Equal Rights for All!

The above article, which appeared in the Times Colonist on January 11, 2012, clearly demonstrates the great danger of special rights based on race. The inherrent capacity for convoluted interpretations of these special rights is indicitive of the confusion that will emerge when these rights are gradually expanded, as they appear to be. We as a country have disavowed the concept of discrimination on the basis of race, with the exception of course of all the special status accorded to those who consider themselves "First Nations." The concept of a nation state attributable to a small indiginous band is inherrently falacious and contradicts the importance of equality rights for all citizens. There cannot be a stable, sensible society with concepts of "Indiginous rights" which are distinct from those of the general population. It will, in the end, produce resentment and inequitable distribution of legal rights, which after all should be accorded without distinctions as to race.

It is part of the inherrent nature of Canada, inherited from the British Crown and its declarations of the ancient past (like the Royal Proclamation of 1764) in circumstances vastly different than present day circumstances that these special rights exist.

Western Canada, if independent, would not be a successor government of the government of Canada or of the Imperial Parliament of England. As such, we could define our legal and political rights in a distinct and fair manner. This is impossible under the present constitutional arrangement, as the Supreme Court of Canada has consistently upheld various versions of legal rights based on racial distinctions of supposedly indiginous origin. This is another reason why, unless independence is accomplished for Western Canada, the end result will be a demoralized, chaotic conflict between racial groups and rights based upon racial categories. This is quite the contrary to what everyone claims to espouse in the Canadian political system.