C.O.R.I.N.
WHY DID WE CHOSE THIS NAME FOR
OUR CORPORATION ?
CANADIAN was chosen instead of
National because we are registered as a corporation with the Canadian government,
and are chartred to serve First Nations Peoples who reside in that land
mass that is registered with the United Nations as " Canada "
Does that mean we recognize
Canada as legal holders of this land mass ? NO ! This is still First Nation
Land, but until the First Nation re-establish legal land title over it
again through the world courts, we have no choice, under Canadian law,
but to use that name to refer to the land mass we serve.
OFF-RESERVE was chosen to refer
to the fact that we are serving all the First Nations Peoples residing
in that land mass registerted with the United Nations as Canadas, who DO
NOT reside on a federal reserve land base.
Does that mean we support the
Indian Act ? No ! We are 100% against the Indian Act, the reserve sysytem
and government controls over First Nations peoples, but, the fact is that
there are two seperate groups of First Nations peoples residing here:
those who reside on reserves and those that don't, and our mandate is to
serve those who just happen to reside off one of these reserves !
INDIAN was chosen because all
legal documentation of the First Nations peoples whose leaders sign treaties,
were defined then and now by the co-signers as " Indians " , so, if we
don't use the term Indian, we open the doors for all types of legal tactics
to stall the negotiations process.
Does
this mean we accept the term indian ourselves ? No ! The term was given
to us by a foreign government, it is derogaratory and insulting, even racists,
but, we use it here to let the government know exactly who we represent.
INCORPORATED is used because
the only way we can access funding to carry our our serviced to the off-reserve
first nations peoples from Culture & Heritage Canada ( and many Aboriginal
funding agencies ) is if we are incorporated as a non-profit corporation
with letters patent !
Does that mean we agree with
this requirement ? No ! We would like to be known and accepted as a confederacy
of First Nations Peoples who did not accept the government controlled reserve
system, but that is not possible at this point in time, and it was decided
that the immidiate needs of our members are important enough to cater to
these oppressive racist demands for now .
We were gong to call our corporation
the National Non-Reserve First Nations Peoples Incorporated, but felt it
would cause more problems that we needed at this point, being too vague
in relation to current western viewpoints.
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