[A-List] Our Case--and cause--continues...

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mr. Craven,
This will acknowledge your email of November 16, 2003, which I received on
that date. Thank you for providing additional information concerning your
case. I was unable to discuss this with Mr. Brooks until today. We will not
be contacting your witnesses, but we do appreciate the invitation to do so
by conference call.

I can also advise that I noticed your potential challenge to Treaty 7 in
your email on October 12. As this was the first time I understood you to be
challenging Treaty 7, I immediately contacted our expert on treaty documents
and was advised by him on October 14, 2003 that he would be unavailable to
testify on January 22 and 23. He will be able to testify in April, May or
June however. Therefore, I am going to write the Court and advise that if
credible evidence concerning the validity of Treaty 7 is advanced at trial,
I will need to request an adjournment. I will send you a copy of that
correspondence.

In the meantime, I renew my request for you to send documents to me which
you intend to file in evidence. I understand that you are working on that.
It will greatly simplify our task on January 22 and 23.

Thank you.
Kurt Sandstrom
Barrister and Solicitor
Alberta Justice
Constitutional and Aboriginal Law



Dear Mr. Sandstrom,

This is to acknowledge receipt of and to respond to your most recent email
and letter to Judge Jacobson dated December 4, 2003.

This may be the first time you understood that we would be challenging the
validity and applicability of Treaty 7, but it is most certainly not the
first time we made clear our intent to advance this dimsension of our
overall argument. Attached is our whole file on this case from the earliest
letter to the Court by me onward.  For example, from my letter of Feb. 10,
2003 to the Court and also sent to you and others involved in this case:

a)That there is indeed a real and viable Blackfoot Nation still in existence
despite past and present attempts at its extermination or elimination and
that Bella Yellowhorn is indeed a member of that Nation;

b)That the existence or non-existence of any nation is not in any way
dependent upon recognition or non-recognition by other recognized nations
(particularly those such as Canada or the U.S. that have acquired and built
material interests in denying the existence and legitimacy-and derivative
rights of independence, self-determination and sovereignty-of First Nations
and/or other nations); the existence, legitimacy-and derivative rights-of
all nations are a matter of "facts on the ground" and international law as
were it not so, any nation could  summarily extinguish another nation
(genocide) through simple non-recognition and applied power disparities;

d)Although some Blackfoot deny that Treaty 7 was actually signed by the
principal chiefs of the Blackfoot, the Government of Canada does assert
Treaty 7 to be binding and has built a whole system of supposed property
rights and material interests upon that and other Treaties. According to the
1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, recognized by both the U.S.
and Canadian Supreme Courts as the "definitive international law on treaties
and treaty relations", only sovereign nations can sign treaties and in doing
so, each party explicitly and tacitly recognizes the other treating party as
a co-equal and legitimate representative of a whole People being bound by
that Treaty. In recognizing the legitimacy of a treating party, each party
is also tacitly, if not explicitly, recognizing-or not calling into
question-the legitimacy of the mechanisms and institutions through which the
representatives and government of the treating parties were selected and the
traditional Blackfoot mechanisms and institutions through which the alleged
Blackfoot Chiefs and signatories of Treaty 7 were selected remain in force
among traditional Blackfoot despite any impositions of alternative political
forms (Tribal Councils) under the Indian Act;

And from my letter of April 12, 2003 to the Court and sent to you and other
parties involved in this case:

3) Any purported obligations of Blackfoot under Treaty 7 that serve to
denationalize or cause Blackfoot to surrender to all laws and authority of
the Crown are contradictory and in violation of international law and those
aspects of the Canadian Constitution dealing with genocide. Only sovereign
nations may sign treaties and according to the Vienna Convention on
Treaties, which the U.S. and Canadian Supreme Courts have recognized as
definitive international law on treaties, each treating partner
recognizes--or at least does not call into question--the authority, co-equal
status and systems for determining government/leadership of the other. The
cited language of Treaty 7, dealing with Blackfoot allegedly agreeing to
become loyal subjects of Her Majesty the Queen and all of her laws, if
accepted, would mean that Blackfoot, as a sovereign nation, would be signing
a treaty whose terms and language served to extinguish the very sovereign
nation that had the authority and standing to sign--and continue--such a
treaty; no nation, especially Blackfoot, would ever sign such a treaty that
would be illegal and non-binding under international law and basic contract
law. These asserted obligations under Treaty 7, along with Treaty 7 itself,
are simply not valid under even Canadian Law. Further, Treaty 7 was not
fully and finally ratified by the Crown in London as required prior to 1947.
Further, according to the notes of Father Constantine Scullen,
representative of the Crown to attest to the signatures of the Blackfoot
Chiefs on Treaty 7, none of the Chiefs would make a mark with their own hand
nor would they even touch the pen used to make the mark and therefore Treaty
7 and any purported allegiances or obligations of Indigenous Peoples under
Treaty 7 would not exist, eventhough the Government of Canada has asserted
Treaty 7 to be binding and has built a whole system of "private" property,
interests and purported property rights under its provisions.

and from my letter to Mr. Lambrecht of Sept. 10, 2003 (also forwarded to
you):

Further, we argue that Treaty 7 was never signed and/or never a full and
binding Treaty and thus any purported obligations of Blackfoot under Treaty
7 to become "loyal subjects" of the Crown and bound by all Canadian laws do
not exist as a matter of international law;
Further, we argue that although Canada claims that Treaty 7 was properly
signed and valid, although we dispute this claim with historical evidence,
Canada has nonetheless built up whole system of material interests and
purported property rights based upon the assumption of the validity of
Treaty 7; under international law, specifically the Vienna Convention on
Treaties, only nations sign, continue and enforce treaties and each treating
partner when signing a treaty, recognizes the co-equal status and systems of
government (producing the leadership having the standing and authority to
sign a treaty and bind a whole population to its terms) of the other
treating partner(s) and thus there is ample legal authority for the
continued existence of the Blackfoot Nation with its own right to
independence, self-determination, sovereignty and traditional government and
mechanisms for selecting the composition of that government. Thus, Bella
Yellow Horn, a member of a sovereign Blackfoot Nation, and all members of
the Blackfoot Nation, may travel throughout Canadian lands with the same
status and obligations (vis-a-vis licensing and insurance) as any other
motorist from another sovereign nation.

We have made it clear that although we believe that Treaty 7 was never
signed by the Blackfoot Chiefs (according to the diary of Fr. Scullen
charged with being a witness to the signatures of the Blackfoot Chiefs), was
never ratified by the Crown, was put to the Blackfoot Chiefs with coercive
and unconscionable force and has been violated over and over by the Canadian
Government, our central argument is that Treaty 7 is self-impeaching and
internally self-negating as its central terms call for dissolution of one of
the sovereign nations that must remain in existence and sovereign to have
the standing, authority and capabilities to sign and keep the terms of  such
a Treaty. We have advanced this argument over and over clearly.

I am therefore at a loss to understand why any further delays  would be
necessary.

I have asked Bella to quickly put together any documents we may use to
advance our case (She is in possession of some family and other documents)
to send them to you. And I reiterate that if you choose to depose our
potential witnesses, whose names, telephone numbers and likely testimonies
and arguments have been given, I would only ask that I be allowed to stand
or listen in and participate if necessary.

I would also ask that you forward to us the names, telephone numbers, likely
testimonies, backgrounds of any potential witnesses along with any documents
that you might plan to introduce. Also, I must ask again that we get the
name of the person who filed the complaint with the Lethbridge Police that
led to Bella Yellow Horn being stopped and subsequently charged (as was
promised) and the chain of custody and present whereabouts of her van that
was seized.

Thank you for your assistance and patience. Would you please forward this to
Judge Jacobson whose email address I do not have?

James Craven
(Omahkohkiaayo i'poyi)


cc. Judge Jacobson

Mr. Craven:

This will acknowledge your communication below my email of October 12, 2003.
By copy of this email, I am forwarding your communication to Eric Brooks and
Kirk Lambrecht.

I appreciate your advice as to your proposed witnesses. I also understand
that you are still working on which documents you wish to produce at the
trial of January 22 and 23. Unless you can provide me a clear indication of
what the substance of your proposed Elder testimony will be, the best way to
deal with this will be to have the Elders proceed with their testimony, and
then adjourn in order to have these historical facts, and the documents
relied on by you, examined by an expert for the Crown.

You should forward to me the documents upon which you will be seeking to
file in evidence before the Court. I can then advise you whether the Crown
will consent to the filing of these documents, or whether you must prove
them in the normal way. This may entail getting certified copies, or
producing a witness who has knowledge about these documents. If I know what
the document is and know it is authentic, I will in most likelihood consent
to its admission and can save you these steps. Even though you may have
provided some of these documents to the Crown and the Court, please send me
a complete bundle with each document labeled (either under a tab number, or
a document number on the first page of the document). I will then review
each document and advise you which can go into evidence by consent, and
which you will have to prove.

I will leave it to Mr. Brooks to determine whether it would be appropriate
to communicate any of your comments to the court. You are certainly free to
communicate with the Court directly, I would only ask that you send me a
copy of that communication.

Yours truly,
Kurt Sandstrom
Barrister and Solicitor
Alberta Justice
Constitutional and Aboriginal Law

Dear Mr. Sandstrom:

Thanks for your response and helping with outlining the procedures involved
in submissions of documentary evidence and proposed lines of argument. In
this regard, below is an example of some of the evidence on the genocidal
nature of the Indian Act and the right/survival imperative of First Nations
Peoples not to recognize or obey it. For the record, this applies
specifically to Bella Yellow Horn in particular as she was slated to be
sterilized under the color of the Indian Act and Alberta Sterilization Act
and was only saved from sterilization with some last-minute legal
intervention. Had she recognized and--complied with--her obligations under
these Acts, which were in violation of Article II (d) of the 1948 UN
Convention on Genocide to which Canada is a signatory, her present children
would simply not exist and the Blackfoot Nation would have ben deprived of
some of its citizens. Further, Bella and other members of her family were
used for medical experimentation in the Indian Residential Schools, again
under the color of "law" and supposed "obligations" under--and to comply
with--the Indian Act which were in violation of Articles II (a), (b),
(c),(d) and (e) of the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide (see below).

We are attempting to comply with all your discovery and other rights prior
to trial. We do not have the resources available to us that the Crown has
and therefore our responses might not be all that you are used to. In any
case, we have made good-faith attempts to comply with all our pre-trial
obligations and ask that our constraints are understood. Those potential
witnesses to be called all have specialized and personal
knowledge/experiences with the genocidal nature and consequences of the
Indian Act and/or Treaty 7 "obligations" past and present and will show that
any First Nations person recognizing/obeying the Indian Act would be aiding
and abetting their own extermination and that of their own People, would
themselves be complicit in genocide, and in violation of several articles of
the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide; and those who refuse to recognize or
comply with the Indian Act are objectively acting as agents of the higher or
"supreme law" of Canada.

Thank you for your assistance.

James M. Craven
(Omahkohkiaayo i' poyi)

Alberta sterilization victims also used as guinea pigs Revelation comes as
40 victims win $4M settlement

Marina Jimenez National Post
10/28/98

As many as 100 of the children at the centre of the Alberta sterilization
scandal of the late 1960s and early 1970s were also used as guinea pigs in
drug trials, the National Post has learned. The children lived at the
Provincial Training School in Red Deer. Some were wards of the province and
others were placed in the school by their parents, who did not consent to
the sterilization or medical experimentation, which included the
administration of powerful steroids and anti-psychotic drugs. Experts say
one of the drugs used, the anabolic steroid norbolethone, is illegal today.
The anti-psychotic tranquilizer haloperidol was also used. Its effect on
children is said to be akin to hitting them over the head with a sledge
hammer.

Yesterday, 40 people who were sterilized against their will reached a
settlement totalling $4-million with the government of Alberta. This brings
to 540 the number of people who have settled with the province for being
sterilized under the now-defunct Alberta Sterilization Act, which was in
effect from 1928 to 1972. The operations were ordered by Alberta's eugenics
board to prevent the mentally disabled from passing on their defects to
offspring. Lawyers say they want more money from the government for victims
who had to endure being tested with powerful drugs in addition to being
sterilized. "Invading people's rights in the form of unauthorized research
and taking advantage of people who couldn't look after themselves is the
kind of thing that courts award punitive damages for," said Jon Faulds, an
Edmonton lawyer representing 109 sterilization victims still negotiating
settlements.

Allan Garber, another Edmonton lawyer acting for the former training school
residents, said they were treated like cattle. "The experimental drug
treatment only compounds the evil that was done to our clients." Dr. Leonard
J. LeVann, medical superintendent from 1949 to 1974 at the Red Deer school,
published the results of his drug experiments in scholarly journals, which
were recently turned over to lawyers for the victims. The articles show that
Dr. LeVann, who is dead, gave 100 undersized children the anabolic steroid
norbolethone over a 12-month period in 1971. The drug -- now illegal in
Canada -- made the children gain weight. But it also produced some side
effects: the genitals of two boys increased in size and one girl's voice
deepened."The treatment of retarded growth in children with anabolic agents
is controversial," he wrote in the September 1971 edition of the
International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, Therapy and Toxicology.
Nonetheless, he called the drug study "entirely satisfactory."

Norbolethone is illegal today because of its powerful side effects - damage
to the liver and negative psychological symptoms. Anabolic steroids can also
increase aggressive sexual behaviour in men and cause secondary sexual
characteristics, for example, facial hair in girls. Dr. LeVann also gave 100
children haloperidol, an anti-psychotic tranquilizer, over a period of 40
days in the late 1960s to counter hyperactivity and excitability. Dr. Louis
Pagliaro, a professor of educational psychology and the associate director
of the substance abusology research unit at the University of Alberta, says
haloperidol "would essentially knock
(children) out. (It) generally decreases people's ability to learn and
adversely affects memory and behaviour." Dr. LeVann's studies are "full of
half-truths, assumptions and by today's standards, lack proper research
methodology," says Dr. Pagliaro.

About 2,800 people were sterilized in Alberta before the Sexual
Sterilization Act was finally repealed. Documents now show that many of the
people sterilized were not mentally disabled. In 1996, the Alberta Court of
Queen's Bench ordered the provincial government to pay Leilani Muirer
$740,000 for being wrongfully confined in the Red Deer school and
sterilized. Her landmark victory opened a floodgate of litigation. In June,
1998, the government agreed to pay 500 more sterilization claimants up to
$100,000. Many continue to live in the Red Deer facility, known today as the
Michener Centre. The province has spent $54 million on settlements to date.
The compensation deal for the sterilizaiton victims announced yesterday,
much the same as those announced last June, gives claimants $75,000 now and
another $25,000 after three years, if they are then living outside
institutions.


The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, April 26, 2000 Native children deprived of
care Preventive dentistry banned during study
By Michael Valpy

Federal-government doctors withheld specialized dental care for children in
eight aboriginal residential schools in the 1940s and 1950s to see what the
effect would be on their teeth and overall health. The specialized dental
care was withheld as part of a five-year study of aboriginal children's
nutrition. The study's director, Dr. L. B. Pett, the retired chief of the
nutrition division of the Department of National Health and Welfare, said
parental consent was not obtained for the study. Instead, the government
obtained permission from the school principals.
A letter dated Oct. 3, 1949, from Dr. H. K. Brown, chief of the department's
dental health division, said: "It is important that during the period of
this study, no specialized, over-all type of dental service should be
provided, such as the use of sodium fluoride, dental prophylaxis
[professional cleaning] or even urea compounds [used in treatment of decay].

"In this study dental caries [decay] and gingivitis [gum disease] are both
important factors in assessing nutritional status. The caries index could be
upset by such specialized dental measures as those referred to above.

The letter -- referring specifically to the United Church school in Port
Alberni, B.C. -- also said that preventive dental treatment would make the
study of "questionable value" in measuring vitamin C deficiency.
Fillings and extractions were to continue.

Professor Gary Accursi of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Dentistry
said yesterday that a dental-ethics committee would be unlikely to approve
such a trial today. He said he did not know whether it would have passed the
ethical standards of the time.

A Toronto medical expert on clinical trials, who asked not to be identified,
said the letter, on its face, implied clearly that the Canadian government
was prepared to let aboriginal children suffer the effects of poor nutrition
without intervention so long as its study was not adulterated.

Dr. Pett, in an interview yesterday, put the study, which he said was
conducted at eight schools, in a different context. It was carried out, he
said, to improve nutrition for aboriginal children and provide information
on good nutrition for their parents.

Fluoride treatment, now considered one of history's greatest public-health
advances, was then in its infancy. The first fluoride trials in Canada, in
Stratford and Brantford, were being carried out at the time of the study.
The only thing that bothered Dr. Pett about the study from an ethical point
of view, he said, was the absence of parental consent. "Parental consent was
always an issue," he said. "It was hard to contact them. So many were in the
bush."

So the study went ahead, he said, with the consent of the school principals,
who were given more-or-less legal status as in loco parentis (in the place
of a parent).

The records of the nutritional study were found in Ottawa's National
Archives by freelance writer David Napier, commissioned by the Anglican
Journal, the newspaper of the Anglican Church of Canada, to inquire into
aboriginal residential schools. The Journal will publish his article, the
result of eight months research, later this month.
The schools were operated by churches in a contractual relationship with the
federal government for more than a century.

Children as young as five were taken away from their families and placed in
the schools. They were ordered not to use their mother tongue and to set
aside their cultural values and practices.

The Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Churches, along with the federal
government, face hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits from nearly
6,000 former students.

Copyright 2000 | The Globe and Mail (reprinted under fair use for
educational purposes)