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Has the time come to explore the dismantling of Canada’s Indian Reserves?

A few arguments in favour:

-Canada’s reserves are home to the highest crime rates per capita in Canada.
-Native self-governance so far has been a failure marked by nepotism and corruption.
-There are more natives with claims against the Residential Schools then actually attended illustrating the culture of perceived persecution.
-Canada’s reserves sit in third-world squalor despite the amazing generosity of the Canadian taxpayer.
-Race based reserves breed more race based laws such as BC’s race based fishery, Alberta’s race based tax laws and race based reserve membership laws and prevent equal participation in society of all Canadians.
-Singling out Indians for preferential status while making new immigrants bore the cost is extremely unfair.
-The argument that agreements can’t be changed is counter to Canada’s culture and history of overturning laws and traditions to appease the social flavour of the moment.
-The welfare mentality on reserves breeds economic apathy and cultures social dependency.
-Life expectancy on reserves is less then for natives on non-reserves.
-Reserves do not allow for property rights preventing multi-generational wealth transfer, equity leveraging and other financial empowerment.
-Residents of reserves experience significantly higher rates of suicide, depression and other sociological disorders

The current generation on the reserve is a write off. Subsequent generations should be fully integrated into Canadian society as full and equal participants.

To those who would suppress meaningful debate on the issue of Apartheid through accusations of racism I ask you this; ta'n(i)te' e'tohte'yan, ke'kwa'n (ka'-)wa'pahtaman, ke'kwa'n ke'-to'taman wa'pahke'!

   

I was under the impression that Natives were not forced to live on reserves, it's there choice. As a matter of fact I know some that don't live on reserve. So what's the problem?

   

Aside from the above list? Remember, many can't escape the Reserve. Imagine having no money, on education or any ambition.

   

We did NOT CREATE THE RESERVES..OK?..PPL havr left on there own.more or less for economic reasons.there has been a big exodus..after all we been here...20,000 YEARS im sure we know the territory,.You PPL been here only 500 years...alraedy the whole known world is in jeopardy.The planet is totally heaving into dieing

   

Settle. Pay them out then shut them down.
All Canadians are equal.

   

- Paternalism, certainly - the mistaken belief that you know best for other human beings.
- That was the idea ... integrate them and destroy their culture ... but many chose differently. It's a free country isn't it?
- They are on the reserves because they are the only bits of land we left them. Some prefer living there. It's a free country isn't it?
- People are allowed to live near others of their ethnic group. It's a free country isn't it?

Property rights: not individual property rights, but communal. They prefer that. It's a free country isn't it?

Yes ... paternalism ... Is it racism?
Well, would you propose the same wholesale interference in Dutch-Canadian farming communities?

An interesting fact: The government of Canada provides only half the funds for Aboriginal communities as Ontario does for its municipalities.

Across negotiating tables, the government faces valid treaties and agreements on land rights and titles, and must go through the process.

To try to disperse and assimilate them as you suggest ... would be going backwards to the 20's and 30's.
Residential Schools

   

We all know about the Indian problem and we also know the solution. Unfortunately change cannot be meted out because any alteration of the status quo results in cries of racism from the bleeding hearts of the nation. Until people pull their collective heads out of their asses, the Indians will continue to abuse and be abused by the system. If you give a people everything, they will want to do nothing. Change results from scarcity. Take away their "special status" as wards of the state (ie. no more money, no Reserves, no autonomous government, no tax exemption) and you will see monumental change for the better of these people. Until then, they will continue to stagnate to the detriment of the rest of the country.

   

The cost of living isn't the same across Canada.




Assimilation is happening all the time.

That's the sad fact that you choose to ignore.

Anybody on the reservations with any initiative, and talent, any drive, goes off to the real world and doesn't come back.

So you're left with a community whose natural selection is for indolence, uncreativity, and lethargy. ---Great.

   

It's the same as welfare reform in the United States in the Clinton administration. They said there'd be starvation in the streets, but the welfare families just went out and got jobs.

   

It's all economics baby.

   

Oh to be blissfully ignorant. Your lack of education on the subject is glaringly obvious.

"We all know about the Indian problem" --Really? Have you taken any post-secondary history courses on it? Do you know the events (each individual event), that has created the Indian "problemS" ? There is no easy solution, unfortunately, for by now there is far more than simply one problem.

I don't argue that some first nations do abuse the system, the unfortunate bit is that the ones who do are generally council members and they are the ones responsible for keeping the rest of the band in a state of virtual poverty. It is said that you can easily pick out the houses of council members on a reserve, they will be the newer houses & they will have nice cars parked in front of them.

There is no way to "take away their special status as wards of the state" unless Canada leaves the Commonwealth of Great Britain, because their "special status" is something that goes back to England, and beyond our own government.

   

The council members, referred to above, are the members of the 'elected' Band Council governments which Canada installed to replace traditional participatory democracy. The councils took over the job of the (white) Indian Agents, and some do emulate their corrupton. Traditional governments are reemerging now. For example, Haudenosaunee of Six Nations Confederacy Council recently resumed leadership, working in cooperation with Band Council administrators.

The only problem that Indigenous people have is that Canada stole their land and tried to exterminate them as a race through forced assimilation. The answer is obvious: Recognize their existing titles and pay compensation. Then they can be economically and politically independent of Canada.

Thise who are likely to become totally asimilated already have. The rest simply are not interested. Some of those who assimilated are now returning to traditional ways too, now that they are no longer illegal.

Suggesting doing away with reserves amounts to stealing their last bit of land. There are many communities in Canada that are not economically self-sufficient. Would you suggest taking their land and moving them too?

   

The idea of keeping the reserves is redundant given that most natives now live off reserve.

   

Not most ... about half and half. Those still living on their land have no interest in assimilating. They are instead reviving traditional ways... preserve the land, be of the good mind, etc. Many of those who live off reserve still maintain their membership and involvement in the affairs of the group, so the active involvement in their traditional culture is a strong majority.
Canada has no legal way of forcing them off their land. That would be an international scandal!

Many people from downeast have migrated to find employment too. Does that mean we should force the rest to leave and steal their land?
Or is it only Indigenous people that are targetted? ... Is it because of race?

   

I think the problem is not with the reserves althought I am not sure about the rules for land ownership. there is the problem of first nations businesses, I think such state owned for profit buisinesses are too much risk and offer to little benifit tot he average citizen, but that is a differnt issue wich is begining to afect other municipalties.

I think the bigger problem are biased tax laws and laws for fur traplines or fisheries which presume all aboigenals have such rural occupations and that makes it difficult for a non aborigenal to live such a lifestyle, it closes off the reserves to mulit-culturalism, why can't a white person or an immagant from Nairobi live on the reserve run a trapline in winter and a fishery in summer, and why shouldn't this person be able to vote, or run for tribal counsil, or cheif?

   

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