Friday, December 2, 2011

Attawapiskat

Various newspaper and media commentary have suggested the answer to the problem in Attawapiskat, and other isolated First Nations communities, is to move everyone to a southern urban setting.

A typical comment is:

She believes the only solution to improving the lives of natives on isolated reserves is to get them off those reserves. “For the sake of this generation of children, having to grow up in those squalid conditions, we have to face the fact that isolated reserves have been a failed experiment and that it’s time to move on.”

A strong attachment to the ancestral homeland is understandable but the price in dollars and lost human potential is too steep to pay.

On the surface this seems reasonable. Canadians, living in poverty, in economically backward and profoundly isolated settings should move (or be moved).

Now the subtext (which I put in brackets) is relevant. Forcible movement has been done before. In the High Arctic successful Inuit lives were crushed when RCMP, largely so as to require settlement and end a nomadic lifestyle, killed Inuit dogs (http://www.qtcommission.com/actions/GetPage.php?pageId=39) . Residential Schools were designed (and imposed on unwilling communities) to integrate, by force if necessary -- in 1928, a government official predicted Canada would end its "Indian problem" within two generations. The result was untold suffering and, of course, utter failure (http://archives.cbc.ca/society/education/topics/692/). And yet despite this history there are still calls to impose a new order on First Nation, Metis and Inuit communities. It is not at all implausible that entire communities could still be forcibly moved under the guise of emergency aid or better long terms services. This cruelty has failed before and we must state clearly it must not happen again.

But more generally, why is it that there is such poverty and First Nations, Metis and Inuit? Why are so many communities suffering?

One of the real sins of apartheid in South Africa was the distribution of land. Blacks were “given” tribally based self-governing homelands; but the problem was the homelands, broadly speaking, were on poor land and economically undevelopable. The Reservations are, if anything, even less developable than South Africa’s bantustans. In 1907 the creation of Reservations was described, quite truthfully, as follows:

A natural result of land cessions by the Indians to the British Government and, later, to the Dominion was the establishment of reservations for the natives. This was necessary not only in order to provide them with homes and with land for cultivation, but to avoid disputes in regard to boundaries and to bring them more easily under control of the Government by confining them to given limits. This policy, was followed under both French and English control. It may be attributed primarily to the increase of the white population and the consequent necessity of confining the aboriginal population to narrower limits. (http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/IndianreservationsinCanada.htm)

“The consequent necessity of confining the aboriginal population to narrower limits” was to put people onto territory that is not, and cannot be, self sufficient. Attawapiskat has an urgent and immediate need – that cannot be overlooked – but solutions along the lines of “move them to Timmins and let them melt into the general population” ignores the fact that “them” are people with the right to self determination and ignores why Attawapiskat is poor to begin with.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

The reason they are poor is because they are lazy

Anonymous said...

The aboriginals who live on the reserves can choose to move out any time they wish. So it's not a situation that is being imposed by force.

Whatever vestiges that are left of suffrage and unequal citizenship are long gone. In fact, non-aboriginals try to find a long lost abo ancestor in the hopes of being classified as one and get the perceived benefits.

$10 billion dollars a year, and what do they have to show for it? These isolated communities are unviable because, well, they are isolated.

Abolish the Indian Act. It costs too much money. The ones who scream loudest about keeping it don't want the gravy train to stop.

Anonymous said...

"The reason they are poor is because they are lazy"

When the government subsidizes something, people will take actions to get those subsidies. If something is taxed more, then people will take actions to avoid those taxes. Higher cigarette taxes=people smoking less (or finding black market channels to buy them).

If welfare payments are higher than minimum wage, then there is no economic advantage to work for minimum wage--so people will go on welfare (in the pre-Mike Harris days). I remember working minimum wage and having to scrimp and save for my own dental work while welfare recipients got free dental.

Are aboriginals lazy? I doubt that the aboriginals who were here before the European settlers arrived were lazy--hunting and gathering are very hard things to do.

But $10 billion dollars a year to maintain the reserve system will provide motivation for people to stay on them. They have no functional economy to speak of (at least the isolated ones, those with casinos seem to do quite well).

$10 billion dollars a year goes to a lot of people to just sit at home and do nothing. That's where the laziness comes from.

It's human nature to take the path of least resistance.

Anonymous said...

There is something philosophically
confusing with the status quo.

The culture(s) survived many millenium without a monetary system. If the idea is to preserve the cultures then how does spending billions of dollars (introducing monitary value to goods and services)protect it?

It corrupts the value system forever. The culture, in my view, has been lost.

The reality is that for thousands of years many cultures, religions and languages have been lost for a whole host of complex reasons. It is part of the human experience.

John Prince said...

They are lazy? Or is it we are lazy and self-serving? $10B given to greedy welfare bum corporations by corrupt politicians without a bat of the eye with nothing to show for it at the end of the day is okay? But to give this amount of money to a whole people, who have the problems they do because of us, in order that they may have a subsitance type existence at best, is not okay?

You people have everything all ass backwards, which suggests you are all either incompetant, or else lawyers. I know one of you is 'brain-dead' at the very least i.e. that is the one who is too lazy to do his homework about those "lazy Indians". Maybe he left it behind at his last meeting of the KKK... along with his heart.

Anonymous said...

John P.

Don't take the bait.

However,if you just throw money at the problem it'll only be a matter of time before another reserve makes the news.

Who will you blame?

John Prince said...

Anon @10:18

I hear ya. But playing the blame game as the HarperCONS are doing is not going to help the people of that area, or the many more like it throughout our land. Whether we like to admit it or not we have an aparteid system in place here in this country with third world conditions. Many communities like this one are isolated and hamstrung from helping themselves. Can you imagine a bureacracy that prevents these people from setting up a sawmill to cut timber for building houses/foundations in an area where the materials for concrete are not available, because it is 'crown land'. The Indian Act along with bureacratic incompetance (see latest example i.e. Minister in charge) has been the mainstay for generations and is the major contributing factor for the travisty we see today. For the most part it is not because of the natives themselves, that is but a fallacy perpetrated by the incompetants in Ottawa.

The Rat said...

Calling the reserve system 'apartheid' is disingenuous at best and a disgusting diminishment of real apartheid at worst. Natives are not barred from jobs or education or living wherever they like. The reservation system has issues, absolutely, but does anyone think the natives of Attawapiskat would be living anywhere else if there was no reserve? If we simply left them to their own means in the 19th century what would they be like today? They'd still be living impoverished lives in Northern Ontario. The problem is not the reserve but the isolation!

So what can we do? We can remove the isolation by moving the band but Mr. Morton says that's wrong. We can remove the isolation by building a road but that probably wouldn't help much. At the root of the problem with isolation is a lack of jobs and a lack of something to do with a life. We can't magically make jobs appear. And living a life with nothing to do is about as awful a life as I can imagine.

So what to do? The residents have the right and ability to move to where jobs are but choose not to. They want to live there, apparently, and it is their ancestral land. Fine. At some point choices need to have consequences and these are the consequences of those choices. My ancestors left their ancestral land when it became obvious they could not build a life there anymore. The natives there should be given a choice of a generous relocation package or a generous final payment/housing that each individual or family own separate from the reserve. Hunting rights should be included but that's it. After they make their choice they should live with it just like every other citizen of Canada.

John Prince said...

I’m sorry to disagree with you Rat, but the facts are what they are. The definition of apartheid is as follows: A policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race. The natives in this country have always faced discrimination, prejudice and segregation (what are native reserves, but a segregation of people?). And many of these people have been abandoned and forgotten by our system under the Indian Act to no better than the living conditions of third world people. You can argue until you are blue in the face and it won’t change that which is true.

In addition, your simplistic solution that they are free to come and go and have only themselves to blame for their dilemma does not hold water in my books. Nor does it make sense from a practical point of view to have mass migration to city centres where in all likelihood their living conditions will not change, except for the fact they will now be housed in Ghettos rather than reserves. Having them leave their reserves where they have some degree of family, freedom and community for one of our mega-centres offering no support systems in a ghetto environment is far from a solution.

My idea of a solution would be the creation of an Indian Nation, much what Tecumseh fought for during the war of 1812. The present system of the Great White Father imposing his policies, rules, values, standards, justice (sic), etc. that hamstrings these people, just does not cut it any more. The Great White Father has been a step-father from hell to these people. Much as a battered woman needs to leave an uncaring and unloving relationship, these people should be given the opportunity to do likewise.

Either this, or governments need to stop making excuses and resorting to the blame game and get with it with respect to seriously dealing with Canada’s 300+ ‘apartheid nations’ in a meaningful and humanistic manner, as equals, deserving of respect, much like what transpired in South Africa after their apartheid system came to an end.

Koby said...

"The definition of apartheid is as follows: A policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race."


And let us be clear who wanted to maintain this system. The Trudeau government mused about writing the natives out of constitution and abolishing the Indian Act in 1969 and was met with a sustained backlash.


Thanks to the idiocy of the 1982, the only way forward, viz., abolishing native rights, abolishing the Indian Act and privatizing reserve lands, has been forever blocked. An Attawapiskat like situation will show up every 3 years or so in perpetuity. The incentives built into the system are perverse.


Indeed, most government's try to limit their citizens ability to take advantage of tax havens. But not Canada. The Canadian federal government provides incentives for Status Indians to stay or move to various tax havens and it backs up its promises with an ironclad guarantee. Specifically, the feds hold out the promise of free housing, a promise pay for upkeep and the promise of never imposing not only no income tax or sales tax, but also no property tax. The federal government will pay for any needed infrastructure. Of course, the reality is less rosy than the brochure makes it seem. Realizing the patent absurdity of its ironclad guarantee, the government drags its feet, provides the bare minimum level of funding for housing, upkeep and infrastructure and to, add insult to injury, proceeds in less than timely matter. In other words, the government has every reason to create living conditions that repel even as its moronic promises attract.


Now, some of these tax havens are isolated and economically unviable. Perversely, the very scarcity of jobs in these places ties people to land all the more. The less assets, work experience and education a person has the more attractive the prospect of obtaining free housing, however squalid, becomes. There is long waiting list of people wanting housing in Attawapiskat. This is doubly so if one already owns a home there. A bird in the hand is better than two in bush as it were; a dilapidated house in the hand is better than the dim prospects of a better house elsewhere.


So, should residents of Attawapiskat be moved to more southerly location? No, Attawapiskat must be allowed to sink or swim and above all else people living there must be given additional economic incentives to leave. That means that at least points two and three of the following have to happen. 1) All reserve lands and homes need to be privatized with home owners given the right to sell their homes on the open market. 2) The financial burden of maintaining and upgrading housing must switch from the band to the individual home owners. 3) Band councils must gain the ability to impose property taxes. Either property taxes and the cost of upkeep will drive people away in the absence of a job, or the prospect of using the capital from the sale of one's house and land will. The later is obviously preferable, but thanks to the idiocy of 1982 almost politically impossible.

Troy said...

Okay, some clarification for the anonymous trolls debasing this discussion.
Attawapiskat could be a successful community if
1. its funding to be brought up to same level as 'white' communities
2. the government were to remove the many debilitating rules and regulations limiting community development
3. the de Beers mine was forced to live up to its contract with the community

Personally, the town of Attawapiskat should say to hell with the Canadian government, and declare self-government, and take over the damn mine, too.

Troy said...

As for the name of the system of relation between the Canadian government and First Nations, it'd be best to think of it as post-apartheid, and now post-segregation.
I'd say post-apartheid was about two to three generations ago. There was a long time before First Nations were allowed to leave reserves. Indian agents had the powers of feudal lords over First Nations.
Post-segregation was a generation ago. My father recalls having to use differing doors than white people, and different restrooms.
There has been no attempt by the Canadian government to repair the damage caused by apartheid and segregation. It has all been First Nations alone dealing with the aftermath, trying their best to integrate with white culture. And another thing, troll anonymous commentators, do not confuse integration with assimilation. The former would be an agreement to allow First Nations equal access to the same oppurtunities white people have, whereas the latter leads to residential schools, and the third-world living conditions seen in Attawapiskat right now.

The Rat said...

Mr. Prince, define apartheid any way you want you know as well as i do that it refers specifically to racial laws in South Africa. As the the rest of your points, wow, insanity at it's best.

Shitty things happened in the past. I'm Irish, look at my family's history and tell me that it was pretty. Get over it. From today, if you know the system you live under isn't working then it had better change. As for the pipe dream of an Indian Nation, it's not going to happen. I'm here, and so are 30ish million other Canadians and we're not going anywhere. Our native friends need to live in reality and the reality is a 21st century nation called Canada.

And please, "white" communities are not "funded" they are taxed. Bringing every reserve up to the standard of "white" communities is the same stupidity as bringing every Canadian to the same standard as the 1%.

If the natives of Canada are unwilling to change and us Canadians are unwilling to leave then I guess we have a problem.

Koby said...

1) The land was ceded to the Crown.


2) Self determination only means something if the international community would be willing to recognize Attawapiskat as a sovereign country and there is not a country in world that would do so.


3) As a sovereign country, all funding would end.


4) Status Indians living on reserves receive far more Federal monies than other Canadians. Furthermore, whereas, Canadians living on reserves do not pay taxes to pay for social serves, Canadians living off reserves do.

John Prince said...

Rat, if I'm insane, you must be a lunatic. Apartheid is not confined to South Africa. A case can be made that Palestine is an apartheid atate, as is the FN's in this country. I know reality is hard to swallow sometimes but be a brave boy and try.

btw/ Canada has been bought and paid for by 'corporatocracy' by way of traitors in our government, such as the HarperCONS who sell us out each and every day, so making a case that you own it and can call the shots is living in a dream world.

p.s. To the others who have posted lately, good comments and recommendations, that sadly mostly fall on deaf ears here, I'm thinking.

Tess Adam said...

Re: the first comment on here, "they are lazy" -

It's so baffling and discouraging to see such ignorant opinions exist like this. You cannot even reason with such ridiculousness. Hopefully, karma and your own narrow-mindedness will take their tolls. But that doesn't help the people currenty who are suffering. Somewhere in your own gut and conscience I believe you feel embarassed, even a bit, by such hallow thinking.

Troy said...

Breaking down the figures, the Canadian government spends over $20,000 per Canadian citizen: education, healthcare, roads, transit, and communication, and ect. Things like highways don't maintain themselves. A community is not self-fulfilling. It requires a great amount of outside funding from the province and federal governments.
Breaking down the figures, the Canadian government spends $9000 per Attawapiskat resident (if one were to break down the $90 million figure Harper himself said).
$90,000,000/2,000=$45,000
$45,000/5=$9,000
That's 2000 residents.
That's five years.
Sheesh. The provincial government spends up to $20,000 on students, alone! Whereas the federal government spends $7200 on First Nations students, and the schools and province have to subsidize the rest. Unless of course the schools are on reserve, then the students are out of luck.

John Prince said...

The following link offers a statistically backed researched analysis of the true picture of the plight of the FNs people in our land. It is a section out of a book by Mel Hurtig 'The Truth About Canada' that should be required reading by every Canadian. Some of it is truly appalling, like the section on Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.

"The shameful neglect of appalling, disgraceful, grinding poverty."

Like the book says, "Many of us just don't give a damn." Which is pretty shamefully self-evident, reading some of the comments on this post.

Aboriginal Peoples in Canada

Anonymous said...

Brett Hodnett: The real math behind Attawapiskat’s $90 million

Anonymous said...

Anon @1:53

The link you provide to a National Post story on the Attawapiskat situation is a rip off of a metis woman’s blog. This conservative leaning paper stole her writing without adequately crediting her for the story. Over the weekend it went viral.

Instead of linking to NP, go directly to the source, and bookmark it while you’re there. She speaks truth and she translates legalese!

âpihtawikosisân