The truth and reconciling the bills

DEAR EDITOR:

The Truth and Reconciliation process has become a massive and complex collection of claims for real and perceived losses and injustices, amounting to billions of dollars, that’s beginning to look like a massive scam, perpetrated on Canadian tax-payers.

Insisting on being politically correct is more important than the truth is denying all Canadians the opportunity to participate in open and honest dialogue about these challenges, like freedom of expression, democracy, and who owns the land.

We are all migrants, we all came from somewhere else, indigenous people included, and we all have the same rights to occupy and use the land after 20 years of continuous use and occupancy, but two radically different title systems has transformed ownership into a state of chaos.

A fee-simple title system is awarding titleholders ownership and unrestricted occupancy and use of the land longer term, while the chiefs and tribal laws continue to deny the indigenous people the right to buy, own, and sell ceded lands, limiting them to occupancy and restricted use only, denying them the security, satisfaction, and benefits of ownership.

As the result, a lot of indigenous people do not own any land, while owners of unceded lands, including many indigenous people, have invested billions of dollars in homes and infrastructure.

The other nasty problem is what all those chiefs, hereditary and elected, have in common with our power-hungry political leaders. They do absolutely not want democracy. A Proportional political system will bring resolution to all these issues, as it opens the doors for all Canadians to develop a party system that includes every race, colour, and culture, producing truly democratic governments that represent all people fairly, including the indigenous people, while it protects everybody’s human rights, including our right to own land, an essential foundation for prosperity and a better quality of life.

Instead, the hereditary and elected Chiefs are squabbling over jurisdiction, and Poilievre is promoting freedoms, not democracy and Proportional ballots, denying the spirit and intent of the UNDRIP protocols, we all have the same rights and opportunities. Andy Thomsen, Kelowna