It’s difficult to discuss Canadian Aboriginal issues without emotions tipping the scales. It’s with caution therefore that I present the following, taken from Cjunk.
Who needs to go to Latin America to find tin-pot dictators … try visiting some of Canada’s reserves instead, or pay attention to how the aboriginal elite in Canada conduct business.
The hallmark of Latin American dictatorships has been the ruling family … entrenched in power either through military bullying or through the approval of wealthy patron families. The hallmark of Canadian Aboriginal politics is not much different. Those of us who work on the periphery of “First Nations” see it all the time … the entrenched family group lording it over the others while pealing off millions of dollars of Federal funding and kicking it over to those who are “in favor” or part of the “family”.
And, from Joseph Quesnel:
As National Aboriginal Day ends, aboriginals should take stock of what has been achieved in recent years.
It has become accepted wisdom from the aboriginal leadership elite that the current government is the worst thing to happen to First Nations in a long time. Of course, this idea filters to the masses who repeat it.
While not perfect, the government has achieved much on the aboriginal file. It is just they are the changes the aboriginal elites do not like because they empower individuals and reduce their collective power.
Discussions on this topic tend to go ballistic, so I kindly ask that you stick to the topic and keep it civil. To keep the discussion focussed I simply ask, “What should the Harper government do different from the previous Liberal Gov. in regards to Canada’s Aboriginal people … if anything?”
“What should the Harper government do different from the previous Liberal Gov. in regards to Canada’s Aboriginal people … if anything?”
Almost everything. The Liberals operated deliberately blind to the corruption on Reserves, just so long as their vote went Liberal.
The infamous “Kelowna Accord” amounted to more of the same, money given out to Chiefs, with no accountability.
When one reflects on how the Liberals operated the Government of Canada the last decade or so, it becomes quite apparent why they enjoyed dealing with other corrupt Governments.
A comprehensive land claims agreement. Work towards capacity-building, supported by infrastructure investment. On a less-than-macro level, give the Lubicon their promised reserve before they all die of TB.
On the macro scale, this is unbelievably complex, but do-able, in my opinion. By the Harper government? I doubt that the political will exists. But the Libs have such a dismal record, with such incoherent policies, that one might dare hope for a fresh approach. Anyway, you asked.
Dr. Dawg, if I am correct to assume you live in Ottawa, your home is under land claim. Would the comprehensive land claim include the land claim on your own property, or just on other peoples’? It’s a fair question.
Map of land claim on the neo-colonist Dr. Dawg:
http://www.aboriginalaffairs.osaa.gov.on.ca/english/negotiate/algonquin/map.htm
1. First Harper has to get a huge majority.
2. Pass a law that on July 1st, 2010 all natives, part natives, wannabe natives etc will be canadians first and must accept all laws of canada and pay all cdn taxes.
3. Eliminate the reserve system.
4. Any native group that has received any land claim must never ever ask the cdn govt for one cent again.
5. Never give the chiefs anything again, give it to the people.
6. Ban any chief or native spokesman from all media access.
I am not a racist, or anti native. I have aboriginals in my family.
7. All native organizations must agree not to take their grievances to the United Nations, since they know beforehand that their grievance will be supported there regardless of the facts or history.
There is already a change in the way Aboriginal “Elites” will be dealt with by the Harper government. They know it too. Their days of skimming off the gravy and leaving their people to live in squalor are over, the whole of Canada knows and are fed up to the gills with them.
The Kelowna Accord was another Liberal scam/sham.
Typical of Liberal largesse with no way to follow the money, just a pitch and toss into a black hole.
Andrew: In Saskatchewan Land Claims were settled by a cash payout. First Nations then went out and bought land or investment with that money. There was a series of checks and balances; and only a bit of corruption occured with the disbursement of funds. So, Dr. Dawg and his home in Ottawa would be just fine as cash sums, not land, would be paid out … if Dr. Dawg had a piece of land he wanted to sell to them … so be it.
Any treaty or statute that is about Indians or any other so-called race, and any clause of any statute that mentions Indians or any other so-called race, is prima facie racist; ergo it must be abrogated and stricken from the statutes.
Check out the Kamloops Indian Band for an example of what potential can be acheived when good goverence prevails. Chhers. sandra
It is hard to know the best way to proceed. However we do know the current government apparatus is destroying the Indians and their culture. Ours too, for that matter.
Given that government programs are the worst possible way to do almost anything, we might want to slowly close them all down over the next 20 years and replace them with…nothing.
How about if they get the freedom to act as they see fit and responsibility to live by their actions, same as everybody else? They don’t need Big Brother helping them cross the street any more than I do. What are we, kids?!
Tax cut! Now please!
I don’t have all the answers, but after living and working in northern Manitoba these past thirty years, I have seen too much. The surprising thing is the NDP and Libs, champions of social justice, just don’t get it. To be fair Bob Nault was on the right path but Paul Martin sold out to the pimps.Since the Aboriginal leaderhip are quick to run to the courts, that is where PM. Harper should begin. Women’s matrimonial property rights, basic Human Rights legislation, ELectoral accountability might take if sanctioned and pushed by the Supreme Court of Canada.
I’ll bet that the biggest asset most people reading this post have is their personal residence. You can use the equity in their home to start a business, go back to school, or anything else that you deem appropriate.
Yet , we only allow native people to own reserve land collectively. Private property is the key to wealth creation, both for the nation and the individual.
So, under the present system, the only way out of the poverty trap is to leave the reservation. As long as we treat natives collectively, rather than individually, life on the reserve will remain a dead end.
What should the Harper g’vment do? Same as the Newfs did years ago.
Hey justthinkin; Maybe Alberta should send the Newfs back to where they came from.
The Newfoundlanders screwed themselves by trusting the canadian government. They were way better off on there own.
The community I live in is majority native. Before the last election, every native that I talked to that intended to cast a ballot had only one issue to vote for: Every band leader in northern Alberta preached the downfall of “native rights” if a Conservative government got elected…
Obviously one would think the best policy that could ever be forced on native Canadians, would be equal treatment as a Canadian citizen. Unfourtunately I would be a racist if I ever tried to admit that…
give the idians newfoundland and put the newfies on the reserves
Good idea GYM…just make sure Williams stays on the rock with them.
Funny. 300,000 at the time of Columbus, and they claim the whole of Canada? WTF. They didn’t even know half of it existed. Oh my. There’s that racist thing again. Screw them and the racist crap. If anybody is racist,it’s the Indian.
Eliminate the huge Dept. of Indian
Affairs!
It might sound like hardball but I’m of the opinion that the Canadian aboriginal people should be treated the same as the Canadian people. No more, no less. The reserve system does nothing but enable these perpetual “victims” to keep the status quo. The government should get out of the babysitting and culture preservation business.
I’m curious to know what you think happened in Newfoundland, justthinking?
I am not sure if how the Harper government is handling Indian Affairs and land claims issues.
According to Fed. Indian Affairs the number of reserves has gone from 2900 to over 3300 since Sept 2006.
The difference is what is now called sub-reserves. An small piece of land can be purchased and declared a sub-reserve. From this point on all development nearby is subject to getting the Natives to agree to that development. Also land ajoining this sub reserve can be bought and added to the sub reserves.
Furthermore, once you are a sub-reserve you can become a reserve and get full funding.
And the elite keep getting richer.
Never heard of the Beothuks, Louise?
This is a nice story until one realizes that the reserve system was not only the creation of Ottawa but has been propped up by same until this very day.
This is a nice story until one realizes that the reserve system was not only the creation of Ottawa but has been propped up by same until this very day.
Justhinkin, (or are you?) what I’m asking you is if you know the whole story about them or just the myths about how they became extinct. So, once again, what is it you think happened to the Beothuks?
Larry Lloyd made an excellent point about property rights on Reserves. We should continue to honour Indian treaties, but perhaps the rules need to be altered for property ownership by natives.
Belisarius, that’s what the Fed’s tried to do in 1969 with (in)famous White Paper which basically spawned the whole Indian Industry.
Stop rewarding bad behaviour! All handouts must be tied to democratic reform. As long as chief-clan-tribalism remains, nothing will change.
The Hebrew Bible taught us this lesson 5,000 years ago: everyone must have rights, everyone must have a say, and everyone must be held to the same set of standards. This is the road to success, and it’s been proven time-and-again throughout the millenia.
The reservation mentallity will never change until you give the people (indivduals)the right to own property and houses.
Have you ever seen anyone who rents, keep a house or property mantained (not). If you own something you will by in large maintain it. Until this fundamental change is made on reservations we (Taxpayers) will continue to build new housing for aboriginals every 5 years or so as they don’t have any pride of ownership. They know the government will just replace it after the CBC does a story about the sorry state of housing on reserves.
Anyone hear an update on the Nunavit town where the whole town was relocated because of poor housing into brand new homes. I bet if the CBC did a follow up you will see the same sorry state of housing exists in the short time period of 5 years.
Why….. The people don’t own the houses…they are nothing more than renters…and don’t have a vested interest. just think if they owned the houses they might be able to create a market and build equity… a novel idea.
I live in close proximity to three reserves. I know there has been some infighting about 45 miles to the north between factions on that reserve. The reserve to the east, seems to be a fairly model community. Indeed, they have stated that on the 29th of June, they will hand out information only. I have struggled with an old fashioned outrage at stories, coming from Caledonia.
First and foremost, the Harper government should pick their targets. Take the violent purveyors of late and see that there is a warrant for their arrest. Look for the militants. Cowards all.
If the Harper government takes a firm stand, they cannot go wrong. If the Feds want to find out how things can work fairly well, they could take a trip and see how some sort of reasonable detente can exist.
I name the Robinson-Huron treaty of 1857.
Louise….I am not going to do your research. I know their history,which ended in 1829 with their official extinction on the death of Shanawdithit. Find the rest yourself.
‘Justthinkin’, I’m not sure what history you think you know, but I would suggest a major refresher course is in order, as you seem to have an extremely narrow view of the history of Newfoundland and it’s native and non-native populations. To lay the extinction of the native Beothuk people entirely at the hands of a few colonial Europeans, is to negate all other factors leading to their demise.
Land pressure’s, a hunter gatherer society in competion with the eastern Mi’kmaq, disease and starvation, not to mention conflicts with the French, Portugese,British and Mi’kmaq and yet somehow it all comes down to what the ‘Newfs did years ago’? I too, as Louise has, must ask you, what do you think happened all those years ago? Please, enlighten us with your knowledge!
Start treating them like normal people and the same as all the rest of us. Is this South Africa in reverse?
Free school, free this, free that, are they so stupid and inferior they can’t compete as equals? That’s what you are saying by giving them something the rest of us can’t have. The basis of racism is favoring one over another.
The key to dealing with these people is to look at them like people.
One solution will not necessarily work for all of them. Different native groups will require different solutions.
The liberals ‘solved’ the problem by just throwing money at them. The result is a group of dependant free loaders that are neither grateful or appreciative of the money. They piss the money away on booze and drugs and hold their hands out for more when they sober up.
THE FIRST STEP is to get these free-loaders off the dole. It is literally killing them. Men need to work just like they need food and water and oxygen. Working and contributing provides self worth and meaning.
THE SECOND STEP is to demand accountability from these people the same way we do for our own. Example: some idiot at the water treatment plant screws up and causes deaths with contaminated water? White people hold inquiries, assign blame, punish the offenders and make procedural changes in hopes of eliminating this problem in the future. If red men are involved, we spend billions on trying to automate small water treatment plants that can be set up in remote reservations and run by remote control if necessary, by a responsible adult.
The indians need to look after themselves, rather than just blame all their problems on Whitey. They should be running their own water treatment plants, taking care of their own infrastructure and social programs…and answering for it themselves when they screw up.
So I suppose the long story short is this: start treating them like men rather than wards of the state. As it is every last reservation indian could die tomorrow, and my world would be a better place because I wouldn’t have to support them. In the real world I don’t benefit one whit from their ‘cultural contributions’ and financially they are a net drain to me.
If we keep treating them as wards of the state…that is all they will ever be.
Entrench property rights and make payments directly to individuals which would then have to be taxed back by the leadership of the bands thereby creating an incentive for some accountability. The AFN would howl bloody murder but that’s because the AFN is simply the organization that represents the Dons of the native mafias not the natives themselves. Otherwise, treat natives as individuals and handle land claims case by case.
The reserves are enforced socialism, and socialism doesn’t work. They have to function in a private property system. If you could divide the reserves up equally and give every resident a piece that he owned, that would be huge; failing that, just give the reserves as little money as possible. If all governments could do this, wonderful; if not, then the feds can start by simply butting out and leaving things to the provinces. Land claims? Do nothing. Right now land claims are an anti-incentive to natives not to work or strive because they think that some day soon they’re going to win the land-claim lottery. There’s no point continuing the policies that have led to this mess, and there’s no point going half-way the wrong way.
The reserves are enforced socialism, and socialism doesn’t work. They have to function in a private property system. If you could divide the reserves up equally and give every resident a piece that he owned, that would be huge; failing that, just give the reserves as little money as possible. If all governments could do this, wonderful; if not, then the feds can start by simply butting out and leaving things to the provinces. Land claims? Do nothing. Right now land claims are an anti-incentive to natives not to work or strive because they think that some day soon they’re going to win the land-claim lottery. There’s no point continuing the policies that have led to this mess, and there’s no point going half-way the wrong way.
Entrench property rights and make payments directly to individuals which would then have to be taxed back by the leadership of the bands thereby creating an incentive for some accountability. The AFN would howl bloody murder but that’s because the AFN is simply the organization that represents the Dons of the native mafias not the natives themselves. Otherwise, treat natives as individuals and handle land claims case by case.
justthinkin, the reason I’m asking is for a long time there was a grossly distorted mythology about their demise floating around, created in the early years of the development of the Indian industry, until people like professors Leslie Upton and Ingeborg Marshall published material about Beothuk history that actually met scholarly standards (The Extermination of the Beothuks of Newfoundland: The Canadian Historical Review, Vol LVII No. 2; June, 1977 and Marshall, Ingeborg, A History and Ethnography of the Beothuk. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 1996 respectively). You’ve made a statement above that suggests you prefer to believe the distorted mythology rather than the rigourous scholarship. But perhaps you’re not willing to take a chance, lest your gullability be revealed. Forgive me if I’m misinterpreting you, but you’ve left me with the definite impression that you are both impressionable and unwilling to engage in debate. Or maybe you just don’t trust your own knowledge.
Kate, et al, is it my connection or is there something wrong with your site or the server it’s on. It takes forever for a comment to upload.
I have worked on a lot of reserves in Alberta and Saskatchewan building power lines. I have seen the natives up close and personal. They are,
• The most useless an unproductive group of people I have ever seen, even more than Palestinians.
• The majority of them are alcohol addled… permanently.
• They absolutely despise us and there is no fix for that.
• Have absolutely zero work ethic.
• Are truly stupid in the way of IQ. Not an original unique thought among them.
• Have a propensity to piss and shit themselves in public.
• Are absolute pigs in terms of personal hygiene.
• Have no respect for property or money or themselves.
I have met a couple off reserve that were pretty decent but that’s it. The native people are completely unworthy of the Canadians treasure and benevolence. I say let them wallow in their own shit and let then starve to death.
Greg Gandy @ 2:41 am has it right. How about it, justthinin? Do you understand the complexities or are you a victim of indoctrination? You can reveal your true character by describing what you know or leave our impression of you as it stands. What’s that old saying: “It’s better to remain silent and thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Tossing big bucks at the Natives where the Chiefs get to it first and use it for their own interests is no way to manage the Reserves and the Reservists.
Once it’s in the hands of the Chiefs there appears to be no accountability.
If they had respect for their own people and respect for the taxpayers of Canada the Indians would be living in good housing, healthy and educated well.
Plenty of money has been given out to accomplish all those things if it were used with respect.
If a person gets a free house and trashes it, it can’t be blamed on someone else.
There has to be a huge change in so-called Indian Affairs and they can start by scrapping the Reserves, it’s obvious they can never work. They’re nothing but tools to suck more money from Governments. Keeping many in slum conditions seems to keep the money flowing.
The solution to the problem begins when both the feds and the provinces cut off funding to the aboriginal organizations, such as the AFN and the FSIN.
BTW, does anyone remember the days when the FSIN was just the FSI? Somewhere in the early days of the Indian Industry, when various claims were being researched, the Industry discovered the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and found within it the word “nations” used to describe the first peoples of North America. Immediately thereafter, they began to call themselves nations, assuming the word carried a higher more dignified and powerful significance than the word “tribes”. What they didn’t bother to tell anyone is that the Royal Proclamation also used the word “tribes” to refer to the Indian groups the Proclamation dealt with.
The wording of the Proclamation also implies the British monarch (King George III issued the damned thing) had the right to expropriate Indian lands as long as he negotiated a settlement with them. It really doesn’t recognize Indian sovereignty at all. That’s another myth created by the Indian Industry, the courts arm in particular.
The primary purpose of those parts of the Proclamation that dealt with Indians (there were other parts that simply reinforce the British notion that the land was theirs) was to keep the settlers in what was then the New England Colonies from creating disturbances, and therefore trouble for the King, in the “unsettled” parts of his empire.
The Indian Industry also likes to pretend the Royal Proclamation was a negotiated agreement between the British monarch and the various Indian “nations” affected. Unfortunately, ignorance of this part of colonial history by the masses allowed these myths to gain colossal proportions and are now very firmly entrenched.
“I simply ask, “What should the Harper government do different from the previous Liberal Gov. in regards to Canada’s Aboriginal people … if anything?”
End the self-imposed apartheid and ghettoization of FN people by their leadership…set them free from the morbid victimhood cult and repressive dependency that has been bred in reserve culture/leadership.
I support completely dismantling the reserve system and the Indian act. First totally defund it,( welfare is for Canadian citizens as a safety net, not a way of life) next shift all responsibility for reserve people to reserve leaders…300 years is too long to be treated like irresponsible children as wards of the state…time to grow up as a culture and stand on your own two feet.
I have observed that people generally will expend more effort for a free windfall despite the fact they could earn more from simply working at something productive for society. The prospect of land claim windfalls is as perniscious as the prospect of inheritance in Bleak House. Dickens hit upon a psychological truth, one that occurs often in family legal wrangling over estates.
The difficulty with Aboriginal culture in Canada is that the culture has to be transformed at the foundation, to re-instill an ethic of self-reliance. No promising and humane solutions have come forward yet.
After reading all of the above comments a couple of observations.
First, its hard to be a full-time alcoholic if somebody else isn’t buying the booze.
Second, its hard to be a shiftless retard if somebody else isn’t fixing all your boo boos for you.
These two facts are as true in downtown Hamilton as they are on reserves. This is really the same discussion we all had on the fatty ambulance thread. You can’t get to 600 pounds without help.
Freedom, ownership, personal responsibility. Western values 101. Where these things are in place, people flourish.
As to the existing Indian leadership, in Ontario and Quebec at least the Feds could have very good effect by stepping down hard on smuggling. Take the gangsters out of the equation and things like Caledonia will pretty much cease.
Shrieks of “RACIST!!!” may now begin. ~:D
With all due respect, WL, 300 years is a pretty large distortion. The concept of wardship applying to Indians wasn’t developed until mid-way through the 19th century and the legal aspects of the concept were pretty much removed from the Indian Act when it underwent a substantial revision in 1950, so the wardship idea lasted only about 100 years, not 300.
The Indian Industry loves to exaggerate timelines. I picked up a copy of the Star-Phoenix yesterday and on page A-11 there was an article about King Bigot, David Ahenakew, wherein he is quoted as follows:
“I’ve faced nothing but discrimination. I’ve been vilified. My people have been killed, murdered. …We’ve lived with hatred for 500 years, since your people came here.”
It’s been 515 years since Columbus landed in the Carribean, but if you listen to the bigots in the Indian Industry, one would think Columbus’s landing on a remote island thousands of mile from the Cree territory wrought instantaneous havoc all over the continent. Exaggeration and hyperbole serve as primary tools of the Indian Industry, but what really happened is a whole lot different in different places and at different times. The fur trade era, for example, was a golden age for the Cree. They virtually extorted exorbitant prices for furs they obtained from other Indians and played one fur trading company off against the other, which, by the way, manifested in their propensity to only trade with those who offered alcohol. Alcohol abuse only became a problem when the Indians had more than one choice of fur buyers to deal with. It was only after the Hudson’s Bay Company lost their monopoly that alcohol became a trade good.
Whole tribes were pushed off of their traditional territory by the Cree as they moved westward, armed with European guns. There are numerous instances recorded in journals kept by European traders and explorers, as well as uncovered in archeological digs, of war and slaughter between tribes competing over resources, territory and access to European traders. Being a warrior with many enemy dead to your credit was a bit status symbol.
In short, they’re human like the rest of us. Having a large chip on the shoulder does not negate that fact.
And by the way, did you know that the Indian Act, created in 1876, was applied to the North West Territories (now the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta) before Treaty 6 and any of the Treaties that followed were negotiated? Doesn’t quite fit the notion that the Crown saw Indians as sovereign nations, capable of entering into treaties with other nations, does it? Treaty 6 was negotiated a few months later, after the Indian Act was proclaimed, but as far as the Canadian government of the day was concerned, the land was already part of Canada.
It’s also true that the Indians were in dire straits and were facing starvation as the buffalo had virtually disappeared from the Canadian plains. They were hardly in a position to negotiate as equals, which also doesn’t sit well with the prevailing orthodoxy emanating from the Indian Industry.
BTW, justthinkin, I’m still waiting to hear what you think happened in Newfoundland.
Paul: I liked your commentary so much I cross posted and linked it to the Caledonia wake up call BBS…I hope you don’t mind.
You are correct that the CPC is coming at the FN issue by busting the hold of dominant “families” who mongered fed funding into their own personal political and economic dynasties ( like the Hills)…granted they have done this by dealing with individuals and setting up accounting systems….granted a good step forward in making FN responsible and accountable…maybe it will rub off on the leadership and trickle down to individuals.
You are also correct in stating that the media has ignored these very progressive moves.
However, as with all things with this CPC government, it seems like one step forward and two steps back. Harper may be changing band funding accountability but his dealing with Native terrorism and land claims leaves me wondering.
Case in point; is the Prentis and Harper attempting to defend their recent, swift land deal with Roseau River, Man., Chief Terry Nelson… who recently called off a rail blockade for June 29…this deal jumped the cue to be settled before the announced violent action (threat)…there is no way you can tell me there was any other motivator than kow-towing to that threat deadline.
Harper denounces threats and violence yet he responds to them just as Nelson predicted when he said; “the only way to deal with the whiteman is to pick up a gun or you stand between the white man his money.”
….. well, Harper reacted as predicted by this terrorist and the end result is to ask for more threats and terrorism because it works.
When Harper announces a zero tolerance on native violence/terrorism and promises the perpetrators will receive swift blind justice under the anti terror act, then I will fully agree with you he has a handle on FN issues and there will be change.
It is one thing to break the backs of profiteering FN elites who suckle on reserve funding…it is quite another to break the back of FN criminal terrorism and fanaticism which provides the muscle for their extortion….this is yet to be addressed by the Harper government in anything more than lip service.