61 Replies to “Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?”

  1. I’m a carpenter among many things and definitely not structurally sound.
    I guess building codes don’t apply to first nations?
    Under the federal government, they don’t seem bound like the rest of us by law under those building codes. To the nail, Ontario has a code for everything and inspections for safety. 7 or 8 different inspections now to build a single house.

    1. The 2x4s appear pretty random. I’m guessing SNC-Lavalin and Bombardier built these in an untendered bid for under $250,000 each. Think of all the money the Liberal’s saved. Why tarps? Back in the day they made pre-painted plywood that you overlapped like big shingles – 50 years instead of 6 months or first gale. We built farm sheds and roofed granaries out of the stuff. I think most of them are still standing today.

      2. It would be wrong to appropriate white man’s building codes, but their Remington .308 and their Ford F150 is okay.

    4. I am a Structural Engineer and I can tell you definitely that Building Codes do not apply on the Reserve. Some of the better run reserves, generally those near large centres of population, will review buildings, but I’m not sure how fastidious they are.

      It may also surprise you to know that Building Permits are not required on any Federal land. Airports are a particular case in point. I have been the Engineer of Record for several buildings at airports and in some cases (not all) I had to sign a certification letter basically stating that it does conform to the Ontario Building Code, but I had nobody independently checking on me.

  2. Best Twatter comment:

    Olivia… a few observations…..
    1) 50” flat screen fresh out of the box.
    2) kids playing Xbox.
    3) Pampers out of the box.
    4) Lots of coke a cola and ice tea.
    The picture really does not match the story ? Just saying?

    1. Years ago, (pre-Global days), the reporter ran a story for a welfare recipient to whine about her plight. They forgot to clean the ashtray, which was about six inches high in cigarette butts. Then they let the closet full of empty beer and whisky bottles be shown. The reporter was too stupid to notice and kept running with the “woe is me” narrative.

      The second comment “ you have to be related to the Chief or you get the shaft “ pretty much sums up my comment about water purification from yesterday.

  3. We call that camping. They could always do what I did – get a job, save up money, get a mortgage, build a house, and live poor for 20 years until it was paid off.

    1. It would have to be off the rez; band councils own everything on the rez. And the chief’s driveway is always paved.

    3. John Chittick – you nailed it . This is exactly the future when we are made to rely on the government and your dignity and incentive is stolen. Somehow mandating free heat , water, housing and income for all from the government isn’t working. And first nations are not under the control of provincial health regulations ( water and sewer) nor likely the national building code. Once again it reminds me the hunger games may be our future reality.

    1. That’s how the game is played. If there was an election today and by some miracle the Conservatives win then tomorrow the headlines would read ‘Conservatives fail to secure vaccine, kills thousands of Canadians’ and ‘O’Toole must step down and face charges for neglecting first nations people, “It’s genocide” claims activist’ and ‘Anonymous sources tell reporter that they overheard senior conservative ministers talking of plan to deport all non white people and jail all LGBLQWERTY, as well as making all abortions illegal,’

  7. My friend was a minister and lived near a reserve. Of course he thought he should save their souls. After visiting he got a rude awakening. In one of the houses they had cut a hole in the wall of the bathroom so the horses could drink out of the bathtub. When winter came they were complaining that the house was cold. Not to mention what they did when the toilet got plugged. Cut the pipe off in the basement and kept on going.

    After they tried to run him off the road, he lost a lot of sympathy.

    1. The church I attended while I was growing up sometimes had guest sermons from a married missionary couple who were living on a reserve in the area. (They were translating the Bible into the native language.)

      I remember one time when he told similar stories.

    2. Yup. I live near two reserves. If you want to succeed in life the first step is ALWAYS to get out of the reserve and live somewhere else. If you want your children to have a chance, send them to the off reserve White school, not the reserve school. The single biggest employee in our rural area is social services where you can supplement the farm income by raising children taken from those reserves. There’s an unending supply of them because the government gives bonuses for babies.

      1. Yup, reserve I live near, Chief and most of the councillors, send their kids to white man school, even though there is a school on the reserve. For thee, not me

    3. Pandora, I know this whole first nations/reserve thing is a prickly affair, but your post had me rolling on the floor laughing. Did they at least put a bucket under the toilet pipe?

  8. So why won’t Trudeau let them go out and hunt and build their own shelters like the old ways?

    Blackface is just showing his RACIST agenda again!

  10. Taxpayers will never be allowed to know how much taxpayer money flows into the hands of the chief of that reserve every year. Most of the residents will never know either, since the chief and his family will not want their subjects to ask awkward questions about where all the money goes.

    There is, however, some related data that are available from the federal government. It involves the annual financial transfers from federal taxpayers to the provinces and three territories. The annual transfers to Nunavut are the most relevant and revealing. Nunavut, you may remember, was created in the mid-nineties to be a large scale experiment in aboriginal self-government.

    This year alone, federal taxpayers will be giving the Nunavut government $46,309 for each man, woman and child in the territory (link below). That works out to be $185,236 a year for a family of four. And, according to Nunavut, that is nowhere near enough.

    If you asked each family in Nunavut whether they would relocate to southern Canada in exchange for $185,236 a year (which they could spend on whatever they wanted), what do you think their answers would be?

    https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/federal-transfers/major-federal-transfers.html#Nunavut

  12. So let me get this straight. Taking them out of tents, teepees and wigwams and putting them in residential schools was horrible and leaving them in a tent (albeit with electricity, flat screens, X boxes, Pampers and Coca Cola) is worse? Lose/lose.

  13. Since Canadian libraries have started removing books from their shelves which were written by non-indigenous authors about indigenous themes, shouldn’t this reporter, Olivia Stefanovich, be removed from reporting on indigenous issues, unless she can prove she is indigenous?

  14. Note to those who care about our indigenous, thereby proving to their rent seeker industry they’re anti-native racists, who are probably white, therefore privileged or with a different opinion, or whatever reason can be found:

    Look at the bright side. They’re getting very close to dropping their boil water advisory.

    The no-brainer native issue surfaces, which Grits promised to solve what they’ve failed at for decades, somehow caused by covid.

  15. With no codes,inspection nor government help..?
    Why did they build so badly?
    The material in that structure could have built a very strong ,practical building..in skilled hands..
    But thanks to years of Liberal “Help” there is not a skilled hand on the Reserve..
    Or at least not one willing to get mixed up in this mess.

    1. What ever happened to reality -TV’s Mike Holmes who, with great fanfare advertised a program to built good housing on First nations Rez’s? Must have been 8 or so years ago, and the story or program has not been mentioned since.

      I know a lot of Indians, as they used to be called before progressives decided to upgrade the designation, and every single one who was successful left the Rez., and had no use for life on said Rez. Their stories were very much like those of Soviet era Eastern Europeans who defected, graft,corruption and brutality especially if you weren’t related to one of the political elite.

  16. They could erect teepees , it’s part of the heritage they so desperately want to preserve.
    Of course that would require work and our government would not have the materials or know how.

    1. Depends where they live; teepees were from the plains. On the west coast, cedar lodges were built. In the more wooded areas of eastern Canada, suspect there was a wooden framework with a combination of animal skins and branches to cover it. With the exception of the west coast structures, most dwelling places tended to be temporary, as the bands would follow their food. The teepees were extremely portable.
      It’s my understanding that – in eastern Canada and northeastern USA – the life was semi-nomadic; going south to grow basic crops in the summer and then returning north where there was more game. I may be wrong though.

  17. Every time there there is a story like this one, take the time to do the basic research. This time:

    https://fnp-ppn.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/fnp/Main/Search/FNRegPopulation.aspx?BAND_NUMBER=183&lang=eng

    And then go to the financial transparency page. Last financials and band council salaries here are 2019 but, in light of the report here, they are eye openers … In 2019 band income ($31M from the federal taxpayers; $4.6M from provincial taxpayers; $1.46M in casino profits; $8M in “other” – which might usefully have been explained), was roughly $45M a year for about 1500 souls living there; say $120,000 a year in direct subsidy for every family of four (yeah, I know) without anyone there lifting a finger on their own, or taking into account any multiplier effect as a good chunk of this gets recycled through the band (See note 13). About $17M of this is flow-through funding for health, education and social services, although my experience is that anything that flows through a band council gets more than a little bit turbid by the time it gets to those who are supposed to benefit. Then at note 12 see that the band owns $84M in tangible assets including $25M worth of housing (plus another $23M “still under construction). This would imply (again using family of four, and noting that these values are amortized) that each such family has “free” housing valued at about $130,000. And then do a detailed read of Note 13; and have a pencil and paper handy as you will end up with a host of questions that the CBC never seems to ask.

    1. You are forgetting subsidized food. The Whitey has to also pay to subsidize food costs for all First Immigrants even when the food has to be flown in weekly etc.

      1. Fly in food? Most of these shitholes have ice roads in or summer water access. That involves 6 months planning and this reserve (and most) suffers on $120,000 municipal budget per family.

    2. JAB: Thanks for this.

      The link you provided takes you to the population data for the band. From that page, I tried all the links to get to the financials for the band, but none worked. Would you post a link to where the financials can be found?

        1. Went to your link. Fabulous. After perusing the docs for a minute the pages blacked out and was kicked off my internet. Tried 6 times. The pages would go black or grey and internet connection cut every time. Anybody else have this issue? Never happened before…..

    3. “questions that the CBC never seems to ask”

      That should be an SDA tag line, right next to “Chief Big Screen TV”

  18. How much money does this band get? Where is it going? Who’s getting it?

    Canada used to have a law that required answers to those questions. But Trudeau said that that was humiliating, so he got rid of it.

    Don’t anyone kid themselves. Olivia at CBC is bringing this up so that Trudeau will dump some major cash into the reserve to make the issue go away. The chief will be getting a new Escalade.

    1. Don’t talk too loud, if this COVID thing keeps on, and it could the way it’s being handled by Trudeau, poverty and dependency will grow across the land.

    2. From Dirtman’s linked video:

      “We are a starved people in a rich nation.” – Elizabeth Homer – activist, lawyer, former U.S. Interior Department’s Director of American Indian Trust

      “Starved”, eh?

      That Rosie O’Donnell look-alike doesn’t appear to have missed many, if any meals. I submit her apparent physique plants her in the upper end of the overweight category in BMI charting – or quite possibly into the obese category.

  21. Just on first impressions: that’s rather interesting wood working. And no, I haven’t read the comments yet. Will do so right away.
    PS. I’m not even a carpenter, but I stayed in better looking “squaw pole” tents. In the bush, erected by les Indiens, too.

  22. Can we stop caring about these people?

    No one seems to want to get these infantilisied race-baiters off of centuries-old welfare and have them live as fully fledged citizens with their own thoughts and destinies.

    The grift, the laziness, the thrill of blaming the white man for one’s problems – whatever the case may be, it’s not going to end any time soon until the printed money runs out.

  23. This occupation of sub-standard housing is simple supply-and-demand. The federal authorities have supplied a free dwellings, in a region where they are in short supply (even though this demand is hardly relevant since the price is “zero”). It is hardly even worth noting that the housing is immediately occupied. If I erected a tent on my front lawn and hung a sign on it saying “free shelter, heat and electricity included,” how long do you suppose it would take to have it more or less permanently occupied?

    1. One of the effects of “free” housing is to render such building materials (and the labour needed to collect and process them) valueless. Any material that has no value will simply remain waste.

  26. Oh the guided hatred, so eloquently worded. People, please be more considerate, and realize that you know very little about your fellow-Canadians. When have you complained enough. Should you complain? Is it really a problem that there is an xbox for children to play with? Or a big tv screen? What is your real complaint? That they exist in Canada? We’re all living on their lands, after by and large not having lived up to the treaty terms, and also introduced a (non-Treaty) Indian Act where the First Nations were herded into reserves. And now you’re complaining – about what?

    Open up your heart, and start listening to First Nations. And yeah yeah, corruption exists, as it does everywhere, so stop equating First Nations with just that. Because that is what you are doing Kate, by posting these things, and nothing else about First Nations. You know nothing. Arrogance will bring a person down. Our creator God made you and them. There is nothing for you to secretly boast about, in your heart.

  27. The plan is that once the natives move into the temporary shacks and stay for some required time to trigger a law suit against people of Canada that they made them live in temporary shack and that now is the time for people of Canada to pay penalty for making the native to stay in the temporary shacks.
    See how it works?

    An illustration:
    Some years ago the natives in Morley, Alberta made a deal with lumber companies to cut large swaths of trees on the reserve. You could see the action live from TransCanada Hwy no. 1 by Morley. Eventually some paper shufflers in Ottawa got the wind of it and made them stop.
    Now guess what happened.
    Next thing the natives did was sue the government of Canada for letting them cut down the trees.
    See how it works?

    Just like that.

  28. Blaming the people at the bottom for every single one of their problems is just too easy…

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