Unfinished Business

Jeff Green | Dec 18, 2013

Editorial by Jeff Green

Normally I thank our staff, readers, and advertisers on this, our last issue of 2013, and I would like to do so this year as well.

As I look back on the stories we covered this past year, a few stories, it seems to me, have been left hanging. The saga of Frontenac County Council is one of them.

On one hand, the politicians recognise that the townships need to work together, but on the other there is resistance to giving the county any role in bringing that about. We have an article on an organizational review that was just presented to county council, which explicitly points to this dilemma.

One item that was not part of the report's recommendations but was in the narrative, refers to something I have thought about in the past but have never seen anyone take up. It says the County should consider selling or renting out its current office space adjacent to Fairmount Home in rural Kingston and coming home to the county by building a new office. If the county used some of its reserves to build an office, perhaps in Verona, it might change everything.

Other stories this year were more serious than the sometimes comical shenaningans at Frontenac County.

It has been five months since a troubled man was killed by police on the Arden Road in late July, and the Special Investigations Unit has yet to file a report. Other cases that took place at around the same time have been cleared up by the SIU and we await the report in this case.

Finally, in October, 500 members of the Shabot Obaadjiwan received form letters informing them that they are no longer electors for the Algonquin Land Claim, and while they may have Aboriginal heritage, there is not credible evidence they are descended from Algonquins.

These people are descendants of Francis and Mary Sharbot, the founders of Sharbot Lake. Until the land claim came along, the Sharbots had been considered as Mohawks, but they were recruited by the Algonquin Land Claim and their Algonquin status was verified by the same genealogist who now says they are not Algonquin.

There will be more to this story coming up as the Shabot Obaadjiwan seek to bring two-thirds of their members back into the land claim fold. I can’t help but think that this entire episode is reminiscent of how Canadian governments stole the identities of Aboriginal peoples in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Restoring identity and dignity is one of the major goals of the land claims process, but in the case of families like the the Badours. Hollywoods, and Cotas, the opposite is taking place. The only scant comfort in this lies in the fact that these families are resilient, and they will certainly persevere.

Happy Christmas.