Ipperwash

On September 4, 1995, several Stoney Point Natives entered Ipperwash Provincial Park, near Sarnia, Ontario, and began a peaceful protest aimed at reclaiming a traditional burial ground. Within seventy-two hours, one of those protestors, Anthony (Dudley) George, was dead, shot by an OPP officer. In One Dead Indian, after covering the tragedy from the beginning, journalist Peter Edwards examines the circumstances surrounding George’s death and asks a number of tough questions, including: How much pressure did the Ontario government put on the OPP to get tough? As the official public inquiry attempt to shed light on what really happened, Peter Edwards’s investigation of this question brings the story right up to the present.

On September 6, 1995, Dudley George was shot by Ontario Provincial Police officer Kenneth Deane. He died shortly after midnight the next day. George had been participating in a protest over land claims in Ipperwash Provincial Park, which had been expropriated from the native Ojibwe after the Second World War. A confrontation erupted between members of the Stoney Point and Kettle Point Bands and officers of the OPP’s Emergency Response Team, which had been instructed to use necessary force to disband the protest by Premier Mike Harris’s government. George’s death and the grievous mishandling of the protest led to the 2007 Ipperwash Inquiry. Edward J. Hedican’s Ipperwash provides an incisive examination of protest and dissent within the context of land claims disputes and Aboriginal rights. Hedican investigates how racism and government practices have affected Aboriginal resistance to policies, especially those that have resulted in the loss of Aboriginal lands and led to persistent socio-economic problems in Native communities. He offers a number of specific solutions and policy recommendations on how Aboriginal protests can be resolved using mediation and dispute management – instead of the coercive force used in Ipperwash Park that ultimately gave this tragic story such infamy.

Report of the provincial inquiry into the 1995 incident where Dudley George was shot and died of his wounds during a land claim occupation and protest by Aboriginal people in the Ipperwash Provincial Park.

The Devonian was a peculiar period, characterized by simplified plate tectonic configurations, climatic overheating and widely flooded continents. The bloom of fishes and ammonoids, extensive reef complexes, and the conquest of land indicate major biosphere innovations, punctuated by many global events, including two of the biggest mass extinctions. The Devonian was the first system for which subdivisions were formally defined. This was achieved by significant advances in pelagic biostratigraphy. The chronostratigraphic framework and interdisciplinary techniques allow us to correlate intervals or sudden events across facies boundaries, in order to reconstruct the sedimentary and evolutionary history of the system with highest precision. This volume honors the lifetime stratigraphic achievements of Michael Robert House (1930-2002). Based on case studies from Europe, North Africa and North America, it shows how the combination of biostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy and event stratigraphy can contribute to a much deeper understanding of both regional and global environmental change.

It officially began on February 28, 2006, when a handful of protesters from the nearby Six Nations reserve walked onto Douglas Creek Estates, then a residential subdivision under construction, and blocked workers from entering. Over the course of the spring and summer of that first year, the criminal actions of the occupiers included throwing a vehicle over an overpass, the burning down of a hydro transformer which caused a three-day blackout, the torching of a bridge and the hijacking of a police vehicle. During the very worst period, ordinary residents living near the site had to pass through native barricades, show native-issued "passports", and were occasionally threatened with body searches and routinely subjected to threats. Much of this lawless conduct occurred under the noses of the Ontario Provincial Police, who, often against their own best instincts, stood by and watched: They too had been intimidated. Arrests, where they were made, weren't made contemporaneously, but weeks or monthlater. The result was to embolden the occupiers and render non-native citizens vulnerable and afraid. Eighteen months after the occupation began, a home builder named Sam Gualtieri, working on the house he was giving his daughter as a wedding present, was attacked by protesters and beaten so badly he will never fully recover from his injuries. The occupation is now in its fifth year. Throughout, Christie Blatchford has been observing, interviewing, and investigating with the tenacity that has made her both the doyen of Canadian crime reporters and a social commentator beloved for her uncompromising sense of right and wrong. In Helpless she tells the full story for the first time - a story that no part of the press or media in Canada has been prepared to tackle with the unflinching objectivity that Christie Blatchford displays on every page. This is a book whose many revelations, never before reported, will shock and appall. But the last word should go to the author: "This book is not about aboriginal land claims. The book is not about the wholesale removal of seven generations of indigenous youngsters from their reserves and families - this was by dint of federal government policy - or the abuse dished out to many of them at the residential schools into which they were arbitrarily placed or the devastating effects that haunt so many today. This book is not about the dubious merits of the reserve system which may better serve those who wish to see native people fail than those who want desperately for them to succeed. I do not in any way make light of these issues, and they are one way or another in the background of everything that occurred in Caledonia. "What Helpless is about is the failure of government to govern and to protect all its citizens equally."

Base closures, use of airspace for weapons testing and low-level flying, environmental awareness, and Aboriginal land claims have focused attention in recent years on the use of Native lands for military training. But is the military's interest in Aboriginal lands new? Battle Grounds analyzes a century of government-Aboriginal interaction and negotiation to explore how the Canadian military came to use Aboriginal lands for training. It examines what the process reveals about the larger and evolving relationship between governments and Aboriginal communities and how increasing Aboriginal assertiveness and activism have affected the issue.

Blockades have become a common response to Canada's failure to address and resolve the legitimate claims of First Nations. Blockades or Breakthroughs? debates the importance and effectiveness of blockades and occupations as political and diplomatic tools for Aboriginal people. The adoption of direct action tactics like blockades and occupations is predicated on the idea that something drastic is needed for Aboriginal groups to break an unfavourable status quo, overcome structural barriers, and achieve their goals. But are blockades actually "breakthroughs"? What are the objectives of Aboriginal people and communities who adopt this approach? How can the success of these methods be measured? This collection offers an in-depth survey of occupations, blockades, and their legacies, from 1968 to the present. Individual case studies situate specific blockades and conflicts in historical context, examine each group’s reasons for occupation, and analyze the media labels and frames applied to both Aboriginal and state responses. Direct action tactics remain a powerful political tool for First Nations in Canada. The authors of Blockades or Breakthroughs? Argue that blockades and occupations are instrumental, symbolic, and complex events that demand equally multifaceted responses. Contributors include Yale D. Belanger, Tom Flanagan, Sarah King, P. Whitney Lackenbauer, David Rossiter, John Sandlos, Nick Shrubsole, and Timothy Winegard.

An extraordinarily accomplished debut, Smoke River follows two families on different sides of a crisis with deep roots in history and territory through one fateful summer. For readers of Lori Lansens and John Bemrose's The Island Walkers. After a proposed subdivision becomes the site of a Mohawk protest -- the land, which has long formed a kind of neutral border between a reserve and the neighbouring town, is contested -- tensions escalate through three sweltering summer months, exposing old wounds, as well as forging new and sometimes surprising connections. This compelling contemporary story is told in the voices of several vivid, unforgettable characters, from the restless young Mohawk woman dreaming of adventure and fame in the wider world; to the successful businessman who has made good use of his position between two communities, and who harbours a surprisingly tender secret; to the high school hero whose inner life would shock his admirers, especially his ambitious mother; and to the unexpected lovers, who must weigh happiness against history and fierce pride. Smoke River is wise and tender, fearless and often very funny. It heralds the arrival of a vibrant, original, and intrepid new voice in Canadian literature.