At least they still went out and harvested their own pelts and exchanged them for goods....now they sit on the lawn at the post office on the 26th of the month waiting for their welfare cheques to arrive (personally seen ever month in Thompson MB).
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Well many of the Indians had long term villages, like the Iroquois for example, as soon as the diseases were introduced by the earliest Europeans or firearms introduced there were massive changes. Some areas of the US (seems Canada is an unknown) the estimate is that in some areas possibly as much as 90% of the population was decimated where small and medium towns disappeared and large (by Indian standards) towns reduced to small villages in the 50 or so years between explorers.
There is also the example of what happened with the Neutral nation in Ontario, completely killed or enslaved supposedly over the protests of the French at the time. About the same time as the Indian Act came into existence there was the Metis Rebellions, in the US the Sioux Wars including Custer's Last Stand the same year as the Indian Act. The situation then and the low population and the possibility of wars, Confederation, the railroad, the threat from the US taking Western areas of Canada .... so much going on and we have a media that won't even question that budgets will magically balance themselves selling their simplified opinions that are no help.
I remember an interview with a chief (don't remember US or Canada), the Chief had no issue with being accountable and disclosure of spending and the reserve was being run like a corporation and with shares and being run very well... unlike the Soup diet Chief's reserve where she fought disclosure and accountability and the reserve was a mess. There are too many bureaucrats, corrupt chiefs and under the table dealing that need to be weeded out as a start to fixing the current situation
While not disagreeing with what you are stating my post was in reference to Northern FNs as stated. Typically this refers to the FNs on Rupert's Land which was in essence the land area draining into the Hudson's Bay Watershed. No villages (at most they had seasonal camps unlike the Iroquois and Wendat in the south), no Indian wars, no interaction with the colonies other than fur trade although European disease would still have been an issue.
This needs to be a two way street though. First nations band councils have been misappropriating government funds forever and living high on the hog while band members live in poverty. Remember Attiwapiskat? Approximately $104-million was paid to the first nation between April 2005 and November 2011 – mostly for education, health, social services, water and housing. But many of the roughly 1,500 residents live in abject poverty. During an audit of 505 transactions that the firm examined to determine whether they were complied with federal funding agreements, 409 lacked proper documentation. "An average of 81 per cent of files did not have adequate supporting documents and over 60 per cent had no documentation of the reason for payment,"
In the last 10 years,the government has coughed up almost $24Billion to FN projects and welfare cheques without one damn thing to show for it. Something has to change because what we're doing right now is a bust.
and the first day of her new tenure as chief...she's telling Trudeau he has to give them $billions more. It's a never-ending sinkhole of demands.
This guy sums it up beautifully.
https://www.facebook.com/harley.munr...2725650557491/