Grassroots feeling left out

Editor :

The writer of the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs weekly article in the Three Rivers Report is always going back in time to the days when the Indian Act was imposed on the Gitksan people throughout the Skeena, and then goes back to the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and to the days of Chief Pontiac. And that the French and English still have their differences to this day. It is only the Bloc Quebecois, a separatist party, that wants sovereignty over Quebec.

The Gitxsan Treaty Society and their board of directors and administration want  the Alternative Governance Model (AGM) that is now being challenged in court because the majority of the grassroots Gitksan people do not want self-government.

The AGM has never been brought forward to  the grassroots people. The people who are concerned say they are not satisfied in the manner in which GTS is handling the affairs, business and administration of programs on their behalf. This is what the people mean by being left out.

The grassroots people will have to rise up and the elected chiefs and councils can file non-confidence on the negotiators in their villages and vote on the AGM. No one knows the details of this self-government issue. The grassroots Gitksan people do not want to give up what they have in the constitution of Canada.

Mary Dalen

Cedarvale

Smithers Interior News