Letter to the Editor: Protest threatened

Dear Editor:
We would like to congratulate the Aboriginal leaders in British Columbia and across Canada who worked so hard and so patiently to secure a tripartite accord with the federal and provincial governments at the Aboriginal Summit held in Kelowna on Nov. 24 and 25. Now we would like to request all the Aboriginal leaders to unite and support us so that we can make sure that this $5 billion in new funding announced by the federal government is not controlled and administered by bureaucrats who consider Aboriginal Canadians as lower class citizens of this country.

While the Aboriginal people of Canada may be led to believe that they live in a free society, the reality is that arrogant, corrupt and racist bureaucrats are working hard to strip the Aboriginal people of this country of their dignity and self-respect. Every time the Aboriginal people of Canada try to unite to work together for common causes, these bureaucrats use the government funds and resources to turn one First Nation against the other by randomly allocating resources to some while denying access to the others.

The Kwakiutl Territorial Fisheries Commission in the North Vancouver Island is one of the First Nations organizations that has experienced bigotry and racism by bureaucrats in the department of Fisheries and Oceans. These bureaucrats have tried very hard to destroy this organization, because we dared to stand up and speak for our people.

While DFO has tried to break this organization to prevent us from speaking, we believe that for a better future for our people we must speak up. We have, therefore, decided to publicly stand up to expose the racist bureaucrats in this department who are determined to subjugate the First Nations that once were proud, prosperous and self-reliant people.

To bring our case to the Canadian people, immediately after the federal election and the swearing in of the new cabinet, we will begin a "peaceful" sit-in at one of DFO's offices on Vancouver Island or lower mainland and our managing director, Joseph Khan (Tla'liskasoo), will begin a hunger strike to make our plight known. We hope to free the souls of the Aboriginal people from these bureaucrats and rally the Aboriginal people of this country.

We are beginning a new era for the Aboriginal people of this country; an era of peaceful struggle to expose the racism in DFO and other government departments as these bureaucrats will not stop destroying the Aboriginal communities until they are brought in front of the people of this country.