Indian Blockades - Police Removal of
https://archives.anglican.ca/link/official1485
- Date
- 1990 November 5-9
- Source
- House of Bishops Minutes
- Type
- Resolution
- Pastoral Statement
- Mover
- Bishop Hannen
- Seconder
- Bishop Lackey
- Prologue
- A statement prepared by Archbishop Hambidge regarding the removal of roadblocks by armed police was discussed.
- Text of motion
- That we endorse this as a statement of the House. CARRIED
- SEE APPENDIX B
- Notes
- APPENDIX B
- STATEMENT BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF NEW WESTMINSTER THE MOST REVEREND DOUGLAS HAMBIDGE NOVEMBER 6, 1990
- PUBLIC REMOVAL OF INDIAN BLOCKADES
- I was dismayed to hear that the Provincial Government of BC intends to use armed police to overrun the roadblock on the Duthie Lake Road.
- Anyone who has ever had dealing with native people could tell the Provincial Government that this is never the way to meet Indian people. Their culture has taught that negotiation is the way to settle differences, not force.
- The blockade, which has been there for months, is a plea to negotiate. This issue could have been settled the day the blockade appeared if the Provincial Government had met with the native people.
- Meanwhile, what is the federal Minister of Indian Affairs doing ? Has no one told him yet that he has a mandate to be protective of the rights of Indians, and to be their advocate ?
- This issue is over land under dispute. Surely, the federal minister has no option but to insist that no action be taken which prejudges the land rights question.
- Government inaction has exacerbated the tension between native people and loggers, both of whom are victims of this situation.
- My fear is that the kind of action now being contemplated only encourages native people to meet violence with violence.
- Is Oka already forgotten by the Provincial and Federal Governments, that they can so lightly risk another such confrontation in which there are no winners, and all Canadians are the losers ?
- Subjects
- Indigenous peoples - British Columbia
- Indigenous peoples - Canada - Claims
- Indigenous peoples - Canada - Anglican Church of Canada
- Indigenous peoples - Canada - Government relations - 1951-
- Indigenous peoples - Canada
- Nonviolence - Religious aspects - Anglican Church of Canada
- Hambidge, Douglas (Douglas Walter), 1927-