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... ec n (Continued from page 2) with more bills coming at First Nations are a threat of terrorism against First Na- tions. "This threat of terrorism that they are going to stop us from providing for our families that's the real harm here." Turtle Island Trade and Commerce has been look- ing at this issue for some time now. She said like the Indian Defense League said more than 40 years ago, when Six Nations international bor- der crossing rights were at risk from government inter- vention, "they said we needed to hold the line to protect our border crossing rights . Well we need to hold the line again. We will hold the line for our people and our families and hope- fully the leadership will stand up and say we have to do something for all of us." TITAC holds weekly meetings at the GREAT building auditorium and is currently running a series of talks on taxation. She said the tobacco issue is a nationhood issue. "We are our own nation and no outside government has central over us." She said she wants to see the Confederacy take the lead on the issue with the administrative assistance of the band council. "This is outside of the band council. They dent have the GREAT Law. It lies with our traditions, but that doesn't mean it has to be adversarial. The band council is very capable of handling the administration but the leadership has to come from the traditional council or the federal gov- a ernment willl enforce all kinds of acts on us and im- plement them through the indian act." She said the Confederacy needs to take leadership. This past weekend an off- reserve newspaper held what it called a "commu- nity meeting" on the to- bacco industry and sent ripples of panic through the community. "I think that's why the rumour spread the OPP had shut down a smoke shop." She said, "It's unfortu- nate but the meeting made it sound like Bill C-10 was in effect now. It caused shock and our people have not had a chance to rally around the issue or figure out what they are going to do about it and here we were at a meeting and I thought we were gonna hear about what the act I was but it was a more reac- tionary meeting. They have everyone in panic mode." Jan Longboat, a commu- nity elder said she attended the meeting, "there were a lot of people there I didn't know. I thought it was a community meeting but it was more activist," she said. Six Nations Elected Chief Ava Hill said, "We do not support Bill C-1 O and have signed a declaration de- nouncing this bill along with the other Iroquois communities who attend the Iroquois Caucus. This could have serious impacts by criminalizing our people for transporting tobacco products." She said band council will discuss having a commu- nity meeting to include people who are involved in the tobacco industry to de- cide on the next steps in Ava Hill fighting the bill. "Six Nations was never consulted on this bill," she said. Joe Delaronde, spokesper- son for the Mohawk Coun- cil of Kahnawake, says the Iroquois Caucus has passed a resolution to reject Bill C- l 0. He said the Caucus is, "looking at other solutions to the problem but basically rejecting its implementa- tion and the criminalization of our people. From the per- spective of all the Iroquoian communities in this area, we're basically rejecting C- l 0, including all its compo- nents and contents." He said there has been a "complete lack of consulta- tion" with Iroquois people on the proposed bill. "Even if they've spoken with us, there's been noth- ing meaningful and no at- tempt to accommodate Iroquoian people. The fact is, C-1 O basically is looking at the Iroquoian communi- ties. It just seems to strike right at our people." The Caucus is made up of elected leaders from seven Iroquoian communities Kahnawake, Six Nations, Akwesasne, Kanehsatake, Tyendinaga, Oneida Nation of the Thames, and Wahta.