Why We Need a Republic of Canada, Now: By Rev. Kevin D. Annett An Ipsos Reid poll conducted in late October 2009 found that the majority - 53% of Canadians - want Canada to end its constitutional ties to the monarchy after the Queen dies. 49% of Canadians want to abolish the constitutional monarchy structure now and become a republic, with an elected head of state. The majority - 60% of Canadians - said the Queen and the Royal Family should have no formal role in Canadian society,and that they are "simply celebrities and nothing more."  The National Post, November 8, 2009 The impending visit to Canada of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the latest royal poster kids, as well as a looming federal election, is a golden opportunity for Canadians to take a long overdue step and abolish the vestiges of a cruel colonial pastby establishing a sovereign republic. The reasons are compelling. The absurd anachronism of a foreign ruler exerting jurisdiction over our country, its courts, police and politicians, and of claiming title to so-called“Crown Land”across Canada,is something that no self-respecting people should tolerate. Like the Vatican and other parasitic feudal institutions, the British monarchy is an unnecessary financial burden on ordinary people. Last year, the monarchy soaked more than88 million pounds off British taxpayers, or nearly $140 million. In 2007,Canadian taxpayers masochistically shelled out more than $55 million to support the Queen’s "representative", the Governor General, who while occupying a farcically useless office, has the theoretical power to dissolve Canada’s Parliament and depose the government, which actually happened in recent Australian history. A lingering monarchy keeps Canada chained to these kinds of unaccountable and dictatorial political practices.The Privy Council has the unilateral power to pass laws – Orders in Council –that are not subject to Parliamentary review. Such draconian powers have been responsible for the violation of civil rights through the Emergency Powers of the War Measures Act, the annulling of Canadian laws restricting foreign ownership of resources, the imposition of the apartheid Indian Act, and the creation of the abominable Indian residential schools which caused the death of tens of thousands of children. All at "the pleasure of the Crown." Indeed, the power of the Crown over Canada and its courts is preventing any real or honorable resolution of this genocide of native people across our land, which is clearly the greatest crime in our history, and an irresolvable blot on our national conscience and our international status. As one who for many years has aided aboriginal survivors of the Crown-established Indian residential school system, I have witnessed the cruel refusal of Canadian courts and Parliament to allow survivors to bring criminal charges against the Crown and its established churches for their deliberate, murderous ethnic cleansing of generations of native people. This criminal obstruction of justice has recently caused Prime Minister Steven Harper to be summoned to answer charges before an International human rights Tribunal in London, England:a legitimate body that is already petitioning the European Parliament to deploy economic sanctions against Canada for genocide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWAfrth9RmE Such events are small wonder, considering Canada’s legacy of crime and inequity when it comes to native people: a heritage that stemmed from the illegal violation by the English Crown of the original treaty of equality signed between it and the eastern Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee – the so-called “Two Row Wampum” agreement of1613. When the Crown annulled this treaty and unilaterally imposed its false jurisdiction over native nations, it laid the basis for centuries of genocide and conquest, and our continuing wrongful occupation of indigenous lands. The Two Row Wampum in fact was the original model for a true Republic in Canada, and its destruction by the English Crown was an equal assault on the liberties and well being of European settlers and us, their descendants. In the words of the Two Row Wampum Treaty, You say that you are our Father and I am your son.We say, We will not be like Father and Son, but like Brothers. This wampum belt confirms our words. These two rows will symbolize two paths or two vessels, traveling down the same river together. One, a birch bark canoe, will be for the Indian People, their laws, their customs and their ways. The other, a ship, will be for the white people and their laws,their customs and their ways. We shall each travel the river together,side by side, but in our boat. Neither of us will make compulsory laws or interfere in the internal affairs of the other. Neither of us will try to steer the other's vessel.  The agreement has been kept by the Iroquois to this date, and is considered by their people to remain in effect. It is time that Euro-Canadians joined hands with them and re-established the equality and natural law that originally governed this land. Only a sovereign Republic can do so. The Crown, like the Vatican,has placed itself above and beyond the law of the land, and its appointed judges in Canadian courts consistently refuse to hold it responsible for its crimes against our different peoples. It was precisely such tyranny that compelled my ancestors in England to overthrow King Charles in 1649 and create a Republic, and that drove Canadians like my great great great grandfather Philip Annett to join with William Lyon MacKenzie and Louis-Joseph Papineau in 1837 to try unsuccessfully to establish a true Canadian democracy. The defeat by the Crown of our1837 patriots froze into place in Canada what MacKenzie called “The Family Compact”: a feudal oligarchy of self-governing elites of church, state and high finance that ran the country and enslaved and decimated our aboriginal neighbors. Until we undo this historic wrong, there will be no peace or justice between our many different founding nations. It is time for us to complete this struggle, and fulfill the founding vision of both indigenous and settler nations on this land, by proclaiming a federated and sovereign Republic with an elected head of state, and a Senate and Congress that proportionately represents all the people of our many vast regions. As a federation of sovereign nations, the new Canada would grant the right of any indigenous nation to secede and establish their own system of government, in order to honor the spirit and legality of the Two Row Wampum as ordaining a political system of equals. These are exciting times. Suddenly,we have a unique opportunity to reinvent ourselves as Canadians, and put all our rhetoric of “healing and reconciliation” into actual practice, by first dismantling the system that made Canada dependency of empire and an arm of colonial conquest. Only then can we begin to sow again in new soil the seeds of a truly just society: one based on the natural law of equality, harmony with the earth and each other, and genuine sovereignty. I propose that we put this question of establishing the Republic of Canada to an immediate national referendum, concurrent with the general Federal election. Let the politicians and courts of our land ignore this call at their own peril. April 5, 2011   The Two Row Wampum ……………………………………………………………………………………………… Rev. Kevin Annett is an award-winning author, film maker, community minister and international human rights activist. He is the co-founder of The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (www.itccs.org) and an adopted member of the Anishinabe Nation in Manitoba. In July, 2009, he helped formed a Council for the Creation of the Republic of Canada.     Kevin D. Annett 260 Kennedy St., Nanaimo, B.C. Canada V9R 2H8 250-753-3345 Email: hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca See the evidence of Genocide in Canada at www.hiddennolonger.com and on the website of The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State at www.itccs.org . Watch Kevin's award-winning documentary film UNREPENTANT on his website www.hiddenfromhistory.org "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."~ Frederick Douglass "We will bring to light the hidden works of darkness and drive falsity to the bottomless pit. For all doctrines founded in fraud or nursed by fear shall be confounded by Truth." - Kevin's ancestor Peter Annett, writing in The Free Inquirer, October17, 1761, just before being imprisoned by the English crown for"blasphemous libel" "I gave Kevin Annett his Indian name, Eagle Strong Voice, in 2004 when I adopted him into our Anishinabe Nation. He carries that name proudly because he is doing the job he was sent to do, to tell his people of their wrongs. He speaks strongly and with truth. He speaks for our stolen and murdered children. I ask everyone to listen to him and welcome him." Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind Elder, Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba