Native complaints about Canada's 150th

[hot enough]

13 minutes ago, Argus said:

The idea is not to give them more welfare. The idea is to wean them off welfare. Most of these isolated reserves will never and can never be anything like economically self-sustaining. There is no work there for the people because the reserves, unlike towns and cities, did not spring up naturally in response to some need for people nearby (ie, farming communities, mining communities, lumber communities, communities along river transport corridors, fishing communities, etc.)

 

A real great idea is to wean all the real leeches off the welfare teat. 

Quote

It's true that Canada's federal government controls large portions of the cash flow First Nations depend on. Much of the money used by First Nations to provide services does come from the federal budget. But the accuracy of the myth ends there.

 

On the whole, the money that First Nations receive is a small fraction of the value of the resources, and the government revenue, that comes out of their territories. Let's look at a few examples.

 

Barriere Lake

 

The Algonquins of Barriere Lake have a traditional territory that spans 10,000 square kilometres. For thousands of years, they have made continuous use of the land. They have never signed a treaty giving up their rights to the land. An estimated $100 million per year in revenues are extracted every year from their territory in the form of logging, hydroelectric dams, and recreational hunting and fishing.

 

And yet the community lives in third-world conditions. A diesel generator provides power, few jobs are available, and families live in dilapidated bungalows. These are not the lifestyles of a community with a $100 million economy in its back yard. In some cases, governments are willing to spend lavishly. They spared no expense, for example, sending 50 fully-equipped riot police from Montreal to break up a peaceful road blockade with tear gas and physical coercion.

 

Barriere Lake is subsidizing the logging industry, Canada, and Quebec.

 

The community isn't asking for the subsidies to stop, just for some jobs and a say in how their traditional territories are used. They've been fighting for these demands for decades.

 

Attawapiskat

 

Attawapiskat has been in the news because their ongoing housing crisis came to the attention of the media in 2011. (MP Charlie Angus referred to the poverty-stricken community as "Haiti at 40 below.") More recently, Chief Theresa Spence has made headlines for her ongoing hunger strike. The community is near James Bay, in Ontario's far north.

 

Right now, DeBeers is constructing a $1 billion mine on the traditional territory of the Āhtawāpiskatowi ininiwak. Anticipated revenues will top $6.7 billion. Currently, the Conservative government is subjecting the budget of the Cree to extensive scrutiny. But the total amount transferred to the First Nation since 2006 -- $90 million -- is a little more than one per cent of the anticipated mine revenues. As a percentage, that's a little over half of Harper's cut to GST.

 

Royalties from the mine do not go to the First Nation, but straight to the provincial government. The community has received some temporary jobs in the mine, and future generations will have to deal with the consequences of a giant open pit mine in their back yard.

 

Attawapiskat is subsidizing DeBeers, Canada and Ontario.

 

Lubicon

 

The Lubicon Cree, who never signed a treaty ceding their land rights, have waged a decades-long campaign for land rights. During this time, over $14 billion in oil and gas has been removed from their traditional territory. During the same period, the community has gone without running water, endured divisive attacks from the government, and suffered the environmental consequences of unchecked extraction.

 

Sour gas flaring next to the community resulted in an epidemic of health problems and stillborn babies. Moose and other animals fled the area, rendering the community's previously self-sufficient lifestyle untenable overnight. In 2011, an oil pipeline burst, spilling 4.5 million litres of oil onto Lubicon territory. The Lubicon remain without a treaty, and the extraction continues.

 

The Lubicon Cree are subsidizing the oil and gas sector, Alberta and Canada.

 

What will Canada do without its subsidies?

 

From the days of beaver trapping to today's aspirations of becoming an energy superpower, Canada's economy has always been based on natural resources. With 90 per cent of its settler population amassed along the southern border, exploitation of the land's wealth almost always happens at the expense of the Indigenous population.

 

Canada's economy could not have been built without massive subsidies: of land, resource wealth, and the incalculable cost of generations of suffering.

 

Overall numbers are difficult to pin down, but consider the following: Canadian governments received $9 billion in taxes and royalties in 2011 from mining companies, which is a tiny portion of overall mining profits; $3.8 billion came from exports of hydroelectricity alone in 2008, and 60 per cent of Canada's electricity comes from hydroelectric dams; one estimate has tar sands extraction bringing in $1.2 trillion in royalties over 35 years; the forestry industry was worth $38.2 billion in 2006, and contributes billions in royalties and taxes.

 

By contrast, annual government spending on First Nations was $5.36 billion in 2005 (it's slightly higher now). By any reasonable measure, it's clear that First Nations are the ones subsidizing Canada.

 

These industries are mostly taking place on an Indigenous nation's traditional territory, laying waste to the land in the process, submerging, denuding, polluting and removing. The human costs are far greater; brutal tactics aimed at erasing native peoples' identity and connection with the land have created human tragedies several generations deep and a legacy of fierce and principled resistance that continues today.

 

Canada has developed myriad mechanisms to keep the pressure on and the resources flowing. But policies of large-scale land theft and subordination of peoples are not disposed to half measures. From the active violence of residential schools to the targetted neglect of underfunded reserve schools, from RCMP and armed forces rifles to provincial police tear gas canisters, the extraction of these subsidies has always been treated like a game of Risk, but with real consequences.

 

http://www.mediacoop.ca/blog/dru/15493

 

 

[hot enough]

8 minutes ago, Hal 9000 said:

Serious question, what is "test genocide" to you?

You really cannot be this thick. Just go to the actual genocide and take a small portion of it.

[taxme]

15 hours ago, hot enough said:

You are excusing a crime against humanity, for which politicians and Canadians should be held accountable.

Get over that so-called crime. It's done, it's over. Time for the Indians and you to stop whining about what happened to their ancestors hundreds of years ago. This is not the 18th century anymore this is the 21st century we are all living in now. We cannot fix what happened back then. Gawd knows whitey has tried but can never seem to get anywhere with these Indians. They just want to always play the victim card. I am the victim here because I have been paying thru my taxes hundreds of millions of my tax dollars to make up for our so-called past crimes. The Indians should be all millionaires by now. It needs to end and these Indians need to get on with life and shut the hell up. And what the average Indian has to do is start asking questions to their chiefs as to where all those hundreds of millions of taxpayer's tax dollars have gone all these years. Works for me. 

[taxme]

15 hours ago, hot enough said:

You are excusing a crime against humanity, for which politicians and Canadians should be held accountable.

I should be accountable for something that I was not involved in? Ridiculous. I was not even thought of when all this crap started. Even my parents were still in their mothers womb.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, hot enough said:

More ignorance. They are free to come and go as they please. It's when they get to the cities that they encounter the racism, mostly from folks of a conservative bent. 

Something that has been amply illustrated by the discussions that go on all across Canuckland.

The suicides speak to just how racist Canada is. Had Canada, as a people just owned up to their genocide, instead of the dismal song and dance routine that was the T&R hearings, if Canadians showed that they had some compassion, if Canadians stepped up and said fund them as you have promised, there would be a lot fewer suicides. Note that suicides are a fairly common thing for teens that haven't been subjected to 150 years of genocide.

Again, more rubbish.  If the money that has already been thrown at this issue hasn't helped, then more funding is not going to help. (I admit I don't know exactly how much of the money has been stolen by FN leadership, with the racist, patronising complicity of various Canadian governments and their reluctance to insist on accountability for the cash)

No, you use words like ignorance and genocide to hide your own complicity in their plight, because you want them to stay where they are, to be different from the rest of us.  So you can look upon them with awe as their elders perform their dances and their smudge ceremonies and you can say how wonderful they are, all the while ignoring the fact that it is you and yours who are killing them slowly.

[taxme]

3 hours ago, capricorn said:

For once I agree with you. Band chiefs and councils would fight closing reserves every step of the way.

Sure they would fight that every step of the way. That would mean that there will be no more free money going their way by the already overburdened taxpayer's of this country. Close those reserves down now. Works for me. 

[taxme]

3 hours ago, hot enough said:

That would make it one time you have been right.

So would all sensible and compassionate Canadians, capricorn, who know that a new genocide can't possibly solve the old one.

Thinking Canadians, adults, know that one takes responsibility for their actions. It's a conservative mantra, until the conservatives get caught. 

What new genocide are you talking about? 

[taxme]

1 hour ago, Hal 9000 said:

How much more? $1million per reserve...2 maybe 3, what number would make your conscience feel better?  The band chiefs and council don't use the money they get (and don't keep records) as is now. When chiefs and councils say "more control", what they mean is more money and less accountability.  This just gets us all back to square one...rinse and repeat.  

I have read that many band chiefs have gone on some pretty nice holidays during the winter while their underlings stay at home and freeze. And the white people are suppose to bad to them? There is something wrong with this picture? 

[taxme]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Do the "aboriginals" have a "White Canadians Act" ?

If the Indians were running the federal government today you can dam well bet that there would be no "White Canadians Act". There would probably be a law created to assist in the genocide of white people. Just saying. 

[taxme]

24 minutes ago, hot enough said:

A real great idea is to wean all the real leeches off the welfare teat. 

 

The ordinary Indian should be talking to their band chiefs, not me, the taxpayer. They should be asking their leaders as to where the hell has all the money gone? Just stop blaming whitey for all their problems. Enough already. 

[Accountability Now]

4 hours ago, bcsapper said:

 

all the while ignoring the fact that it is you and yours who are killing them slowly.

I agree. The reserve system is this ironic carrot that keeps certain natives wanting to stay part of the messed up system. The minute they leave the reserve they don't get the small benefits that were given to them in the treaties so they stay. 

[jbg]

On 7/1/2017 at 8:05 PM, taxme said:

We have a politically correct person speaking here. Some call them Indigenous people or Aboriginal people or First Nations people or just plain Native Indian people. It is getting to the point where it is hard to know as to what to hell to call Indians anymore. I just call them Native Indians just like I call myself a European Native. We are all natives here. 

So, you get with the program, will you. Call them what you want to call them, and so will I. 

How about just call them "protected class of people du jure" who are perfect?

 

[taxme]

6 minutes ago, jbg said:

How about just call them "protected class of people du jure" who are perfect?

 

Just what we need? Another title for them. 

[jacee]

19 hours ago, Hal 9000 said:

...and this is why neither you, me nor the government does anything about it.  The beat goes on.

Ah. Evading the question.

So you are just speculating ... slandering.

[jacee]

Interesting ... A thread about "Native complaints" dominated by a few grumpy nonnatives with a lot of complaints.

Lol

Of course we all know that the overriding Native complaint is Canada's 150 years of genocide.

We know that the troubling circumstances in Indigenous communities today are not a result of Indigenous cultures or people, but a result of Canada's genocidal efforts against those cultures.

I hear concerns from everyone here about those circumstances, but we just differ on how to help, how to change things.

I think we know that forced assimilation, forcible removal, or imposing anything without their participation are not solutions.

It requires collaborative efforts, not unilateral.

[Accountability Now]

19 minutes ago, jacee said:

Interesting ... A thread about "Native complaints" dominated by a few grumpy nonnatives with a lot of complaints.

I'm Metis. Does that count?

 

19 minutes ago, jacee said:

Of course we all know that the overriding Native complaint is Canada's 150 years of genocide.

There was no genocide. Stop using that term. The UN doesn't recognize it as such and even the TRC doesn't go that far. 

 

19 minutes ago, jacee said:

It requires collaborative efforts, not unilateral.

What efforts have the natives put in other than the protests for more money? 

You state it needs to be collaborative but yet all I hear from that side is constant denouncing of Canada and how they are not a part of it. If they want to distance themselves then we will continue to treat them distant. 

[-TSS-]

I think Greenland would be better off being a province or a territory of Canada rather than its current status as a Danish overseas territory as they really have nothing in common with Denmark anyway.

[DogOnPorch]

6 minutes ago, -TSS- said:

I think Greenland would be better off being a province or a territory of Canada rather than its current status as a Danish overseas territory as they really have nothing in common with Denmark anyway.

 

Early Scandinavian 'colonialism'....heh.

[OftenWrong]

5 hours ago, jacee said:

Interesting ... A thread about "Native complaints" dominated by a few grumpy nonnatives with a lot of complaints.

Lol

Of course we all know that the overriding Native complaint is Canada's 150 years of genocide.

We know that the troubling circumstances in Indigenous communities today are not a result of Indigenous cultures or people, but a result of Canada's genocidal efforts against those cultures.

I hear concerns from everyone here about those circumstances, but we just differ on how to help, how to change things.

I think we know that forced assimilation, forcible removal, or imposing anything without their participation are not solutions.

It requires collaborative efforts, not unilateral.

Actually the discussion raises many tough questions about the problem Natives have had. By now these people should have come further along, with all the help and support they've received from the people of Canada over the past many years.

We should continue helping natives, but need to look at the situation realistically. It's not the success which it ought to have been. A lot of money has been thrown at it by past governments, without proper oversight. Wherever there's lots of money there's corruption, and with government money all the more so. Those of us who criticize native government and the irresponsible funding situation are in fact the ones trying to help the most poor natives.

[Accountability Now]

1 hour ago, OftenWrong said:

We should continue helping natives, but need to look at the situation realistically. 

I agree but I have yet to see a hint of forward progress on either side. The problem lies in the fact there are over 600 First Nations so you are never really dealing with one point of contact but rather a moving target. Some want more money, some want more rights where as some are happy the way things are. The Feds continue to make promises for election purposes but then get into office and realize its a no win situation so they play the same game of delay and sit on decisions with the occasional calming of a few fires with a few extra dollars. 

So what is something realistic?  We know that full sovereignty is not possible within Canada. So what about going the other way? Could it be a one time buyout? Maybe but what would that price tag be? And what are the legal possibilities of having this go through? Or is the actual game plan the most plausible...which is for the Feds to continue to drag their feet and create a situation where grass roots indigenous people start suggesting realistic changes. I think that was the chord struck with the Transparency Act. 

Not an easy situation but what makes it worse is all the false rhetoric that you see in the media and by various members on this forum. 

[Argus]

7 hours ago, jacee said:

Interesting ... A thread about "Native complaints" dominated by a few grumpy nonnatives with a lot of complaints.

Lol

Of course we all know that the overriding Native complaint is Canada's 150 years of genocide.

You'd think after 150 years of practice we'd be doing better at it. Instead, for some odd reason, their population continues its steady rise...

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Argus said:

You'd think after 150 years of practice we'd be doing better at it. Instead, for some odd reason, their population continues its steady rise...

So it's like a Bizarro Genocide...?

[Hal 9000]

10 hours ago, jacee said:

Interesting ... A thread about "Native complaints" dominated by a few grumpy nonnatives with a lot of complaints.

Lol

Of course we all know that the overriding Native complaint is Canada's 150 years of genocide.

We know that the troubling circumstances in Indigenous communities today are not a result of Indigenous cultures or people, but a result of Canada's genocidal efforts against those cultures.

I hear concerns from everyone here about those circumstances, but we just differ on how to help, how to change things.

I think we know that forced assimilation, forcible removal, or imposing anything without their participation are not solutions.

It requires collaborative efforts, not unilateral.

Do you even understand what the complaints of "the few grumpy nonnatives are"?  I sincerely doubt it.  

[DogOnPorch]

4 minutes ago, Hal 9000 said:

Do you even understand what the complaints of "the few grumpy nonnatives are"?  I sincerely doubt it.  

They keep getting their General Cornwallis-es mixed-up...so I tend to agree.

[Argus]

17 minutes ago, Hal 9000 said:

Do you even understand what the complaints of "the few grumpy nonnatives are"?  I sincerely doubt it.  

There was an editorial cartoon in the Globe on the weekend which perfectly described it. It showed a beaver wearing a trench coat, unhappily hiding behind a statue and waving a little Canadian flag - hiding from screaming, picketing protestors.

If natives think this kind of thing gets them sympathy, they could not be more mistaken. A lot of the woeful pro-native editorials in various news media had to cut the comments sections entirely because of the vituperation and scorn being heaped upon natives for their corruption, incompetence and what is seen as total lack of regard for Canada, Canadians, and what they've done and are doing for natives.  Everyone has some sympathy for the plight of natives, but almost everyone blames it on the natives themselves, and their corrupt and incompetent leadership.

There does not appear to be much, if any appetite in this country for giving them more.