Six Nations may now seek BILLIONS of dollars from Crown

luvacuppajoe · November 6, 2007

Universal and *mandatory* public education are key social policies in all succesful nations. Ensuring that everyone has a basic level of education increases productivity which, in turn, increases wealth. Every non-aboriginal kid was forced to go to school so it is kind of silly to suggest that the government should have simply let native kids grow up illiteral and ilnumerate in the name of cultural sensitivity. I realize that 'assimilation' is a four letter word among the native victim industry, however, that does not change the facts: the government had a *moral duty* to provide educational opportunities to natives.

You have to appreciate that both the intentions and delivery of their education went far beyond reading, writing and arithmetic and included the removal of their very successful social systems (some of which were outlawed).

White school kids in early Canada weren't routinely rounded up and sent long distances from home to be abused while being boarded for months and years at a time away from their families in the name of bettering their lives. Growing communities in the 18th and 19th centuries saw the proliferation of schools built on the local level -- Native Affairs contracted out their initiatives to the churches to build residential schools that were far and few between. These kids didn't go home every night (or even every weekend) like Little House on the Prairie.

Compulsory education for white kids may have changed their families' lives when they had less help on the farm but it proved to be beneficial for them and their descendents, I'm certainly not arguing the benefit of our ancestors' education. Unfortunately, the reverse has proven true for native students, it had a devastating effect on them, their immediate families and descendents as well as their communities at large.

I understand that you are appreciating the good in what was attempted (literacy etc) but based on current outcomes I don't know how anyone can believe that it was the right approach to take. Canadian natives are among the bottom of the list in terms of education, physical and mental health, crime and other social problems, not to mention wealth and productivity -- and all that can be traced back to the implementation of the residential school system and the subsequent breakdown of the family unit and social systems.

Education-based assimilation has been an abject failure, despite what may have been some good intentions at the time.

Riverwind · November 6, 2007

Our entertainment was our local church and community affairs. Our groceries were delivered as was our bread, everything else butter, vegetable, meat etc we made and grew ourselves. I suppose we would be considered poor but you can't miss what you never had can you.

And if you had a serious accident you died or were permanently disabled. Mothers died in childbirth regularly and many children did not see the age of 5. At 72, you would likely be long dead and buried because the average life expectancy was <60 years. Edited November 6, 2007 by Riverwind

luvacuppajoe · November 6, 2007

A yes. More propoganda without any basis in facts. The vast majority of kids who attended the schools never experienced the kind of abuse you describe. More importantly, the fact that individuals committed crimes at the schools does not alter the fact that the schools were set up to help natives. Do you really believe that the government should have done nothing and let natives grow up illiteral and ilnumerate in a world that requires those skills?

I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.

It's not what they did, it's how they did it.

I'm interested in what you're using to base your claim that the vast majority of students didn't experience abuse, that certainly hasn't been my understanding from knowing those who went through the system.

Riverwind · November 6, 2007

White school kids in early Canada weren't routinely rounded up and sent long distances from home to be abused while being boarded for months and years at a time away from their families in the name of bettering their lives.

No but if they did not speak English they were forced to learn and often punished or riduculed if they did not. However, if you look at my original post I did indicate that the mechanism the government choose to provide the education was flawed - even if the motive was sound.

I understand that you are appreciating the good in what was attempted (literacy etc) but based on current outcomes I don't know how anyone can believe that it was the right approach to take.

I never said residential schools were the right approach. However, hindsight is 20-20 and many of problems that we know today would not have been as obvious when the schools were set up. I am not convinced that pratical alternatives really existed but I will concede that a government willing to spend enough money on the problem could have devised a plan that would have provided education in the native communities.

Riverwind · November 6, 2007

I'm interested in what you're using to base your claim that the vast majority of students didn't experience abuse, that certainly hasn't been my understanding from knowing those who went through the system.

Any credible source that looks at the statistical evidence will recognize that only a small minority experienced the kind of abuse you described. The compensation plan established by the government presumes that the majority of people will claim the common experience payment and only a minority will get additional payments for sexual abuse.

luvacuppajoe · November 6, 2007

No but if they did not speak English they were forced to learn and often punished or riduculed if they did not. However, if you look at my original post I did indicate that the mechanism the government choose to provide the education was flawed - even if the motive was sound.
I never said residential schools were the right approach. However, hindsight is 20-20 and many of problems that we know today would not have been as obvious when the schools were set up. I am not convinced that pratical alternatives really existed but I will concede that a government willing to spend enough money on the problem could have devised a plan that would have provided education in the native communities.

Well yes, hindsight is 20/20 but I'm not sure I believe that they would be worse off today without the residential school system. I don't think they could be any worse than they already are. If they were still living as they were at least they might not have generational dependency problems on so many levels. But we'll never know...

luvacuppajoe · November 6, 2007

Any credible source that looks at the statistical evidence will recognize that only a small minority experienced the kind of abuse you described. The compensation plan established by the government presumes that the majority of people will claim the common experience payment and only a minority will get additional payments for sexual abuse.

Any time you want to dig up and cite some of those stats, I'd gladly read them. I'm basing my own understanding purely on anecdotal evidence from having lived (as a non-native) on a reserve for 7 years where the known rate of childhood sexual abuse was easily at 90% among those who went through the schools.

You're right in differentiating the two levels of compensation, but bear in mind that in order to get the additional payment for abuse they must go through a counselling/therapy program of some kind. I don't know how many have made the claim, but I do know that some are declining the extra money in order not to go open up old wounds. Not that that is right, it just is, and I'm not sure the official stats would bear that out.

margrace · November 6, 2007

And if you had a serious accident you died or were permanently disabled. Mothers died in childbirth regularly and many children did not see the age of 5. At 72, you would likely be long dead and buried because the average life expectancy was <60 years.

Ah but we did have health care, expensive though it was. I am not saying that I would do without that, there were lots of doctors who drove in horrendous weather to look after one. This is a whole different subject.

How you equate removing children from their parents were they sometimes died with the improvements in health care is beyond me.

Riverwind · November 6, 2007

I'm basing my own understanding purely on anecdotal evidence from having lived (as a non-native) on a reserve for 7 years where the known rate of childhood sexual abuse was easily at 90% among those who went through the schools.

5% is a figure I have read (which is still high - but not the apocalypse that people would have us believe). The last time I remember seeing in an article when the residential school settlement was announced. Native groups agreed to the settlement so I find it hard to believe that they would 'settle' for such a small sum per person if the sexual abuse was really that wide spread.

I also feel that the residential schools issue has become so politically charged that it is no longer possible to find out what really happened. False memory system is real and usually affects people who are having emotional trouble as adults who are seeking to find a reason for their troubles. Even people who do not claim abuse have a incentive to exaggerate the negative because of the financial benefits and peer pressure (i.e. a native that claimed that residential schools weren't so bad would have a tough time dealing with their neighbors who claim otherwise).

That said - there is no doubt in my mind that some children were horribly abused at those schools. I simply object to activists who try to claim the the schools were set up for the purpose of abusing children.

Edited November 6, 2007 by Riverwind

Riverwind · November 6, 2007

Ah but we did have health care, expensive though it was. I am not saying that I would do without that, there were lots of doctors who drove in horrendous weather to look after one. This is a whole different subject.

Doctors with little more than a bottle of ether. The medical technology that exists today is a direct result of the economy that exists today. The simple life on the land was not a pastoral paradise - lives were frequently cut short by disease and injury.

Posit · November 7, 2007

Any credible source that looks at the statistical evidence will recognize that only a small minority experienced the kind of abuse you described. The compensation plan established by the government presumes that the majority of people will claim the common experience payment and only a minority will get additional payments for sexual abuse.

You obviously have never looked at the statistical or factual evidence. The vast majority of children DID experience sexual and physical abuse. They were also mentally and culturally abused by stripping them of their families, their languages and their culture and brainwashed. It is estimated by some very prominent (and former) Church executives that approximately 50,000 children (Kevin Arnett, the United Church) were buried in unmarked graves in residential schools across Canada. Many more were abused. STATISTICALLY, only a few found the experience "beneficial" or "educational".

No, Riverwind you are determined to fog the truth with denial and anti-native sentiment, which leads me ask further: Who do you work for that makes it so important to ignore the factual Canadian history and replace it with made up fantasy? You must really have a stake in not seeing Canada pay for its crimes. Are you perhaps a member of that same executive that fired Kevin Arnett and proceeded to burn the church records detailing the abuses and murders? Too bad Kevin managed to copy almost all of them before that happened....

Edited November 7, 2007 by Posit

Smallc · November 7, 2007

You obviously have never looked at the statistical or factual evidence. The vast majority of children DID experience sexual and physical abuse. They were also mentally and culturally abused by stripping them of their families, their languages and their culture and brainwashed. It is estimated by some very prominent (and former) Church executives that approximately 50,000 children (Kevin Arnett, the United Church) were buried in unmarked graves in residential schools across Canada. Many more were abused. STATISTICALLY, only a few found the experience "beneficial" or "educational".
No, Riverwind you are determined to fog the truth with denial and anti-native sentiment, which leads me ask further: Who do you work for that makes it so important to ignore the factual Canadian history and replace it with made up fantasy? You must really have a stake in not seeing Canada pay for its crimes. Are you perhaps a member of that same executive that fired Kevin Arnett and proceeded to burn the church records detailing the abuses and murders? Too bad Kevin managed to copy almost all of them before that happened....

The vast majority did not experience abuse, and were better off for the education they got. Yes, it was wrong looking back, but I have heard stories by many that they would have been dead. There were many positive things that came out of the situation. Again, yes, it was wrong, but you are not accurately portraying things.

Riverwind · November 7, 2007

The vast majority of children DID experience sexual and physical abuse.

Attempting the manipulate statistics again. Physical abuse could include anything from the strap to serious bodily injury. The strap was a common punishment in non-aboriginal schools so I would not be surprised to find that a majority of students experienced physical abuse according to the standards we have today. Sexual abuse is in a category all on its own - the information I have read suggests that only a small minority of children were sexually abused. Lumping the two together provides no meaningful insight.

It is estimated by some very prominent (and former) Church executives that approximately 50,000 children (Kevin Arnett, the United Church) were buried in unmarked graves in residential schools across Canada.

Claims without context. Disease was a serious problem in these schools and large number of children did die from disease. Yet you would like to give people the impression that their deaths were a result of something much more sinister. Here is a G&M article that talks about the *well documented* deaths from disease:http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2007/04/29/1086/

What government and church records do show, he said, is that the deaths were primarily due to the policy of paying churches on a per-capita basis to run the schools. Numerous letters indicate that because of the funding policy, churches would admit sick children and refuse to send ailing ones home. Pleas to the department for more funding fell on deaf ears.

Arnett comes across as a 9/11 conspirator - his claims are so fantastical you would have to believe that the entire United Church is filled with clergy that are the devil incarnate. The Cornwall Abuse Scandal illustrates why any reasonable person should take Arnetts claims with a great deal of skepticism.

In any case, the abuses that did happen at the schools were the acts of individual criminals. The government is only liable because it failed in its duty to protect the children from these criminals. That does not change the fact that providing educational opportunities to aboriginals was necessary.

Edited November 7, 2007 by Riverwind

margrace · November 7, 2007

Doctors with little more than a bottle of ether. The medical technology that exists today is a direct result of the economy that exists today. The simple life on the land was not a pastoral paradise - lives were frequently cut short by disease and injury.

But no matter what your arguments for the incarceration of these children would you want your children forcibly taken from you and beaten for speaking your native language. And by the way they weren't the only children mistreated for speaking thier family language, just ask some of the eastern Euopean people in western Canada what happened to them at school.

Borg · November 7, 2007

I cannot believe how bad the white European ruling folks were. Man, we need to put on our hair shirts and start beating ourselves while kneeling on rocks because of our ancestors.

I refuse to apologize for something I had no truck with.

What happened in the past - if indeed it did happen - is something I had nothing to do with. It is not something that can happen again.

No matter how much cash is thrown at it - someone will want more. No matter how bad the tales are - someone will tell a worse tale.

No matter how it all boils down, follow the money.

Tired of it all - personally no longer care and no longer interested. Look at this thread - he said / she said.

In the end the indian dragged a couple of sticks attached to a dogs back and left the old ones to die in their late 30' and early 40's. They were there long before the Eruopean showed up and they would still be there. They did not even understand the principal of the wheel.

They have come a long way due to association with the European. Yes, there is bad associated. But the overall benefits have far outweighed the negatives.

Follow the money and the indian leadership - corruption runs deep and the money runs with it.

Borg

AngusThermopyle · November 7, 2007

No matter how much cash is thrown at it - someone will want more. No matter how bad the tales are - someone will tell a worse tale.

Truer words have never been spoken.

I was reading MNN again (I know, I shouldn't, but it's like a bad car crash, you shouldn't look but you just cant help yourself). I had a really good laugh when I read the part about how companies generating electricity with windmills should be paying the Mohawks because they are using their wind to generate power.

Of course they conveniently forget the fact that the wind is part of a global weather system on this planet, nope, they just lay claim to it as they do with every thing else. So I guess wind is on the table now along with all the other bullsh*t they spout.

kengs333 · November 7, 2007

You obviously have never looked at the statistical or factual evidence. The vast majority of children DID experience sexual and physical abuse. They were also mentally and culturally abused by stripping them of their families, their languages and their culture and brainwashed. It is estimated by some very prominent (and former) Church executives that approximately 50,000 children (Kevin Arnett, the United Church) were buried in unmarked graves in residential schools across Canada. Many more were abused. STATISTICALLY, only a few found the experience "beneficial" or "educational".
No, Riverwind you are determined to fog the truth with denial and anti-native sentiment, which leads me ask further: Who do you work for that makes it so important to ignore the factual Canadian history and replace it with made up fantasy? You must really have a stake in not seeing Canada pay for its crimes. Are you perhaps a member of that same executive that fired Kevin Arnett and proceeded to burn the church records detailing the abuses and murders? Too bad Kevin managed to copy almost all of them before that happened....

If he has "copies" of the documents, then the locations of these unmarked graves should be known; so where are they?

Even if these documents are really exist(ed), it's still difficult to accept the story at face value. First of all, children had to be taken to schools far from home because many of these people were from isolated locations. Secondly, if these people were determined to educate and convert native children, it seems illogical that they would "murder" or neglect them to death while they were still "heathens". Thirdly, these children were prone to exposure to diseases that non-Natives were as well; non-Natives died from these diseases as well. It's most likely that these children would have received medical care to some extent, and probably at considerable cost to the government.

If I was incline to do so, I could create a nice long documentary based on achival documents and numerous personal accounts detail the unspeakable atrocities and murderous behaviour that "barberous" "red skinned" "savages" perpetrated against innocent European Christian women and children. It would be quite true and factual, I could even go so far as to suggest it was genocidal because there are Indians were documented documented to have wished "whites" to be exterminated, rubbed out etc. Would you accept it as legitimate, as fact? Probably not. Would you be offended by it? Most certainly. And what would it accomplish in the end? Inflame hatred, enmity, disdain, and further divissiveness between "Europeans" and Indians. Which is exactly what you are doing as a result of that documentary. Think about it.

Posit · November 7, 2007

If he has "copies" of the documents, then the locations of these unmarked graves should be known; so where are they?
Even if these documents are really exist(ed), it's still difficult to accept the story at face value. First of all, children had to be taken to schools far from home because many of these people were from isolated locations. Secondly, if these people were determined to educate and convert native children, it seems illogical that they would "murder" or neglect them to death while they were still "heathens". Thirdly, these children were prone to exposure to diseases that non-Natives were as well; non-Natives died from these diseases as well. It's most likely that these children would have received medical care to some extent, and probably at considerable cost to the government.

If I was incline to do so, I could create a nice long documentary based on achival documents and numerous personal accounts detail the unspeakable atrocities and murderous behaviour that "barberous" "red skinned" "savages" perpetrated against innocent European Christian women and children. It would be quite true and factual, I could even go so far as to suggest it was genocidal because there are Indians were documented documented to have wished "whites" to be exterminated, rubbed out etc. Would you accept it as legitimate, as fact? Probably not. Would you be offended by it? Most certainly. And what would it accomplish in the end? Inflame hatred, enmity, disdain, and further divissiveness between "Europeans" and Indians. Which is exactly what you are doing as a result of that documentary. Think about it.

Like this?

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

I understand much more - including personal testimony - will be coming out that the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission hearings as they begin this year.

AngusThermopyle · November 7, 2007

Thanks for the link Posit, it was very interesting. I find the following especially interesting for a number of reasons.

Banning and Boycott Order, Issued under the Land Law Jurisdiction of the Indigenous Nations of Turtle Island ("North America") against the following Persons and Church Corporations:
Luigi Ventura, Papal Nuncio of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada

Andre Gaumond, President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops

Raymond Roussin, Archbishop of the Vancouver Diocese

Andrew Hutchison, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada

Michael Ingham, Bishop of the New Westminster Diocese

Jim Sinclair, General Secretary of the United Church of Canada

Peter Short, Moderator of the United Church of Canada

Darryl Auten, President of B.C. Conference, United Church

Doug Goodwin, Executive Secretary of B.C. Conference

All persons are hereby compelled by moral and indigenous tribal laws to shun any contact with the aforementioned persons and church organizations; to deny them any funding, acknowledgement, or association; and to urge all others to refrain from any such contact with them.

This Banning and Boycott is ordered by the Elders of the Indigenous Nations listed below, because of the refusal of these persons and churches to identify the fate and the buried location of the children who died in "Indian Residential Schools" run by their churches, and to return these remains to their people, and to take responsibility and be prosecuted for the deaths of over 50,000 of these children at the hands of their religion.

This Banning and Boycott will continue indefinitely, until these persons, their associates, and their churches comply with the requirements of the law and of morality, and release the remains of our murdered children.

Issued this Ninth Day of May, 2006, on the Territory of the Coast Salish Nations, by Thirty Hereditary Elders of the Haida, Cowichan, Coast Salish, Ahousat, Cree, Anishinabe, Mohawk, MiqMaq and Metis Nations

Speaker: Elder Whispers Wind, Anishinabe Nation

For more information, contact The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared Residential School Children, c/o

[email protected]

cc: the world media and community

what I find interesting amongst other things is the fact that it states people are compelled to shun the ones it names on the basis of tribal law. My question to you is this. From the way it reads it would appear they are saying all Canadians should shun these people based on Tribal law. Why the hell would any Canadian be compelled to do anything based on Tribal law? We are not members of any Native tribe nor are these laws applicable to the average citizen, so these laws are meaningless to Canadians in general. It would appear to be a measure of immense conceit on the behalf of these Native leaders to believe that any of us would do anything they say, or for that matter give a rats ass what they say.

Next is the part where it talks about disclosing the locations of "mass graves". On many past occasions both yourself and Jenny have said that these locations are known already by many people. If that's the case then why would they attempt to compel the disclosure of these "mass graves". Could it be that you and Jenny were just making up "facts" as you went along in order to bolster your point?

As I said, interesting reading, most likely not for the same reasons you find it to be so, but interesting nonetheless. After perusing it I find its full of opinion but sadly lacking in proof. Is this really the best you can come up with?

Posit · November 8, 2007

Thanks for the link Posit, it was very interesting. I find the following especially interesting for a number of reasons.
what I find interesting amongst other things is the fact that it states people are compelled to shun the ones it names on the basis of tribal law. My question to you is this. From the way it reads it would appear they are saying all Canadians should shun these people based on Tribal law. Why the hell would any Canadian be compelled to do anything based on Tribal law? We are not members of any Native tribe nor are these laws applicable to the average citizen, so these laws are meaningless to Canadians in general. It would appear to be a measure of immense conceit on the behalf of these Native leaders to believe that any of us would do anything they say, or for that matter give a rats ass what they say.

Next is the part where it talks about disclosing the locations of "mass graves". On many past occasions both yourself and Jenny have said that these locations are known already by many people. If that's the case then why would they attempt to compel the disclosure of these "mass graves". Could it be that you and Jenny were just making up "facts" as you went along in order to bolster your point?

As I said, interesting reading, most likely not for the same reasons you find it to be so, but interesting nonetheless. After perusing it I find its full of opinion but sadly lacking in proof. Is this really the best you can come up with?

The accounts of graves come from personal accounts from people I know (or knew since many are dying off). The fact is the Church and the school masters - many of them priests or ministers - have documented, or have knowledge of these graves on a much broader scale than the personal accounts of former inmates. Like the facts that residential schools were places of abuse, it took a long time for them to be closed and even longer times for people to admit the abuses. It was only through the personal accounts of former inmates that people started to see the patterns and get the Church and government to admit their failures.

You do realize that even today the Priesthood is filled with paedophiles, adulterers and substance abusers that are hidden from the public by a code of silence? It will take a serious examination of the facts of the residential school abuses and murders along with painful first hand accounts being recalled by former inmates before all the facts are known. All we have now are some profoundly consistent accounts of graves and murders coming from a vast array of people - including many Church members and administrators whom have exercised their conscience by being willing to testify against the Church and the government in the up-coming inquiry.

I have lots more but I just don't have the time or patience to explain it to a concrete wall of deniers. I have however, given you a lead and if you are interested you can follow up with some of the threads that will spawn from that one site.

kengs333 · November 8, 2007

Like this?
http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

I understand much more - including personal testimony - will be coming out that the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission hearings as they begin this year.

I asked where these graves are located, if he has the documents to prove it--not whether or not he has a website promoting his views, his book and documentary. Any crank can cook up a story and spin it into an industry; for example: http://www.davidicke.com/index.php/

Aside from that, somebody should tell him:

1) The Schopenauer quotation is incorrect about the Bible and nature

2) Schopenauer was the most virulent mysoginist in human history

3) A book that recounts the life/participation/endeavors of the author is autobiographical, not biographical.

kengs333 · November 8, 2007

The accounts of graves come from personal accounts from people I know (or knew since many are dying off). The fact is the Church and the school masters - many of them priests or ministers - have documented, or have knowledge of these graves on a much broader scale than the personal accounts of former inmates. Like the facts that residential schools were places of abuse, it took a long time for them to be closed and even longer times for people to admit the abuses. It was only through the personal accounts of former inmates that people started to see the patterns and get the Church and government to admit their failures.

Okay, why hasn't the evidence been made available to the media, and why haven't they covered it? Why haven't these graves been excavated in the presence of media so we can all see for ourselves once and for all?

You do realize that even today the Priesthood is filled with paedophiles, adulterers and substance abusers that are hidden from the public by a code of silence?

Not filled, but they are there of course; that's how predators work. They lie and mislead people, infiltrate organizations where they can continue their work. Entering the priesthood, or doing other work in a church always requires a certain amount of trust to be involved, and this trust can be easily exploited by predators. Neither the Catholic, Anglican, or United Church, or any other church wants these people in their midsts; this should be obvious from the destruction and havoc they cause. But there will always be wolves among the sheep. No amount of precaution can change that.

I have lots more but I just don't have the time or patience to explain it to a concrete wall of deniers. I have however, given you a lead and if you are interested you can follow up with some of the threads that will spawn from that one site.

Oh, sure you do. Typical dodge.

guyser · November 8, 2007

....if he has the documents to prove it--not whether or not he has a website promoting his views, his book and documentary. Any crank can cook up a story and spin it into an industry;

I can only think of Alannis.....isn't it ironic.......

jefferiah · November 8, 2007

Truer words have never been spoken.
I was reading MNN again (I know, I shouldn't, but it's like a bad car crash, you shouldn't look but you just cant help yourself). I had a really good laugh when I read the part about how companies generating electricity with windmills should be paying the Mohawks because they are using their wind to generate power.

:lol: For real?

AngusThermopyle · November 8, 2007

Yep, for real. Just go to the news sections of The Mohawk Nation News titled "news", the article is called blowing in the wind, or some such thing. In it this Horn nutbar talks about Natives being owed money because Native wind is being used to generate electricity.

The only Native wind I know of is the excessive amounts of the hot stuff that issues forth every time she opens her mouth.