He speak with forked tongue

Vincent J. Curtis

14 June 24

RE: I spoke our language for those who could not. Op-ed by Sol Mamakwa the Hamilton Spectator 14 June 24.

Further proof that no good deed goes unpunished can be found in the article written by NDP MLA Sol Mamakwa. After being granted the privilege of speaking neither in English nor French in the Ontario legislature, he pens this article of extreme ingratitude laced with racism and falsehoods.

He calls Ontarians “settlers” who unjustly and unlawfully claimed “our lands” as theirs. In fact, Treaty 3, signed at Lake of the Woods in 1873, was made with the Saulteaux Anishinaabe by the Crown and covers the very area he represents. He wouldn’t be sitting in the Ontario legislature but for Treaty 3.  His terra nullius claim is rubbish: it was never applied to British North America, as both the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the success of the Hudson’s Bay Company (founded 1670) prove.  That theory may have been argued in Australia, but never here.

The rest of his piece is but a hash of aboriginal racism, grievance mongering, and victim fantasies, which still strangely resonates in Canada.

He spoiled his effort at reconciliation with an unwonted and gratuitous attack on those who were born here.  Oh, and – a little lesson in civics – he spoke in the Ontario legislature, not “in the settler government,” as he wrote.

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