Sunday, July 22, 2007

Tsawwassen First Nation member Bertha Williams speaks out against Tsawwassen treaty with federal and provincial government in new YouTube video

Tsawwassen First Nation member Bertha Williams says the provincial and federal government are wrongly manipulating the July 25th vote on the Tsawwassen treaty with taxpayer money.

Williams is outspoken in her criticism in the new YouTube video. She says it is inappropriate that 40 Tsawwassen band members were flown at government expense to Nisga'a territory to observe the Nisga'a Treaty in operation.

More on the Tsawwassen treaty issue in my 24 hours column on Tuesday July 24.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gordon has already got something up his sleeve. He is bound to say what they are doing while trying to manipulate the band vote is similar to the money spend by the previous government in having the standing committee travel to get folks opion and later, mail outs to explain the process. There is no connection in my mind as to what the previous government did and what is happening now. There was no passing of dollars and plane tickets to the band memebrs to get them on side. I made a presentation, representing folks living on land set aside, who were not band members.Sat in on a number of other dates when the Committee met, all quite openly I might add. If one reads all the presentations you will quickly see there was no suggestion of trying to direct band members. In the hand outs they were for everyone. as I mentioned above, none of these events occured prior to the bad vote. In my persional view I am against the way the past policies have been cast aside to get a yes vote. I have a record of seriously supporting modern treaties, and sort of found it interesting to be appraoched by Martyne Brown trying to convince us not to support the NIsga'a or other treaties.What a change in position by Gordon and Co.

The fish, occupier, and ALR lands positions are being poorly handled. Lousy way to get things done. No matter which way the votes go it will not cancell the treaty process, as there is no other way to get accountabilty, openness and fair treatment for all Canadians. dl

Anonymous said...

I challange what the other person wrote in regards to accountability. If the Nisga'a treaty was so accountable, why are the crooks not being charged for embezzling millions of dollars and getting away with it? This is crap! Treaties and laws are made to be broken and the BC Government only wants us to extinguish our title and surrender our lands so they will extract our resources. C'mon people, put on your thinking caps! There is no accountability, even in the Provincial and Federal governments.

Anonymous said...

Anon 8.01 has a issue that should be addressed.
The Nisga'a Treaty gives a individual something they never had before. The right to sue the band council or each other. That is of course simply put just one of the results. I am not Nisga'a so don't see the books. If the person who wrote the second post feels abused, go after the band government, now they are a elected government, in court or at least work to un-elect them.
I recall being at a convention and a fairly young chap was telling us out in the hall way about how Joe Gosnell had sold them down the river. I asked was he Nisga'a . No he wasn't. If no treaty is a template for other bands what the Nisga'a negotiators do is not a direct issue to him. I had met Gosnell an number of times before as a supporter of treay processes. Let's go over and ask Joe to answer his concerns. Did you? You have to be kidding. Not rusting governemtna is prety common but the ballot box awaits. dl