Editor, The Record:
In the unlikely event I would ever need an epithet it should be the title of a small booklet of quotes that fits my philosophy perfectly: Screw Calm and Get Angry. Like the introduction to the booklet says, “You may very well find that getting your dander up might be the only way to get things changed around here.”
My dander is well and truly up with yet another appeasement being pushed on us because some academics have decided our native communities can put commercial and residential units on reserve land and extend to non-natives the same tax-free status the natives receive.
A sweetheart deal and reverse racism all rolled up into one which in the end will only defeat the notion of bringing the native communities into equality with Canadian society. In theory, this deal will give them independence, but that’s not totally true as we taxpayers will still foot the bill. We’ll do it through paying municipal taxes to subsidize those non-natives living on the reserve for roads, policing, schools, hospitals, etc.
I do not support aboriginal title. I do not support this insane ranking by “blood” who is native. Nor do I support this notion the rest of us have to constantly sit quietly while political correctness runs amok and chokes off any discussion about the unfairness of the very idea that one group is more special than others.
What I do support is the equality of every Canadian regardless of race or creed. So for me the extinguishment of aboriginal title is a given, with or without the consent of native groups. Because only when they have exactly the same rights and obligations as the rest of us, will the natives ever be seen and accepted as equals by Canadian society.
If I sound harsh and unkind it’s because a united Canada is far too important to me to sit back and let it be carved up into a patch work quilt. The multicultural ideal is being destroyed by not just the concept of aboriginal entitlement but by government actively promoting the establishment of ethnic enclaves across the country for all the recent immigrant groups.
If we don’t drop the bleeding heart act, this country is hooped. In the immortal words of my epitaph, screw calm and get angry as this issue is too important to be left in the hands of politicians.
Robert T. Rock
Mission