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Because they would not be exempt from paying the HST. The Ontario government has stepped over a big line.

   

Whether we want them or not, there are no laws stopping them from living in cities. Actually I've worked with a good number of natives over the years, who lived just the way I do - work, pay taxes, etc. I'm sure the native victims industry would call them apples, since they are not about the land claims and special rights,

So even tho South Africa saw the light and abolished segregation, you have such a low opinion of Canadians that you think we would instigate it? Wow.

Natives live in squalid conditions because they sit on their reserves and don't go to school, but expect the white man to bring jobs to them instead of them going to where the jobs are. They say they want to return to the traditional ways, but that seems to include centrally heated houses, pickup trucks and snowmobiles, and freezers for their meat. And health care, TV, video games, drugs and alcohol, etc etc.

Except, as I said, many natives don't live that way. They have assimilated to the dominant culture's way of life and do very well (Not just Canadian culture, this is world wide). So there's no reason the rest can't do the same, except they'd rather live on welfare and complain about it.

   

A line that should have been stomped on and erased decades ago.

   

Quite the opposite I think Canadians are some of the best people Europe (and now Asia, Africa and Latin America) could put together in 1 piece of land.

I also have an opinion, and its only an opinion, that most people are inherently at best, racist, at worst, violently obedient to racial ideology. When I say all people I'm not tossing the sink at European Imperialism. I literally mean, all people, everywhere.

Brazilian whites oppress mulattoes, 2nd class citizens in their own country. Dominican Mulattoes oppress blacks, the blacks are 2nd class citizens in their own country. Brahmins oppress Vaishyas and Shudras in India...again...2nd class citizens in their own country. In Egypt, Nubians are second class citizens in their own country. In Israel Ethiopian Jews are second class citizens in their own country. See, there's a trend here.

So naturally, someone will be oppressed. I assume, unless proven wrong, someone will be oppressed, or is oppressed, or about to be oppressed. Perhaps that is my own fallacy.



Now, discussing natives and taking money off the white man...this is a touchy issue. For one Canada isn't all white anymore and many of Canada's immigrants have zero patience with native Canadians. But for the sake of this argument we'll forget about that for now.





People are naturally a product of their environment. If you grow up in a middle class suburb you have all the trappings of middle class life. You have a support group: they are your middle class friends, your middle class parents, your middle class teachers, and so on. You have expectations of a middle class, to own a home, marry, raise kids, do something productive for the society that you are a part of.

Now, if you grew up in an inner city neighborhood where education was not championed, instead thuggery, the biggest chain, the biggest dick or how much drugs you sold are, and that is all you knew, nothing else, how would life turn out? Your teachers were deadbeats who barely showed up to class or who didn't give a shit, your mom was stoned all day collecting welfare cheques, your best friends drugdealing and carrying weapons, most people, not all, but most will simply fall in line with the culture.
This is a classic example of Favela Brazil or inner city ghetto America. You read statements, or watch news stories of young teens or even adults speaking of how they see their own lives are worthless, how they expect to be shot in a deal or by police, how they won't hesitate to kill if needed...these people...they are simply a product of their natural habitat. A representation of where they grew.

Some will rise above the fray? But how many? As a percentage?

In a class of 30 in my middle class school, 3 would get 90s all the time, 3 would fail all the time, and the rest are in the middle, in other words, simply conforming. The average kids. I'm was an average kid too.


Now, think of the native situation for a moment. Think of kid, 5 years old, with siblings, say 5. Single mother,she goes clubbing every friday and saturday and leaves you with your uncle.
He gets high in front of you, and drunk also, sometimes brings home hookers or simply easy pick up girls. Your uncle treats you well. You look up to him. Your uncle makes a living by collecting his cheque from Canada's welfare system.
Your mother fucks random guys, gets stoned and drunk in front of you also. She dropped out of school at 16 or even passed, even she doesn't know, or care to. She makes her money by collecting cheques from the government.
Your mother blames whites for native's problems and says how she dreams they weren't around. But she doesn't care, the money keeps rolling in.
Your moms friends are just like her, deadbeats. This, is your community, your reserve, your home. THis is where your perceptions of life will be formed. This is where you will attain your values for the rest of your life. This is where you will make your lifelong friendships.

Now, lets take a step back and ask ourselves, do we expect a child to come out of this squalid environment and simply become a productive tax paying middle income middle class Canadian? I'm sure some will, but the 20/80 rule, the majority will simply fall into line and become a part of their societies.

The next generations of drunken uncles and negligent mothers.

This is a serious issue, it needs to be addressed and its not an overnight solution. But if we don't deal with this. We will have serious problems in the future.

Especially with the current population explosion of natives, who are growing at a rate only seen in sub-saharan Africa.

   

Most Canadians don't like Natives because of the various special conditions they receive, as well as their ability to seemingly be able to defy laws for their own goals, like Oka, Caledonia, and other cases. Canadians don't have any real issue about their culture, religion, or other traditions, but being given special considerations as well as their actions against the average citizen and the government is frustrating and anger inducing.

   

It's the Indians who use the term white man, not white men themselves, nor white women. Imaging if a person of authority started referring to the "red man."

Yep, there's a history of exploitation, degradation and opression. But by now the government is bending over backwards to help natives. I don't think they can really be helped until they are ready to help themselves. (This is true in therapy as well, where someone who grew up in a dysfunctional environment still needs to learn to get on with their life, that just complaining and hoping for a better past won't do it) But their leaders enrich themselves at their expense, meanwhile feeding a "cargo cult" mentality that the white man owes them everything, they have to expend no effort.

I agree that all people all over the world have inherent racist qualities. The worst are those who always accuse others of it. But people all over the world can also be well meaning - and as you say, Canada is probably about as good as it gets. The natives just need to take advantage of that instead of just sitting on their asses and complaining.

I totally disagree that natives are oppressed. Can you point to one govt policy or law that does that? Heck, they get spatial status in the constitution (now that's racism). Sure there are lots of non-natives who hold racist ideas about natives. I do myself, until I meet an individual and am proven wrong. But, as we saw with the Akenahew case, possibly the racism flows the other way as well. Don't know what the Jews could possibly have ever done to him?

I think the inanity of the native stance is well illustrated by comments of Bill Wilson, a BC native leader. "The white man has enslaved the natives....In my grandfather's day, we wouldn't let the slaves (other Indians) do certain tasks because they were too delicate." You want to read about a people who oppress others, read about the history of the Haida. Is it OK if one red man does it to another, but not if a white man does it to a red man?

   

I don't think our government is bending over backwards to help natives, and I don't think they are outright oppressing them either. However, the government of Canada may represent its people, but it is NOT the people (every individual has his own feelings). Most Canadians here have real prejudices, I know, because I've heard them plenty when I was in northern Ontario. Summer BBQs at my girlfriends was an eyeopener of human bigotry I didn't know existed since I've spent all my Canadian life in the cushy liberalism of Toronto. These people live next to natives, and they have strong opinions of them.

In Toronto, or in other Southern Ontario regions we don't care because there's hardly any natives or they are such a low population that we simply mistake them in our day to day lives as Asians.

However from historical perspectives, prejudices carry over. Defeated and conquered peoples carry a burden. Just because the civil rights bill was passed in the 68, it didn't automatically make African Americans equal with whites. It took unpopular heavy government intervention to try and bridge the gap in almost every category; employment, health-care, education and so on. Historical baggage is always carried over. And there is always resistance.

Just because the government of Canada doesn't have any explicitly oppressive laws against natives today, doesn't necessarily mean all immigrant Canadians see them equals, or even as Canadians at all. I'm not even sure they see themselves as Canadians, I guess its all down to which community they grew up in.

The native reserves I've seen were straddling a heavily Italian dominated northern Ontario town. The amount of racism the Italian Canadians hold against natives is almost unreal. It's akin to stepping into a time machine back into 1920. Some natives try and fail to succeed in their society. I can't blame many of them for trying. I'm sure many didn't.

Nevertheless, these sorts of 1920s attitudes won't simply go away, even in a generation. Like I said, its a sticky issue and if it was easy to deal with I'd write a 10 point plan solution, but I can't. Because I don't know all the numbers, data, and I don't have the expertise to deal with it. Perhaps if I did, I would be on Harper's economic team. In fact, most Canadians have no idea about the treaties, history, the oppression of past and present, and a slew of other historical baggage, and are quick to jump and say "ha get with the program already damnit". It's not so easy, because if it was, there would be no wars in the world and we would all be singing kumbayah and waving ribbons while making babies.

It's like pointing a finger at a naked African kid playing in the puddle of mud and toxic waste and saying "You should do something. You live a shit life and your leaders are screwing you over, get with the program already".

In reality that kid by the age of 20 will either be on a raggedy boat heading to Europe, or will be robbing people in the slums. Because he's simply a product of what he knows.

Just like the average native kid now.

   

well clearly throwing more money at the problem isn't going to help. We as a nation have put 10's of billions into the 'native' issues with little or no success. Money is NOT the solution.

   

Actually, money IS the solution. The solution is to shut off the money. Just like when a court issues spousal support. The judge tells the ex-wife (sorry, not meant to be sexist, but spousal support is usually paid to the woman) "your spousal support will end in 3 years". Why? Because if there's no end to the support, there's no incentive to stand one's own feet. The solution to the Native issue is to tell natives that, in 10 years time, there will be no distinction between natives and non-natives in this country. We tell the natives they'd better get their shit together over the next decade. We probably even need to greatly increase their funding over that 10-year period (to develop business, build infrastructure, move, whatever), but there needs to be an end-date.

   

While some of this may be true, I think that part of the issue had to do wiht taking the kids of the natives away adn sending them to residential schools where many were sexually and physically abused.
Most Canadians like to gloss over how badly we screwed the natives, and how that treatement is reflected in our relationship today.

I, too, support a fundamental shift in our relationship with the natives, that would include getting rid of the execrable Indian Act. However, some things will not change, like the rights and titles of aboriginal Canadians that have been repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court.

   

There's no question that history of our handling of natives is abysmal. That's the strongest evidence that there's fundamental structural problems.



The Supreme Court can only work with the laws we give them. Maybe if the Constitution were corrected, the Supreme Court would have the tools to make better decisions.

   

Yep, just keep stomping on the people we treat a second-class citizens. That'll make them respect us and want to co-operate.

   

Even that would be limited, since much of the issue doesn't concern current laws, but laws that were in place at the time we colonized Canada. The Proclamation of 1763, for example.

What I would do is simply remove the racial chacrteristics of teh relationships. Inidans are currently "defined" in legislation. If you have a sufficient amount of Indian blood in you, you are a bebeficiary of Act.

However, no other nation on Earth acts like the First Nations. Canada is a nation, but we don't define our citizens by how much Candian blood they have; we don't ask to see thier heritage. To be a member of a First Nation however, is to be racially pure. That cannot stand. First Nations should have control over their "immigration" and "emigration" policies (within the context of Canada).

   

How would you define First Nations then?

   

Agreed. In 1763, there was no electricity, or airplanes or computers. There were no democracies. Less than 1% of all humans were literate. It was a different world. To seek precendent in anything authored in 1763 is a colossal mistake.

Fundamentally, I don't believe that living people ought to play by rules made by dead people. We ought to make the rules for our world, just as our grandchildren ought to for their world.

   

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