Hastening native claims

In his recent report on the 1995 death of native protester Dudley George, Commissioner Sidney Linden called Canada’s failure to deal with native claims fairly and quickly “the single biggest source of frustration, distrust and ill-feeling among aboriginal people in Ontario.”

Indications that this anger is boiling over are not hard to find. Land disputes in Caledonia and Deseronto, Ont., and a national day of native action planned for June 29 are just the most visible signs that, as Assembly of First Nations national chief Phil Fontaine warned last month, many native communities “have reached a breaking point.”

Six Nations protesters who have occupied the site of a housing development in Caledonia for 16 months say Harper’s proposal “doesn’t change one thing” for them.

Read the full story here