With a banner that read "Oh Canada, your home on Stolen Land" (the canadian national anthem is "oh canada, your home on native land") and a Unity flag a delegation presented Canada House with a letter explaining their demands. The website of the Canadian High Commission states “Canada House serves as a window into Canada. It is a place where a modern country acknowledges its heritage and showcases its innovation, culture, talent and achievements-with stately grace and stylish presence.” This is the reason the delegation chose to visit Canada house, to remind Canada that its "heritage" rests on the theft of a continent and the past and present genocide of the Onkwehonweh (original people).

On February 28th 2006 a group of Onkwehonweh (indigenous) people, led by the Clan Mothers (traditional female leadership) retook some land adjacent to the Six Nations on Grand River reserve in Ontario, Canada. The land was the site of a proposed and begun housing development (Douglas Creek Estates), although the Haudenosaunee nation have never surrendered their claim to the land, theirs by treaty with the British crown (Haldimand Treaty, 1784). Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) carried out a police raid on April 20th 2006. Sixteen of the camps members were arrested in the dawn raid, involving over 150 armed members of the OPP, who also tasered and pepper sprayed the men, women and minors who were sleeping in tents. The police operation was unsuccessful as a mass of thousands of reserve residents arrived to protect their land and peacefully marched the police of the reclamation site. Barricades and blockades were erected in order to protect the reclamation from further attack, and stayed for two months. Following this unsuccessful attempt to remove the reclamation by force the Ontario government purchased the land in June 2006 from Henco, the development company and now holds the land in trust, awaiting the outcome of negotiations, which continue to this day. The negotiations have been deliberately dragged out, as the Canadian government is refusing to recognise the Haudenosaunee’s claim to the land, while they attempt to weaken and attack the community by arresting more then thirty of the participants in the reclamation and filing nearly seventy criminal charges against them.

The British state granted the Haldimand Tract in 1784 (land along the Grand river in Ontario) to the Haudenosaunee in recognition of their role as allies fighting against the American colonists in the Revolutionary War. Most of this land was later taken by trickery or force and only a small portion, the Six Nations reserve, remains. The Haudenosaunee have endured centuries of colonisation, a process begun by the British, and continued under the Canadian state. Not only have their lands been taken, their environment logged, polluted and otherwise destroyed but there has been a systematic attempt to destroy their culture, community; their existence as Onkwehonweh.

HELP TAKE ACTION!

Please call / fax: (sample letter below)
To voice your concerns and demand that the government recognize Six
Nations Land Rights, send an email, phone and/or fax:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa
K1A 0A2
Fax: 613-941-6900
Email:
 pm@pm.gc.ca

Jim Prentice, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and
Federal Interlocutor for Metis and Non-Status Indians

Parliament Hill: House of Commons
Ottawa,
Ontario
K1A 0A6
Telephone: (613) 992-4275
Fax: (613) 947-9475

Email:  Prentice.J@parl.gc.ca

Barbara McDougall, Ron Doering Federal Negotiators
Former Cabinet Minister
c/o Jim Prentice, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
and
Federal Interlocutor for Metis and Non-Status Indians
Parliament Hill: House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Telephone: (613) 992-4275
Fax: (613) 947-9475
Email:  Prentice.J@parl.gc.ca

Jane Stewart
Provincial Negotiator, Province of Ontario
Former Brantford MP and former Federal Indian Affairs Minister
c/o
Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario
Legislative
Building, Queen's Park
Toronto, Ontario
M7A 1A1
Phone Number: (416) 325-1941
Fax Number: (416) 325-3745
Email:  Dalton.McGuinty@premier.gov.on.ca

sample letter:

To Whom It May Concern: Canada House

I am writing today to draw attention to the unresolved land claim of the Haldimand Tract (Ontario) by the Haudenosaunee at Six Nations on the Grand River. Today marks one year since the beginning of the reclamation of the land formerly known as Douglas Creek Estates, now known as Kanonhstaton (protected place). A year is far too long for the issue to remain unresolved. The negotiation process has been marked by the Canadian government deliberately dragging their feet, and denying the validity of Haudenosaunee title. The Canadian government should immediately recognise the Haudenosaunee title to the land, which is part of the wider Highway 6 (Plank road) claim.

In addition I wish to register my opposition to the continued criminalisation of the Six Nations community. Over thirty members of the Haudenosaunee nations have had criminal charges issued against them in relation to the land reclamation. The reclamation has been a non violent action from the very beginning. The criminalisation of Indigenous people by the Canadian state in response to their attempts to regain land that is rightfully theirs is an obvious strategy to undermine their struggle for sovereignty and control of their land.

The negotiations have largely featured the participation of the Confederacy council, the traditional government of the Haudenosaunee. We call on the Canadian government to recognise the Confederacy council as the government of the Haudenosaunee. The Band Council system was illegally enforced on the Six Nations reserve after the Indian Act in 1924, and was a facet of the wider attack on Indigenous rights and sovereignty. I call on the Canadian government to cease and desist from this continuing aggressive and colonial policy.

At this time the Canadian government should have many reasons to begin a new era of respect for Indigenous Nations. A recent court case saw compensation paid to survivors of the genocidal Residential School system, which did not end until the last school shut in 1996. The Ipperwash Inquiry report focuses attention on the way Indigenous land claims are dealt with by armed police raids (such as took place on April 20th 2006 at Six Nations and at Ipperwash resulting in the death of young Dudley George). To an observer it would appear that Canada is not the country of renowned tolerance and multi-culturalism it claims to be. An important step in making this claim a reality would be to hand over the land at Kanonhstaton to its rightful owners.


Yours Sincerely,

* * * * * * *

For further information on the Six Nations Land Reclamation visit the following pages:
Info on the Reclamation: www.reclamationinfo.com
Settlers in Support of Indigenous Sovereignty News Archive:
 http://sisis.nativeweb.org/actionalert/index.html#newsarchive
Turtle Island Native Network:
 http://www.turtleisland.org/news/news-sixnations.htm