Aboriginal Self-Government

[Puck]

Hello everyone,

I am writing an essay on aboriginal self government in Canada and I just wanted to know everyone's take on the issue. Rest assured that I will not plagerize any of your comments, I just would like to see what others think. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Puck

[Borg]

Self government?

I suspect it will be even more corrupt than reservation leadership is today.

Self government. Hmmm .....

Seems they want something that even we tax paying citizens do not have.

Perhaps joining mainstream Canada would be a better solution. They can do this and NOT lose what they call culture. Never happen tho'. The will is not there. There is a great deal of "take" and very little "give" in their philosophy.

And I am not interested in what happened before I was born. I had no control over it and refuse to apologize for what my ancestors did.

End the isolation and the sucking of dollars from the tax coffers - become producing citizens that actually participate in society rather than complain about - and in many instances intentionally create problems - how bad things are.

Their own leadership is to blame for most of their problems. Their leaders do seem to live well though.

Personally I believe that the attempt to proclaim "self government" is a bad thing and will cause even more strife.

Good luck - try not to spin it as a positive thing and try not to spin it as a negative - try to show both sides.

I believe it to be a lose - lose essay - you will piss off the instructor or you will piss off the reader. Possibly you will piss off everyone!

Borg

[Melanie_]

Hello everyone,

I am writing an essay on aboriginal self government in Canada and I just wanted to know everyone's take on the issue. Rest assured that I will not plagerize any of your comments, I just would like to see what others think. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Puck

It's a great topic to research, and I'm sure you can find lots of good sources of information online. I did a quick google of "aboriginal self government" and found plenty of articles that would be good for your essay. While you might be interested in our opinions here, and I'm sure there are many opinions, they don't reflect any research or true data - it would all be anecdotal. Good luck with the paper, and look for reliable sources for your research.

The Born Loser

[Puck]

I do have reliable sources such as Indian and Northern Affairs, etc. I would not be using any answers I get here as actual sources for my essay I am just interested to know what people think of Aboriginal Self Government. When I write a paper I like to be able to look at how other people view the topic. I use it to keep my mind open to other points of view, ensuring that I do not write a one-sided paper. Thank you for your input.

[soowas]

Puck:

Ask the Aboriginals / First Nations about Self Governemnt.

You'll learn more from them than here.

As shown by the response from "borg" you'll receive uninformed rhetoric, very biased opinions, outright ignorance and a general disdain for anything Aboriginal.

I would vist - http://www.degiyagoh.net/remember_haudenosaunee.htm

(Ten Important Points to Remember About the Haudenosaunee:

We exist as distinct peoples in the 20th century. The Haudenosaunee are unique in that we maintain one of the very few traditional governments in North America, free from the oppression of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and free from the lunacy of tribal elections. Our leaders are selected according to the oldest constitutional democratic systems.) This would only cover a fraction of the numerous different First Nations within Canada.

Hope you paper trail goes well.

[kengs333]

soowas,

Borg may be a little blunt in what he writes, but it certainly isn't "uninformed rhetoric, very biased opinions, [and] outright ignorance"--not by a long shot. I think just about anyone here is capable of understanding and sympathizing with what the Canadian government has at times done to Indians (and Inuit), but during the last few decades "First Nations" activists have become so strident and shrill that they have probably alienated many people who may otherwise have been supportive, myself included. We all see how it goes at Caledonia, how everything is victim mentality on the part of Six Nations, and every time Six Nations doesn't get what it wants, then there are accusations of racism and the use of lawlessness to try and force the issue. What decent, law-abiding Canadian citizen would want to side with people of that ilk in an effort to support them in their quest to establish their own "nations"? And who, for that matter, really thinks that anything good can come out of Canada becoming balkanized in the way that it could if these people get their way? (Let's not forget that race is the motivating factor for "self-government"--the hypocracy is unbelievable.)

Puck, feel free to quote/plagerize anything I write...

[Carinthia]

The real problem is the Department of Indian Affairs. Their idea of assisting First Nations is to just throw money at the Bands and let them fend for themselves. There has been little to no training, mentoring or helping Band leaders to develop economic development. Nobody is teaching them financial management or accountability. This is not the case for all Bands everywhere, as some are very ingenious and successful. This is most prevalent for Bands in the outlying areas.

If you have the time, I suggest you visit some of the Bands and conduct interviews with their members, if you haven't already. Have a chat with some of the Elders. You may find this rewarding and very informative.

Before there can be overall success at self Governing, they need a lot more than a few mil deposited in the bank account.

Good luck with your paper.

Edited March 20, 2008 by Carinthia

[Dog]

There has been little to no training, mentoring or helping Band leaders to develop economic development. Nobody is teaching them financial management or accountability. This is not the case for all Bands everywhere, as some are very ingenious and successful. This is most prevalent for Bands in the outlying areas.

Which Bands exactly would you be refering to ?

[noahbody]

Aboriginal self-government reminds me a lot of Quebec separation. If you poll natives if they're for it, I would assume an overwhelming majority would say "yes."

The question, in my opinion, needs definition. What will native self-government look like? Is it something the wealthy bands would welcome if it meant they had to share their wealth with poor bands who have lived on government handouts?

For what would the Canadian government no longer be responsible? For one thing, if they were to take responsibility for reserve housing that would be an benefit to Canada.

Health would be interesting as well. They could offer private health care to Canadians. And you could smoke in your room.

[Rue]

Hello everyone,

I am writing an essay on aboriginal self government in Canada and I just wanted to know everyone's take on the issue. Rest assured that I will not plagerize any of your comments, I just would like to see what others think. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Puck

The legal system in Canada, including our Charter and constitutional doctrine both written and unwritten guarantee this.

When Canada was created in 1867, it expressly recognized the aboriginal nations as a collective of nations who had pre-existing legal rights the nation inherited. The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed this and so has the Charter of Rights. Its a legal given.

It operates parallael and equal to the federal government and no provincial or municipal government operates directly with it or is at its level.

In regards to someone claiming its corupt, etc., sure its easy to be racist and call aboriginals corupt and suggest they can't run a government but this usually is the kind of comment from people who conveniently ignore their own legacy and the fact that there non aboriginal governments have been more corupt or screwed up or immoral then any one they can point to in the aboriginal councils.

The last time I looked aboriginal councils were not ordering their people to order en masse allnon aboriginals into open air confinements forcefully kidnap their children and try assimilate them or engage in war.

Instead of getting opinions on it, go travel to a reservation and speak with the people who live there. Better still go talk to someone aboriginal. That is the only way you can really understand what it means.

You want to understand them, go talk to them. They are great teachers if you want to learn from them.

Edited March 20, 2008 by Rue

[capricorn]

Which Bands exactly would you be refering to ?

By coincidence, I just finished reading this article regarding a BC Osoyoos band.

Louie's British Columbia band of 460 people is among the most affluent in Canada. It owns and operates nine businesses, including a construction company, a Readi-Mix company, a championship golf course, vineyards and an upscale winery.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Columnists...057456-sun.html

I really like this Louie fella.

[DangerMouse]

Well Borg is an example of the kind of attitude out there--probably the majority which is sad...that's a huge problem that many don't even see. Ignorance on the issue has probably wasted billions and billions of taxpayers dollars. Many probably don't even realize that the Indian Act created segments of aboriginal people...off reserve, non-treaty, non-status, Bill C-31, who pay taxes like everybody else. The whole tax thing is a wash in gray and creates attitudes like Borg. What is boils down too, if a company, or, business was on reserve it would be tax-free. Gas and cigarettes are tax-free! All the other stuff regarding tax is BS. All the laws were written in the late 1800s when the boat people of Europe arrived and settled this country with aboriginals helping them when they got here.

These laws are still in effect today. Self-government has become a general term as well and to me it is the elimnation of the huge bureacracy called Indian Affairs--which employs mostly non-aboriginal people in cities like Vancouver and Edmonton. Get rid of the DIA and you'll be eliminating all those jobs that feed of the DIA budget and the indians don't see that l money anyways...if the indians have it so good on the reserve then why don't people like Borg create a Federal Department of Non-ABoriginal Affairs and give himself all the so-called benefits?

[Carinthia]

Which Bands exactly would you be refering to ?

I live in a fairly isolated area which is close to isolated First Nation Reserves. I also work with and for First Nations people in an outreach and limited capacity.

To divulge more than this could compromise my anonimity and I'm not prepared to do that.

Edited March 20, 2008 by Carinthia

[eyeball]

The question, in my opinion, needs definition. What will native self-government look like?

For what would the Canadian government no longer be responsible?

What it will look like will probably be shaped by the relationships that develop between each individual band and the government. If you talk to a bureacrat or government official they'll likely say this relationship will be similar to that between a senior government and a municipal or regional district government. Folks in Haida Gwaii however will say its more like the relationship between England and France or nation to nation as Brian Mulroney put it when the treaty process got underway here in BC.

As I see it the federal government will administer native self government through its treaties in the way provinces administer municipal governments through their various municipal or local government acts. In practice there is now a new layer of government - a hurdle in other words in my path.

I have to apply to the province for new harvesting licences every year and its very clear that native folks where I live have more say than the province. The province refers every application I make to native bands whose territory I harvest in and I've been informed that if they say no then I'll likely be out of business. I've also been told that I will soon have to pay royalties to both the province and the band.

That being the case I'd just as soon cut the so-called senior governments out of the process altogether and just deal with local band council and chief. Its more direct, I know who I'm dealing with and I get along with these folks a lot better than I do with the provincial regulators. These are powerful times for native people, where I live at least.

[kengs333]

All the other stuff regarding tax is BS. All the laws were written in the late 1800s when the boat people of Europe arrived and settled this country with aboriginals helping them when they got here.

Speaking of ignorance, when European immigrants arrived in "the late 1800s" so-called aboriginals were not here "helping them". They either arrived at Halifax, Quebec or Montreal, which happened to be non-Indian urban centres.

Whatever the case, there's nothing more pointless than accusing someone else of being "ignorant". Many people are frustrated by the conduct of so-called "First Nations" because of the manner in which they handle their affairs and themselves; the frustration is born out of being informed about this issue, not by being ignorant. God knows how much I've read about Indians in Canada, and all of this reading--the vast majority of it from a pro-Indian perspective--has really left me disappointed by these people. I think that they have much to do to earn the respect and sympathy of Canadians; extorting the Canadian government and accusing Canadians of being "racists" and blaming them for what happened five or six generations ago is not the way to do it...

[eyeball]

...extorting the Canadian government and accusing Canadians of being "racists" and blaming them for what happened five or six generations ago is not the way to do it...

Neither is trying to deny or ignore it and you'd be very wrong to think "what happened" only happened 5 or 6 generations ago. I have friends my age who suffered years of some very depraved and often violent sexual abuse at government funded residential schools in my region. I think these folks deserve a lot of slack when it comes to how they conduct themselves. These folks and their culture are still in a state of profound shock. The dysfunction that both exhibit very closely resembles the dysfunction that is apparent in families with a long history of violent sexual abuse.

Its a wonder these folks aren't flying airliners into our skyscrapers. We should be extremely thankful to have had such a peaceful reaction to 5 or 6 generations of government sanctioned theft, murder and rape. I was one of those little kids proudly waving their flags and singing "Canada, one little, two little, three Canadians" way back in 1967. If I knew then what I knew now I would have spit on the flag they gave me.

[DangerMouse]

Speaking of ignorance, when European immigrants arrived in "the late 1800s" so-called aboriginals were not here "helping them". They either arrived at Halifax, Quebec or Montreal, which happened to be non-Indian urban centres.

Whatever the case, there's nothing more pointless than accusing someone else of being "ignorant". Many people are frustrated by the conduct of so-called "First Nations" because of the manner in which they handle their affairs and themselves; the frustration is born out of being informed about this issue, not by being ignorant. God knows how much I've read about Indians in Canada, and all of this reading--the vast majority of it from a pro-Indian perspective--has really left me disappointed by these people. I think that they have much to do to earn the respect and sympathy of Canadians; extorting the Canadian government and accusing Canadians of being "racists" and blaming them for what happened five or six generations ago is not the way to do it...

It works both ways though. Go back further than the boats at Halifax etc. There was much done that isn't even covered thoroughly in history books. The aboriginal people helped the first explorers into what is now western canada. They helped them find a route for the railroad and once they got the railway done, they forced the indians onto reserves--Prince George is one example. You say "earn the respect?" What do you mean by this? "accusing the government and Canadians of being racist." Geez, for crying out loud who is responsible for writing the Indian Act? The most racist piece of legislation in Canadian History. The natives had nothing to do with writing that and yet people like you and Borg will outright condemn natives over something they had nothing to do with in the first place. Some of you say, I have no regrets about the actions of our ancestors. Thats a feable argument as far as Im concerned because everything they did was for you accept to deal with the issue responsibly--like cowards they shuffled it onto our generation to do it....so whether you like it or not, you must accept what they did including writing the Indian Act and putting it into law..to me self-government is moving a way from the Indian Act and the big question is I don't think it will ever be gone because it has worked in the favour of non-aboriginals for a long time so why would they want to change it?

[Dog]

I live in a fairly isolated area which is close to isolated First Nation Reserves. I also work with and for First Nations people in an outreach and limited capacity.

To divulge more than this could compromise my anonimity and I'm not prepared to do that.

The reason you cant name any of these ingenius resourceful Bands is because your full of $%#@

If these Bands really did exsist you could not wait to hold them up as examples .

Edited March 20, 2008 by Dog

[kengs333]

Neither is trying to deny or ignore it and you'd be very wrong to think "what happened" only happened 5 or 6 generations ago. I have friends my age who suffered years of some very depraved and often violent sexual abuse at government funded residential schools in my region. I think these folks deserve a lot of slack when it comes to how they conduct themselves. These folks and their culture are still in a state of profound shock. The dysfunction that both exhibit very closely resembles the dysfunction that is apparent in families with a long history of violent sexual abuse.

The basis for "self-government" is the fact that the Canadian government "stole" land from the so-called "First Nations" back in the 1800s, which is now five or six generations ago. The fact that some Indian cildren were abused in schools is not really relevant to establishing so-called "First Nations" as self-governing bodies. First of all, abuse is something that many children of all stripes used to endure in the educational system; secondly, incidents of sexual abuse among residential school children was probably no greater than at non-residential schools, and probably was extremely rare; thirdly, we always have to keep in mind the fact that so-called "First Nations" societies were themselves inherently brutal, inwardly and outwardly, and the Canadian government was justified in trying to rectify this. I've stated this before; it's a no win situation: had the government allowed the Indians to carry on as they "traditionally" lived, we would be sitting here arguing about how it is that Canada could deny these people human rights by not educating them, etc. But in trying to educate them and give the the ability to conform to modern society--something the rest of us also have no choice in doing--we as a result sit here and argue about how Canada is supposedly responsible for "genocide" and other human rights violations.

Its a wonder these folks aren't flying airliners into our skyscrapers. We should be extremely thankful to have had such a peaceful reaction to 5 or 6 generations of government sanctioned theft, murder and rape. I was one of those little kids proudly waving their flags and singing "Canada, one little, two little, three Canadians" way back in 1967. If I knew then what I knew now I would have spit on the flag they gave me.

Well, since you raised the issue; I think that being able to fly an airliner and orchastrate some sort of terrorist plot requires a certain degree of sophistication and competance. So maybe that's why it hasn't happened. The truth of the matter, is, though, that such suicide attacks are born out of a certain mindset and culture, and just because that doesn't happen to be the m.o. of so-called "First Nations," it doesn't mean that these people don't operate with a similar sort of intention. The whole Caledonia situation smacks of this; what exactly is behind the sudden desire to "reclaim" this land that they legally sold long, long ago? What's behind these astronomical sums of money that they want to extort from the Canadian government? It's born of a kind of fanaticism itself; it's not simply an attempt at getting "justice," rather to deliberately undermine Canada, weaken and impoverish it--to slowly chip away at it until the great colonial oppressor is eliminated. If you think that, despite its faults, Canada is a good thing, then this should concern you.

[kengs333]

It works both ways though. Go back further than the boats at Halifax etc.

You specifically stated late 1800s.

[kengs333]

The reason you cant name any of these ingenius resourceful Bands is because your full of $%#@

If these Bands really did exsist you could not wait to hold them up as examples .

You really can't say that, though, because you don't really know if she's telling the truth.

[Carinthia]

The reason you cant name any of these ingenius resourceful Bands is because your full of $%#@

If these Bands really did exsist you could not wait to hold them up as examples .

Why would I bother to name the ingenious resourceful Bands? I was talking about the Reserves in the outlying areas that are not so resourceful. Are we having problems with reading comprehension Dog?

Edited March 20, 2008 by Carinthia

[Carinthia]

Neither is trying to deny or ignore it and you'd be very wrong to think "what happened" only happened 5 or 6 generations ago. I have friends my age who suffered years of some very depraved and often violent sexual abuse at government funded residential schools in my region. I think these folks deserve a lot of slack when it comes to how they conduct themselves. These folks and their culture are still in a state of profound shock. The dysfunction that both exhibit very closely resembles the dysfunction that is apparent in families with a long history of violent sexual abuse.

Forcing First Nation peoples to make the transition into the ways of us whitey's, is very new in the realm of time and history. F/N have made incredible strides, unlike some of us, in the same period of time.

Edited March 20, 2008 by Carinthia

[Dog]

Why would I bother to name the ingenious resourceful Bands? I was talking about the Reserves in the outlying areas that are not so resourceful. Are we having problems with reading comprehension Dog?

QUOTE(Carinthia @ Mar 19 2008, 11:54 PM)

There has been little to no training, mentoring or helping Band leaders to develop economic development. Nobody is teaching them financial management or accountability. This is not the case for all Bands everywhere, as some are very ingenious and successful. This is most prevalent for Bands in the outlying areas.

Your not fooling anyone .

[Carinthia]

QUOTE(Carinthia @ Mar 19 2008, 11:54 PM)

Your not fooling anyone .

I'm not trying to fool anyone.

The facts are the facts. I would hazard a guess that you have had nothing to do with F/N other than to pass by them on the street.