Canada faces "catastrophic confrontation"

Report warns of 'catastrophic' uprising

By Peter O'NeilCanada faces a potentially "catastrophic" uprising unless aboriginal Canadians become full participants in natural resource extraction, a prominent think-tank warned Wednesday.

Former Canadian senior military officer Douglas Bland is now professor emeritus at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.

Bland pointed to a "direct action" threat this week by a B.C. First Nation to block a copper mine's expansion as a small sign of the kind of backlash he's suggesting.

Bland, in one of two reports on natural resource development and First Nations published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, argued that Canadians should take heed of the Idle No More movement that triggered cross-country protests earlier this year against federal government inaction on key issues.

"An idea that most Canadians would have seen as preposterous a year ago . . . is now very real," he wrote.

"The possibility of a catastrophic confrontation between Canada's settler and aboriginal communities, spurred not by yesterday's grievances but by the central features and consequences of our national policies, have the potential to make such an uprising feasible if not . . . inevitable."Comment:  Previous reports have said similar things while painting Natives as violent and savage radicals. This report apparently didn't do that.

When the government continues breaking treaties, civil disobedience may be justified. But not violence against people.

For more on Idle No More, see Canada Owes Billions for Unfulfilled Treaties and Idle No More Plans "Sovereignty Summer."