Rabblewatch, I never thought I'd say this, but I actually agree with much of you say. Conditions on the reserves are terrible. However, I do disagree with some of your views.<br /> <br /> Firstly, many reservations are run democratically with an elected band council and cheif. Cheifdoms are rarely (if ever) hereditary as far as I know in this day and age. There are some problems with elections as a result of corruption, but that corruption is a result of the poverty there, not the cause of it.<br /> <br /> Secondly, I do not support closing down the reservations. Trudeau tried to do that when he was first elected as Prime Minister, but a resounding majority of natives said "no". Just because there are some problems on reserves does not mean we should shut them down - we should try and address those problems. I'm in a hurry right now, so I can't ellaborate, but there are some basic reforms to the reserve system that would make life a lot easier for the people who live there. I will try to get back to you later on this.

   

The reality is that every reserve is different. If you think they are the same you haven't been to many. Take a drive over the Six Nations and it is far from 'third world' conditions. It is the isolated ones which are in bad shape, and they are in bad shape because access to their land is prohibited. <br /> <br /> That's just plain wrong about band councils, they are as democratic as our elections are. However, natives have always had more of a tradition of democracy. This is why the mohawks had the 'longhouse', because they never believed that one person should have that much power. It is true many don't think their council represent them, for the same reason most canadians think THEIR councils don't represent them-because they don't!<br /> <br /> However the central issue is one of LAND. Simply, most reserves are on native land. This is why the situation is so bad, because the government wants them in the cities like everyone else so the government can have unfettered access to the resources. Quite simply if the government showed up at your house and said "it's too much trouble to keep you here, go move to the city". For most that is a call to war. I wouldn't tolerate it, neither should natives. Of course as courts continue to give more favourable decisions, there is more emphasis on 'getting them out of there'. <br /> <br /> Canada has been listed for human rights abuses in international courts, but this is never even mentioned in Canada. Of course what natives want is to 'share the land', while access to land is simply out of the question for the canadian government. So long as they play by OUR rules and stop asking for THEIR land, we'll get along fine.

   

[QUOTE BY= Marcarc] The reality is that every reserve is different. If you think they are the same you haven't been to many. Take a drive over the Six Nations and it is far from 'third world' conditions. It is the isolated ones which are in bad shape, and they are in bad shape because access to their land is prohibited. <br /> <br /> That's just plain wrong about band councils, they are as democratic as our elections are. However, natives have always had more of a tradition of democracy. This is why the mohawks had the 'longhouse', because they never believed that one person should have that much power. It is true many don't think their council represent them, for the same reason most canadians think THEIR councils don't represent them-because they don't!<br /> <br /> However the central issue is one of LAND. Simply, most reserves are on native land. This is why the situation is so bad, because the government wants them in the cities like everyone else so the government can have unfettered access to the resources. Quite simply if the government showed up at your house and said "it's too much trouble to keep you here, go move to the city". For most that is a call to war. I wouldn't tolerate it, neither should natives. Of course as courts continue to give more favourable decisions, there is more emphasis on 'getting them out of there'. <br /> <br /> Canada has been listed for human rights abuses in international courts, but this is never even mentioned in Canada. Of course what natives want is to 'share the land', while access to land is simply out of the question for the canadian government. So long as they play by OUR rules and stop asking for THEIR land, we'll get along fine.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> <br /> My position is if natives want to be treated equally, they should prove it by taking care of themselves....even John A. MacDonald wrote about native government dependence.

   

I don't really think you or I's opinion matters much to natives. However, that is EXACTLY what native self government IS, which OUR government WON"T ALLOW. Instead, billions are flushed into 'Indian Affairs' (that we have a special department just for them says it all) the vast majority of which is blown by a massive Ottawa bureaucracy, and none of which comes even close to the amount that has been made by use of THEIR land (and I"m not even talking about ancient history or debated treaties, I mean the money that comes from use of land determined in Canadian courts to be theirs. Natives have been saying for decades that they want to 'take care of themselves'. So here we are in agreement-if we could just make our government agree to it. As we have seen in ALberta and the maritimes, we want them to take care of themselves, but in a VERY specific way, meaning they can't even take advantage of supreme court rulings in their favour for logging and fishing. So it comes down to 'we want you to take care of yourself, but you aren't allowed out of your house'.

   

Native communities are third world? Visit <a href="http://www.ouje.ca">Oujé-Bougoumou Québec</a>, a marvel of technology (central community heating and hot water) and an international success story. Point being, their are no more, no less Native 'ghettos' than white man ghettos.

   

That's only half true. Just because SOME reserves are relatively prosperous doesn't mean that all things are equal. International orginizations have said that if only reserves were counted Canada would be a third world country. Most reserves are FAR worse than 'white ghettoes'.

   

The first post in this thread was stereotypical in nature. I was merely pointing out that not all reserves are "Third World Deathcamps". Québec has Aboriginal reserves at both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between. There are 600 established Native communities throughtout Canada, it's foolish to generalise in labeling them all as deathcamps.

   

Several years back I came across a map showing the location of reserves across Canada. The vast majority are northern areas well beyond the pale of any 'economically viable' area in the sense that most of us might discuss.<br /> <br /> There are reserves whose inhabitants do okay, given that they fall within some city boundaries or happen to have oil beneath the ground, and there are more that do not.<br /> <br /> Marcarc is quite correct re: the amounts allocated to Indian and Northern Affairs each year and this is one of the few Federal Departments that doesn't see much in the way of budget cuts.<br /> <br /> Leaving the race issue aside, is it acceptable that any Canadian live in conditions found on some reserves?<br /> <br /> I'd say not.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, policy in this regard has been pretty much the same as one might find with an indigent relative who turns up on your doorstep every once and awhile, in which you give them a few bucks to go away and not worry much after that because your conscience is clear. After all, you gave them a few bucks.<br /> <br /> The difficulty with our present form of government is that it thinks in terms of being elected and/or remaining elected and after that in four year terms. There is no long term thinking because this isn't the way our system works.<br /> <br /> So dealing with problems generally comes down to throwing money at them, rather than looking and working towards any long term solution an d/or thinking in political terms, e.g., if 'Indians' are the hot button issue this year, we'll throw money in that direction and make all sorts of flowery statements to demonstrate our concern. If not, we'll ignore them.<br /> <br /> Perhaps if we sent some white Anglo or Franco kids to live on reserves for a few weeks rather than over to Japan, England, France etc. to 'immerse' themselves in the culture, we might see some change eventually.<br /> <br /> I rather doubt this will happen.<br /> <br /> Anyway, as concerns some of RW's initial comments, if he wants to see white kids sniffing gas, paint solvent, etc. he just needs to visit Northern Ontario, or perhaps any northern Canadian community.

   

I don't really see the causes same as depicted above. I don't think its the electoral process that undermines native progress. In polls the conditions of natives always rank very highly, particularly after a news story breaks. So clearly we'd hear all about it during campaigns, yet in the last one I heard next to nothing.<br /> <br /> Not only that but media, which doesn't have the same "democratic" constraints operates in a similar way, do a token story and blow it up without the causes if people die, then forget about it. Then fill up the letters to the editor with borderline racists who feel natives get too much, or that it's 'their own fault' such as the message poster claims. The solution then is to 'move to the cities' because otherwise they are just 'bringing it on themselves'. <br /> <br /> Investment close to reserves is given to corporations who then hire a couple of token natives, usually the worst applicants so that other employees can gripe to their friends about how unfair 'equal opportunity' employment is. There is absolutely NO reason that natives can't run their own fisheries, harvest their own lumber, mine their own minerals, etc. When these things are even feasible the government goes out of its way to use its arbitrary powers to 'take over the finances' and 'get them in order', which means stop investing in economically viable business plans. This is done at virtually every 'third party financing' reserve, where all the band council's powers are revoked to accountants in big cities. <br /> <br /> This is FAR more than an election issue, this is rampant colonialism.If canadians had their way they'd be listening to native concerns and trying to rectify them, not going out of their way to ignore supreme court rulings, postpone treaty discussions, and generally make life difficult.