Canuckistani

Wow. The US spends a much greater proportion of it's GDP on health care than any of the other 16 countries listed, but comes dead last in health. Not really getting value for their money. Going to a single payer system like ours would save them maybe 7% of GDP a year = 1 trillion a year. This would wipe out their annual deficit in one fell swoop, and they might even become healthier in the bargain. http://www.theatlant...ad-last/267045/

Quoted for truth.

Oh, oh. I foresee somebody becoming bigC as in cash, abandoning his conservative stance. There's just too much money to be had, you may be tempted to go for your share. I would if I qualified. Can't really blame the aboriginals for doing what anybody should. We should blame ourselves for letting it get to this state.

Great. Now go forth and tell that to the aboriginal people who cry victimhood and demand special rights.

Seems reasonable. I'm no anti-science guy. I have a BSc and very much respect what science can do. I think tho that that materialists who think science can or does reveal the whole truth of existence are as far off base as the biblical literalists or those who try to use science to reinforce their particular religious beleifs. Science doesn't tell us much about consciousness at all, which to me is the most incredible feature of being alive. Science has led some scientists to argue that consciousness creates everything, every moment, and that this is backed up by quantum theories. Since that happens to mesh with my personal beliefs, I'm happy to hear it, but neither they nor I would say that the argument is proven. It's just nice to see them coming at it from a different starting point than the ancient wisdom teachers who say the same thing.

again with the racism

Too big to fail. The banks need to be broken up the way the oil companies were, and separate commercial from retail banks. Hard to do tho, when the bankers have you in their pocket.

That last sentence needs clarification. But yep, they try to use science to bolster their beliefs, then disparage the validity of science when it is shown that their beliefs can't possibly have a scientific basis. Science is a powerful paradigm - as a society we've come to accept it as revealing the truth, which is also a mistake. We don't recognize it's limitations. The hard atheists are as stupid about this as the fundamentalists. Freud made the same mistake when he tried to present psychoanalysis as science. New agers also try to incorporate quantum physics to bolster their beliefs, and tho I'm not a new ager I've also walked down that road a piece. There may be something to it, but so far there's no definitive proof there either.

Sure it does, they get healthcare from the same place every other Canadian does. The province pays for that. All it means is that they don't have to pay the provincial premium. Education is provided by the province as well. These are not people living on reserves, these are off-reserve natives and metis. (Funny, you can be status indian with 1/8 blood, but a Metis have more native blood and had no status.) Roads, again, the province provides roads for all of us, native and non-native alike.

What do you mean? What sort of special funding do the Metis and non-status Indians get from the provinces?

No. There's no real cause for it, since the regular audit didn't indicate any malfeasance, just gross incompetence. What's needed is a CFO who understands the financial aspects who's the only one with the power to disburse money. The band presents a budget, or makes one with his/her help, then submits proper documentation before any money is paid out. This of course is paternalist racism so will never fly. Also, this CFO should have a means of communicating directly with the ordinary band members, to educate them where their money is going. Adrienne Arsenault certainly seems to have talked to band members who are not enamored with Chief Spence. Spence is certainly in a conflict of interest situation with her co-manager, even tho both gave affidavits to Deloitte Touche that they are not - that may be criminality. But certainly, as is the usual case, the band administration has way too many people on the payroll earning way too much money for what they do. I doubt the ordinary band member who doesn't get to partake in this largess isn't too impressed with that.

I don't pretend to know how audits work, but this is exactly how I think they work. The audit covers what is presented by entity being audited and then makes a report on what was found. The auditor did ask for explanations for expenditures, then went with what was given. This wasn't a forensic audit. Even there, the auditor can't discover documentation that doesn't exist, but just report it. Certainly if a company ran their business the way this band did, Revenue Canada would be all over them for taxes, since they can't prove the expenditures.

cough cough

The only way this will change is if the 2nd Nations people of the province get outraged enough to push the provincial govt to push the police. At the moment, inaction is unfortunately the safer bet for provincial govts, because of the racist attitudes among 2nd nations people that 1st nations people should not be held to the same legal standard.

Not for sure he doesn't.

Said better than I could. Some things, like the earth revolving around the sun, from our frame of reference at least, seem pretty straight forward, tho of course some straight forward things are subject to revision as well. But many things aren't even straightforward by any means. Evolution would be a subject relevant to this discussion. I believe it, but it certainly isn't something that's 100 percent certain. The point is that science can't reveal the truth. It certainly can't say if there's a God or not, nor even with any certainty talk about the beginning of the universe or the beginning of life. Hawkins asked the Pope where there was room for God in the universe as Hakins understood it. I think there's plenty, depending of course on your definition of God. Fundamentalists claim the entire bible is literal truth, ie scientifically provable. That's just silly.

Few of us here are experts on any subject being discussed. That doesn't, nor should it, stop us discussing it. And even experts on a subject disagree, as I posted about consciousness and collapse of the waveform. Pick your expert and run with him, don't pretend you have a hold of the absolute truth on the matter. Even the xperts don't. (Expert - x is an unknown quantity and spurt is a drip under pressure.).

Hard to argue against something I believe in myself. But: The earth moving around the sun is not an absolute truth for me. I believe it does, I believe the people who have calculated it, But that's not an absolute truth. And much of science, of course, the interesting stuff, doesn't have near the unanimous agreement that heliocentricity does.

Idle No More is about long term change. Attawapiskat is just another reserve - we've heard all this before, it just has more prominence because of Spence's hunger strike. Attawapiskat has new empty houses sitting there while people are living in shacks. It has 10 million in investments while crying the blues about no money for housing. It has boxes of donated stuff nobody can bother to open. There's no emergency here. The facts are coming out. Like 2.5 million spend on a project they weren't exactly sure what it was nor had they documentation for it. Just ignore them would be my solution, or take over management. What I hope the Idle No More movement will do is focus Canada's mind on the problem. I totally disagree with INM, but I hope it does shake Canada up to finally deal with this festering sore. My answer is assimilation, in the sense of no special status for FN's. Might meet a lot of opposition, but that's where I say some bottom lines have to be drawn. If we just always compromise, compromise, the situation will just fester for ever, because no way will Canada ever agree to the INM position.

Jeez, Michael, you'll take on anybody here, won't you? Somebody says we have to be tough and you counter with "that won't work and just create conflict." Somebody else says we have to deal with them, and you counter with "why, we could just be tough." The only position you seem to take is that people are putting out a lot of misinformation, as if you are the source of all truth. Is that supposed to be your role here, or is this just what you do? Maybe it's helpful if a topic is pretty dead, but this one is very lively, tho certainly tilted against the Native position. I find what you do interferes with the discussion, personally, because it just seems to shift the ground of the discussion for every post. I agree we need to be pragmatic. I have no idea what pragmatism would be in this case. I think Canada needs to be pretty tough here, that that is the pragmatic choice because otherwise I worry about our long term future. What kind of country are we where people, because of their race are given special privileges for ever? I think that just corrodes the whole idea of Canada. Pragmatism might say we should be willing to spend some big bucks to compensate the natives for what they've lost, but only if it means extinguishment of any further special status or privileges. You can say pragmatically the natives won't go for it, but I just don't think we can keep playing this game of bribe the natives to be quiet. It will never be enough. We do have to draw a bottom line. Sovereignty of Canada and equality of it's citizens before the law.

@bonam: .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind%E2%80%93body_problem The question is not nearly as cut and dried as you make it out to be. There is no one true answer to this question.

If it's too dangerous to move/arrrest protesting Natives, why isn't it to do the same with non-natives when they protest. The police at G-20 had no problem kicking ass.

Er hum - a theory that's been further verified is still a theory. All of science is theory - some theories are taken as axiomatic, but there really is nothing like unassailable truth in science. That's what gives it it's power - the theories are changed as new information comes in. It's also it's limitation - science can't reveal fundamental, unalterable truths. Just read an article that said that even the laws of physics, gravity say, may not be the same throughout the universe. That really opens up the ground beneath science because a fundamental assumption is that the laws are the same universally. Just to back that up: http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2011/11/another-law-of-physics-broken.htmlThe point is, science can't actually prove that the laws of physics are universal. It just assumes it.