asking you to consider pledging per-mile that I ride, and doing that with our Paypal online, or mail a check to the address listed on our website. We need your support.
Please help by donating to Honor the Earth today
https://www.honorearth.org/
Miigwech (thank you),
Winona LaDuke
Honor the Earth – Executive Director
info@honorearth.org
PS. if you can join us now, we will provide you with one of our new posters, by Alaina Buffalo Spirit, to protect mother earth, for a donation of $100 or more (pictured below).
Please help by donating to Honor the Earth today
https://www.honorearth.org/
Honor the Earth this week is hosting three benefit concerts with the Indigo Girls, a Grammy award winning duo- in Madison, Wisconsin, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Bayfield Wisconsin, where the Enbridge pipeline will be discussed in information and literature.
For more information on the concerts: http://www.honoreart
For more information on the Enbridge pipeline go to IEN's factpage: http://www.ienearth.
©2012 Honor the Earth, PO Box 63
Callaway, MN 56521
Friend us!
Waatebagaa-Giizis (Leaves Changing Moon) 1, 2013
Dear Friends,
This fall, I am going to stand up against big oil, and I need your help. I am going to join with my brothers and sisters to say no to tar sands oil, no to dirty coal and fracking, and yes to a future which will nourish us. Please join us – we need your support.
This fall, I am inviting you to join us in this battle, which we are sure is the struggle to protect our Mother Earth, keep fossil fuels in the ground, and renew our covenant with both the Creator, and the generations to come. We are going to work very hard this year :
1. To oppose the expansion of tar sands and fracking imports (in particular
the Enbridge Pipelines in Minnesota)
2. To support the Lakota nation in it’s opposition to the KXL pipeline, which crosses their territory.
This is my invitation to you. My sister and I, joined by friends, are going to ride our horses along the Enbridge Pipeline route, as it passes through our l855 treaty area, as it passes our precious lakes rivers, wetlands, and towns – which are already burdened by high rates of cancer related to pesticides and oil. We are going to pray with our horses, and send that oil back to Canada and North Dakota in our prayers, and we are going to pray for safety.
We are going to talk to people along the way who will want to have their voices heard. We are going to have a spiritual ride to send that power back, and we are going to have an educational moment to inform landowners and towns, as well as our tribal nations, as to the actual possible impact of this pipeline. We will ride at the end of September, just a few of us, but we will have more who will support us.
At the same time, our brothers and sisters of the Lakota Nation will ride their horses in the land not yet tarnished by a pipeline – that is Lakota territory. This is a prairie once full of 250 species of grass and 50 million buffalo. It does not need a tar sands pipeline. And the people who live in the north near the Athabascan River, do not want to see more mining done.
There will be around 5 of us riding here in Anishinaabe Akiing, but the Lakota people are a horse culture, and will be riding together with 20 or more. Their ride will span 200 miles – against the flow of dirty tar sands oil to their land.
They will ride from the Rosebud to the Cheyenne River. They will ride between two
proposed man camps, because they do not want the camps to threaten their women and children, and they do not want the oil. We wish to support them, and
we wish to bring our prayers to the land.
We will ride two times. And we will oppose the devastation that the proposed Enbridge Sandpiper pipeline would cause in our home community of White Earth. We will be working in coordination with partner organizations and allies to launch a media campaign and public education effort against the Alberta Clipper expansion and the Sandpiper pipelines. We will also join our Lakota relatives to ride in the west.
Our plan is to pair our media work with both the rental of two billboards on Highway 2 and I-35, and a speaking tour through our northern communities, which will feature impacted peoples from the Kalamazoo spill and community leaders from our land. This will draw attention to the Enbridge and Sandpiper proposed expansions in northern Minnesota.
We will consider a similar billboard in South Dakota regarding the Keystone XL pipeline.
We will continue our grassroots organizing and advocacy around the issues that disturb our Mother Earth. Please consider joining us. The terrain is large and our hearts and courage are in this struggle. But we need your help. This work needs funding.
So, I am asking you to consider a donation, to sponsor these rides, and support our media and educational work. I am asking you to consider pledging per-mile that I ride, and doing that with our Paypal online, or mail a check to the address listed on our website. We need your support.
Please help by donating to Honor the Earth today
https://www.honorearth.org/
Miigwech (thank you),
Winona LaDuke
Honor the Earth – Executive Director
info@honorearth.org
PS. if you can join us now, we will provide you with one of our new posters, by Alaina Buffalo Spirit, to protect mother earth, for a donation of $100 or more (pictured below).
Please help by donating to Honor the Earth today
https://www.honorearth.org/
Honor the Earth this week is hosting three benefit concerts with the Indigo Girls, a Grammy award winning duo- in Madison, Wisconsin, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Bayfield Wisconsin, where the Enbridge pipeline will be discussed in information and literature.
For more information on the concerts: http://www.honoreart
For more information on the Enbridge pipeline go to IEN's factpage: http://www.ienearth.
©2012 Honor the Earth, PO Box 63
Callaway, MN 56521
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Our Children Are Not For Sale
Chase Iron Eyes
|
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
[UNA-News] Digest Number 1730
Tue Sep 10, 2013 9:08 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
unitednative
Main street square monday Oct 114th 2013 (Native American Day) From 10:00
AM until 2:00PM
(looking for more sponcers)
The South Dakota legislature, after a proposal by Tim Giago, Oglala
Lakota, then publisher of Indian Country Today. George accepted the challenge and
Giago, the governor, and Giago’s staff lobbied the state legislators and
the bill to drop Columbus Day and replaced it with Native American Day,
passed in Feb. of 1990. The mass media refuses to give credit to a Native
American for instigating and pushing the idea and the bill through the State
legislature.It was changed from Columbus Day to Native American d...ay, to
honor the more than 70,000 American Indian residents in the state. We will
have our annual lunch (Free) with a line up of speakers, Drummers, Dancers,
Story tellers Etc..We are starting early this year. This event will be the
last day of the Black hills Pow-Wow. so if anyone wants to join us please
contac James Swan at 605-381-8612. Flyers will be out on Oct. 1st 2013. All
native groups and organizations are welcome to join us please bring a dish to
share. as events are added we will up date everyone.We will also have a
round dance "Idle No More"..If we get more events we will adjust the hours..
We will be providing a Traditional (free) lunch and we will also start
collecting Coats, Gloves & stocking caps to give away TO THE homeless.
Donations can be sent to: United Urban Warrior Society, P.O. Box 14, Rapid City,
S.D. 57709-0014 or call 605-381-8612.
Update! "Edger Bear Runner SR" will be our Guest speaker and will speak on
Leonard Peltier...
We will have a Hand Drum contest (1st prise only) New buffalo hide hand
drum donated by dakota drum) We are also working on a raffle ...colecting
raffle Items. and donations for our free lunch, Ingreadients for fry bread,
wojapi, Buffalo Stew...Ect..
Current soncers as of 9/7/13
United Urban Warrior Society
Leonard Peltier Defence Offence Committee
Dakota Drum
Intertibal Bison coop.
New Day Recovery Services
Wambli Ska Youth Drum & Dance Group
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
From the Eagle Watch
September 10, 2013
Smelling the Unseen:
Are Your Five Senses Working?
Modern day people are very visual people, always reading or viewing something. Our sense of smell, considered by some to be our most primitive sense, is downplayed in today's crowded urban setting. People from all over the world are put in close proximity to each other. Often they don't like each others' smell which is Nature's way of spreading people out. But the globalized economy requires people of all odours to gather to conduct business. Of course, a lucrative trade in personal care products is the result. The unfortunate corollary is that many people have lost or suppressed their sense of smell.
This means they are unable to sense danger unless they can See it. Many animals depend on their sense of smell to bring important and essential information to them. Humans have lost this ability.
Some of us, especially Wolf People, have very acute sense of smell. We can smell a rat or a pile of doodoo without having to see it.
Thus it is with the latest twist of events in the never ending Algonquins of Ontario AoO land claim saga. This land claim always seems to be about to be resolved but then something happens to delay it yet again. Meanwhile, a dedicated group of performers clap and dance for their payola.
An earlier twist in the charade took place a few years ago when Gilbert Whiteduck, Algonquin Chief at Kitigan Zibi in Quebec jurisdiction, came out in opposition to the Ontario Algonquins' land claim.
He said it was wrong because it did not include the entire historical Algonquin territory, the Ottawa River watershed which actually divides the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, 2 separate jurisdictions in the colonial layout.
Whiteduck's belated opposition begs the question, "Why didn't he point this out 30 years ago when the AoO claim was shaping up?" Timing is so very important for hunter/gatherers.
Now, we have this new twist against the AoO land claim. This time it is cottagers who have in recent years set up numerous lake associations to fight the land claim. They say Aboriginal economic development of lakefront properties will destroy the pristine environment the cottagers currently enjoy. In other words, the Natives are wrecking the environment?? Don't tell anyone, the Frontenacs and Lanark are still great places to live. However, the economy is next to non existent and tourism is the greatest hope for the region. If the trees are cut down and more and more dwellings built, then the greatest lure to the area is destroyed. Meanwhile, young people grow up and leave because there are no economic opportunities for them.
A few years ago, the Ardoch Algonquins (version 1) set out to physically reclaim some land around the village of Ardoch. They decided to take over Pine Lake where some cottages were located. Their actions were brusque and unannounced, kind of an unceremonious colonial way of doing things, not our polite and considered Indigenous way of doing things. The Ardochs caused quite a lot of bad feeling among the cottagers. The Ontario gov was involved in some unusual and secret arrangements over the lakefront "properties" some of which were already owned by entrepreneur and Ardoch war chief, Harold "Many Hats" Perry who asserted his colonial land rights whenever necessary. The matter has since festered into rumours that the Algonquins will build cottages on Crotch Lake right about where the uranium mine had been proposed. The Algonquins have even considered setting up a casino in the bush. It's all a lot of pipe dreams as far as we can see.
So what to do?? Cottagers, usually part-time residents from cities and even far away places like California, oppose the AoO land claim. What a clever ruse to slow down a process that was never intended to be resolved in the first place. We have said this repeatedly over the years.
Such rapid organization on any issue is seldom spontaneous. It is often orchestrated from behind the scenes. We smell the usual sneaking rat at work.
Refresher on a Modern Day "Friend of the Indians"
2011 Conservative Party candidate for Ottawa-Vanier: Rem Westland continues to lurk.
Rem ran for Conservative M.P. in Ottawa-Vanier in 2011. He lost to Liberal incumbent and francophone, Mauril Belanger. He has never been an elected official but has often played a very powerful role in federal matters relating to Indigenous people. Rem was a director at the PCO Privy Council Office during the Oka crisis 1990. A military man, he was a career bureaucrat in the Canadian Gov, having key posts at Indian Affairs and Defence. While at Defence, he negotiated a deal at Nanoose Bay over US nuclear subs in the Georgia Straits. Rem has had a hand in Native land claims and deals like James Bay Hydro.
During the anti uranium mining protests at Sharbot Lake in 2007, we examined Rem's career after being contacted by a member of the Sharbot family, Cathie Duchene who provided us with letters Rem had written. Apparently, Rem considers himself to be quite an Indigenous historian. He appeared to be giving Ms Duchene direction in her endeavours to reclaim her Indigenous identity as a Mohawk rather than an Algonquin.
We wrote about all this in our 2010 work, "A Calamity Threatens Your Happiness". We quoted a 2007 letter from Rem, "What should really be a Mohawk/Huron/Algonquin claim in the area of the Frontenacs is misrepresented as an Algonquin claim - and people of First Nations descent must register as Algonquin to participate - simply for reasons of administrative convenience and historical denial. What this does to the claim is deny First Nations a meaningful capacity to claim Aboriginal title...because the record is very clear that the Algonquin did not have residency after the Mohawk came in and only began to establish residency long after contact. It serves the purpose of governments (federal and provincial) to support the fiction of continuous Algonquin presence."
More excerpts are included below in the notes.
Not long before his announcement to run for federal political office, he wrote a letter published in the FN, Frontenac News, June, 2010, concerning the AoO land claim and the sale of cigarettes. Rem likes to think he's a modern day "friend of the Indians". Part of his current business activities include real estate arrangements and business proposals with "Aboriginal" individuals or groups.
In his letter, Rem wrote, "I ... strongly support the ongoing negotiations." Has something changed? It looks like Rem has conveniently changed his opinion.
He also stated, "I recall commentary in the Frontenac News from a person of Mohawk descent who moved to Sharbot Lake a few years ago (I think she has since moved away again). "
[He means Cathie Duchene, of course. We'll bet they're still in bed together.]
"She believed the dominant Aboriginal presence in the Frontenacs from the early 1600s until the 1800s was the Six Nations. She supported her position with historical information on the fur trade and early European data on First Nation populations. It is unfortunate that the history of Aboriginal peoples in the Frontenacs appears to remain unclear."
Rem writes about "Chief and Council, Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation". He means Doreen Davis, an interesting but disingenuous character. In 2007, Doreen told us a number of bold faced lies. In the face of rumours that the protest would be dismantled, she said the protest would continue. She said this to us in our face in plain English. There was no misunderstanding. A couple of days later she went incommunicado moose hunting and the protests were over.
Like Cathie Duchene, Doreen claims Francis Sharbot as an ancestor. The mysterious namesake of Sharbot Lake came from Lake of Two Mountains, an apparent Mohawk. The matter of Francis' ancestry has never been definitively determined.
Stirring up the cottagers against the Algonquins may seem counterproductive to Rem's efforts to "help the Indians" but it's not. In fact, the more confusion he can spread, the more Rem's services will be needed to sort out the mess. He wields power from behind the scenes, having his hand into many pots.
As a long time president of the SLPOA, Sharbot Lake Property Owners Association, Rem became well known for his expertise on issues relating to land, tax and economic issues in the area. He would be the ideal person to coach these fledgeling cottagers groups on how to deal with the Algonquins. Somebody evidently is! Such opportunists need to be exposed to the light of day. If you have any further information concerning Westland, let us know.
Stay tuned!!
Kittoh
Notes
Wildlife rub trees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
A Bluff Charge by a Black Bear - NOT A BLACK BEAR ATTACK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.frontenacnews.ca/
http://www.earth-treaty.com/
Excerpts from "A Calamity Threatens Your Happiness" by Kittoh
(copies still available by contacting the author]
REM WESTLAND WROTE THIS IN A 2007 LETTER:
"What should really be a Mohawk/Huron/Algonquin claim in the area of the Frontenacs is misrepresented as an Algonquin claim - and people of First Nations descent must register as Algonquin to participate - simply for reasons of administrative convenience and historical denial. What this does to the claim is deny First Nations a meaningful capacity to claim Aboriginal title...because the record is very clear that the Algonquin did not have residency after the Mohawk came in and only began to establish residency long after contact. It serves the purpose of governments (federal and provincial) to support the fiction of continuous Algonquin presence."..........
Who is Rem Westland?
Rem Westland, 1970 graduate of the Royal Military College in Kingston, was in the Canadian military and taught at Carleton University in Ottawa before entering the civil service. He went from being Director of Operations at the Privy Council Office (PCO) 1989-91 to Director General of Claims/Treaty Land Entitlement at Indian and Northern Affairs (INAC)1991-95, and Director General at Ontario Aboriginal Affairs 1995-97. Then he moved on to Department of National Defence (DND) where he was Director General Realty Policy and Plans (DGRPP) as well as being Assistant Deputy Minister for about one year, 1998-99. Rem left DND in 2003. He was at the scene of a number of crises involving military and colonial confrontation in Indigenous communities. Ipperwash and Nanoose Bay come to mind.
Rem who lives in Ottawa's exclusive Rockcliffe, owns a cottage at Sharbot Lake. He is perpetual retiring president of the Sharbot Lake Property Owners Association (SLPOA). Currently he is vice president of Corporate Research Group and team leader for Aboriginal Affairs. Rem likes to present himself as friend of the Indians. He has studied the history. He claims he wants the truth to come out. He sent an email to MNN praising the report "Genealogical Genocide" of February 3, 2008. He actually said, "the time has come to correct the history of the Frontenacs".
If he already knew this, why didn't he say so before? Has he been waiting to get PAID for this priceless information?
...
Rem Westland was Director of Operations at PCO from 1989 to 91, during Brian Mulroney's era. This was the very time frame when the Mohawk Oka crisis took place in the summer of 1990. Some 3,000 Canadian soldiers were deployed in a siege of 55 Mohawks and supporters. Rem wrote notes to Mulroney and sent him "to do" lists. This has been his main function
throughout his career, to grease the wheels and deals of Government workings.
In their own words, the PCO "facilitates the smooth and effective operations of Cabinet and Government". Guys like Westland provide "non partisan advice". As if! He puts Government policy into words and coordinates that policy throughout the various departments of the
bureaucracy.
...
Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC)
Westland was Director General of Claims/Treaty Land Entitlement from 1991-95. The job is now divided into two positions, DG for Specific Claims and DG for Comprehensive Claims. People who answer the phones at INAC don't know anything about it.
...
Nanoose Bay
Westland was the DND federal negotiator during the Nanoose Expropriation crisis in 1999. The U.S. military's lease to test nuclear torpedoes in the Georgia Straits off Vancouver Island was going to end in 1999. They wanted to renew it because it's not easy to find places where the locals will agree to nukes splashing in the bay and nuclear submarines cruising the waters.
"..Naval nuclear facilities are even more dangerous than the ones onshore. Each sub, two football fields long, can carry and launch enough nuclear missiles to "destroy every capital city in the northern hemisphere," according to Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for
Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR)............
An old hand at saying no when he means to say, yes, Westland signed an agreement with B.C. negotiator Lorne Seitz to keep nukes out of Nanoose Bay. David Anderson later overruled and revoked it. A deal was then signed giving B.C. $millions, a lot more than the $1/year the Pentagon had been giving Ottawa. Since 9/11, the testing has increased. The U.S. military literally controls Canadian port cities with the ominouspresence of nuclear submarines. The ever present threat of nuclear andradioactive disaster affects millions of people. All this in the name of "national security"........
Corporate Research Group (CRG)
Rem Westland is Vice President of CRG. They got contracts with Indian Affairs to smooth the way for an agreement between the Quebec Crees and the Federal and Quebec governments so that Hydro Quebec can build more dams and develop more hydroelectricity on the many great rivers in Cree territory. They want to flood and pollute the entire region and kill off the Cree who are in the way. Eventually they want to divert the waterto the drought ridden USA.
Rem and company are for hire as consultants to Aboriginal groups o rbusinesses who want to buy land or businesses. If the Aboriginal group is in good with Government officials, CRG can arrange financing too..........
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
http://www.remwestland.ca/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.wrengroup.ca/nflaa/
Ottawa Citizen [18][19] - Endorsed a Conservative majority government, but also endorsed individual candidates at a riding level: Bernadette Clément in Stormont-Dundas-South, Steve MacKinnon in Gatineau, David Bertschi in Ottawa-Orléans, David McGuinty in Ottawa South, Gordon O'Connor in Carleton-Mississippi Mills, John Baird in Ottawa West-Nepean, Pierre Lemieux in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Scott Reid in Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington, Lawrence Cannon in Pontiac, Rem Westland in Ottawa-Vanier, Pierre Poilievre in Nepean-Carleton, Gordon Brown in Leeds-Grenville, Nycole Turmel in Hull-Aylmer, Paul Dewar in Ottawa-Centre, and Hector Clouthier in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
September 10, 2013
Smelling the Unseen:
Are Your Five Senses Working?
Modern day people are very visual people, always reading or viewing something. Our sense of smell, considered by some to be our most primitive sense, is downplayed in today's crowded urban setting. People from all over the world are put in close proximity to each other. Often they don't like each others' smell which is Nature's way of spreading people out. But the globalized economy requires people of all odours to gather to conduct business. Of course, a lucrative trade in personal care products is the result. The unfortunate corollary is that many people have lost or suppressed their sense of smell.
This means they are unable to sense danger unless they can See it. Many animals depend on their sense of smell to bring important and essential information to them. Humans have lost this ability.
Some of us, especially Wolf People, have very acute sense of smell. We can smell a rat or a pile of doodoo without having to see it.
Thus it is with the latest twist of events in the never ending Algonquins of Ontario AoO land claim saga. This land claim always seems to be about to be resolved but then something happens to delay it yet again. Meanwhile, a dedicated group of performers clap and dance for their payola.
An earlier twist in the charade took place a few years ago when Gilbert Whiteduck, Algonquin Chief at Kitigan Zibi in Quebec jurisdiction, came out in opposition to the Ontario Algonquins' land claim.
He said it was wrong because it did not include the entire historical Algonquin territory, the Ottawa River watershed which actually divides the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, 2 separate jurisdictions in the colonial layout.
Whiteduck's belated opposition begs the question, "Why didn't he point this out 30 years ago when the AoO claim was shaping up?" Timing is so very important for hunter/gatherers.
Now, we have this new twist against the AoO land claim. This time it is cottagers who have in recent years set up numerous lake associations to fight the land claim. They say Aboriginal economic development of lakefront properties will destroy the pristine environment the cottagers currently enjoy. In other words, the Natives are wrecking the environment?? Don't tell anyone, the Frontenacs and Lanark are still great places to live. However, the economy is next to non existent and tourism is the greatest hope for the region. If the trees are cut down and more and more dwellings built, then the greatest lure to the area is destroyed. Meanwhile, young people grow up and leave because there are no economic opportunities for them.
A few years ago, the Ardoch Algonquins (version 1) set out to physically reclaim some land around the village of Ardoch. They decided to take over Pine Lake where some cottages were located. Their actions were brusque and unannounced, kind of an unceremonious colonial way of doing things, not our polite and considered Indigenous way of doing things. The Ardochs caused quite a lot of bad feeling among the cottagers. The Ontario gov was involved in some unusual and secret arrangements over the lakefront "properties" some of which were already owned by entrepreneur and Ardoch war chief, Harold "Many Hats" Perry who asserted his colonial land rights whenever necessary. The matter has since festered into rumours that the Algonquins will build cottages on Crotch Lake right about where the uranium mine had been proposed. The Algonquins have even considered setting up a casino in the bush. It's all a lot of pipe dreams as far as we can see.
So what to do?? Cottagers, usually part-time residents from cities and even far away places like California, oppose the AoO land claim. What a clever ruse to slow down a process that was never intended to be resolved in the first place. We have said this repeatedly over the years.
Such rapid organization on any issue is seldom spontaneous. It is often orchestrated from behind the scenes. We smell the usual sneaking rat at work.
Refresher on a Modern Day "Friend of the Indians"
2011 Conservative Party candidate for Ottawa-Vanier: Rem Westland continues to lurk.
Rem ran for Conservative M.P. in Ottawa-Vanier in 2011. He lost to Liberal incumbent and francophone, Mauril Belanger. He has never been an elected official but has often played a very powerful role in federal matters relating to Indigenous people. Rem was a director at the PCO Privy Council Office during the Oka crisis 1990. A military man, he was a career bureaucrat in the Canadian Gov, having key posts at Indian Affairs and Defence. While at Defence, he negotiated a deal at Nanoose Bay over US nuclear subs in the Georgia Straits. Rem has had a hand in Native land claims and deals like James Bay Hydro.
During the anti uranium mining protests at Sharbot Lake in 2007, we examined Rem's career after being contacted by a member of the Sharbot family, Cathie Duchene who provided us with letters Rem had written. Apparently, Rem considers himself to be quite an Indigenous historian. He appeared to be giving Ms Duchene direction in her endeavours to reclaim her Indigenous identity as a Mohawk rather than an Algonquin.
We wrote about all this in our 2010 work, "A Calamity Threatens Your Happiness". We quoted a 2007 letter from Rem, "What should really be a Mohawk/Huron/Algonquin claim in the area of the Frontenacs is misrepresented as an Algonquin claim - and people of First Nations descent must register as Algonquin to participate - simply for reasons of administrative convenience and historical denial. What this does to the claim is deny First Nations a meaningful capacity to claim Aboriginal title...because the record is very clear that the Algonquin did not have residency after the Mohawk came in and only began to establish residency long after contact. It serves the purpose of governments (federal and provincial) to support the fiction of continuous Algonquin presence."
More excerpts are included below in the notes.
Not long before his announcement to run for federal political office, he wrote a letter published in the FN, Frontenac News, June, 2010, concerning the AoO land claim and the sale of cigarettes. Rem likes to think he's a modern day "friend of the Indians". Part of his current business activities include real estate arrangements and business proposals with "Aboriginal" individuals or groups.
In his letter, Rem wrote, "I ... strongly support the ongoing negotiations." Has something changed? It looks like Rem has conveniently changed his opinion.
He also stated, "I recall commentary in the Frontenac News from a person of Mohawk descent who moved to Sharbot Lake a few years ago (I think she has since moved away again). "
[He means Cathie Duchene, of course. We'll bet they're still in bed together.]
"She believed the dominant Aboriginal presence in the Frontenacs from the early 1600s until the 1800s was the Six Nations. She supported her position with historical information on the fur trade and early European data on First Nation populations. It is unfortunate that the history of Aboriginal peoples in the Frontenacs appears to remain unclear."
Rem writes about "Chief and Council, Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation". He means Doreen Davis, an interesting but disingenuous character. In 2007, Doreen told us a number of bold faced lies. In the face of rumours that the protest would be dismantled, she said the protest would continue. She said this to us in our face in plain English. There was no misunderstanding. A couple of days later she went incommunicado moose hunting and the protests were over.
Like Cathie Duchene, Doreen claims Francis Sharbot as an ancestor. The mysterious namesake of Sharbot Lake came from Lake of Two Mountains, an apparent Mohawk. The matter of Francis' ancestry has never been definitively determined.
Stirring up the cottagers against the Algonquins may seem counterproductive to Rem's efforts to "help the Indians" but it's not. In fact, the more confusion he can spread, the more Rem's services will be needed to sort out the mess. He wields power from behind the scenes, having his hand into many pots.
As a long time president of the SLPOA, Sharbot Lake Property Owners Association, Rem became well known for his expertise on issues relating to land, tax and economic issues in the area. He would be the ideal person to coach these fledgeling cottagers groups on how to deal with the Algonquins. Somebody evidently is! Such opportunists need to be exposed to the light of day. If you have any further information concerning Westland, let us know.
Stay tuned!!
Kittoh
Notes
Wildlife rub trees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
A Bluff Charge by a Black Bear - NOT A BLACK BEAR ATTACK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.frontenacnews.ca/
http://www.earth-treaty.com/
Excerpts from "A Calamity Threatens Your Happiness" by Kittoh
(copies still available by contacting the author]
REM WESTLAND WROTE THIS IN A 2007 LETTER:
"What should really be a Mohawk/Huron/Algonquin claim in the area of the Frontenacs is misrepresented as an Algonquin claim - and people of First Nations descent must register as Algonquin to participate - simply for reasons of administrative convenience and historical denial. What this does to the claim is deny First Nations a meaningful capacity to claim Aboriginal title...because the record is very clear that the Algonquin did not have residency after the Mohawk came in and only began to establish residency long after contact. It serves the purpose of governments (federal and provincial) to support the fiction of continuous Algonquin presence."..........
Who is Rem Westland?
Rem Westland, 1970 graduate of the Royal Military College in Kingston, was in the Canadian military and taught at Carleton University in Ottawa before entering the civil service. He went from being Director of Operations at the Privy Council Office (PCO) 1989-91 to Director General of Claims/Treaty Land Entitlement at Indian and Northern Affairs (INAC)1991-95, and Director General at Ontario Aboriginal Affairs 1995-97. Then he moved on to Department of National Defence (DND) where he was Director General Realty Policy and Plans (DGRPP) as well as being Assistant Deputy Minister for about one year, 1998-99. Rem left DND in 2003. He was at the scene of a number of crises involving military and colonial confrontation in Indigenous communities. Ipperwash and Nanoose Bay come to mind.
Rem who lives in Ottawa's exclusive Rockcliffe, owns a cottage at Sharbot Lake. He is perpetual retiring president of the Sharbot Lake Property Owners Association (SLPOA). Currently he is vice president of Corporate Research Group and team leader for Aboriginal Affairs. Rem likes to present himself as friend of the Indians. He has studied the history. He claims he wants the truth to come out. He sent an email to MNN praising the report "Genealogical Genocide" of February 3, 2008. He actually said, "the time has come to correct the history of the Frontenacs".
If he already knew this, why didn't he say so before? Has he been waiting to get PAID for this priceless information?
...
Rem Westland was Director of Operations at PCO from 1989 to 91, during Brian Mulroney's era. This was the very time frame when the Mohawk Oka crisis took place in the summer of 1990. Some 3,000 Canadian soldiers were deployed in a siege of 55 Mohawks and supporters. Rem wrote notes to Mulroney and sent him "to do" lists. This has been his main function
throughout his career, to grease the wheels and deals of Government workings.
In their own words, the PCO "facilitates the smooth and effective operations of Cabinet and Government". Guys like Westland provide "non partisan advice". As if! He puts Government policy into words and coordinates that policy throughout the various departments of the
bureaucracy.
...
Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC)
Westland was Director General of Claims/Treaty Land Entitlement from 1991-95. The job is now divided into two positions, DG for Specific Claims and DG for Comprehensive Claims. People who answer the phones at INAC don't know anything about it.
...
Nanoose Bay
Westland was the DND federal negotiator during the Nanoose Expropriation crisis in 1999. The U.S. military's lease to test nuclear torpedoes in the Georgia Straits off Vancouver Island was going to end in 1999. They wanted to renew it because it's not easy to find places where the locals will agree to nukes splashing in the bay and nuclear submarines cruising the waters.
"..Naval nuclear facilities are even more dangerous than the ones onshore. Each sub, two football fields long, can carry and launch enough nuclear missiles to "destroy every capital city in the northern hemisphere," according to Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for
Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR)............
An old hand at saying no when he means to say, yes, Westland signed an agreement with B.C. negotiator Lorne Seitz to keep nukes out of Nanoose Bay. David Anderson later overruled and revoked it. A deal was then signed giving B.C. $millions, a lot more than the $1/year the Pentagon had been giving Ottawa. Since 9/11, the testing has increased. The U.S. military literally controls Canadian port cities with the ominouspresence of nuclear submarines. The ever present threat of nuclear andradioactive disaster affects millions of people. All this in the name of "national security"........
Corporate Research Group (CRG)
Rem Westland is Vice President of CRG. They got contracts with Indian Affairs to smooth the way for an agreement between the Quebec Crees and the Federal and Quebec governments so that Hydro Quebec can build more dams and develop more hydroelectricity on the many great rivers in Cree territory. They want to flood and pollute the entire region and kill off the Cree who are in the way. Eventually they want to divert the waterto the drought ridden USA.
Rem and company are for hire as consultants to Aboriginal groups o rbusinesses who want to buy land or businesses. If the Aboriginal group is in good with Government officials, CRG can arrange financing too..........
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
http://www.remwestland.ca/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.wrengroup.ca/nflaa/
Ottawa Citizen [18][19] - Endorsed a Conservative majority government, but also endorsed individual candidates at a riding level: Bernadette Clément in Stormont-Dundas-South, Steve MacKinnon in Gatineau, David Bertschi in Ottawa-Orléans, David McGuinty in Ottawa South, Gordon O'Connor in Carleton-Mississippi Mills, John Baird in Ottawa West-Nepean, Pierre Lemieux in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Scott Reid in Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington, Lawrence Cannon in Pontiac, Rem Westland in Ottawa-Vanier, Pierre Poilievre in Nepean-Carleton, Gordon Brown in Leeds-Grenville, Nycole Turmel in Hull-Aylmer, Paul Dewar in Ottawa-Centre, and Hector Clouthier in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
[eaglewatc
Activist Communique: Robin Hood Doctor Under Fire for Helping the Poor
September 7, 2013
In Toronto, Dr. Roland Wong was found guilty of professional misconduct last December for improperly prescribing the Ontario government’s Special Diet Allowance to people on Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
When asked about regrets for his actions, “Regrets? Only that the government doesn’t help the poor,” Dr. Roland Wong told the Star on Monday July 29, 2013, outside of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (the College) office, where a committee is meeting to determine his penalty.
Over a four year period when Wong worked hand in hand with anti-poverty groups in Ontario, he billed the government for $1.8 million dollars in special diet allowances the College of Physicians and Surgeons have deemed where improperly made; claiming he did not assess patients properly and did not keep accurate records.
In some cases, Dr. Wong prescribed an additional $250.00 per person per family (the maximum allowance per month) because they had, for example wheat and soy allergies and chronic constipation. For a family of four, this adds up to $1,000.00, in what is a crucial supplement for individuals and families struggling to make enough money per month to pay and rent and feed the kids.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons audited fifteen of Dr. Wong’s cases. In one of the cases, Dr. Wong wrote that ten family members were sick enough to qualify for the Special Diet Allowance maximum, which added an extra $2,500.00 to their monthly cheque.
According to the College, Dr. Wong filled out on average six times more forms that other Ontario practitioners and of those, signing off on roughly half of the $200.00 to $250.00 applications submitted between April 2006 and September 2009.
The Ontario government under Dalton McGuinty announced in 2010 that it would cancel the Special Diet Allowance. This social assistance provision, according to the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), was used by twenty per cent of welfare and disability recipients to help buy healthy food items such as fresh fruits and vegetables and other medically necessary dietary items.
In response to cutting the Special Diet Allowance, the government increased welfare and disability support payment rates by 1 per cent.
In the end, the Special Diet Allowance was not cancelled but was strictly revamped.
A single person on OW can receive a maximum of $606.00 per month for basic needs and shelter. A single person on ODSP ran receive a maximum of $1075.00 per month for the same. A complete benefit chart can be found here.
While anti-poverty activists herald Dr. Wong as a Robin Hood Doctor for helping to beef up woefully inadequate government support amounts, the College of Physicians and Surgeons believes that Dr. Wong has a profit-based motivation where he could charge OHIP for each form he filled out.
But testimony for Dr. Wong’s case has stated that he should not be punished for making a profit while engaging in what he believes is ethically right.
OCAP used to hold large Special Diet Allowance community sigh-up events, even holding one on the lawn of Queen’s Park, in an effort to let OW and ODSP clients know about the once obscure allowance. The government has struggled since on how to handle the great influx of applicants, seeking to make their life easier – and healthier – on government supports.
Dr. Wong told his supporters, “It’s difficult for me to say how remorseful I am. It is done and a lot of people benefited from it.” He currently continues to fill out allowance forms while waiting for the judgment of the College.
Dr. Wong has his practice in the middle of downtown Toronto in Chinatown on Spadina Avenue.
In an October 2011 speech, “Compassion and altruism forms the foundation of Practice of Medicine; my action in filling the Special Diet form fulfills those fundamental requirements of being a good physician. Thousands upon thousands saw positive changes in their health and their lives. Yet I am being punished by being called before the Disciplinary Panel of the College of Physician and Surgeon. What is driving this urge to punish me?"
"It began with then councillor, now Mayor Robert Ford who believed that I had committed fraud and he reported me to the College in 2009. Perhaps assistance to the poor falls into his ‘gravy’ train ideology. He left the picture in my persecution after the complaint. Instead of the gravy train he is now stuck in a "mud" train,” he said.
In a statement released by OCAP on July 25, 2013, in support of Dr. Wong, “The real people that should be punished are those in the government that force people to live on sub-poverty levels of income. This is a government that has slashed the Special Diet, cut Community Start-Up, and pushed down the rates of social assistance by over 55% since 1995 – and yet they criminalize a health provider. Rob Ford, who laid a complaint against Dr. Wong, said that, ‘Doctors should not be advocates for the poor.’”
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
[eaglewatc
When asked about regrets for his actions, “Regrets? Only that the government doesn’t help the poor,” Dr. Roland Wong told the Star on Monday July 29, 2013, outside of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (the College) office, where a committee is meeting to determine his penalty.
Over a four year period when Wong worked hand in hand with anti-poverty groups in Ontario, he billed the government for $1.8 million dollars in special diet allowances the College of Physicians and Surgeons have deemed where improperly made; claiming he did not assess patients properly and did not keep accurate records.
In some cases, Dr. Wong prescribed an additional $250.00 per person per family (the maximum allowance per month) because they had, for example wheat and soy allergies and chronic constipation. For a family of four, this adds up to $1,000.00, in what is a crucial supplement for individuals and families struggling to make enough money per month to pay and rent and feed the kids.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons audited fifteen of Dr. Wong’s cases. In one of the cases, Dr. Wong wrote that ten family members were sick enough to qualify for the Special Diet Allowance maximum, which added an extra $2,500.00 to their monthly cheque.
According to the College, Dr. Wong filled out on average six times more forms that other Ontario practitioners and of those, signing off on roughly half of the $200.00 to $250.00 applications submitted between April 2006 and September 2009.
The Ontario government under Dalton McGuinty announced in 2010 that it would cancel the Special Diet Allowance. This social assistance provision, according to the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), was used by twenty per cent of welfare and disability recipients to help buy healthy food items such as fresh fruits and vegetables and other medically necessary dietary items.
In the end, the Special Diet Allowance was not cancelled but was strictly revamped.
A single person on OW can receive a maximum of $606.00 per month for basic needs and shelter. A single person on ODSP ran receive a maximum of $1075.00 per month for the same. A complete benefit chart can be found here.
While anti-poverty activists herald Dr. Wong as a Robin Hood Doctor for helping to beef up woefully inadequate government support amounts, the College of Physicians and Surgeons believes that Dr. Wong has a profit-based motivation where he could charge OHIP for each form he filled out.
But testimony for Dr. Wong’s case has stated that he should not be punished for making a profit while engaging in what he believes is ethically right.
OCAP used to hold large Special Diet Allowance community sigh-up events, even holding one on the lawn of Queen’s Park, in an effort to let OW and ODSP clients know about the once obscure allowance. The government has struggled since on how to handle the great influx of applicants, seeking to make their life easier – and healthier – on government supports.
Dr. Wong told his supporters, “It’s difficult for me to say how remorseful I am. It is done and a lot of people benefited from it.” He currently continues to fill out allowance forms while waiting for the judgment of the College.
Dr. Wong has his practice in the middle of downtown Toronto in Chinatown on Spadina Avenue.
In an October 2011 speech, “Compassion and altruism forms the foundation of Practice of Medicine; my action in filling the Special Diet form fulfills those fundamental requirements of being a good physician. Thousands upon thousands saw positive changes in their health and their lives. Yet I am being punished by being called before the Disciplinary Panel of the College of Physician and Surgeon. What is driving this urge to punish me?"
"It began with then councillor, now Mayor Robert Ford who believed that I had committed fraud and he reported me to the College in 2009. Perhaps assistance to the poor falls into his ‘gravy’ train ideology. He left the picture in my persecution after the complaint. Instead of the gravy train he is now stuck in a "mud" train,” he said.
In a statement released by OCAP on July 25, 2013, in support of Dr. Wong, “The real people that should be punished are those in the government that force people to live on sub-poverty levels of income. This is a government that has slashed the Special Diet, cut Community Start-Up, and pushed down the rates of social assistance by over 55% since 1995 – and yet they criminalize a health provider. Rob Ford, who laid a complaint against Dr. Wong, said that, ‘Doctors should not be advocates for the poor.’”
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
[eaglewatc
http://www.napaneeguide.com/
Mohawk mother joins civil suit
Jason Miller, QMI Agency
Friday, July 26, 2013 3:36:44 EDT PM
Dawn Sero
The mother of a Tyendinaga girl who died from leukemia has joined a civil court action against the local Mohawk band council.
Dawn Sero and her husband join Mohawk activist Shawn Brant as plaintiffs pressing the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte Band Council to carry out thorough testing of the reserve’s water supply, or provide proof Tyendinaga Territory water supply isn’t threatened by contaminants they suspect is leaking from a decommissioned dump on the territory off York Road.
Sero and Brant have been part of a campaign seeking answers about the safety of their water supply, since last fall, after three Mohawk children were diagnosed with leukemia in 2012. Sero’s daughter Paula, 13, died from debilitating illness last September. Brant’s daughter is now also being treated for leukemia.
The band has hired Toronto lawyer, Roger Horst, to defend their position that appropriate testing has been done.
“We’re not getting any answers and this is the best way to get answers for these kids,” Sero said. “I figured going to court (seeking a court order) they will have to tell us what we want to know.”
Brant and Sero, whose allegations have yet to be proven in court, question the findings of December, 2012, Health Canada study (sparked by community meetings) clearing 32 wells on the reserve for benzene, saying more detailed investigations need to be done in the area around the dump.
“They need to test around the dump,” Sero said Wednesday.
She said not much information has been revealed by the band regarding the complete discoveries from the probe done by Health Canada.
“We asked the band for the results and it all of a sudden becomes a privacy issue,” Sero claims. “We’re frustrated. We have a right to know what’s going on down here.”
Doubt still lingers for Sero, despite the statements of area medical experts dismissing suspicions, water contaminants are linked to the several case of childhood cancer in the community, including Brant’s daughter, currently undergoing treatment for the ailment in Toronto. Both Brant and Sero’s daughters attended Quinte Mohawk School.
“A lot of kids are getting sick down here,” she said. “We’re not saying that all the kids are sick from being here but it’s more than a coincidence that three of them are from the same school.”
Brant claims he has “shocking” documents, including water testing results not released by the band, proving the Mohawk water supply has been exposed to contaminants. He said that supporting evidence will be forwarded to Belleville lawyer Stephen Reynolds acting on behalf of the plaintiffs.
Band lawyer Horst says otherwise. Findings from the Health Canada probe show concerns about the well water and now closed reserve landfill are unfounded, Horst said. The Toronto lawyer said those and other findings will be a part of his defence.
“The position of the Mohawk (band) is that the appropriate testing has been done and the test show that landfill is not causing problems in the drinking water,” Horst said.
To date, monetary damages have not been sought by the plaintiffs.
“That’s not been asked for right now,” Horst said.
Jason.miller@sunmedia.ca
Dawn Sero and her husband join Mohawk activist Shawn Brant as plaintiffs pressing the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte Band Council to carry out thorough testing of the reserve’s water supply, or provide proof Tyendinaga Territory water supply isn’t threatened by contaminants they suspect is leaking from a decommissioned dump on the territory off York Road.
Sero and Brant have been part of a campaign seeking answers about the safety of their water supply, since last fall, after three Mohawk children were diagnosed with leukemia in 2012. Sero’s daughter Paula, 13, died from debilitating illness last September. Brant’s daughter is now also being treated for leukemia.
The band has hired Toronto lawyer, Roger Horst, to defend their position that appropriate testing has been done.
“We’re not getting any answers and this is the best way to get answers for these kids,” Sero said. “I figured going to court (seeking a court order) they will have to tell us what we want to know.”
Brant and Sero, whose allegations have yet to be proven in court, question the findings of December, 2012, Health Canada study (sparked by community meetings) clearing 32 wells on the reserve for benzene, saying more detailed investigations need to be done in the area around the dump.
“They need to test around the dump,” Sero said Wednesday.
She said not much information has been revealed by the band regarding the complete discoveries from the probe done by Health Canada.
“We asked the band for the results and it all of a sudden becomes a privacy issue,” Sero claims. “We’re frustrated. We have a right to know what’s going on down here.”
Doubt still lingers for Sero, despite the statements of area medical experts dismissing suspicions, water contaminants are linked to the several case of childhood cancer in the community, including Brant’s daughter, currently undergoing treatment for the ailment in Toronto. Both Brant and Sero’s daughters attended Quinte Mohawk School.
“A lot of kids are getting sick down here,” she said. “We’re not saying that all the kids are sick from being here but it’s more than a coincidence that three of them are from the same school.”
Brant claims he has “shocking” documents, including water testing results not released by the band, proving the Mohawk water supply has been exposed to contaminants. He said that supporting evidence will be forwarded to Belleville lawyer Stephen Reynolds acting on behalf of the plaintiffs.
Band lawyer Horst says otherwise. Findings from the Health Canada probe show concerns about the well water and now closed reserve landfill are unfounded, Horst said. The Toronto lawyer said those and other findings will be a part of his defence.
“The position of the Mohawk (band) is that the appropriate testing has been done and the test show that landfill is not causing problems in the drinking water,” Horst said.
To date, monetary damages have not been sought by the plaintiffs.
“That’s not been asked for right now,” Horst said.
Jason.miller@sunmedia.ca
When evil people call you evil, you know that you are a good person.
When lairs call you a liar, you know that you are truthful.
Know who you are and don't let others tell you who you are." - Dave Kitchen
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.