Dear Editor,

The reality of reconciliation will be a two-state country, three if you count Quebec.

That means that it is all well and good to talk about protecting old-growth forests, but what the larger community might want will have no effect on First Nation-held lands.

The Squamish chief has only asked for a two-year delay in logging, but then the band also said it wants a 20-per-cent increase in royalties paid to them once logging resumes. And as our government is handing over more and more land to the bands, any calls for ending old-growth logging are mute.

I have wasted my life arguing for equality between all Canadians, it seems. Because you can’t have a country of equals when one group is more equal than all the others.

I believe in a united country, not a balkanized country, which is the ultimate goal of reconciliation in all ways that matter.

So, the truth is, old-growth logging will continue as First Nation bands want the revenue. I don’t agree with it, but that is just one of the real-world consequences of the Supreme Court giving the most liberal interpretations possible on every First Nation entitlement claim and our politicians promising too much out of guilt for colonialism.

I feel so strongly that we are going down the road to making us a failed nation that I have bought a 20-foot flagpole, from which I will fly the Canadian and B.C. provincial flags upside down, which is the symbol of a country in trouble.

I just have to dig a hole for the flagpole which in itself is a metaphor for a country digging itself into a hole even for the best of intentions.

Robert T. Rock, Mission

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