The City of Brantford's Planning Committee, in its quest to promote the new Waterfront Master Plan for enhancing and protecting the land along the Grand River, has done a great job in providing a series of colour photos of the river, which was granted to the Mohawk Nation and others of the Six Nation Indians in 1784.
This beautiful river and a large portion of the land on which the City of Brantford is located, is still owned by the Mohawk Nation and their Iroquois neighbors residing on the Six Nations Reserve, part of which is located within the Brantford city limits.
It is interesting to note that, as this letter is being written none of the articles promoting the new Waterfront Master Plan appearing in the Brantford Expositor has made any mention of the fact that the city does not own the land or the waterway it is trying to protect, nor has the city included or properly consulted the legal owners of the land in putting their Big Plan together.
One would think that with all the native activist activity within the city over the past three years, the city planners would have settled for nothing less than, full active participation from the legal government (elected council) of the Six Nations of the Grand River in this highly sensitive environmental endeavour.
Douglas Whitlow Ohsweken