Wayne Naylor is the local organizer of the Idle No More Resistance/One Nation for Equality citizen's group. Herald photo by Ian Martens

Caroline Zentner
lethbridge herald
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An organizer with the Idle No More Resistance group wants to set the record straight by saying they had nothing to do with a letter given to an Idle-No-More protesters during the recent powwow at the Enmax Centre.
"The man's ideas kind of coincide with ours but he's a little more radical than we are," said Wayne Naylor, local branch leader of the Idle No More Resistance/O.N.E. (One Nation for Equality) group.
The Enmax Centre's general manager said Enmax staff quickly dealt with a situation that was brought to their attention. A member of the Hockey Hounds organization providing front door security at the powwow had taken it upon himself to hand a letter criticizing the Idle No More movement to one of the protesters.
Naylor said the Idle No More Resistance movement wants the Indian Act and treaties abolished because they are based on race.
"There is really no other race-based laws or policies in Canada," he said. "We're not in agreement with the treaties. The treaties were signed 100 years ago. It's a different society now. For one thing when treaties were signed there was no income tax, it was not meant to be that one section of the population (would be) more or less financing another section."
Local membership is made up of people from different races and stands at about 40. However, only a quarter of them showed up for a rally on Feb. 9.
"There was so many incidences of intimidation and threatening people if they showed up at the rally they'd be beat up and things like that," Naylor said.
The rally was peaceful although a couple of drive-by threats and insults were hurled. Naylor said members from various resistance chapters around the country have received similar insults and threats online, himself included. He found his home address posted on the AIM (American Indian Movement) website.
"I don't know who got the address, I just know that it was posted by (AIM) on their Facebook page," he said. "It stated that someone or a group should come to my house and pay me and my family a visit."
That was late January and the message was removed from the site four days later. Naylor said he contacted police and was told nothing could be done until something happened. He sent an email to the site administrator but never received a reply.
"I increased security at my house. I'm a little more leery when we go out, I have been approached out in the community, people who recognize me from the rally or from the news reports. I've gotten quite a few comments of support and quite a few people have called me a racist," he said.
Naylor said the group believes all people should be treated the same and that they are against abuses of the system, not the system itself.