Leaderboard

No my point is that unless Indigenous contribute part of their income to the services and infrastructure on their reserves, they will not be taken seriously as self-governing nations. It’s not healthy for any society to depend so heavily on support outside the community. Collecting rent on the development work of private companies tax-free doesn’t necessarily demonstrate any contribution toward the common good of the reserve community at all. Ownership also means owning the costs of management. Sure some infrastructure must remain federal because it’s too big for a small community to build. I’m not even proposing a clawback of federal funding. I’m simply stating the truth that a society must be self-sustaining to be healthy. Sure you can argue that money is owed to people for doing nothing on land that is worth very little because of centuries old injustices that were the way of the world at that time. Some reserves are thriving and they should be self-sustaining because they are self-sustaining. Everyone agrees that development on Indigenous land requires agreements for payments to the reserve, but how is that money used to support the reserve? Is it simply kept by individuals like a profit share with no form of taxation to support the reserve? If you want to really dig into the specifics and problem solve, there has to be honest conversation about what self-government means. This is the heart of the matter. The broken reserve system and Indian Act are embraced by too many Indigenous decision makers. What hard choices are people willing to make to really improve life for the vast majority of Indigenous? You want to escape poverty and developing country conditions, function with the accountability and sophistication of healthier societies. Courts can figure out disputes over pieces of land, which will have their resources and title. The question is, after the settlement, what do you do with what you have? When will the conversation change from getting more from outside to creating and contributing? Some are already there. Federal money should go where it’s needed most. Certain items will probably remain freebies, such as land without property taxes and income taxes going to Revenue Canada. That’s a sweet deal. There’s also taxpayer money flowing into reserves from the government of Canada. Nice. What are Indigenous giving back to their own Indigenous communities?

British Columbia is being run and ruined by a bunch of leftist liberals, socialists, communists and environmentalists that could care less about BC. They all have shown that they are not and do not believe in the free enterprise system unless it can be taxed and ruled over and kept at a very minimum from growing. They all believe in more government, more taxes, more Trudeau, and less freedom. And I am sad to say that most of the people in BC love it. Trudeau has been a disaster for BC as well as socialist Horgan and greenie Weaver will be for BC. BC needs a real and true conservative provincial party that believes in more freedom, less taxes and less government and less politically correct and mean it. Otherwise BC will never be the great province it should be.

"I think this was creating by the capitalist exploiters of the United States. Communism should never have failed but exploitation by the evils of Ronald Reagan caused this." - darkpenguin350 There you go, according to darkpenguin350, they caused the reactor to explode because they didn't want communism to succeed.... if so, why hasn't they world punished the US?

Wise comment. I think most people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, want to see good jobs on reserves and revenue from resource development flow back to the reserves, as well as careful management of those funds to meet local community needs. I think, though, that for true self-sustainability, the goal has to be self-funding through self-taxation, as is the case in every community. External taxpayer funding should act as a kind of top up to meet a standard. Some reserves that are flourishing would need little or no top-up. Others might require much more funding than they currently receive. A condition of any external funding is financial accountability. This should be a requirement for all IBA and other sources of revenue on reserves, so that it's transparent to the community how such money is used. If there is no plan among residents of a reserve to collect a portion of their non-taxed income for the purpose of building and maintaining infrastructure and services on the reserves, those residents will always be reliant on the help of people who have their own priorities and may not want to contribute much to people who don't pay land or income taxes. I'm not taking a right wing position on this, as I think current levels of funding with rises for inflation are what we signed up for. On the other hand, there is no hope for true self-government and self-empowerment without self-management, which means running reserves internally the way city/town councils run municipalities, including having the band collect a portion of income from residents to pay for services/infrastructure. This is what makes Nunavut successful. I realize that this would have to be transitioned incrementally. I also wouldn't try messing with the reserve system as it stands, with its lack of private title for residents that would allow for the sale of private property in the marketplace. That should be a local decision for bands.

I would look at the internal problems with some of the advocate groups for indigenous people and then we might start to understand where the failure is. There seems to be a lot of internal struggles among their own that we cannot fix externally.

Leftists are slaves to their delusions, Cucks are sycophants to the leftists, I have no evidence as to it being a plot, I see them as simply being weak minded and so lacking of critical thought.

To be honest, the one thing that I admire from politicians like Trudeau and AOC in the states, is their self-unawareness. If I ever said one thing that was as stupid as pretty much everything that AOC has ever said I would be afraid to show my face in public for the rest of my life. She could hazard a guess that 1+1=Jello and then just carry on acting as if she just invented the wheel.

Irrelevant! I'm talking about Trudeau doing a drive-by pot shot at Trump during the primary election - and after Trump had won! Lol, Jason Kenney described Trudeau accurately! Why would Trudeau openly take the side of an outgoing President (Obama/Biden) when he knew very well that he'd be dealing with the new one? Trudeau had opened himself up to be a pawn by Biden/Obama when Biden came to Canada (just as Trump had just won the presidency)! Lol. What was the praise Biden heaped on him, which he obviously lapped at? The designated "torch-bearer" of Obama. Looks like everybody's playing Trudeau like a giddy harp. Even today as we speak. I'd love to be a fly on the wall and listen to Trump and Xi talk about Trudeau!

Lisa Raitt, the smartest politician with integrity and compassion.