Anti Canada Day PosterANTI-CANADA DAY - July 1st 2007!

While the collaborator chiefs of the Assembly of First Nations plan to march, acquire corporate donations and access government funds on June 29th (http://www.afn.ca/nda/wcid.htm), other groups are calling on Indigenous people and their allies to take grassroots ACTION on Canada day - the day that symbolizes epic state atrocities and oppression against Indigenous people, including: genocide, land theft and occupation, brutality, violence and abuse, and mass child apprehension and deaths.

• Today, Canada continues its program of assault on Indigenous people. The state imprisonment and death of Elder and Warrior Harriet Nahanee is one of many examples of the state's vile mistreatment of Indigenous people, in particular those who expose and dissent Canada's illegal theft and occupation of Indigenous lands. Harriet was a 72-year old Pacheedaht grandmother, married into the Skwxwu7mesh Nation, who was arrested and imprisoned for protecting the Eagle Ridge Bluff site that is slated to be destroyed in the expansion of the Sea-to-Sky Highway for the 2010 Olympics. Despite her frail health, Harriet was sentenced to fourteen days at the Surrey Pretrial center; a men's prison and notorious hell hole.
While in jail, where she was inflicted with abuse, and not given proper medical care in a cell with tens of other inmates subject to racist treatment, Harriet Nahanee contracted pneumonia. After one week of release from custody, she was hospitalized and passed away within a week. Harriet represents hundreds of other Indigenous people who are criminalized and abused by the Canadian state when they choose to stand up against and not assimilate into Canadian capitalist society.

• Harriet was well known for her use of the Royal Proclamation to explain how unceded Indigenous lands are illegally occupied and governed by the Canadian government. The Canadian and provincial governments continue to attempt to extinguish Aboriginal title and rights (through litigation and the BC treaty process), dispossess Indigenous people from their lands, and destroy traditional territories through mega-development projects.

• There are over 500 murdered and missing Aboriginal women in Canada, yet Canada does not acknowledge this as a 'Justice file,' or as the responsibility of the justice system. Instead, the unjust deaths are treated as 'cultural,' and put under a 'Canadian Heritage file.' Where do the AFN collaborator chiefs stand on this issue? Where were they at the Pickton trial? Why do they not mention Aboriginal women on their Day of Action?

• Today, there has been more Indigenous children in foster and state (MCFD) care today then there ever was in residential school (tens of thousands of Indigenous people who were forced in residential school are now filing legal cases against the church and state of Canada). This should be alarming as the number of Indigenous people in abusive and assimilating residential schools (which instituted cultural genocide and slave labor) was immense. Children continue to die and be sexually and physically abused in MCFD care today, as well as suffering further isolation from their cultural roots.

• Everyday in Canada, hundreds of incidents of police brutality against Indigenous people, namely youth, take place. Police and RCMP in Prince George and other areas have sexually assaulted Indigenous girls, police and RCMP have run Indigenous youth over with their cars in northern
communities and other areas, and police and RCMP have murdered many Indigenous people all over Canada (starlight tours, deaths in custody, shooting to death, tazering to death, beating to death, etc.).

• Canada remains one of the only countries that does NOT have an independent body to investigate police and RCMP brutality, murders and hate crimes. Instead they investigate themselves, and as a result many police and RCMP literally get away with murder. When Pivot Legal Society announced the completion of its report, including affidavits documenting police brutality and violence, the police chief (Jamie Graham) just simply "retired."

• Vancouver BC's hosting of the 2010 Olympics has already aggravated Canada's abject poverty and homelessness that Indigenous people are overrepresented with. The estimated number of homeless persons in Canada ranges from 100,000 to 250,000, 25-30% which are Indigenous people.
Due to skyrocketing housing prices and a lack of affordable housing and social housing (more focus is made on accommodating hungry visitors (tourists)), the number of homeless people will surely rise during the lead up to the 2010 games.

Canada's Dirty History is Repeating Itself...
REFUSE TO ACCEPT YOUR OPPRESSION!

ANTI-CANADA DAY
JULY 1st, 2007

THE REAL NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION & RESISTANCE

Refuse to Accept:

*The unjust state death of Elder and Warrior Harriet Nahanee
*Over 500 murdered and missing Indigenous women
*Theft and occupation of Indigenous lands
*Child apprehension of Indigenous children
*Police, state and military violence and brutality
*Abject poverty with thousands Homeless
*Criminalization of dissent

Meet at Grandview Park (at Commercial Drive) at 1pm, March to follow For more information contact: anti.canada.day@gmail.com

Take Action in your own communities!
Let the AFN collaborator chiefs know they don't represent you!
Let Canada know you reject their program of assault!
Native People rise up and take back the land!