Re: BC moose hunting history
Edgar, I'll lay-out the core problems around this issue, as I see em and would like to hear how you would propose we solve them
1. FN "rights" are constitutionally protected and are garaunteed to the INDIVIDUAL. It matters not what a band council may agree to with gov't and stakeholders, any INDIVIDUAL FN can still go out and do whatever he/she pleases
2. agreements with individual bands are not worth the paper they are written on. I've seen this over and over again in the forest industry. As an example...slocan enters into an agreement with the local band council to buy some of "their" timber....slocan then goes out and spends money on timber cruising, road building etc. Time comes to harvest the timber.....but wait, theres been an election and we now have a new band council, who promptly tears up any existing contracts, gets taken to court, slocan told by courts...sorry, under new management, agreements with last band council don't apply
3. Why would FN ever come to the table and "negotiate" with stakeholders....they currently hold all the cards and any compromise would involve them giving something up
4. The Gov't bureaucrats DONT WANT TO SEE ANY RESOLUTION!!! Department of indian Affairs, or whatever they are calling it these days has a budget that rivals healthcare. The very people who should be working toward solutions....will find themselves unemployed if we ever truly resolved the issue once and for all....first rule of gov't, don't shoot the goose that lays the golden egg.
So please, tell me, how the hell do we ever find a middle ground that everyone can live with, when the "go betweens" (govt) have no interest in resolving anything, and one side (FN) has absolutely no motivation to "meet us in the middle". As much as my wife likes to think so, COMPROMISE is NOT one side giving up everything to the other.
Respectfully
Chris
"Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
Emerson