I came across an article in the most recent edition of The Mohawk Nation Drummer newspaper that was datelined last July. That may sound a bit dated but as the story was dealing with an ongoing situation that faces Native people across Canada the dateline isn't really all that important.

The article was dealing with the reactions of Assembly Of First Nations Chiefs to a letter to the editor of a newspaper that Prime Minister Stephen Harper wrote last July in regards to the issue of Native fishing rights. Mr. Harper referred to Native fishing rights as "racially divided fishing programs."

That expression has been used in the past by people who are trying to rouse racial hatred against First Nations people due to their being given the right to hunt and fish out of season. They're being blamed for everything from the depletion of the Salmon stocks in the Fraser River, to over-fishing off the West coast of Vancouver Island. It is propagated by people like Mr. Harper that they can set up nets whenever they feel like it.

The Supreme Court of Canada's ruling that guaranteed these rights simply affirmed the original treaties that had been signed by individual tribes with the government over a hundred years ago which allowed them to continue on with all their traditional means of survival, including hunting and fishing.

If they are going to enter into an out of season commercial fishery operation, they have to be able to offer some proof that the tribe had conducted trade with other nations with fish in the past before they can start. The problem is when those original treaties were signed everyone still thought they were dealing with a bottomless barrel of fish scenario.

Dwindling fish stocks have nothing to do with the huge trawlers plying the seas off the West coast for years do they? Nope it's got to be those pesky natives and racially preferential treatment. They're out to steal food out of decent, law abiding, Christian, White folk's mouths with their sneaky rights. They're ought to be law.

Now obviously Stephen Harper didn't say anything like that, but as there have been code words utilized by those opposed to minority rights in the past, "race based fisheries" are the ones most guaranteed to make red neck blood boil in Western Canada. Why else would Mr. Harper write a letter about the fisheries to the editor of the Calgary Herald, a city with no fishing industry, but the heartland of Conservative Party of Canada support, save to send some sort of message to his constituents.