Onfire
Ontario Federation for Individual Rights and Equality
PO Box 821 Grand Bend, Ontario NOM1TO
Phone: (519) 786-5131
email: onfire@htl.net
web site: www.oxford.net/~onfire
Onfire was formed in the fall of 1995 after a violent confrontation in the community of Ipperwash Beach in Bosanquet Ontario. Ipperwash is situated on the South western shores of Lake Huron.
To the west of the community is the Kettle and Stony Point reserve. On the east border is the former Ipperwash Military Camp and the Ipperwash Provincial Park. In between these two areas is a residential community of approximately 600 homes on private land.
In May of 93 a group of Kettle and Stony Point Indians broke away from the Kettle Point Reserve and started an occupation of the Army Camp. In 1942 the land was expropriated by the Federal Gov't for an army training facility because of the War.
Eighteen families of Natives were relocated to Kettle and Stony Point Reserve.
The Natives truly believed that the land would be returned to them after the war. However the Federal Gov't believed at the time they had purchased the land and did not intend to return it. By 1972 Kettle and Stony Point started lobbying for the return of the base lands. The government stood firm that it was still needed for an army base. In July/95 after several confrontations
between army and natives the army deserted the base to avoid any more problems. By Sept/95 the Natives at the base overran the Provincial Park adjacent to the base. In this violent confrontation a native man Dudley George was killed by
an OPP officer. The OPP left the area and we residents were without any form of policing or authority for several weeks.
Onfire was formed to address the issue of lawlessness in the area and our lack of police protection. To the present day police or authority of any kind will not enter the base or the park in pursuit of those who seek safe haven there after committing criminal offenses against innocent homeowners in the area.
Several politicians within Ontario are being sued by Natives for the wrongful death of Dudley George. Several non-native residents in the community are suing the Provincial, Federal Gov't and the Ontario Provincial Police for breeches of the Police act and the Charter of Rights. The base and the Park are still illegally occupied five years later with no resolution to anything out here. We have tried as a group to be part of the solution, but have been rebuffed by every level of government. We have suffered many indignities and criminal offenses against us which are not dealt with by authorities in order to avoid confrontation with the Native agenda. We have been
abandoned by the very people that we elected to serve and protect. The class-action lawsuit should be going full steam very soon. In the meantime we have a police force who walks away from native
issues involving confrontation of any kind whether with themselves or a resident. We have a base and a Park that are havens for criminals because the police refuse to enter there.
We have been subjected to break and enters, vandalism, theft, assaults and death threats as members of this community. We are virtually living in Limbo without a country. You may recall in July 1996 there was an international incident involving an American tourist from Michigan whose boat blew up in a storm onto the beach of the Military Base out here. The boat was pillaged and destroyed by Natives occupying the base while the Canadian Police stood by and watched it happen. No one was ever charged and the American was appalled.. He suffered fifty thousand dollars damage to his
vessel. Even this threat to a tourist did not change the policing situation to anyone's benefit.
The Native Agenda here has be exercised with militancy and violence that no one in Canada will address or rectify. The constitution of Canada and the Charter of Rights do not apply to us. In all of Canada there is no other situation like the lack of law enforcement that exists in Bosanquet Ontario.
Mary-Lou LaPratte
President of ONFIRE
Chatam Kent Community Network
62B Talbot St.
Blenhiem, Ontario Canada
Phone: 519-676-6717
Fax: 519-676-0988
email: ckln@blenhiem.webgate.net
web site: http://blenheim.webgate.net/~ckcn/
In mid-December 1998, citizens in the area surrounding Blenheim and Rondeau Provincial Park in the Municipality of Chatham-Kent (southwestern Ontario) discovered that the Government of Canada's Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development had secretly negotiated an agreement in principle to settle an outstanding land claim with the small Caldwell First Nation band.
This settlement, if ratified by the band and the cabinet, will eventually lead to the creation of a 4,500 acre reserve on land currently owned by private landowners, mostly farmers in this highly diversified agricultural region. At no time were citizens in the existing community notified or asked for input into this development, and our elected officials at all three levels of government, including our member of parliament who sits in the ruling Liberal caucus, were as blindsided by this announcement as everyone else.
In response, the Chatham Kent Community Network (CKCN) was created. The CKCN's mandate is to investigate the Caldwell First Nation land claim and settlement agreement, represent the interests of residents and businesses in south Chatham-Kent who have been left out of its negotiation process, and provide information to the community as it becomes available.
This web site has been established to provide a forum or "cyber townhall" for all interested groups and individuals to exchange information and to encourage an open and fair process of resolving this issue in south Chatham-Kent.
The Ad Hoc Committee to SAVE ALGONQUIN
PARK
website: http://tamil.org/~mkean/mackay-1.html
The Ad Hoc Committee to SAVE ALGONQUIN PARK was established in 1991 in response to a decision by the then government of Ontario - without any public consultation or notification - to stop enforcement against illegal hunting and fishing by aboriginal people in Algonquin
Park. The Interim Enforcement Policy was instituted on January 18th, 1991, a full six years
ago. The government's reasoning was based, in part, on a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, which supposedly "forced" Ontario to ignore Algonquin Park's protected status. The Ad Hoc Committee has attempted to raise awareness on matters pertaining to the Golden Lake Land Claim to crown lands in the Ottawa Valley south of the Ottawa River.
The Ad Hoc Committee formed around a core group of former Algonquin Park naturalists and historical researchers who knew that the Golden Lake claim to Algonquin Park had a very poor historical basis. Work continues in hope of persuading the governments of Canada and Ontario, that the historical evidence put forward by our committee must have great bearing on the nature of any negotiated settlement. However, while Ontario's chief negotiator, Ian Binnie, indicated to the committee, on September 16, 1996, that "the historical debate is fascinating... this issue has already been taken by both Ontario and the federal government, of course, and my mandate is simply to get on with negotiations."
The Golden Lake Land Claim
In 1983 the Golden Lake Indian Band near Eganville, Ontario (300 members on the Reserve, about 700 residing elsewhere) presented a claim to the governments of Canada and Ontario for 14,000 square miles of land on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River, including Parliament Hill and most of Algonquin Provincial Park.
According to Algonquin Golden Lake First Nation Information Sheet No. 6, "The Algonquins of Golden Lake lived in, controlled and hunted over a wide expanse of Ontario. The traditional territory is essentially the southern watershed of the Ottawa River; roughly, from Hawkesbury in the east to just beyond North Bay and encompassing much of the counties of Stormont-Dundas, Leeds -Grenville, Renfrew, District of Nippissing, Hastings-Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Lanark-Carleton and parts of Victoria-Haliburton. The total territory comprises some eight and one half million acres."