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Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

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Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#211

Post by danem »

karaterobot wrote: post #141
systemstops wrote: post #92

Someone at Westbank is a genius: fund the building of a massive skyscraper project on land that was recently returned to indigenous tribes because of a lawsuit, a project that would never be normally approved because of zoning laws. Then, declare any criticism of the project as racist, thus guaranteeing it will be built. I wonder how much of the money the tribe is actually getting out of this?

You're being downvoted, but people should look at this through the lens of it being a massive real estate deal rather than as a civil rights issue, which it is not. Of course there's shady stuff going on if you scratch the surface, didn't you see the part where real estate developers are involved? Unless we're making the laughable (and patronizing) assumption that massive urban residential real estate deals are vacci…

What corruption are you referring to?

Who built the house/apartment you live in? A real estate developer, right?

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#212

Post by lisper »

faeriechangling wrote: post #80
lisper wrote: post #3

I think this is terrific. It's high time the indigenous people reclaimed their sovereignty. The idea that "When you’re building 30, 40-storey high rises out of concrete, there’s a big gap between that and an Indigenous way of building" is just ridiculous. Who the fuck are you, white man, to say what is and is not consistent with an "Indigenous way of building"? You aren't living the same lifestyle and building the sa…

Hating/liking this project is going to fall on age lines more than racial ones, the age demo of hacker news is likely to almost universally LOVE this project.

Not only am I a white guy, I'm an old white guy. (I'm 59.) Even worse, I'm rich too, so I am solidly in the demographic of the person I was quoting. But despite the fact that I am a rich old white guy, I don't consider rich old white guys to be my tribe. I look at the history of what rich old white guys have done (and in many cases are still doing) to racial minorities and it fills me with deep shame that I am one of them.

So I genuinely love seeing racial minorities stand up for themselves. I particularly admire what the Maoris have accomplished in New Zealand. And I especially love it when it ends up annoying the rich old white guys that the racial minority is starting to do the exact same thing that the rich old white guys have been doing for centuries. Seeing the irony and lack of self awareness lets me tell myself that no, I am not one them, despite the fact that I look like them.

BTW, the flip side of that is, "I am one of them despite the fact that I don't look like them." Which, it seems to me, is what we ought to be striving for.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#213

Post by rayiner »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #203
wolfhumble wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or the founding of Israel by Britain. Jerusalem, City of David, was conquered by David more than 3000 years ago. The founding of Israel was not built out of thin air.

Irrelevant

Seems pretty relevant.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#214

Post by sdenton4 »

elefanten wrote: post #155
smallmancontrov wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why not run programs along the lines of current economic status, which is relatively easy to objectively determine and relatively light on ethnic, racial, and national animus? It is impossible to do a good job of litigating history and it is guaranteed to make people hate each other.

This is absolutely the correct answer, all identity-based solutions are coarse and imprecise ways to solve a directly measurable problem (relative economic hardship). But the identity-based lever has proven too effective rhetorically and creates ample rent-seeking and self-enrichment opportunities to those wielding political power with an identity-based community. Plus, general means-based intervention is generally s…

I'm not sure how you get from 'the Canadian government must respect the treaties that it signed' to 'identity-based solutions.'

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#215

Post by rory »

ximus wrote: post #120

It's comforting to see first nations of canada recovering a central role in modern canadian society. However, having lived here for a year a year now, I have observed a concerning aspect of this re-integration, which is mentioned in the article: First nations aren't just propped back up and re-integrated in society, it goes further in that they are given special rights that go beyond what any other class of canadian…

I wonder if a more workable arrangement would stipulate that indigenous people are exempt from these regulations only when the work and management of a project is also designed and implemented by Indigenous people.

That would seemingly circumvent this loophole where a large, private corporation run by white canadians effectively uses the indigenous people as a loophole, cutting them in to circumvent regulations.

Wouldn't really help e.g. overfishing issues but seems directionally better.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#216

Post by nikitaga »

philistine wrote: post #205
nikitaga wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since first nations metrics along the lines of economic status are still below the national average, it's clear we're not there just yet. Instead of rushing for race-based policies, how about implementing policies that would help all disadvantaged people equally without looking at their race. You can't compensate for past racism with modern racism. It will never end. Canada will learn that the hard way, it seems.

I see you took Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s plan from way back in the 70s out of the moth balls and are now trying to pass it as new. It cannot work. Our government signed binding treaties with independent nations in the past. Those treaties are still valid, and we cannot declare them null and void because it’s unfair that they give more fishing rights to 3% of people.

This isn't about treaties – BC signed very few treaties, unlike other provinces. The rights to fish come from a couple of very vague paragraphs in the constitution and the royal proclamation. They are very much free to interpretation, and the courts have been re-interpreting them for decades to match the contemporary social attitudes.

For example, does the constitution guarantee the indigenous people the right to subsistence fishing with traditional methods, or to large scale commercial fishing unlimited by any Canadian regulations, or something in between? None of that is defined in the constitution, it's all up for interpretation.

And this isn't about fishing either. No one's chanting #fishback around here, it's all #landback. 90%+ of BC land is currently public land that all Canadians are free to enjoy. Whether it stays public, or whether it is entirely privatized based on race, like the activists want, is a much bigger issue than who gets to overfish.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#217

Post by troydavis »

nightowl_games wrote: post #172
Tiktaalik wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are given special rights that go beyond what any other class of canadian citizens have access to > I find it questionable to give some citizens special birth rights greater than others The reason for this is because they are using their rights from signed treaties that define how resources are used on their lands. Persons that are part of First Nations like the Squamish and the Haida are not just "some citizen…

> power over lands that they never legally ceded to British Columbia or Canada. Actually curious about this concept of "unceded land". If it's not Canada's land then can I come in there and break laws and say Canadian law doesn't apply because it's not Canada? Seems like this "unceded land" concept is only applied selectively?

In the US, there's recent case law where the answer seems to be closer to yes than no - but applied to tribal members. The case was McGirt v. Oklahoma, which the Supreme Court decided in 2020: https://ballotpedia.org/McGirt_v._Oklahoma , https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/08/29/three-years-after-la...

Summary from the Ballotpedia page: "The court reversed the OCCA's decision in a 5-4 ruling, holding that under the Indian Major Crimes Act, lands reserved for the Creek Nation in eastern Oklahoma constituted Indian Country. As a result, the state of Oklahoma could not legally try a Creek citizen for criminal conduct in state court.[1] Justice Gorsuch delivered the majority opinion. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas each filed dissenting opinions."

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#218

Post by wahnfrieden »

rayiner wrote: post #213
wahnfrieden wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrelevant

Seems pretty relevant.

It is irrelevant to the conditions of the time which the Nakba was carried out, and irrelevant to the topic:

>If 2 families solely inhabited (owned) an island, since pre-history, and Family 1 sells the entire island to newcomers, while Family 2 takes no part in the deal or its approval, and does not cede their land to the purchase, then any court in the land will, quite rightly, hear Family 2's case that they are still the owner of their regions of the island.

Which describes the Balfour Declaration if Family 2 accounted for over 90% of the territory.

The current Likud party also recognizes their claim to the territory "from the river to the sea" does not involve the will of its other residents, as in the Family 1 & 2 story:

> Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#219

Post by TSiege »

ricardobeat wrote: post #195
TSiege wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if they don't have international standing, what matters is that Canada has recognized them as sovereign entities. You can't be sovereign but then be boxed into the laws of another country

Exactly why they wouldn’t be sovereign nations except by Canada’s niceness. You can only be sovereign by having some form of strong leverage, either resources, power, or international support.

Except for the legal treaties Canada signed with them? This isn't Canada being like gee I guess it'd be woke of us to say you're a separate legal entity. This is based on treaties they've signed and being legally obligated to recognize the rights of a people

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#220

Post by wolfhumble »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #203
wolfhumble wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or the founding of Israel by Britain. Jerusalem, City of David, was conquered by David more than 3000 years ago. The founding of Israel was not built out of thin air.

Irrelevant

The only reason Israel was founded were it was, can only be justfied by its first nations like connection to the chosen territory. It was not like Britain was lacking other colonies, protectorates, and mandates to choose from for the Jewish people at the given time.
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