So What's Up Canada

[Roper]

Interesting subject. The native situation is a monstorous problem in Canada. One that bothers me immensely.
TerryM, Hunter John, JoePa - I agree with everything said.
The problem is so huge and complicated it is possibly unsolvable as it has become more sever in the past 50 years.
Trudeau's government throwing more cash around without core change doesn't help in the slightest.

[smallgamer]

Interesting thread. This is something that really bothers me as well, and everyone's comments so far have been insightful. Thanks for giving me material to consider as I dwell upon this issue.

[Hunter John]

Yup

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/08/01...tions-problems

[Bushmoose]

It is a problem of the North not a problem of culture, they survived here and saved our European butts for a lot longer than we have been forcing them on to reserves.

No one is "forcing" them to live on reserves? It's an option each individual chooses. First nations people have the same, in fact more, opportunities available to them than any other citizen of this country. The biggest problem for them is that they (not all, but many)haven't or won't capitalize on what's available to them.
As but a small example; Last year I worked on a dam repair project in northern Sask. We hired several fellas from the reserve close to where the job was. Free work boots/cold weather gear, rain suits, etc. Labour wages for them was almost $30/hour, 7-12 hour days/week with O/T after 50. (you do the math) The foreman would pick them up in the morning and drop them off after work. All they had to do was show up for work? After the first week, only 1 guy showed up. After 2 weeks, no one? The job lasted for almost 8 weeks. That would have put a nice chunk of change in anyones pocket, but they made the decision to stay home? Now who do you want to blame for that?

[mosquito]

Yup

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/08/01...tions-problems

It’s outrageous that Ron Giesbrecht, chief of the 80-member Kwikwetlem First Nation in B.C., made $914,219 tax free last year and a further $16,574 in expenses. That’s the equivalent of a taxable off-reserve income of more than $1.3 million.

Even Canadian senators who are padding their incomes with $20,000 or $30,000 a year in dubious housing and travel expenses only make about $170,000.

Giesbrecht made the equivalent of seven-and-a-half times what a senator makes!

But as galling as the Giesbrecht revelation was, there were two others last week that were at least as bad.

For one, while Giesbrecht wins the 2013 First Nations salary lottery, his compensation is not that far off what a lot of chiefs make.

Of the 630-plus band chiefs in Canada, nearly 100 make more than the prime minister. And an average band has fewer than 600 members.



Money is an easy way for the Liberals to CLAIM they are doing something, problem is they already have or said they would get rid of the accountability and disclosure laws the Conservatives put in place for chiefs and reserves. No one would have known what Giesbrecht was making without that law. Some reserves are ran well, entrepreneurial in nature and fully disclose and account for the finances but most don't. The Anawapiscat soup diet chief couldn't account for millions in spending when she was finally forced to and what she could show was big pay outs to her boyfriend etc. According to a friend of mine that camps on one of the reserves the corruption is terrible and his wife brags about the good deals on netted fish that as near as I can tell they are actually poaching and selling illegally (not sure but what I have read suggests it).

The race based policies of the Indian act and reserves should be phased out as quickly as possible in my opinion. Paying no taxes (not contributing to Canada essentially), free tuition at University, gov't handouts etc. do nothing more than promote further greed and entitlement in the majority of the cases it seems.

Many of these huge land claims should be dismissed or settled with them actually having ownership NOT being a ward of the country and not having the ability to own, sell and lease as they choose. In many ways it is kind of like me finding out where one of my ancestors homes were that had been foreclosed, sold, seized etc. and suing the current gov't somewhere in Europe to pay me. Somewhere in the last ??? thousands of years my ancestor migrated to ??? in Europe... even if I could show a treaty or legal agreement think a land claim that it was my ancestral lands would get much other than laughter if I laid a land claim on some big chunk of land in Europe?

Given the current logic the reasonable course is for an animal rights group to make land claims against the Indians, after all the deer, moose etc. were here first.


http://globalnews.ca/news/2635738/at.../?sf24286859=1
Attawapiskat: Jean Chrétien says ‘sometimes’ people on First Nations reserves ‘need to move

[Fox]

No one is "forcing" them to live on reserves?

That is how the reserves started, they were forced on to the reserves or be killed.

Look at the US system, Oklahoma was originally a dumping ground for natives, check out the "Trail of Tears", we did a similar thing to our natives.

The problem of suicide in the North is not just a problem for Natives but there tends to be more Natives in the north. The North of Canada is an area of economic depression, there is not a lot of money and there are not a lot of opportunities but you run into a situation where people are being told to move south for work where they have no ability to pay for rent or buy a house due to the cost of living and they are stuck in a vicious cycle. The abuse of alcohol is a native problem due to native culture, it is a northern problem, same with the drugs, there is nothing else to do and there is a huge problem with mental health.

[MarkB]

That is how the reserves started, they were forced on to the reserves or be killed.

Look at the US system, Oklahoma was originally a dumping ground for natives, check out the "Trail of Tears", we did a similar thing to our natives.

The problem of suicide in the North is not just a problem for Natives but there tends to be more Natives in the north. The North of Canada is an area of economic depression, there is not a lot of money and there are not a lot of opportunities but you run into a situation where people are being told to move south for work where they have no ability to pay for rent or buy a house due to the cost of living and they are stuck in a vicious cycle. The abuse of alcohol is a native problem due to native culture, it is a northern problem, same with the drugs, there is nothing else to do and there is a huge problem with mental health.

I still don't understand what's stopping them from living like they did 200 years ago, truly off the land? I'm not being demeaning here at all, in fact, some days I wish I could do that. Indians didn't have money, diesel, TVs and iPads 200 years ago. Their way of life, so I'm led to believe, wasn't easy, but it was rewarding ... I don't think depression was an issue with Indian people 200 years ago.

The true problem I believe is that the politics (maybe the Chiefs, I don't know, don't know enough about it), keeps one of their feet in the "live off the land" society and the other in the "capatilistic" society ... and it doesn't work to do 2 things 50%. As I indicated before, it's hard enough surviving with capitalism even when you give 100%.

[Fox]

I still don't understand what's stopping them from living like they did 200 years ago, truly off the land? I'm not being demeaning here at all, in fact, some days I wish I could do that. Indians didn't have money, diesel, TVs and iPads 200 years ago. Their way of life, so I'm led to believe, wasn't easy, but it was rewarding ... I don't think depression was an issue with Indian people 200 years ago.

The true problem I believe is that the politics (maybe the Chiefs, I don't know, don't know enough about it), keeps one of their feet in the "live off the land" society and the other in the "capatilistic" society ... and it doesn't work to do 2 things 50%. As I indicated before, it's hard enough surviving with capitalism even when you give 100%.

There is no ability to live as you did 200 years ago, period, it is not possible.

I am all for opening the books, why not, every other group has to prove where the money goes but the problems of the North are not defined by Native culture but rather a problem of the North, it just makes the news when it is Native.

[MarkB]

Why isn't it possible?? Animals and trees are still there, water is still there. What am I missing?

[Hunter John]

No doubt they could live like they did 200 years ago but those skills and determination are likely long gone for the same reasons the white man wont want to live like we did 200 years ago but to say it cant be done is incorrect.