If you hang in until 11 P.M. you can catch Mansbridge's interview with some Amnesty International guy. That is, in case you missed the first three airings of this incisive investigation into how Americans are probably torturing Al-Queda suspects in Camp X. Bless Mansbridge, at least he gave honourable mention to William Sampson (Bill's 15 seconds of CBC fame), before he moved on to the world's real torturers, the Yanks.
Just to keep us critics off balance, they presented a reasonably fair case of a third generation Japanese-Canadian, who was economically crippled by a court decision to grant the First Nations the almost exclusive rights to drain the mouth of the Fraser River of every salmon in Christiandom -- while the commmercial fishermen--sorry, fisherpeople--were driven into bankruptcy. The main native chief of the area does not even identify himself as a Canadian, but rather as a FIRST NATIONS’ citizen. This is what it has come to out here in the Wild West. Now, a B.C. court decision has decided that this former court edict is gravely flawed. In fact, it amounts to the worst kind of racial discrimination. It ruled that the commercial fisherpeople have an equal right to fish there. The Indians are going to take the case to the Supreme Court. Of course, they are. Their vaunted spirituality trumps common sense and decency every time. Besides, undoubtedly, the long-suffering Canadian taxpayers will be paying their court challenges lawyers – and associated costs.
The ruling that they are supposed to fish only for their families and their ritual needs has, somehow, been been tainted by the quantity of their actual catches. For this to happen legally, they would have to eat four pounds of salmon, per person, each day to justify their catches. I must buy their recipe book, 1001 Ways to Eat Salmon Every Day of Life.
As before, this Bud is packing his bags to vacate the country. We are definitely on the slippery slope here. Wait for the Metis demands (another spiritual group -- who channel Louis Riel) and you will help me in packing up.
