Tag Archives: Attawapiskat

Let’s put the whole “sovereign nations” idea to rest and have some real discussions.

Posted on by
1

I truly am happy that the “Idle No More” protests have brought discussion of native issues to the forefront in Canada. Our biggest shame as Canadians is our racially segregated native population living in economic and social misery in our appalling reserve system under terribly outdated and racist legislation. We need serious discussions as a nation as to how to end this cycle of misery that appears to get worse year after year no matter how much time and resources are being dedicated to it.

While “Idle No More” can be credited with engaging the national discussion, credit to the movement for anything productive pretty much ends there. “Idle No More” began with modest and well meaning intentions but quickly was taken over by extreme activists both native and non-native who sound pretty much like last year’s “occupy” movement in their lack of focus on anything specific aside from a general loathing of the Harper government and capitalism in general. That would be of course because the same unions and activists that led “occupy” have deeply entrenched themselves into the “Idle No More” movement and soon they will doubtless kill all credibility in the movement before moving back into their urban lifestyles.

In native politics there are a few elements of people. There are your average reserve level natives who are simply trying to get by as they are challenged by the poverty and dependency that are inevitable in our system of racial apartheid. We rarely hear from these people as they are rather busy and disengaged as they are awash in the socioeconomic mess of reserve life. These people are often used for photo opportunities by the activist elements who like to point to poor conditions on reserves as a means to attack our current federal government. To be fair, those images are used on occasion by truly racist people to try and paint natives as being from some sort of inferior race incapable of taking care of itself. It is the circumstance, not the race that is the problem here. People of any race would be dysfunctional raised in reserve circumstances.

Band Chief’s, councils and hired administration are another element of native politics. The degree of competence and ethics practised by people on this level of native politics varies widely as there are 600 bands on over 2000 reserves in Canada. While some Chief’s, councils and administrators truly have the best interest of the native residents under them at heart, corruption and mismanagement are epidemic in native reserves in Canada. Theresa Spence’s gross mismanagement of Attawapiskat is only unusual in the amount of attention that it has garnered. There are hundreds of reserves in Canada is much the same condition and for the same reasons.

The next level in native politics are the members of the “Indian Industry”. The most abhorrent of people take part in this portion of native management. There are levels and levels and levels of bureaucrats and consultants in this industry and they are accomplished parasites at intercepting government dollars before they ever come anywhere close to the natives on the ground who need them. Within the industry are countless lawyers as well who bleed the system dry with endless litigation on issues of questionable merit regarding native issues. A lawyer can make a good pocket full of cash going to court on a treaty interpretation issue no matter how inane it is as government will foot the bill for the action win or lose. If we want to see resources efficiently getting to where they belong, this cottage industry of bureaucracy and corruption needs to be cleaned right out.

We next get a level of activists in the native world. Many of these folks are non-native but have taken it upon themselves to focus their activism on native issues. Many of them envision themselves as some sort of reincarnated natives in white bodies though and it is comical watching them assume and wear items of native regalia. There are natives in the activist end of things as well of course. Lately one of the most shrill has been Pam Palmater who failed in her bid for the leadership of AFN and now has placed herself at the head of the “Idle No More” group. Palmater almost rages when speaking in her self-styled role as representative of “Idle No More” but despite her passion she seems to fall short on proposing anything aside from anger and perpetuating myths. It is from the activist bunch that we see many of the counterproductive ideas and myths erupting that ruin good discussion of native issues.

What the native activist world is constantly pushing for is all of the authority of native self determination while eschewing all elements of responsibility that come with that. Native activists are fight tooth and nail against forms of government oversight of the management of native bands yet howl indignantly while blaming the government when we see cases of massive mismanagement such as with Attawapiskat. You simply can’t have it both ways. Funding without oversight has turned native affairs into a giant black hole of expense with no visible or tangible benefits to be seen. Despite massive injections of money, traditional culture on reserves is fading and poverty is epidemic. Only through some forms of accountability will this trend change and it will take outside management to do this. This is not being paternalistic, this is being realistic.

The activist element constantly claims that we must abide by treaties until somebody actually points out what is in the treaties. Upon realistic exposure of treaty obligations the activist element suddenly goes off into an unverifiable and essentially fictional world where we must now suddenly abide by the spirit of treaties that only they of course can interpret.

One of the most deceptive and to be honest, ridiculous assertions by the native activist element is that native bands, tribes etc. are actually sovereign nations. It is through this imaginary status that activists try to play every possible side of the fence whenever they please. Again, these people want to pursue all of the autonomy of action of independent states yet they refuse to accept all of the responsibility that would come from such a theoretical setup.

A list of sovereign nations can be found here: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/states.htm One may note that there are no native bands listed there. I spotted no Mauri or Australian aboriginal nations in that list either. That of course is because these groups are not sovereign nations.

Sovereignty and nationhood can be very ambiguous things to define and wars have indeed been fought over such interpretations. It is simply absurd to recognize native bands as such but let’s go down the road of what commonly would be expected of a sovereign nation by most people’s measures.

Native sovereign nations should be expected to collect their own taxes, create their own currency, come up with a passport/visa system for citizens to come and go, develop their own resources, build and maintain their own infrastructure, make independent trade deals with other countries, make their own constitutions, make their own laws, make their own police forces, armies and courts…… The responsibilities go on and on and on. Clearly this is NEVER going to happen so lets move conversation to reality shall we?

At a website of Ontario Chiefs  I see some of these wonderful statements built around that flawed sovereign nation concept too. While never addressing possible fiscal independence, it demands a right to all authority in governance and their site says this:

“As sovereign Nations we have never surrendered our rights or title in right of the Crown or the successor state of Canada but, have maintained and solidified their inherency (sic) through the Treaty making process”

The above statement is false on two levels. They are not sovereign nations and they indeed fully ceded title and rights to the crown when signing treaties. While some treaties have elements open to interpretation of intent, the ceding of land and title is pretty clear as per this clause from Treaty 9 below for example:

“For the purpose of negotiating an extension of James Bay Treaty No. 9 with the Ojibeway and other Indians, inhabitants of the territory within the limits hereinafter defined and  described, by their chiefs and headmen, for the purpose of opening for settlement, immigration, trade, travel, mining and lumbering, and for such other purposes as to His Majesty may seem meet, a tract of country bounded and described as hereinafter mentioned, and of obtaining the consent thereto of His Indian subjects inhabiting the said tract, and of arranging with them for the cession of the Indian rights, titles and privileges to be ceded, released, surrendered and yielded up to His Majesty the King, and His successors forever, so that there may be peace and good-will between them and His Majesty’s other subjects, and that His Indian people may know and be assured of what allowances they are to count upon and receive from His Majesty’s bounty and benevolence, which said territory may be described and defined as follows, that is to say the said treaty to release and surrender also all Indian rights and privileges whatsoever of the said Indians to all or any other lands wherever situated in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba or the District of Keewatin or in any other portion of the Dominion of Canada.“

As I said, we need this discussion of how to deal with the growing disaster that we call a reserve system. These discussions must be based in reality and facts. As per past blog postings of mine, I have asserted and still believe that most people who are advocating for treaty rights have never actually read the treaties and don’t really know what they are asking for. Treaty 9 calls for compensation of $4 per year per Indian. Even adjusted for inflation that isn’t very much. There is nothing about healthcare or housing or many of the other things some are claiming as treaty rights.

It may be noted that while that group of Chiefs constantly states that FNs have some sort of inherent authority to all elements of their own governance, it says nothing about ending the utter dependency upon Canada for funds. Sovereign means independence in more ways than simply self-determination and sustainability of a modern economy on most of the reserves in Canada is utterly impossible.

 

Lets begin with what is documented in the treaties and work from there rather than with the myths and false interpretations coming from the self-serving native activist network. When we do that, we can start moving towards some real changes that may benefit future generations of natives and non-natives alike. Getting hung up on crap such as sovereign nations existing within nations is simply distracting and counterproductive.

We have an opportunity to seek and discuss solutions to this wretched and untenable system of racial segregation through reserves in Canada. I hope we are ready to take it on with reality and facts as a basis. We need to cut through the white-noise of activists and self-serving people entrenched within the system and start to look towards what will really aid the natives suffering on reserves in our current system.

Let’s look at these isolated reserves and try to envision what they will look like a in ten years, twenty years and fifty years from now. When looking with the status-quo in mind, we see only more misery no matter how much is spent.

Barrage of information.

Posted on by
7

Well it has been an interesting week since I posted here and began asking on social media “which treaties are being violated?”

You see, there is a myth being perpetuated in Canada that somehow native treaties are being breached or are soon to be breached by some new legislation. While some native activists and indignant hipsters have almost been chanting and screaming that treaty rights are being violated; not a single one to date has been able to point to a direct violation.

I have tried to make things as easy as I can. I posted links to all the treaties (very straightforward documents) and invited people to read them and point out where violations are happening.

Since asking those questions, I have been called a moron, uneducated, stupid, uncaring, evil, heartless, despicable, and of course I have been called a racist many times. Somehow I have also been accused of being a Christian fanatic and somehow a homophobe out of all of this too.

I am not sure how simply asking a question makes me any of the above things. What I think is that I have hit the issue on the head. People have not read the treaties and upon being asked they respond by attacking rather than admitting that the breach in treaty rights that they have been claiming simply does not exist.

People have also tried to sidetrack. I have been dragged down discussions on the Charter, the Constitution, the United Nations, the Indian Act and even somehow the Magna Carta. I was sent links to open letters and blogs claiming treaty violation without specifics. Still, nobody could point to a simple ongoing treaty violation.

The closest I saw to a contemporary treaty breach was a link sent to me to this site where it appears that there has been some land allocations of the past that were miscalculated making a breach in some treaties. As can be seen though, it is being addressed efficiently. No mad breaches in rights or need for hunger strikes.

What is great with today’s information age is the ease with which one can dispel myths and untruths. Only 15 years ago it was damn near impossible to simply counter a person’s false claim that treaty rights are being violated. I wouldn’t have even known where to begin to find a treaty in it’s original and full text. Now with a few minutes on google the documents can be found in full and the facts exposed.

The downside of the fast exchange of information is that myths and untruths can be spread more quickly than ever too.

Normally I would not pay much attention to the vapid, profanity laden ramblings of a young shallow urban dwelling lady like Natasha Hynes that are in the video below.

One really does not have to listen long to see that this young lady has nothing much to add to political discussion aside from simplistic repetition of statements on treaties and a blistering number of swears. What is disturbing though is that in a short time apparently nearly 70,000 people watched that video.

VIDEO BELOW NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

It can’t be assumed that all of those watchers checked Natasha’s broken facts and sadly a myth spreads even further.

To counter Natasha’s ill-informed rambling, we have the blog: A Bear’s Rant.

Bear has been hosting a series of guest postings by Peggy Tupper that I can’t suggest strongly enough as essential reading on the “Idle no more” trend. Policies, reactions and treaties are addressed excellently and the misconceptions of the moment are laid bare excellently.

The web is full of information but it is still nobody’s responsibility aside from our own to ensure that we seek facts and see through misinformation.

Social media provides us with a means to make a point using humor and simplifying things too. I made the video below to show how ridiculous Theresa Spence’s public tantrum is and to again point out that treaty rights are not being breached.

It is a simple cartoon but it makes a couple points and is free of expletives.

My challenge stands; show me the treaty violation.

No sidetracking, no namecalling. Just some facts thanks. I will make it even easier with a template:

Treaty (insert treaty name or number here) is being being breached by (insert action or legislation here) due to obligations in (insert treaty clause here).

I don’t deny for a second that there are some very serious and important issues with natives and Canada’s native policies. If we really want to address these issues though, we must stick with facts.

 

Realities of reserve housing.

Posted on by
Reply

Every new year we see a pile of retrospective “stories of the year” being reprinted and broadcast. The reality is that much of the press is enjoying their holiday season and those “year that was” sort of things make for good filler. One story that is in every compilation of issues this year has been the housing crisis on the Attawapiskat reserve. We can pretty much see that story every year in January, the only thing that really changes is the name of the reserve that has hit crisis levels.

The optics from Attawapiskat were striking. People were living in terrible conditions on a Northern reserve with a long cold winter looming before them. A person would have to be totally heartless to not feel terribly for the conditions that these people are living in and enduring.

When most people see scenes like that, they want to see the situation changed and as soon as possible. Unfortunately people often gravitate towards the the most simplistic of solutions to troubles and assume that government has somehow been shorting our aboriginal communities in support for housing. Our State Broadcaster (the CBC) is always overjoyed to perpetuate that myth.

The reality is that we have been massively increasing support for housing on aboriginal communities through funding and education in management. The harder reality is that little will change on reserves in Canada no matter how much we increase resources directed towards them because the entire concept of the reserve system and the Indian Act is a catastrophic and unworkable failure.

I suspect that many people don’t understand the damage that has been done due to generations of utter dependency and a lack of property ownership in our system of racial segregation through reserves. I took a drive to a nearby reserve the other day to take some pictures and demonstrate the futility of trying to build new housing in perpetuity.

The reserve I toured was a Dene one in Northern Alberta. This reserve is actually in much better shape than many that I have worked on in the North. Much of that is due to relatively easy access, a nearby flourishing energy industry and an large band based oilfield services company. Despite all that though, 70% of the adult population of this reserve is unemployed (the service company primarily employs off-reserve people) and only 18% of adult members possess a high school equivalent diploma despite constantly rebuilt educational facilities. This is no fault of the residents. Nobody can easily be functional in the workforce or educational system when raised in these messed up enclaves of dependency and misery that we call reserves. Simply  working one’s way out of a rut is not really an option for most though the means appear to be right there.

Despite being better than your typical reserve, this one demonstrates the many traits that are common to all isolated reserves. One can see trends of housing types as different contracts are awarded and designs utilized year by year to try and keep up with the insatiable demand. The condition of the houses varies widely depending on the condition of the occupants. There are very very few housed to be found that are more than 20 years old as they simply do not last that long on reserves.

Below are some typical houses on the reserve. Most are of modest size, simple and functional.

 

Now the above pictures are of standard houses on the reserve. Below is the exception that is invariably found on a reserve. The house below is likely that of the Chief or at least one of the Chief’s close friends or relatives. On almost every reserve one can find this disparity in housing provision as like it or not, corruption is rampant and the designation of housing falls directly to the Chief and council. A small group of large and often opulent houses can be found on almost every reserve. This one was not the most striking that I have seen in that regard but the house and yard below clearly surpass that being given to the typical band member.

One can see some of the frustration of band members when they are living with a large family crammed into a modest 700 square foot house while the Chief and friends enjoy large modern homes with nicely landscaped yards. This is one of the things that helps lead to the complete disregard for the condition of their own homes.

As band members do not actually own their own homes and their disposition is at the whim of the Chief and council, there is pretty much little to no incentive to perform any maintenance upon their houses. Why replace a window when you can’t own or sell the place? Why reshingle? Why maintain sewage piping or drainage?

Below it can be seen what happens when windows get broken on reserve housing.

Poly can be used.

 Tuck tape can be used.

  Most commonly boards are used.

 With no work being done to maintain them, houses deteriorate very quickly. With a very harsh Northern climate, this problem is even more acute.

One can always find houses in their final state of disrepair  yet still occupied to demonstrate the housing problems on reserves. The only real variable is where the finger of blame gets pointed.

A very common sight on all reserves are seeing relatively new houses boarded up and abandoned as they have become uninhabitable. Mold and fire are the most common causes. These houses are essentially destroyed from the inside out due to lack of maintenance and respect for the house itself. These are everywhere.

The anger, disrespect and social challenges lead to having to turn all band services buildings into small fortresses to protect them from vandalism and break ins. This too is common of pretty much all reserves.

All of the buildings have barred windows or heavy rolling shutters along with heavy iron doors. At the least this must be psychologically disturbing to residents.

Getting back to my initial point, the problem on these reserves is not for lack of funding. New houses are being constructed (at great expense in isolated communities) all the time. It is nearly impossible to keep up with the destruction however.

 

We see a great deal of hysteria finger pointing when Canadian reserve conditions come to light. Most Canadians are urban living and have never had opportunity or need to actually spend time on reserves in person. This leaves many people vulnerable to such myths as that of Canada not directing enough resources towards reserve housing. That is why I hope that providing a pictoral posting helps people see a little more and understand just how it is on these reserves.

It is without doubt that there is housing crisis on Canadian reserves. There is no denying that there are countless other social and economic challenges being endured by reserve natives. The question is not whether or not current conditions are acceptable. The question is how to change this.

My conclusion is to work towards a complete end to the reserve system and rescinding the Indian Act. Decades have pretty much proven that this current path is an utter failure that is only causing human suffering at great expense to the rest of the nation.

Some people indeed may have a case to make on fixing the system as it is. I look forward to seeing some more creative solutions.

To claim that not enough resources have been directed to Canadian reserves however is shallow and simply wrong. These are a deeply troubled people and the capacity for them to consume resources is infinite with no visible sign of progress. The entire system must change.

We need to stop looking at the past and trying to somehow use it as an excuse to justify the mess we are enduring presently. The status-quo is serving nobody aside from some chiefs and many overpaid, parasitic bureaucrats and lawyers who make their living in the “Indian industry”. We need to recognize that the status-quo is not sustainable and we need to honestly look at how to work towards a better future.

I hope that more people begin to look more deeply at these issues so that we may begin to make real progress on this. It truly is a shame that we have so many people living like this in a land so blessed with resources.

Get used to seeing it.

Posted on by
6

This happens every few years. A native reserve hit’s bottom due to a myriad of reasons and a news story comes out showing people living in deplorable conditions. The flavor this year is the Attawapiskat. A while back it was Kashechewan with their water troubles. Even earlier than that was the mess in Davis Inlet. We have seen other random images of reserves all over Canada in between and the pictures are almost uniformly ugly.

Fingers are being pointed in all directions. Government is pointing out how 10s of millions of dollars had been directed at the reserve from the government. The Chief is pointing wildly in every direction while trying very hard to avoid any form of audit or outside management. Advocacy groups are worked into a lather and blaming everybody they can see for the problems.

People are calling for more money to be spent. Some are calling for more or less self-government on reserves. Some are even calling for UN intervention.

What we are not hearing enough is people calling for an end to the entire reserve system!

Lets face it people. This entire concept of separating groups of people from society based on their race is utterly wrong and has been a colossal failure. By every measure reserve life falls short of off-reserve standards of living. With a few notable exceptions, pretty much every native reserve in Canada is a socio-economic mess rife with crime, poverty, domestic abuse, substance abuse and simply general misery (particularly on the more isolated reserves).

What did anybody really expect? Imagine anybody being born and raised on one of our isolated reserves and try to imagine how this hypothetical person would not be dysfunctional. Being born into a modern reserve now is to be immediately brought into a mess of dependency with a hybrid clashing of cultures. You are exposed to modern comforts and through television and the internet you can see what the world has to offer. You are raised with a sense of entitlement as you are told that anything and everything that ever goes wrong in your life is somebody else’s fault. Even should you have ambitions for more, there is little work to be found aside from working for the band itself. If you are not in the Chief’s inner circle of friends and family, you will likely not find band employment. You are in a massive cycle of utter dependency with no sense of purpose and no sign of a light at the end of the tunnel. Is it all that surprising that suicide and substance abuse run rampant?

People keep pointing to injustices of the past as if that somehow justifies our contemporary injustices. I will say it outright, yes the residential school policy and the attempted assimilation of natives was a horrific chapter in Canadian history. Those policies are directly responsible in many ways for the social dysfunction in native communities as entire generations lost touch with how to cope individually and as families. The damage is now being passed on to future generations despite the policy ending decades ago.

Stand back a bit and look at this folks. Try to set aside what you would like to see and see what simply is. Can you honestly look at an isolated native reserve and see a good future for people there? What do you envision in a generation from now? Two generations? Most of these reserves do not have the local resources to sustain their populations no matter how some may try to develop them. Do you think it is right that we keep a growing population in a location where complete dependency  on government is assured? Is that really a decent goal?

I have worked most of my life in the oilfield and have spent time on reserves throughout Canada’s North and West. Every year I see conditions becoming worse despite new programs and new spending constantly being applied. People may think that some form of cultural preservation is happening from this. What has formed is a unique but awful hybrid culture of people who no longer find themselves fitting in anywhere. Past cultural practices are being lost and a potato chip and television culture is replacing it. Is that a noble goal?

People do not need to live in their original nation in order to retain elements of their culture. Check out a Chinatown in any major city. Look to any Indian or even Eastern European communities and see how they still retain and celebrate their cultures despite being a  half a planet away from their places of origin. Sure these people have embraced and taken on aspects of Western culture. That is natural and it is a good thing.

Cultural evolution is not assimilation! No culture now is as it was 100 years ago and 100 years from now no culture will look quite like it does today. Cultures are not static things. They change and evolve with changing times and circumstances. Despite this, some feel that reserves will keep some sort of retroactive enclaves of noble indians who will resist change and stay as they were centuries ago.

Leave culture alone. Trying to artificially retain a culture is as abhorrent and wrong as it was trying to eliminate them.

The entire native issue has always frustrated me to no end as I work and see the misery first-hand every year and I see it getting worse. I am long on pointing out problems and unfortunately short on solutions with this one. Take a drive some time East or West and have a close look at our neighboring reservations. Look at the abandoned houses or even worse the occupied ones. Look at the wild dog populations and look at the garbage. Most importantly, look at how the people carry themselves. That is the most disturbing aspect of them all.

Race based policy is always wrong. It is race based policy that created the aboriginal mess that we have today and further race based policy is not going to fix it.

There are many ideas out there on how to reach an end to the reserve system. The most promising involve property rights. I understand that we can’t simply end the system and toss a dysfunctional population into mainstream society. We need to start looking to an end to this however.

We can talk about all sorts of spot fixes. Until one concludes that the reserve system must end however, they will not be looking at a sustainable long-term solution to anything. It is a sick system of racial segregation and everybody is losing native and non-native alike.