Indians.

and oil

HE minister had displayed
T such a “dramatic flow
of the milk of human kind-
ness,” in his visit to the Hun-
garian refugees in Austria,
said the member for Calgary
South.

Was he now prepared to un-
dertake a new personal mis-
sion dramatically to assist
victims of bureaucratic ag-
gression by journeying to the
Hobbema Indian reserve?”

The questioner Carl

Nickle.

The minister — J. W. Pick-
ersgill, in charge of citizen-
ship, immigration and Indi-
an affairs for the government.

was

The time and place — the
the House of Commons, Janv-

ary 30.

The issue — the expulsion
of 118 members of the Sam-
son band of Indians from the
Hobbema Reserve, about 50
miles south of Edmonton.

Behind the expulsion order
—the discovery of oil and a

revised Indian Act of 1951..

The matter began when
Pickersgill ordered the expul-
sion of 118 Indians’ from the
reserve on the technicality
that three common ancestors
back in the days of the first
Riel Rebellion, had accepted
acres of land. This act, accord-
ing to Pickersgill’s interpreta-
tion, fulfilled all obligations of
the white man’s government,
to the Indians.

Before this, of course, it was
known that the area was oil-
rich.

Under the Indian Act if
any 10 treaty Indians sign a
statement doubting the “legit-
imacy” of other Indians, the
others must furnish proof that
that the charge is unfounded-—
a reversal of the normal pre-
cedure under Canadian iaw.

That is what happened at
Hobbema.

A commission of the Indian
Affairs upheld the charge
and ordered the 118 to leave
as “non-Indians” at the same
time cutting off the $25 a
month they were receiving
from oil rights.

Chief Samson protested. He
took his protest to other bands
in the Pigeon Lake area —
four of them, with a popula-
tion of 1,905 living on 5,000
acres of valuable oil lands.

The other bands backed
Chief Samson and through
Calgary lawyer Mrs. John C.
Gorman, directed an appeal

to the Queen against the In-
dian Act — a last resort open
to them — for they stand to
lose not only their ancestral
homes, but the $1,846,000 held
in trust for them by the gov-
ernment,

But Pickersgill intergepted
the ietter, bringing about a
storm of protests in and out
of the House of Commons.
Commented Mrs. Gorman:

“I would like to know on
what grounds Mr. Pickersgill
says he will decide whether
the Queen will receive the
petition. This petition was not
addressed to Mr. Pickersgill
but to Her Majesty and was
sent to her through her rep-
resentative: in Canada (Gov-
ernor-General Massey).”

But, as Prime Minister St.
Laurent said in the House,
the issue would scarcely have
caused a ripple had it not been
for the discovery of oil.

Whatever his grounds for
ordering expulsion of the In-
dians, Pickersgill did not en-
hance his political stature by
leaving their appeals — and
the petition — locked in his

_ desk while he was away in
discriminatory clause in the

Ne wf oundland, presumably

ALLERGY is one of the

broadest concepts in mod-
ern medicine. It embraces a
number of the commonest
diseases — eczema, asthma,
hay fever, hives — and plays
an important role in many

others including rheumatic
fever, nephritis, and tuber-
culosis.

Allergy means an altered or
abnormal reaction by one per-
son to a substance which would
not trouble the majority of
people.

For example, most people
iving in the East and on the
Prairies think of fall as the
season of many-colored leaves
but for the person allergic to
ragweed, mid-August to first
frost when the ragweed pol-
lenates is the season of violent
sneezing and perhaps disabling
bronchial asthma. :

What is the common factor
which unites the apparently
unrelated diseases listed
above? Basically, it is an
aberration or perversion of
one of the body’s vital pro-
cesses — namely, the immune
mechanism.

It is well known that a
person who has had measles
or smallpox or whooping
cough will not ordinarily suf-
fer again from the same dis-
ease. His system has produced
myriads of microscopic “anti-
bodies” against the bacteria

HEALTH
The whys and wherefores of

tending a few political fences
in preparation for the expected
federal election.

This week another Calgary
MP, Douglas. Harkness, intro-
duced a bill to prevent expul-
sion from Indian reservations
of any person recognized as a
treaty Indian before 1951.

Pickersgill said -it was no
longer possible to challenge
the status of persons whose
names were on Indian band
lists before a 1951 revision of
the Indian Act.

The Indians, unlike other
Canadians, profit little from

e

or virus which caused the
given disease. Should his body
be challenged by the same
germ again, these antibodies
will combine with the invad-
ing organism and destroy it.

However, in the allergic in-
dividual this immune mechan-
ism is perverted so that he
produces abnormal antibodies
to normal substances in his
environment. For example,
the man who has become al-
lergic to house dust, if he re-
mains for an adequate time in
a room with an adequate dust
concentration, will probably
begin to sneeze or wheeze or
both.

If he sneezes, we say he
has hay fever, and the main
concentration of his abnormal

antibodies against dust is in-

the lining of his nose. If he
Wwheezees habitually under
such circumstances, we say
that he has bronchial asthma
and that he has a high con-
centration of dust antibodies
in his bronchial tube. When
dust combines with these anti-
bodies it causes an irritative
reaction and partial obstruc-
tion of the bronchial air pas-
sages.

In the case of hives, the al-
lergic reaction occurs prim-
arily in the skin producing
typical white lumps on a base
or red, irritating skin. The
whole is agonizingly itching.

such wealth — at least direct-
ly.

In the last five years, Ai-
berta Indians: have earned a
total of $10,970,212 from oil
timber, and mineral royalties,
of which $2,908,665 has been
distributed among them. The
remainder is held in trust for
them by the government.

Value of oil in the Pigeo
Lake area is estimated at $25
million. Revenue comes to $1
million a year, which goes to
the Indian Affairs branch.

Pickersgill, in face of. na-
tion-wide protests from MPs,
legal societies, and many oth-
er organizations, indicated

The sufferer with urticaria
(hives) is often allergic to
one or more foods.

The allergic trait is said to
be inherited. However, the
manifestations of this trait are
extremely variable both in the
kind of disease and in its in-
tensity.

One individual may have
eczema as an infant which is
induced by cow’s milk, wheat,
eggs, or other common foods.
But the eczema and his food
intolerance my subside around
his first birthday, to be re-
placed in childhood by asthma
precipitated by foods, pollens, .
or even emotional factors, in-
fections, or fatigue. Later,
hay fever may enter the pic-
ture.

Another individual may have
only one of these diseases,
and that either briefly or all
his life.

Extreme variability also
characterizes the substances to
which a given person may be
allergic at variots times. In
general, the important sub-
stances are ones he is in con-
tact with commonly or in high
concentration.

The allergy patient’s symp-
toms also vary from day to
day and hour to hour depend-
ing on his general health, nu-
trition, amount of fatigue and
type of emotional stress,

FEBRUARY 15, 1957 —

that he might consider for-
warding the Indians’ protest
to its rightful recipient, But

he stands on “non-interfer-
ence” until the courts settle
the matter — which means
the Indians must hire lawyers
and pay costs. of court action.

The appeal will be heard by
a district judge sitting with
all the powers of a royal com-
mission, as provided by the
Indian Act.

But precedent, in three cases
heard last year in Saskatche-
wan courts, ruled against the
Indian Affairs branch in at-
tempting to dislodge certain
Indians.

allergies

Allergy © treatment varies
from nothing—in the mildest
ecases—to a combination of
several approaches in the most
severe. In serious cases, it is
important to know what sub-
stances induce allergic symp-

toms,

A suspected food allergy may
by withheld and then reintro-
duced into to the diet to see
its effects on symptoms. Fin-
ally skin tests may be done ©
in which minute quantities of
numerous separate substances
are introduced into the skin
to see which ones produce a
local reaction.

The types of allergy treat-
ment fall into several cate-
gories:

+ Avoidance of known al-
lergens—as removing feather
pillows and dust - catching
drapes and rugs from the bed-
room when dust and feathers
are factors.

+ Desensitization by peri-
odic injection of minute
amounts of substances to
which the individual is aller-
gic.

+ Various medications.

It should-noted that a dif-
ferent type of allergy—name-
ly sensitivity of organs to par-
ticular bacteria—plays a de-
cisive role in the course of
tuberculosis. and other infec-

_tious. diseases.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE--PAGE 10