Thursday, May 19, 2011

John Cummins & Native Treaties

In a continuing line of unfortunate comments which is giving the BC Conservatives a bad name - John Cummins (BC Conservative Party Leader-elect) says recently signed Native Treaties, like the Tsawwassen Treaty, signed in 2009, is a "sweetheart deal".

See more from the Globe and Mail - BC Edition here

Note - if Mr. Cummins keep making this gaffes in the public (native issues, gay issues, etc), it is hard to see how the BC Conservatives will be seen, from the public's perspective, as a  poltiical party than can go toe-to-toe with the BC Liberals' and the BC NDP, when Mr. Cummins's party takes such hardline, right-winged stances like on native treaty rights & gay rights, which are certainly more right then the BC Liberal Party views' on gay rights/native treaty rights which you will find more centrist and in line with most British Columbians

2 comments:

Unknown said...

John Cummins is making common sense comments that most British Columbians wished their political leaders would say.

NO disrespect to First Nations people (and I have that ancestry) however a food fishery that provides each person the equivalent of pounds of food every single day IS NOT a food fishery -- it's a commercial fishery. That's on top of the policy the Department of Fisheries had of buying up commercial fishery licenses and boats, and then turning them over to First nations bands.

Further to the so-called 'gaffes" -- again I think that MOST British Columbians believe each person is equal regardless of race, color, creed, or sexual orientation. That said, there is NO NEED to add or distinguish SPECIAL classes of people.

You can say I'm full of it, but once the door opens a crack, the crowd seeking to be added to the list will push it wide open.

Unknown said...

Steve ... just to clarify ... here is a statement taken directly from the Globe and mail story you quote:

Mr. Cummins’s comments were prompted by evidence presented at the Cohen Commission this week. A former federal fisheries officer told of finding 345,000 sockeye from a native food fishery stocked in scores of industrial freezers in 2005.

Mr. Cummins, who still has a commercial fishing licence, said there is no doubt the fish were headed to the black market for illegal commercial sales.