Crime in Canada seems to align with natives

[cannuck]

First of all: the crime, employment and incarceration numbers for aboriginal Canadian, particularly on reserve, is very similar to US inner cities, sub-Sahran Africa and a number of other places.  Similar seems to be the case with leaders having access to resources and helping themselves to whatever they please at the expense of their subjects.  What was said earlier "to have a purpose" is very much on target.

The idea mentioned that Canada should be returned to its "rightful owners" us preposterous.  "Ownership" never was part of aboriginal culture, but territoriality of bands was.  Again, rather than trying to claim Canada is something different from the rest of the world, we need to look at how populations have migrated for millenea.  If the host country resisted migration, there was conflict.  When the conflict concluded someone was the ":winner: and that gave the the right to rule and determine what laws would exist and how they could be applied.  The business of "owning" property is a creation of what has evolved over centuries with capitalist systems where individuals HAVE rights to "own" property.  That system did NOT exist on this continent when aboriginals occupied Canada, just as it did not exist in Communist USSR or China - until they joined the rest of the world in a property owning society and culture. There is no inherent "right" to ownership, as ownership did not exist and again as in other countries, the change to ownership was decided under the authority of the state.  The British, however, DID have a system that recognized personal property and state-owned property - and as a result, when they negotiated treaties, aboriginal leaders signed away much of the territories they occupied in exchange for certain things, including to be able to live on a reserve owned by the crown.  When it appears there is a legitimate claim, the state has in many cases and continues to negotiate land claim settlements under the law that exists in this country.   

Why did I go through all of that?  Precisely to point out that a reserve is NOT the property of the band but a place where the state is responsible for the welfare of its treaty inhabitants.

treaty Indians have not be forced to stay on reserve for many decades now, nor are inner city residents of the US required to stay in ghettos.  One must first recognize that while it may be difficult to break with the status quo there is nothing physical or legally binding on residents to remain in an environment that fosters dependence, poverty, violence, crime, abuse, etc.

The culture of first nations today was decided by the English conquerers and aboriginal leaders of another millenia.  It persists to this day largely because the infrastructure to exploit this very large level of tax dollar funded spending has a nice, comfortable life provided by maintaining the status quo.  Step number one is to eliminate the free ride for those who rob the system and process blind (something like 70% of all such money never sees a living, breathing aboriginal ordinary citizen.  There is a overall concept of self-government for first nations, both from the state's official perspective and from aboriginal leadership.   If you want to see genuine self government, IMHO, the right solution is to agree on what benefits in value are due to each status member, and cut them a cheque each month.  The band and its nation can then tax back what they need from members, and be held accountable to THEM.

 

[?Impact]

5 minutes ago, cannuck said:

 If you want to see genuine self government, IMHO, the right solution is to agree on what benefits in value are due to each status member, and cut them a cheque each month.  The band and its nation can then tax back what they need from members, and be held accountable to THEM.

That is certainly an approach worth considering. The only potential negative I see is having non-natives on reserve and then the band starts looking at them as a better revenue source. It might change the dynamic in Khanawake significantly, which would be good there but how it changes in other places might be a big negative.

[cannuck]

7 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

 The only potential negative I see is having non-natives on reserve and then the band starts looking at them as a better revenue source.

Please explain

[?Impact]

Just now, cannuck said:

Please explain

If the band is taxing residents, and a business says we would like to open shop on reserve then they get the good land. Likewise the non-native family that wants the prime waterfront real-estate, etc. The band starts looking at revenue, not people.

[cannuck]

2 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

If the band is taxing residents, and a business says we would like to open shop on reserve then they get the good land. Likewise the non-native family that wants the prime waterfront real-estate, etc. The band starts looking at revenue, not people.

Good point.  As reserves belong to the crown, it is not that easy to do.   HOWEVER:  that would be nickel and dime compared with the resource revenues that ARE accumulating to bands that have made land claim settlements or other resource sharing deals.

[Argus]

11 hours ago, ?Impact said:

Your statement was that we all must be good little capitalists and consume to make the world better.  Perhaps intelligence would be recognizing that participating in the fake economy is not noble by itself.

You a Marxist now? It is human nature to have ambition, to want to better yourself. If you remove the hope of bettering yourself then what is left? 

As for the 'fake economy' (WTH?) capitalism, as they say, is a terrible system except for all the others. Nothing else has succeeded in lifting so many people out of poverty.

[Argus]

10 hours ago, ?Impact said:

How about I take your new Cadillac and give you my broken down Ford in exchange. 

You think the reserves are a Cadillac? They look more like a broken down Ford sitting up on blocks with a nest of skunks under the hood.

[?Impact]

6 minutes ago, Argus said:

You think the reserves are a Cadillac? They look more like a broken down Ford sitting up on blocks with a nest of skunks under the hood.

Exactly my point. The original lands they occupied were the Cadillac and we forced them off and onto the broken down Fords. The Europeans wanted the prime real-estate I mentioned above.

 

10 minutes ago, Argus said:

It is human nature to have ambition, to want to better yourself.

What does money have to do with bettering oneself?

[Argus]

22 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

What does money have to do with bettering oneself?

It is the means to a better life. Unless you think sitting in a shack in the woods contemplating philosophical constructs while smoking pot is betterment.

[?Impact]

5 minutes ago, Argus said:

It is the means to a better life. Unless you think sitting in a shack in the woods contemplating philosophical constructs while smoking pot is betterment.

I don't smoke pot.

[eyeball]

12 hours ago, Dale said:

If the natives were made tax paying Canadian citizens the world would be a better place.  They would have the same purpose as the rest of the Canadian public.  If we are all in the same boat we can all work towards the same goal.

Natives where I live are or soon will be paying all the same sorts of taxes I pay once our treaty is fully implemented. Mind you this is a modern treaty negotiated in BC not a primitive barrel-of- molasses sort of treaty that was "negotiated" hundreds of years ago.

As for purpose making the world a better place, I couldn't agree more. Treaties with First Nations hereabouts are definitely the biggest economic driver we've seen in decades.

I would urge Canadians demand a better deal between our government and native people wherever they are.

[cannuck]

What I have seen is that if you come from a reserve, an inner city a country or whatever where you will be housed and paid whether you have a job or not you will not have that very strong drive to better yourself because it will not mean surviving or perishing.   People are social animals, and the tendency is to do the group-think thing.   If the society in which you live doesn't place any value on being productive and getting some kind of career or business life, it is very easy to simply get in sync with those around you and fit in.  In some reserves that DOES mean getting an education, a trade or a career, an on others it can be spending a life in crime, violence, alcohol and drug abuse.  In THOSE reserves the people who want to get ahead usually get out rather than lifting the rest of their peers up to their level.  On many reserves, where Chief and council help themselves to endless rewards well out of what would be normal for their responsibilities it does nothing to inspire people to lie cheat and steel as THAT is the example their leaders provide (gee that reminds me so much about Wall Street but for another day).

You can''t just blame whitey for this situation and you can't just lump every band into the same pot either.  BUT we really need to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over and expecting a different outcome.

[PIK]

On 3/11/2018 at 11:32 AM, Argus said:

You think the reserves are a Cadillac? They look more like a broken down Ford sitting up on blocks with a nest of skunks under the hood.

The chief drives one, but the community certain does not. lol

[Rue]

The high rate of incarceration of aboriginals reflect minor crimes. Argus your thesis fails to consider that the vast majority of their arrests are for alcohol related disturbances and in fact they are arrested often to sleep it off and not freeze to death. Your stats don't reflect where their crimes take place and their severity. If they did they would t show the vast majority of serious crimes are not done by aboriginals and do not result in arrests and that the crimes are are arrested for do not cause the wide spread damage to society as the crimes committed by organized crime and violent criminals. Their crimes impact negatively on their local communities and so their approaches to alcoholism which deal with it as a community crime make sense. The problem is the federal government is now trying to use that approach on non aboriginal child murderers something it was never intended for.

The high rate of incarceration iof aboriginals s directly related to alcohol and drug abuse which is multi-generational and a collective social illness that harms aboriginal communities far more than our non aboriginal ones. If it concerns you, you might want to ask this current phony government to scrap the "Indian" Ministry. It's a total failure. It assumes there are "Indians" and that the solution to their problems is to throw payments at specific tribal leaders not demanding accounting for how the money is spent.

The Nations of nations which is the aboriginal world has literally hundreds of tribal (nation) leaders some elected and accountable and doing a good job and others appointed and stealing the money. It's inconsistent and a recipe for chaos and conflicting standards to say the least.

Next, since many aboriginals live in isolated communities, they will continue to suffer from mental illness associated with lack of social facilities and their disconnection from their own cultural values connected to living in rural areas in harmony with the surroundings.  We should not patronize aboriginals.They have choices. One is to embrace their own cultural values and not reject them,  so they can learn to reconnect to the environment they have become dettached from and the other is to assist them build self sustaining models of lifestyle, specifically, hydro-electricity and water delivery systems, solar and wind technology, recycling of organic waste and garbage and a system with Skype to connect communities to each other and medical and government services using models first used by Australia with its aboriginals where it used radio to connect isolated communities with medical support. It is a situation that will require aboriginals, stepping up and taking leadership roles. If our federal government wants to help it should be funding  recreational facilities, water, hydro and education projects and it should control how the money is spent and not ignore when its not used for what it was intended which is what often happens now. 

Two solutions which work are to engage aboriginals in tourism and art related industries. The second is recruiting them into the military and in particular we could set up a  much larger Northern Rangers militiato patrol our Northern waters with aboriginals who know those waters better than any Russian or American submarine.

The problem is most Canadians who are not aboriginal do not want to live up North and there are not enough aboriginals in many isolated communities to sustain sufficient self sustaining logistical support such as stores, roads, hospitals, schools, even housing.

Its a challenge. I think though simply looking at the fact that aboriginals consist of 80% of people in jail, which is true, in itself is not going to properly address the issue.

By the way, the stats clearly indicate the person most likely to be arrested and accept a plea bargain for time served are black males not aboriginals.

All that said, the failures of our governments to deal with the aboriginal issues is bi-partisan. No government federally has been able to deal directly with the problem because all fear doing unpopular things that will be required to bring in change.

The current Prime Minister who sheds tears and brags what an aboriginal leader he is had a snit attack when in a meeting with him the leaders wanted to talk. He had a tantrum and said he thought they would only give brief fluff speeches. Caught on tape, he high tailed it out of the conference. Ass.

Harper actually was a tough guy. He basically told the leader of the aboriginal nations he was sick of the corruption and get back to him if they could agree on anything. It was not appreciated at one level but it was on another as he's the only one to have had the balls to say phack off to useless meetings and conferences.

There are some talented leaders in the aboriginal communities. The problem is they have a system of some leaders of nations being elected and others appointed either by threatening the community or claiming family inheritance or bribery. So its a tough situation of inconsistent rulers all brought together in a lose network headed by a council and a council head who does not have that much real power-he has certainly power to represent and use his authority with the feds, but the problem is he has little internal support. There is a lot of back stabbing between nations. Its not unified by any means. So in one sense its a recipe of anarchy.

All I know is there is mass collective suicide going on with aboriginals  under the age of 18. Very wide spread and its not in the media as it would make Trudeau look less than Saintly. Trudeau appointed two not one Minister and now the two disagree over what to do.  Hey typical Trudeau. When you have a problem that you keep screwing up, double the amount of screw up.

Edited December 9, 2018 by Rue

[Michael Hardner]

Rue you seems to have an understanding of the issue.  To my mind, the answer is both simple and impossible:

1. Canadians need to wake up and prioritize what is happening with our first peoples

2. We need to give them power over their own decisions and assistance to improve.

Politics makes these things very difficult.  

[Rue]

Mr. Harder being polite to me won't help. I am still gonna tease you on everything. Thanks for your politeness. I remain curmudgeon.

Actually all kidding aside its a hell of an issue. Its a quagmire. They did say Chretien was well liked when he handled the Ministry. 

 In fairness to Trudeau any PM inheriting this portfolio has an issue that no matter what you do  blows up in your face. I think the

smart thing is to not raise too many expectations. Low key is the way to go.

 

 

[Michael Hardner]

25 minutes ago, Rue said:

1. Mr. Harder being polite to me won't help. I am still gonna tease you on everything. Thanks for your politeness. I remain curmudgeon.

2. Actually all kidding aside its a hell of an issue. Its a quagmire. They did say Chretien was well liked when he handled the Ministry. 

 In fairness to Trudeau any PM inheriting this portfolio has an issue that no matter what you do  blows up in your face. I think the

smart thing is to not raise too many expectations. Low key is the way to go.

 

 

1. Go ahead.   I never deny your centrist position, and your authority on many issues - even when you go off on me.

2. Agreed.  He shouldn't, though, portray himself as having any high ground on this unless he can lead the public into a substantive and deep dialogue.  Those two adjectives do not describe anything about younger Trudeau though.  

 

[Centerpiece]

Argus - you're entirely right of course. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten. The reserve system - no matter how it was created - has become a system of self-apartheid. Only the brain-dead could refuse to acknowledge that living on a remote reserve with no aspirations. no jobs and no hope is nothing more than enprisoning a community. If we can take a refugee who doesn't speak English or French and within reason, provide a path that leads to the foundation of a productive and contributing Canadian family, surely we can draw a parallel roadmap for Aboriginals. You're right that the Band system encourages the status quo - the self apartheid. Canadians have proven that they accept people of all races and creeds as equals - racism does not in the slightest come into play. But it DOES enter into play from First Nations - as they continue to blame the "White Man" - failing to even recognize that the White Man now is made up of those many colours and races. Self-apartheid reserve systems, the Band/Chief system, racism towards Canadians are the root problems. The media however, is the GIANT enabler. If the media would start to turn the ship around by highlighting these ever so evident problems - perhaps some form of leadership would take root amongst aboriginals. It's so utterly frustrating. Canadians want to be a helping partner - but you can only roll your eyes at the rampant victimization that the CBC portrays. 

[turningrite]

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Rue you seems to have an understanding of the issue.  To my mind, the answer is both simple and impossible:

1. Canadians need to wake up and prioritize what is happening with our first peoples

2. We need to give them power over their own decisions and assistance to improve.

Politics makes these things very difficult.  

You're being naive, to say the least. What is happening to indigenous Canadians? Well, they've become reliant on subsidies in order to sustain a reserve system and lifestyle that's simply not consistent with economic advancement. Okay, they have the right to live traditional lifestyles, if they wish to do so. But the subsidized segregationist model (imposed under British colonialism) has not generated well-being but rather has led to isolationism, addiction and resentment. Too many indigenous activists seem to see the solution as lying in doubling down on segregation along with vastly increasing subsidies. Will this lead to transformation, or even improvement? I doubt it. Spouting platitudes about "waking up" and "giving them power" isn't going to solve much if not accompanied by a willingness to examine the viability of the underlying segregationist model.

[Michael Hardner]

@turningrite I don't think my post is entirely incompatible with your points.  Anyway, if you suggest absolute cutting them off from support you're the one being naive.

[cannuck]

At the top of the list (but missing from almost every discussion) is the idiotic idea that you can have hundreds of "nations" within a nation.  Have to fix that first, and that will be difficult after 40 years of every Canadian politician getting into this "first nations" mindset.  There was NO "nation" there were some distinct tribes divided into several bands of aboriginals who sometimes got along, and at other times tried to slaughter each other into extinction.  And, there were about a half million of them at the best.  They didn't "own" any land, they simply occupied it - and were displaced.  End of story.

[Michael Hardner]

15 minutes ago, cannuck said:

 End of story.

Start of story: we need to fix this and pointing fingers and blaming people for their plight is no more helpful than cutting them a cheque every month.  End of story.

[eyeball]

5 minutes ago, cannuck said:

At the top of the list (but missing from almost every discussion) is the idiotic idea that you can have hundreds of "nations" within a nation.  Have to fix that first, and that will be difficult after 40 years of every Canadian politician getting into this "first nations" mindset.  There was NO "nation" there were some distinct tribes divided into several bands of aboriginals who sometimes got along, and at other times tried to slaughter each other into extinction.  And, there were about a half million of them at the best.  They didn't "own" any land, they simply occupied it - and were displaced.  End of story.

Well, I've suggested we fix that by cultivating a mindset that locates our species on the little pale blue dot we occupy.  I guarantee you however there will be close to a couple hundred nations and billions of humans willing to fight to the point of extinction to avoid being subsumed and assimilated into that mindset.

I suppose Rue will soon be back vomiting up references to Marx, Trudeau and...I'm surprised Carl Sagan hasn't been added to the list of monsters he invokes in the name of justifying the existence of funny little tribes and their nations. 

[turningrite]

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

@turningrite I don't think my post is entirely incompatible with your points.  Anyway, if you suggest absolute cutting them off from support you're the one being naive.

The Constitution, which subsumes the Royal Proclamation of 1763, precludes cutting off support. What I'm talking about is figuring out a framework that will permit solutions to be developed moving forward. The British-imposed reserve and welfare system is the only model within which many indigenous activists and their supporters (including some politicians) seem capable of understanding reform. It's a counterproductive mindset, in my opinion. Pouring more money into a segregationist victim-based model simply won't resolve indigenous concerns in any constructive context. All subsidy-based economic models generate financial and psychological dependency. So, all sides need to think outside the box of the the 1763 solution, on which indigenous claims are currently based, if true progress is to be achieved. 

[eyeball]

21 minutes ago, turningrite said:

The Constitution, which subsumes the Royal Proclamation of 1763, precludes cutting off support.  The British-imposed reserve and welfare system is the only model within which many indigenous activists and their supporters (including some politicians) seem capable of understanding reform.  

No that's not true at all, many would just as soon see sovereignty and the British eff off back wherever they came from.

Quote

 

It's a counterproductive mindset, in my opinion. Pouring more money into a segregationist victim-based model simply won't resolve indigenous concerns in any constructive context. All subsidy-based economic models generate financial and psychological dependency. So, all sides need to think outside the box of the the 1763 solution, on which indigenous claims are currently based, if true progress is to be achieved.

 

 

 

Yes it is ultimately counter-productive but then isn't that just as ultimately true of sovereignty? And what is there other than forced assimilation by the strongest sovereign?  I doubt a reserve system for non-indigenous peoples would work but why not?  

In any case some of us, just a tiny few at the moment, are laying claim to the pale blue dot we all live on and there will come a day when all you nations will have to adjust accordingly.  It was us Earthlings after all, who were here first.

Edited December 9, 2018 by eyeball