'Treaty treason' in B. C. leads one man to the street

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Roland, a First Nation's student confronted Lorenzo Bouchard outside the legislative buildings in Victoria on Feb. 1. Bouchard has been picketing the University of Victoria, Camosun College and the legislature with a message about treaty negotiations or Aboriginal people in general.

"True Aboriginal people should be individually given a piece of land and a sum of money," in regards to rectifying past injustices, but "true Aboriginal people" are only those that have and can prove 100 per cent Native blood, he told Roland and Raven's Eye.

Bouchard said treaty negotiations "will break up Canada . . . and at a certain point, there will be war. There will be war in this country if you go down this path." Bouchard said "I think its time for everybody to become Canadian."

Bouchard was asked to leave both the University of Victoria and Camosun College grounds for his "threatening" behavior towards Aboriginal people and what some have described as "racist" signs that he wears. He has appealed so he can continue his campaign at the educational institutions.

"I have never threatened anybody," he said as he holds a heavy iron bar that is shaped like a herder's cane.

"As a Canadian that God put on this earth and said all of Canada is yours as a Canadian, I have a right to defend my land. This is my land. You can come out of your pity parties and your sweat lodges and say it isn't. . .This is my land."

Last year, Bouchard ran federally as an independent candidate in the Victoria riding. He received 101 votes. My platform had nothing to do with the Aboriginal issues." The paper Bouchard hands out deals with his platform and the slogan reads, "Democracy: Create it, Earn it, Respect it, Defend it!" He is also calling for the reinstitution of capital punishment as well as the creation of a mandatory citizen's militia. His website titled "Guardians of Democracy" is on the Internet at http://mypage.direct.ca/l/lbouchar/.