Trudeau vows help after Indigenous kids' unmarked graves found, but offers no details

[Zeitgeist]

Yes, we see abuse in seniors’ homes as well.  Poor oversight and lax standards in any care setting puts the vulnerable at risk of abuse by predators.

The biggest problem with residential schools was the required removal and continued separation of children from their parents and the privations and poor conditions within those schools, which Dr. Bryce called out a century ago.  It’s a very dark cloud on Canada’s history.  It’s important to remember that residential Indigenous education took place in a context of the Indian Act, which created two-tier citizens.  Indians couldn’t vote and had to reach certain government standards to achieve enfranchisement, but the hefty price of that enfranchisement was losing privileges of Indian status and reserve land.  Yes, the government pushed assimilation and there were few takers.  A certain amount of assimilation would’ve happened naturally through cultural influence and the benefits of technology and education to social mobility.  That’s the idea behind free public education.

The social problems resulting from residential schools are still with us today.

The reserve system had problems and the quality of the land and its actual connection to the people assigned to it varied widely by treaty.  Some treaties weren’t settled and there will be more land claims, some very legitimate.

In the longer term, after the apologies and the payouts for damages are settled, I think that all bands should have the right to either maintain their reserves or allow their members to have the same private title that non-Indigenous have.  If you’re living off reserve you should be subject to the same taxation as non-Indigenous and make the same contributions to your community’s upkeep as everyone else.  If you’re working on reserve I’d hope that the reserve bands do their own form of tax collection for the upkeep of their communities.

Though I don’t think it’s a long-term solution, the federal government covers the cost of education and health for Indigenous without the requirement of investment of the families whose children are educated.  This arrangement can continue as long as Indigenous want it, but it undermines self-determination.  Being dependent financially on others isn’t self-reliance.  If people can’t make a viable use of available resources where they live, then they need to go where the opportunity is.   Incentivizing staying on reserves with benefits as a kind of old-worldly artificial theme park skews natural economies.   No doubt some reserves thrive and some Indigenous will choose to stay on them.  They can decide, but maintaining a system of status cards and benefits to prop it up in some paternalistic, apartheid welfare system, to the minds of most people, will only perpetuate a broken system.

 I think we’ll continue to see a messy broken system for some time.  Success speaks for itself and the most financially independent and thriving communities will persist, whether on or off reserve.  The struggling communities will either remain on life support from the outside or be abandoned.  We’ll continue to skew natural economies to sustain the unsustainable for as long as Indigenous want it, but I don’t think it’s good or healthy, especially where self-government is the goal   

 

Edited July 27, 2021 by Zeitgeist

[Goddess]

Indigenous bands are also deeply troubled by greedy, self-serving chiefs who steal federal funds and leave their own people living in squalor.  Trudeau gave over any governmental checks and balances to the natives themselves and this has not gone well.

They need more chiefs like Chief Clarence Louie in Osoyoos, BC.

[Nefarious Banana]

'First Nations Financial Transparency Act' . . . implemented by PM Stephan Harper, cancelled by PM Justin Trudeau.

Huge amounts of $$ siphoned off . . . . no accountability.

 

[Zeitgeist]

That’s the hallmark of this federal government: unchecked spending and shiny rhetoric.