Lawrence Cannon Believes Democracy is for the Chosen Few

Lawrence Cannon obviously believes that democracy is for the chosen few, and unless you're a white, male Christian, you clearly do not belong to the 'chosen'.

Besides making Canadian citizens disposable, if they were not born here, he also goes after those whose people were here long before Mr. Cannon's.

During the last election campaign, Cannon's aid made stereotypical assumptions of the aboriginal people in Cannon's riding of Pontiac. Yet if you read the headlines, it is downplayed as simply hurting their feelings:

But it was what led to the altercation in the first place that needs to be addressed.

On June 26th, Algonquin representatives and supporters from the Barriere Lake Solidarity Collective peacefully occupied the offices of Barriere Lake MP Lawrence Cannon.
The aim of the occupation, at least primarily, was to demand the MP meet the Algonquins to discuss the recent “Coup D’etat” involving Barriere Lake’s Tribal Council.

After a six hour occupation of MP Lawrence Cannon's Office in Buckingham, QC, yesterday, six Algonquin activists and allies were arrested by Sûreté du Québec police officers. The arrestees were detained for four hours and were finally released at 9:30 p.m. into the arms of cheering family and friends outside the Gatineau Police Department building.

Among the awaiting crowd was Customary Chief Benjamin Nottaway whom the government attempted to revoke from power in the Barriere Lake reserve by imposing a minority appointed government. The so called Coup D'etat was the latest in a long series of governmental interventions in the impoverished reserve and led to the office occupation which took place yesterday. Previously, the indigenous representatives attempted to raise awareness of neo-Colonial internvention in their community by camping on Parliament Hill one year ago.

Algonquins of Barriere Lake Occupy MP's Office

"Our group, composed of Algonquin youth and supporters, successfully entered Minister Cannon's Buckingham riding office, 25 minutes from Ottawa, at 11:30am today, Thursday, June 26th. Minister Cannon is not around and his staff have been mum about his whereabouts. But spirits are high and people are settling in and getting comfortable, despite the fact the Minister Cannon's staff have turned off the air conditioning in an attempt to force people to leave the office.

At first Minister Cannon's staff offered to arrange meetings with low level bureaucrats instead of a meeting with Minister Cannon, but we refused to take the bait. Now we've been told that Minister Cannon has no involvement or responsibility for Barriere Lake, and that if we do not leave we will be arrested. We intend to stick it out until our demands are met.

The people of Barriere Lake live in horrible conditions. The government intervenes only to exploit their natural resources, by appointing their own government, to oust elected officials. If Cannon has no interest in helping Canadians in foreign lands, then he needs to at least try to help those living in Canada. Clearly he is over his head.

Back to: The Lawrence Cannon Story: Intelligent Incompetence