Talk:Stewart Phillip

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[edit] Rewritten

I have rewritten the article at Talk:Stewart Phillip/Temp. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 00:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian Aboriginal

Does he identify as an Aboriginal Canadian? OldManRivers 18:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

He is one. It may be appropriate to define him by tribe, but "Indigenous" is much too broad a category, not too helpful. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 19:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Aboriginal Canadian is an imposed idenity on the Indigenous. Because he has a status card, and a passport doesn't neccisarly mean he identify's as Aboriginal Canadian. OldManRivers 21:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
This isn't about imposing an identity: it's specifying what kind of indigenous person he is. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 21:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Then who says he "Canadian". The Media? You? History Books? OldManRivers 22:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Citizenship, the Constitution. That's not sociology, that's legal fact. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 22:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Legal to who? The Royal Proclamation of 1763? Both legality and facts with respect to Indigenous peoples are quite subjective, considering the mosaic of original peoples in what is now considered British Columbia did not cede their land or status. I agree wholeheartedly with oldmanrivers. There is no legal card to play here which isn't a subjective one. --Keefer4 09:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'll turn off Judge Judy, who I had blaring in the background, so I can focus on the answer here, which is pretty plain and simple if you're aware of constitutionalities in British Columbia, as Keefer4 and Oldmanrivers both are, though necessarily from different directions. The point is that BC First Nations peoples have not become part of the Constitution, and do not have Citizenship in the capital-C sense; that's the whole damned point of the Indian Act enit? But here in BC, FYI to CanadianCaesar, who as I recall is back east beyond the Lakes somewheres, there's a whole 'nother aspect to it - the complete absence of treaties and the ongoing and very loud and organized survival of traditional societies, much the worse for wear considering what they've been through, granted, but as far or farther outside the constitutional orbit as Quebec is seen to be, or wants to be seen as, by not signing the 1982 Constitution. Yeah, and who else didn't sign? All but the Treaty 8 and Douglas Treaty Nations in BC, and over a lot of the landscape they're a considerable minority, sometimes a majority (especially in more remote and lesser-populated areas); and they're still in terrius nullius or whatever it's called; at an absolute level the British Columbia government has been a fiction imposed atop an unrelinquished set of legal and constitutional eventualities that were already in place, and remain in place despite "our" efforts to do away with it.
So in reply to CanadianCaesar, the only way for the Canadian Constitution at present to incorporate how most BC First Nations see themselves, and always have seen themselves, is either by treaty or constitutional amendment, bringing them in as sovereign (which is, again, how they see themselves); it's the Constitution that's the problem, y'see, and Citizenship is exactly what hasn't been resolved by the political vacuum that's existed in the last, oh, 140-odd years (once Douglas retired and Trutch's policies came into sway over the resistant Seymour, who like Douglas also wanted to resolve things fairly with native peoples, and was on the whole more generous than his sub-officials, who unfortunately were in charge of actual land allotments - all later done away with, arbitrarily (and whatever documents there were of larger allotments previously have been lost, i.e. were destroyed); it's actually the biggest of all BC's political scandals, if the truth be told (as it slowly is, over the years of late). The Nisga'a Treaty was on a preferable model to the Te'Mexw and Tsawwassen deals that just went down (which surrendered sovereignty and in both cases opened up land for industrial development as well as mutual economic development/employment for the band), but in general there is a sense that the logjam is breaking - again, for better or for worse, as the treaties sought by the current BC government are still unpalatable to a wide swathe of First Nations and First Nations people in BC, and highly suspect in the general milieu of BC politics (how 'bout that Ledgegate stuff, huh?...which turns out to be perhaps connected to the Tsawwassen treaty, but don't get me started any further than I already am); and there is a large list, in fact I'd bet the largest list (Oldmanrivers?), is of bands and nations which are outside the treaty process; even the Lillooet Tribal Council, despite ongoing working relationships with all levels of government, will not recognize the treaty process nor take part in it; which is one reason why In-SHUCK-ch and Neququatque broke away (they were small and isolated, also). All this by trying to hammer in the point: the constitutional impasse in British Columbia means that any definition used by the state of Canada or any of its proxies or agencies is obviously subjective, and for balance should only be mentioned alongside the native perspective on that subjectivity. Complicated, yes, but so is BC, or rather the way BC is. It's not like the sitution, or the history, anywhere else in the country, and it's often hard to get people "from beyond the mountains" to understand how very different things were here, and how different what went down was; there was no conquest, no deed of title, no treaties - just a shell game, and a series of laws forbidding indigenous political organization - which is why Potlatch Laws should be a high-priority article, but I'm not qualified to write it - and not so much a series of broken promises as everywhere else, where there's actual treaties to be violated, but a litany of complaints and protests, throughout BC history (except when that meant imprisonment, as with one of the provisions of the Potlatch Law of 1922), that were just never listened to, albeit sat through (actually O'Reilly in particular, as well as Vowell, did what they could to avoid natives during their tour of the province to allocate reserves...but put up with chiefly orations when they had to). And long before Oka and the Mohawk Civil War before it, there was native unrest, with guns and all, in rural BC (esp. the Fraser Canyon in the '70s, but always on the river...), but it just didn't get airtime. It's much the same with the treaty history, and also with the subtleties of aboriginal vs indigenous and who gets to define who what and which wherefore why etc, this is hot-button out here for a lot of people, "it matters". Not particularly to me but I do my best to wade through the linguistic minefield; BC history, and BC First Nations history, has never been on the national radar screen, but it's the proverbial horse of a different colour and this ain't Oz, baby, it's Lotusland and everything you thought you knew east of the Rockies is wrong once you're out here for a while; and there's a lot more to it when you look close than you can possibly realize from outside, and come to think of it, it's definitely a timewarp; in the First Nations case the timewarp goes back to long before Simon Fraser and Captain Cook; they've never surrendered, and are still who they are, often exactly where they were, for the last few thousand years. Talk about the family digs, and rights to private property and inheritance etc. Not just trying to be silly, but to underscore the point that while the veneer of constitutionality may be - ?? - working out elsewhere in Canada for First Nations, the particular political-historical context of it out here is entirely different, and there is no legal standard, in fact; I've only used government sources on various FN pages because, usually, the versions of the names given there are those preferred by the band government, at least at the time of the publication/assembling of whichever list. Even a read through of the village and people articles from Tsimshian or Nisga'a is an eye-opener - this addressed to CanadianCaesar still - as to the range of legal and constitutional concepts that are outside the orbit of the Canadian constitution, but well within the world of the First Nations. OK, sorry for the ramble, g'nite....Keefer4, it's your fault, you got me here ;-). Skookum1 10:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Postscript: CanadianCaesar's use of a certain set of words initially had me smile, and I smiled and almost laughed again when I saw it after posting the just-above. "That's not sociology, that's legal fact". No, you don't have it quite right, y'see - this is British Columbia. There are no legal facts. ROTFL. One nice thing the mountains do for you is quarantine you from the noxious stew of lies and innuendo that BC politics is built on (and esp. the BC media); but as for tactical, legal-object reality, the place was surveyed and chopped up and sold off, and otherwise hyped and promo'd and fueled in a huge shell game with land and resources, and land and resources which, um, neither the Colony nor the Province actually had legal authority, under imperial law, to actually do; this is part of why I'm interested in the Land Law of 1859, which has to do with the Military Clique Lands Scandal I've been meaning to write an article on, for lack of a better titel; the point is that the province of British Columbia itself, is a legal fiction superimposed on unsurrendered lands still legally owned by the original occupants, and whose ancient laws and customs were affirmed in the Delgamuukw appeal as constituting a body of laws that are the same as British Common Law, and eventually have to be integrated into the constitution, which is how the British Constitution upon which the Canadian one was built came into being; all of this made much, much, more complicated over the years with the government of BC constantly shoving the responsibility off into Ottawa's lap, and trying to wash its hands of it, claiming - wrongly - that native title had been abrogated as a consequence of the referendum to join Confederation; and more and more. I didin't mean to get so serious; "legal fact" in BC, whether it's FNs or anything else, rarely exists, and in the technical sense relative to what the subject at hand is - First Nations identity/status - there's no legality or fact to be had at all. But the ROTFL feeling I had when I looked at it again, stifled with a wince, was that in the topsy-turvy world of BC politics and media, you can never be sure what's real and what's true; the unfolding of Ledgegate in the last 24 hours (and, my prediction, its complete unravelling in the next 24 weeks), should serve as a case in point. Whose laws? Whose country? That's another big issue, from all sides lately...but suffice to say BC First Nations were not part of the process by which BC entered Confederation, despite being 90% of its population at the time. Munch on that one for a while.....g'niteSkookum1 10:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Apparently you don't feel bound by WP:DICK. I don't know why my suggestion of just using the tribe wasn't used. I don't know why we're overlooking that he's part of an organization that uses "BC" in its title and that is a part of Confederation- that's all I meant. Good bye. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 17:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't throw stones in glass houses, i.e. by being petulant and assuming the person you're talking to is a dick; but all too often I get accused of whatever simply for trotting out points of information, in ramifying detail, but only as information. If you got insulted, "if thine eye offend thee, strike it out" or, "if your nose is out of joint, it's probably too pointy". The double-standards of FN nomenclature, like the use not only of "BC" but "Chiefs" in that organization's title, is not my problem; they're just the facts. As are the facts of p.c.-language in FN politics, which is partly what this is all about; my main thrust here was only in correcting you on the idea that BC First Nations peoples are somehow covered by the Constitution, likewise "Citizenship"; I'm not FN (Oldmanrivers is) but I understand the machineries of empire here and some of the aspects of native culture that "white man's assumptions" overlook or ignore; or, in the case, of BC treaty/constitutional history re the rest of Canada, which everyone assumes to be the same as the history of somewhere else (Central Canada). So I'm not being a dick, just a messenger, and you should learn not to shoot those. Assume good faith etc.Skookum1 19:21, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Right, "ROFL" can only be meant in a complimentary way, as can shoving words in my mouth. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 20:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
If you took my ROTFL re the factuality of facts in BC as a personal stab, I'm sorry, I don't have time to deal with the insecurities implicit in that; it's a BC inside-joke, and I know both Keefer4 and Oldmanrivers would understand it, and that it wasn't a personal jab at you; but it was definitely a gaffe on your part, though an unintentional one as it's a truism on the ironies and bitter particularities of BC's political culture are not understood east of the mountains - hell, they're not understood on this side of the mountains, we're just familiar with them, that's all. There are no constitutional facts in BC, or rather there is an absence of constitutional fact. That's scarcely your fault, including for not understanding how different the FN equation is in BC, or for the revelation that there are no facts in politics here, especially not in constitutional politics. There are, if anything, a mixed bag of hope and resentment, and I'm not just talking about FN politics; BC historians still debate the betrayals of the province implicit in the Oregon and Alaska treaties and in the CPR/Confederation deal, and on a lot more since; we're used to our own politicians being liars, and those from east of the mountains commonly misled or just not well-apprised of the situation on the ground in BC (while being able, as politicians, to make decisions concerning same). The assumptions about the way Canada is that are commonly held by Central Canadians do not and cannot, by definition, apply to British Columbia except by imposition; this goes for FN terminoloy/politics especially; we're a unique case, although to listen to Canadian constitutional/national debates the mythology is one of the Quebec vs ROC divide, and perhaps also that the subjugation of native peoples was so long ago it's a side issue; in BC it was done in the last few generations, not a few centuries ago, and that is another very BIG difference. But, if you like, take all this personally instead of trying to learn from it; that's your problem, not mine.Skookum1 21:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Last time I checked, Stewart Phillip did not invent the organization he heads that has 'BC' in the title, and this article is not about an organization. Sometimes conveying background information, as Skookum1 has tried to do, is critical to understanding a particular perspective. Nothing personal. I don't think there would be a problem with identifying him by his people, best to see what he has to say on the matter I guess. I think it would be prudent to remain open minded on such matters, rather then state absolutist viewpoints, is all. --Keefer4 21:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I just removed Canadian, and left Aboriginal. Funny thing too, I ran into him the other day. Was short and it's not like I'm best friends with him. Adding his people would be good. OldManRivers 04:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I know in some circles it's considered preferable to simply use one's nation, as opposed to saying "First Nations person", a cumbersome phrase especially when "Indian" or "Native" are the less p.c. forms; so quite often in Lillooet someone, if speaking of themselves as a First Nations person, does so in a generic sense, i.e. the First Nations vs non-First Nations divide; but when speaking of what, er, ethnicity, they are, they'll unhesitatingly say "St'at'imc" - an important distinction as someone else might be Secwepemc or Nlaka'pamux or even Cree; I've even met a Cherokee in Lillooet once, who got the "don't tell me you're part Cherokee" jibe all the time; and of course he was. Point is that much in the same way I don't like "European" as a general form for, er, white people, and prefer "Scot", "Hungarian", "Spaniard", "Briton" and other more specific terms, the same goes for native peoples; Someone is of Mikmaq or Dogrib origin, which makes them First Nations persons; but so much the better to identify someone as a Mikmaq than according to a term, that, bluntly, originated in response to the "two solitudes" of English and French Canadas, and Quebec's supposed status as Second Nation or whatever. A wiki standard of using nation/tribe as identifier is a good and rightful thing, but we're much more used to it in Canada than in the U.S. - although even down there I know User:Phaedriel and others like her would probably say "Comanche" (or whatever they are, but that's what she is) before "Native American". Oldmanrivers is Kwakwaka'wakw and Skwxwu7mesh-ullh (is that the right form for that context?) - "First Nations person" is much less organic, and in a way too broad a brush, as well as more of a political statement than a cultural identifier....Skookum1 07:26, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
PS if Stewart Phillip is Okanagan, then Category:Syilx should be added to the page.Skookum1 07:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

No, if he's Okanagan, then Aboriginal should be removed, and Okanagan should be put in it's place, unless he has a Metis Grandmother, an Inuit Grandfather and is Okanagan on the other side of his family. - TheMightyQuill 20:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Okanagan is good then. I just wasn't sure what his ethnicity was (the name of his people). There is a bit on First Nation and the term controversy. I would never call myself First Nations, Aboriginal, Native American, Indian. I would identify as Indigenous because of the international law, along with the fact that "Indigenous" brings to mind of actually being from there. Any ways, what I'm meaning to say is, First Nations, Native American, and other pan-Indian terms do take away from who these peoples actually are. Prior to, and still remaining, these peoples (the Indigenous peoples of North America), are their own separate nations. I can understand for outsiders coming in who would get confused, and I don't blame them. It's very difficult to explain the situation in Canada, North American, let alone BC. But with the separate pages, and the links to Aboriginal, or Indigenous peoples of North America|Indigenous]], it gives more understanding and respect where respect is due. OldManRivers 22:18, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
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