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It's too bad reserves can't collect taxes and encorage the development of private buisnesses rather then first nations businesses, still it does seem to me that chiefs are running businesses professionally based on good business practise rather then tradition.

   

The problem is that to some extent it is impossible for us to work as White men and still be Aboriginals. How can we enjoy the freedoms we had? we have already lost most of our sovereignity, most of our culture, a good deal of our language, most of our lifestyle, many of our traditions and teachings, a great part of our religious teachings. We have a hard enough trouble finding our identities as is without being told that we ought to go to work like White men.

However, my original post was much shorter than many have commented on it to be. I never said that getting jobs were bad, I said that giving up our culture to work is bad. I would also like to add that abandonning our hundred year old disputes is bad, since they still largely affect us, once we are repaired, we can abandon it. The Indian tradition is that when a son is killed by an enemy, we steal an enemy to keep as a son. It is the same situation in modern day, we have lost a great deal from the White men, once we have taken it back, we will stop complaining.

O, and don't worry about the word Indian, it's good. I saw a bilboard on a reserve in Ontario that had these words in graffiti on it: "This is INDIAN land", there was more pride in the word Indian in that sentence than there ever will be in the words "First Nations".


-tatooed girl

I must support us moving forward, but part of moving forward is not abandonning our traditions. We must persist in re-discovering our cultures and identities as peoples. Hopefully economic self-sufficiency can help that.


J-girl

I don't have anything against blaming others for what they've caused, but I do agree that independence and self-sufficiency need to be re-attained. However, Aboriginals in Aboriginal communities cannot simply get up and get jobs. A friend of mine was talking about how much she hates living in the city, and when she asked the question "ahh, what shoul I do?", a friend joked the suggestion "go back to the rez and live off the welfare checks". Jobs are rare in Aboriginal communities, business investments are needed, but rarely succeed because nobody has jobs and there's no market.


-PJB
First of all, that twenty percent has never heard me speak to the issue. Second, if the twenty percent includes the poor and futureless who are enroute to losing their culture, I do not apply. I will begin attending my first year of university next year. I am fortunate enough to have an interest in a traditional field of work, politics. I am not losing my culture, but re-finding it. I learn new words in Cree, Dene, and Ojibwe everyday. I speak French. I am learning dancing. I pray four times a day. I am never on time (I am usually early, I run on Indian time, but I save myself a lot of time to get places). I dress culturally whenever possible (sash, buckskin, buffalo robe). It has been suggested to me once by an elder and twice by sixteen year olds that I actually am an elder, despite my age of seventeen and my word is respected by all who have met me in person.


-Persiana

To the White men it is a bloodright, but who are they to decide who is Aboriginal and who is not? Have you ever heard of Mascotopah? the red haired man. Jean Baptiste Wilkie was an English halfbreed, yet he led the Metis buffalo hunt for a generation. Several Whites have been adopted in the past, and have grown up to live as Aboriginals, and even have given birth to Aboriginal sons. Consider Quanah Parker.


-Donny Brasco

And that is how the remains of the rights and obligations should be used, but they should not be forgotten as a "100 year old fight" as the article suggests.

   

Some of this was due to forced assimulation however some of it is due to assimilation dating back to first contact. The horse for instance changed the lifestyle of the plains Cree and Assiniaboine. These peoples were impacted by the industrial revolution when they went from subsistence hunters to commercail hunters of beaver, wolf and buffalo the last of which being an essental resorce due to it's use in making belts. There was further change in lifestyle asoverhunting of bufflo made the hunt unsutainable and vulcanized rubber was used in place of hides.

The point is that prior to residential schools aborigenal people allowed their culture to evolve and modernize and as that as culture is revived it must not become stagment.

But do we need to have conflict based on race or acceptance amounst those who live in this nationa and perticularly amoung those who live off the land together.

   

Virgil...You should do a google search for Chief Clarence Louie...You might learn something about your so called 100 year battle.

You are stuck on wants rather than needs.

You still believe that you are entitled to everything for nothing. You did not surrender your lands. Your forefathers did. I did not take your lands. Representatives from Great Britain negotiated some of those treaties.

You are quick to blame and slow to forgive.

We should all be so perfect and pious to see the errors of everyone else and our own personal perfection.

   

Food for thought.

The Senate commmittee on Aboriginal Peoples thinks it's regrettable that the bulk of the $9 billion earmarked for natives annually goes to social spending, with economic development lagging behind.

"The promotion of economic development, both on and off reserve, should be the government's top priority," the committee declared in a report released yesterday.

In this case, the crucial first step is education. Until you have a critical mass of skilled aboriginals, Canada's native communities simply won't have the tools to advance their broader goals of economic achievement.

I suppose you could argue that I'm just a pampered white columnist pronouncing from on high. But plenty of natives agree with me that education is the key to self-suffciency.

The president of the Cree Regional Economic Enterprises Company testified at the Senate committee hearings that he had about 1,500 jobs to offer Quebec natives in the previous year.

More than half of them couldn't be filled by natives because they didn't have the skills to do the jobs, he said.

Chief Clarence Louie, of the Osoyoos band was blunt in his remarks to the committee. "I do not care if (natives) like it or not. I always tell them, once you get into business, it is not based on race," he said. "You do not put natives in charge of million-dollar ships when they do not have the qualifications or the skills."

Half of the band's businesses are run by aboriginals, and two of those top managers are Osoyoos band members, he added. But those two had to leave the community, get degrees in the U.S. and then work under non-natives for years before they were promoted, Louie said.

The president of Donna Cona Inc., an aboriginal-owned information technology company, said the biggest challenge is recruiting and retaining qualified natives. And no wonder. About half of natives drop out of high school and almost 60% of on-reserve aboriginals aged 20 to 24 haven't completed high school.

The Senate committee has recommended, among other things, that Ottawa make a substantial investment in aboriginal economic development. "Continued dependency on government transfers and economic marginalization is unacceptable to aboriginal people," the report says. "They want a hand up, we were told, not a handout."

That's quite true. But the committee has it backwards. Social spending - on education and health, specifically - must come first. Then you've got the human capital to drive economic development.

So I share the frustration of native leaders that there were only crumbs for aboriginals in this week's federal budget. Still, even if there was gobs more money for teachers, nurses, social workers and housing on reserves, I maintain that the reserve system is, on the whole, bad for natives.

As the committee's report notes, two-thirds of Canada's reserves have fewer than 500 people and many reserves are in remote areas. Some First Nations may never reach the standard of living of mainstream Canadians because they're so small and isolated, the report observes.

To illustrate, the committee points to the Tlowitsis band in B.C. which has only 350 members but no central community.

Instead, they live on 11 far-flung reserves. "Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that (the band) has been unable to enjoy the level of economic success to which it aspires," says the report.

Sadly, the committee believes that abolishing the communal reserve system would "invite tragedy."

On the contrary, by keeping all those isolated reserves, we're perpetuating it.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail Mindy Jacobs at [email protected].
Letters to the editor should be sent to [email protected].

   

this didn't happen to be on a bridge not too far from sault saint marie by any chance? every time I've driven by there I notice it, must of been there for at least a decade. you can't miss it too, it's written in huge white letter. they definitely let you know where you are

   

Chmushum nahasta, uhtiskaanesuu Canadian anichiish!

   

Chmushum nahasta, uhtiskaanesuu Canadian anichiish!

   

You've said a number of things that make sense. But this comment is the most lucid, intelligent and accurate one I've heard with regard to native issues in a long time. Hard to top it.

   

Inspirational speech ? maybe a little . Regardless , the 100 year old fight got the Osoyoss Band where they are . It was all a freebee no matter how you look at it .He is literally standing where he is because of the People who fought for and died for native rights . It doesn't matter what color your skin is or native/aboriginal culture , people are where they are because of "rights" and "who they know and blow " not because of what they do or know , regardless of how willing and capable they are .

   

Is that right? So is Donald Trump more successful than the average NY City bus driver because of "Who he knows?" or is there something else at work? Are the Irvings successful because they "Knew people", or did they just take some risk, invest some capital, and enjoy some luck?

If it's all based on race, then why am I having trouble paying down my mortgage? After all, I'm a white guy. Yet my banker didn't offer me any extra points when I walked into my bank asking them to front the money for my house.

   

You're having trouble paying down your mortgage because your band of people are not fighting and dieing for your rights ...teachers unions are a band of people , RCMP union are a band ,etc etc etc . Regarding Irvings and Trump well , I suppose if everyone were allowed to be rich like them then they would be average (not rich ) and don't forget that it wasn't a very large group of people who made the mineral and realestate rights to bring them their riches . The common person likes to spend money and for no real apparent reason money can be funneled to people like Irvings and Trump through our large and available financing, investors , and economic strategies .

Your Bank treats most white guys like you and me the same ... you're problem lies in the fact that you and most white Canadians refuse to lie pissed drunk and faced down in trumps commercial building Lobbys , so that the UN , Olympic Counsel , and international human rights commission will refuse Canadas bid for the Olympics until Gov. deals with the poverty stricken by mortgages , teachers , RCMP , and you are left with .

...I'm trying real hard to keep a straight face

   

I'm sorry but I've got to disagree. I'm aboriginal, and that's my perspective that you're labelling as a "White man's" perspective.

NO matter the nationality, the individuals may choose to mimic the lifestyle of the native americans, and kudos to them for it is a great lifestyle, but it doesn't make them any more indian, it doesn't make them any less british or french or danish or swedish or whatever nationality they were before. It just makes them ...quite frankly a little lost. A little lost as to their own ethnicity and pride of history, a little lost as to the good qualities of others around them, and a little lost as to who they really are.

I could be wrong I suppose, but Stephen Harper is not a halfbreed (at least not to my knowledge) and so there again, your comparison to him against other halfbreeds is again irrelevant for at least the halfbreeds have SOME native blood in them... that was rather my point. In my first nations studies that I took at University, the elders that participate in those courses rather take offense to the "Wannabes" and rightly so. Merely mimicing the lifestyle of elders, without understanding the history behind everything & without acknowledging the room for progression & adaptability in a changing world, is quite frankly disrespectful.

   

Indeed.

   

What I find really interesting about that is the acknowledgement that the Tlowitsis Band "lives on 11 far-flung reserves" --Reserves I might add, that were quite literally mapped out by the Government agents of several decades ago. Interesting that they'll acknowledge that the band itself has been "split" but yes, definitely sad that the committee believes that abolishing the communal reserves THEY CREATED would "invite tragedy" -- I don't think it would invite tragedy at all, I think it would help bridge some gaps that they created way back in the day.

Unfortunately if the government keeps spending its time focusing on the "wrongdoings" of our forefathers and former governments, it's going to ignore "present day" issues and just keep on perpetuating the wrongs... Most of the fuss I see being kicked up by Natives all across Canada lately has little to do with "history" and more to do with "present day" mistakes being made which only are adding to the insult.

   

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