How direct does a threat have to be for it to be considered extortion? That's a rhetorical question, but it arises from intemperate and, yes, threatening statements from the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy.
Confederacy Chief Allen MacNaughton put his signature on a statement responding to the provincial government's rejection of Six Nations authority to regulate and charge fees for construction on disputed lands. It calls the province's decision an "attempt to incite violence" -- then "urge(s) everyone to keep calm" - a backhanded warning at best.
The MacNaughton statement, by raising the spectre of violence and blaming it on the province's refusal to cave, implicitly threatens it.
Aaron Detlor, spokesman for the Haudenosaunee Development Institute, says if builders don't accept native authority on development on any part of the Haldimand Tract -- land on either side of the length of the Grand River -- "there's not going to be any development."
There's the message: If developers recognize and pay the fees demanded by the Haudenosaunee Development Institute, they can avoid the sort of protests and occupations that put an end to the Douglas Creek development in Caledonia and briefly stopped work -- and saw a man beaten into unconsciousness -- at a Stirling Street subdivision in the same town.
Meet our demands, pay our fees or face the consequences. In other circumstances, this could be seen as not much other than a shakedown.
Meanwhile, a man charged with robbery and assault told a Cayuga court this week that as a member of the Six Nations Haudenosaunee people, he is not under the authority of Canadian courts. This country's criminal law doesn't apply to him, he says, because he belongs to a sovereign nation with its own laws and customs.
There is the obvious counter-argument that anyone is subject to the laws of the land where an alleged crime is committed. A Canadian who commits a crime in France or Botswana or Papua New Guinea is not going to get off the hook in their courts by saying that since he belongs to another sovereign nation, the law doesn't apply.
But even setting that aside, there is the truism that no one can pick and choose which laws apply and which do not. If you recognize a government's legal responsibility to provide such services as medicare, public safety and social services, you also recognize the authority of the government's judicial system. It's one law, one legal system, for all.
The government's quick and outright refusal to relinquish its planning and development authority may be a sign of a tougher post-election stance. The province should go further and state that any violence over land claims will end negotiations until the confederacy unreservedly disavows and denounces all tactics of violence.
Natives in Canada have many legitimate grievances and claims. Native anger at historical injustice and frustration at the current slow pace of resolving those grievances is valid and understandable.
Negotiations can move us all ahead. But bullying, threats and disregard for the law only turn back the clock.