Professor Anthony James Hall (the Don Cherry of the academic world)
I wrote last week about Professor Don Cherry’s appearance on Iran’s PressTV network talking about indigenous fishing rights. Professor Cherry shared his outrageous theory that the Canadian government was trying to hurt indigenous communities by killing all of the country’s salmon! (Yes, as you are guessing, this guy is a nutbar). Well, I found out some more background to the story, and it shows how disingenuous this guy is…
A big part of the story was about how indigenous fishers Rick Quipp & Patricia Kelley were being horribly oppressed, and imprisoned by the Canadian government for fishing for what they claimed was personal use. But, of course being a piece by PressTV, and one that included Professor Cherry, the story conflicted itself- they also said that the government was oppressing the fishers because they were competing with corporate fish farms. Typical…
Tonight I found an interesting article about this issue in a Mennonite newsletter- and the plot thickens, and the craziness becomes more apparent. Here’s a quote from the story:
“She could pay a $200 fine and be over her legal troubles, but she says such a cowardly act would betray her posterity by giving into to the Federal Crown’s effort to deny and negate the viability of her people’s Aboriginal fishery.”
So, PressTV broadcasts a story around the globe saying that Canada is oppressing and imprisoning innocent native for fishing and it turns out it was only grandstanding over a $200 fine! So, I guess the moral of the story here is don’t take PressTV very seriously- and, don’t take Professor Cherry so seriously either. But you already knew that- right?
This also opens a new question for me- why are the Mennonites promoting this charade too? After all, they’re not stupid people, and the can most certainly see through what is obviously political grandstanding. What’s they’re motivation to participate? Can anyone out there help me understand this better?
The article is below:
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1 comments
There is one thing that worries me here…. if there are many people illegally selling their salmon catch, but some people are only catching their salmon for personal use, those few people may be caught in the crossfire. People do have the right to fish and hunt, but it seems that some people were also selling them illegally. The problem is when some people are caught, sometimes the law hits everyone whether innocent or not. That is what worries me… that some native people may be lying and selling their catch and some native people may be truthful fishing for their own use ie food. The problem is, how to tell the difference so innocent people don’t get punished. I don’t think the government is going after native people by killing off salmon, however I am not sure WHAT the government is doing, especially since they seem to be backing the whole depopulation idea and GMO (which could wreak havoc on the ecosystem and our health) and many other things.. If they are doing anything to the food supply I doubt it is just the native peoples the government would be targeting they don’t seem to care about most people.