I am Groot

Everything I've found from the government's budget and revenue sites puts it closer to $45b. Though I admit it's hard to get clarity from ANY Canadian government websites, which seem to be designed with maximum confusion and obfuscation in mind. Generlaly, I can find out basic information about the US government quickly and easily. Those words can never be applied to the Canadian government websites.

Hang on. My understanding is the government collected closer to $45 B in GST last year.

Others have wanted to, like Chretien, but the opposition from native chiefs who wanted to make sure the money train kept flowing through their living rooms caused the effort to fail. I, on the other hand, don't give a shit what native chiefs say or want. There is a growing sense in Canada that our judges, and especially those on the country’s highest court, routinely overstep the boundaries of their office. Until last week, however, one might have thought that support for this conclusion could only be inferred from the Supreme Court of Canada’s judgments. That changed on Wednesday, when recent public remarks by the Chief Justice of Canada, Richard Wagner, sent shockwaves through social media. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-unchecked-judicial-power-thats-chief-justice-wagners-vision-for-canada Mmm no. Never said that. Nice backtracking there. Did you think I wouldn't notice? Suddenly you're narrowing the scope of what you suggested earlier. Now it only involves empty land no one uses! Either you're dumber than I thought - which is hard to believe - or more dishonest than I thought - which is even harder. My response to your inane view that all ceded land would return to the ownership of the natives is based on the idea that land owned and paid for by homeowners throughout the country would suddenly be given over to the natives. Not to mention entire towns and cities. Yes, so the first thing we'd do is rush an amendment through to tell the judges to drop dead. And it would probably contain a clause that limited their authority in future since they'd have demonstrated they couldn't be trusted without oversight. Barring that happening, yes, people would most certainly target both the judges and natives. Who said anything about 'white people'? You woke types are obsessed with race. I'm talking about the 95% of the population who would see their land taken away to please natives. Are you an American, by any chance? Because the drool you slobbered onto your keyboard above has no relation to conservatism. And certainly not to conservatism in Canada. Oh sure there'd be trouble. But short-term pain for long-term gain. If you weren't a demented flake and owned some property you might have more of an understanding of how property owners would respond to some judge deciding it now belongs to natives because two or three centuries ago their ancestors used to hunt on it now and then. No, it's about ever-increasing handouts to lazy natives and crooked chiefs because twisted little woke twats like you feel guilty over something that happened centuries ago. Yeah? Tell them they no longer own their property and see how they react.

It was the micmks who violated the treaty and started the war Excellent. We'll get rid of it then. You authoritarian left-wingers who despise democracy and want rule by technocrats are just such a strange bunch. maybe it's because you don't like or trust people. I was responding to your silly view that without the treaties all the land reverts to the natives. If the Supreme Court was as lunatic as you and actually made such a ruling it would take the provinces and government about a week to do a constitutional amendment to overrule the SC. Because if they didn't people would just start murdering every native they could get their hands on. No, it's us conservatives who care about society as a whole and you left-wingers who feel there's no problem in causing enormous dislocation, costs, and trouble to society to aid your favorite little victim groups Like the way you people decided you'd make everyone lock themselves into their homes and give criminals the free run of the street rather than lock up the criminals and let people outside. Again, I was responding to your fantasy that the SC could rule all the land would revert to natives if we got rid of the treaties. If that happened you can be damned sure that a constitutional amendment would be implemented damned fast. And if not people would start lynching both natives and judges. You don't get that because like the rest of the Left you've never understood human nature and never understood human motivations. Because at heart, you hate people.

You mean the aspiration to be completely self-governing but with me paying all the bills? I can't get my head about a 'nation' of five or six hundred people, no. Really? Freeloading seems like its the bulk of native culture these days, with a side order of whining and complaining. So I should care about them as much as I do about the people of Somalia? Ok.

Let me play the world's smallest violin for you while you cry. And don't cite conventions as if they apply retroactively. They don't. If we'd wanted to exterminate the natives there wouldn't be any around today. That IS, after all, how they treated their enemies. But I'm guessing you're not going to accuse them of committing genocide. Because, after all, they were ignorant savages who weren't capable of morality. The latest budget allocated $32 billion to natives. And btw, you're ignoring that much money is spent that is not specifically targeted at natives but is a part of the operating budget of Canada - a place natives are citizens of. That means spending on foreign affairs, highways and infrastructure, defense, pensions, etc. Spending on Indigenous priorities has increased significantly since 2015 (181 per cent) with spending for 2023-24 estimated to be over $30.5 billion, rising further to a forecast of approximately $32 billion in 2024-25. Notably, Budget 2024 includes $2.3 billion over five years to renew existing programming https://budget.canada.ca/2024/report-rapport/chap6-en.html I remember reading an article last year or the year before about how natives had had to boil water on a reserve for a long time until one young man finally got bored and volunteered to take the course in how to maintain their government-paid water filtration system. Shortly thereafter, it started working again. None of the natives had ever bothered to try to maintain it before. Natives don't maintain their plants or their houses. They treat housing the same as welfare tenants in city public housing projects. if these people consider themselves to be part of some other nation why should I care what happens to them?

Because the French weren't murdering English civilians. Bullshit. Nobody twisted their arms or threatened them to get them to attack and murder English colonists. They did it because the French paid them to. NO sympathy here. You're the one trying to make excuses "Oh, oh, the poor, innocent natives were just dancing in the sunflowers when the evil British colonists FORCED them to murder women and children! No, what's typical is your liberal bigotry of low expectations. Suppose you find me anywhere in those treaties that says we need to provide them with housing, with heating, with water, with electricity and healthcare. LOL. Think so? No, dude. That land is part of Canada. It's not going to be returned to the ancestors of people we took it from. A constitutional amendment that removed their ancestral rights would take care of that too. The pesky thing is the arrogant judges who continue to 'read into' the Constitution words and intentions which were never there. I think the same constitutional amendment that says natives have no more rights than other Canadians can restrict what the courts can 'read into' the constitution. I think authoritarianism, as you call it, is a reaction to governments and courts who are deliberately writing and altering laws that harm the country and the vast bulk of the population. It's hard for a thinking person to respect that and to not want it changed. I, for example, would like to do a constitutional amendment that allowed the privy council to call a referendum that would overrule supreme court decisions.

There were no genocidal acts. That's blatantly obvious. And the tens of billions spent on natives is not a 'tiny fraction' of my tax dollars. It's $32 billion this year alone just from the federal government. That doesn't count what the provinces spend on them.

You make it sound like every single kid who went to these residential schools over a 100 year period was subjected to sexual assaults from the teachers. I haven't seen any estimates, but I doubt it's more than a tiny fraction of those who went there. Are you on drugs?

Nice that you leave out that this came AFTER the micmac's took French money to attack, murder and scalp English colonists, for the bounties the French would pay them. But do go on portraying them as helpless innocents attacked by the evil British army. I think you're forgetting that any nation can withdraw from these treaties if they so desire. We just need to do a constitutional amendment and then cancel all the treaties. End of story. And as a higher and higher percentage of the population are foreign-born the sympathy for natives will diminish to the point an exasperated populace, fed up with progressive court judgments, will just say 'enough' and repudiate all the treaties.

I don't think Poilievre would stand for that, not for very long anyway.

Neither can the people who immigrated here from a hundred countries. They manage. If they feel they're oppressed here they're free to leave.

IE, they want us to give them more money.

You make it sound like this is done to harm natives. It's not. It's because they're out of cash, having given too much away. Oh bullshit. This is just more of that nonsense that if we build community centers and youth centers the gangs will disappear. I never went to a rec center or a community center or a youth center when young and I never felt the urge to join a gang and murder people.

What opportunity has barriers in front of it? Oh, the desire for more handouts, right?

Hardly. We treated them BETTER by far than they would have treated others whose land they craved. If we'd treated them the way they treated each other when they took someone's land there'd be none of them left alive today. That's relevant when people try to guiltmonger us about how badly we treated the natives and throw out bullshit words like genocide.

How long ago was that again? People like me are people who don't cut them the kind of slack people like you do. You see, I hold them to standards you don't believe they're capable of. I say if someone can pick up everything and come to Canada from Africa or Asia and learn the language and customs to make a better future for their kids then natives can get off their asses, off the reserves, and get a job. It's people like you who look down on them and don't think they're capable of work, who think they're like children and should be forever treated like that who perpetuate the miserable lives they have.

I think you're missing out on how confusing your own statements are. You admit the people here were no different in their ruthless warmongering and slavetaking ways than the Europeans. All over Europe - and here - the stronger fought and took land from the weaker. That was the way of the whole world. Why then is it like some kind of religious original sin that some of the stronger Europeans came over and conquered here? Because they certainly treated natives better than natives would have treated those they conquered. If the Europeans had conquered the locals the way the locals made war there'd be no discussion today because they'd all be dead. The natives weren't innocents. They played the same game as the Europeans. They just lost.

Really? Okay, which country would you like to live in that isn't white or heavily influenced in their laws and morals by Europeans/Americans? Would you care to compare what 'crimes' and 'indignities' we committed in the past with what other nations and governments were doing at the same time? The problem with you illiberals is you ignore context. It's the height of stupidity to make people today responsible for compensating other people of today because of what other people did to other people in the past.

Their children were never stolen. There was a 30 year period when attendance at a school was mandatory - either residential schools or day schools on/near reserves. Even then only a third of native kids went. Were some children at residential schools sexually abused? Yes, sadly. Were some children on reserves sexually abused there? Yes, sadly. In any event, mandatory attendance at residential schools ended 75 years ago. How long do they get to hide in a corner and whine? Look at what was done to the Jews in Europe. Afterward, they went to the shittiest place on Earth and thrived.

A government that wants everyone dependent on it so it will be in control pretty much describes today's Liberal/NDP government.

That was never the point of government policy towards them. First, government policy was to clear them off the land so it could be settled. That's when they were offered things to settle on other land. After that, the government found themselves locked into taking care of them. There have been periodic efforts to get natives off the welfare wagon but native leaders have resisted furiously. They like the welfare wagon, especially since they get to distribute the money and skim off the top. They have steadfastly opposed removing the Indian Act or anything that would lessen their power and wealth. Their ambition seems to be self-government, with them having full control over all their affairs, but us still paying all the bills. Point of order. If the government assimilated them they would no longer be dependent on the government.