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Canada and the church has done so much damage to an entire generation of First Nations with miss-managed, miss-guided assimilation programs such as the residential schools. That damage will still likely be felt for generations to come. Our country basically created a large group that is now dependent on government to survive.

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from my understanding its unlawful, an international human rights law, for the Canadian government to infringe on the natural rights of the natives in this land. Like polluting their environment, stealing land that their ancestors have occupied for thousands of years which was a food source for them, and restricting their movement

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The societal problems of natives is well documented and established as stemming in large part from horrific abuse that lasted into the mid 1900s at places like residential schools. There are still people alive today who were ripped from their families and sent to these places where at best they were taught to disregard everything they know about themselves, and at worst were beaten and raped. For fucks sakes, it took till the 60s before natives were allowed to even vote like real people.

Now, when you have generations of people dealing with things like PTSD, and having to self medicate with alcohol and drugs because the official channels can't be trusted to treat them properly, subsequent generations are being fucked up with high rates of abuse and neglect.

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"So what, lots of people come from shitty backgrounds, why are these people special?"

Good question. The answer lies in who caused these shitty conditions. Seeing as how the government was a direct cause for these problems, the onus falls on the government to try to provide a solution.

So far the solution has been to give them money and set up economic/social programs to encourage self reliance (free schooling, job programs, etc). Neither is a magic pill that is imediately fixing the problem, but simply saying "ok guys, sorry we ruined your society and shattered your lives, but fuck you fix yourselves, the rest of Canada is butthurt" just isn't going to cut it.

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You do have a point that providing a meager (lol at "all their needs met", the conditions are often complete and utter shit and you wouldn't want to live on government assistance if given the choice) existence is a crutch that is being used, but there are so many existing problems that no one is really sure what to do. There is way too much history to try to force a solution, simply cutting off support is a final death sentence to many, and the status quo is a long painful process.

Yes, there are many examples of natives leaving the reserve and being productive members of society. I'm not saying it's impossible. I am however pointing out that it's significantly harder for reasons that go far past "they're lazy alcoholics" and have direct ties to the governments recent transgressions. So whenever someone on Beyond (or anywhere really) writes things like "why don't they just get jobs", "why is this my problem" or "why are they bitching about something that happened 300 years ago", I try to point out that they seem to lack a lot of knowledge on the subject.

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You're going to represent the history of natives as a drunken retirement home? Are you playing stupid or are you really this ignorant?

Ok, assuming you are simply ignorant, I'll put this into context for you, and I'll even use your handy dandy analogy so it's easy to follow along:

Say for instance if Red Deer was invaded by Calgarians and some of the locals murdered and the rest were removed from their homes to the outer limits of town, their jobs taken away, and a treaty signed under the threat of extermination. In exchange for not fighting back they are given some money but are also treated like sub-humans

First thing that happens... without jobs to go to (in this case jobs represent the natural resources that natives used that were hunted/used to extinction by settlers) depression sets in. Most interactions with Calgarians are bitter affairs and often end with Red Deerians arrested. Alcoholism begins

The negatives start to come out soon after that. Calgarians are sick of the Red Deerians causing trouble and being drunk. They decide that it is their duty to God to educate the Red Deerians

Luckily, religion to the rescue! Calgarians go into Red Deer homes and take the children under threat of prison time to the parents.... we all know how this ends.

Given enough time, the city would become a crime ridden shit hole... people there would be uneducated, spiritually/mentally/physically broken, addicted from birth to drugs/alcohol, justifiably untrusting of outsiders and unable to give up the free retirement pacakge. How could you ask them to after suffering through so much crap due to something that was so well intentioned. Sound familiar?

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I'm quite certain that robbing the natives of the ability to do things for themselves is what robbed them of their motivation to do things for themselves.

That was the whole point of giving out money in the first place. Before there was an unstoppable social/political/economic system put in place like there is now, natives going out and 'making their own way' meant significant and often violent clashes with settlers. It was not a matter of the natives choosing between an honest days work and welfare, it was choosing between a nightmarish life and a dependent life.

Given the option between going to war with a group of people that have you outgunned and want everything you have, or taking a handout, which do you think you'd go with? And how would you feel about being limited to those two choices? Depressed? Pissed off?

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You have to look at history to understand the full scope of the issue. If the only problem was that they had gotten lazy because of free money, than your ridiculous case study and rhetoric would be valid. However looking at the history (both long ago and recent) reveals a lot of other issues that make integration and stability a significant challenge. That's why my panties are in a knot, you are white washing over every other factor that doesn't justify your desire to cut them off the public dole.

Are they hopeless? No, of course not. But there are factors beyond an unwillingness to work that have to be accounted for

My solution? A long hard slog of mostly voluntary education, opportunities and treatment. This isn't very palatable for most because it represents entire fractions of their tax dollars, but that's what it's going to take. A hardline stance will fail (and has failed miserably before). Complete abandonment will also fail. Obviously incentives would have to be in place to create inertia, but a hard shove isn't going to work.

As for their actual location, it's a catch 22. Where they are is not conducive to stability, but then again neither would be bringing them to a big city. NIMBYism would keep them situated in areas that are as bad or worse than the reserve they are on now

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There's no hope, magic or destiny in any of this other than your idea that they can magically make their problems disappear if they can only find some purpose.

There are a lot of people that are either straight up unemployable or damn near to it. Bottom line. Even with constant counselling and a loooooot of leeway from employers (which they almost never get, I've seen it first hand hundreds of times), people with significant emotional disorders and/or FAS have little to no hope of gaining long term employment. So I'm not "writing these people off", I'm pointing out the reality that a significant effort has to be put in to both accommodate these people as well as find a way to not have these issues spread to future generations. That process happens naturally over time, assuming no one goes in and fucks the whole thing up again like has happened several times

How to do that in a matter of a year or even a decade is beyond my ability to figure out.

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1. Undamaged people who succesfully leave the reserve and integrate into Canadian society. They did not walk off the reserve and then magically decide to change their entire lives. They see an opportunity and take it. The fact that people do leave the reserve shows that it isn't the assistance that is causing the problems. If all their needs were met, why would anyone leave? Do you remember our trip to the reserve? Did it look like a happy time? Would you want to live there if you qualified? Hell no. There's other factors that cause people to stay in reserves, and the people who do succesfully leave are examples of what happens when those factors have been mitigated to some extent.


2. Damaged people who leave the reserve and end up on the streets. This is self explanatory. Take your average teenager who's been living off their parents support, remove them from that support, and they make their way in life (or at least go running back to mommy and daddy). Take someone with crippling issues and remove their support, and they end up sleeping on a street corner, in prison, or buried on a pig farm. That would indicate that socialism is not the root cause of their problems. If it was, they would have simply gotten jobs once they left the reserve.


While we're on the topic, how does one determine the fair value of stolen land, molested children, and genocide?

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Why would there have to be people hundreds of years old for my point to stand? there are still people alive today who got fucked by the government. I mention hundreds of years of shit because it's important to show a consistent pattern. One generation of people being fucked with is far easier to get out of a cycle than people who have been fucked with from generation to generation to generation.

You are correct, their shitty families affect them. That's been my point all along. It's not socialism, it's dysfunction being passed on. What caused that dysfunction? Mostly hundreds of years of being fucked with, which occured up until a generation that has surviving members alive today. If your grandparents were tortured at a residential school, there's a hell of a good chance the cycle of abuse and/or substance abuse stemming from that won't have stopped by the time you came into existence.

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Bingo. I'm not sure why you think this disproves my point. Why would someone who is able to function and make a good living want to live off of barely more than welfare rates in a shitty town? This is why I laugh at people who think that being a native is such a wonderful life. Oh yes, me too please. I want to get entire hundreds of dollars per month and live with alcoholics, prostitutes and drug addicts. It's the Canadian dream!

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treaties...

Well legally it is supposed to go on forever, but when the day comes that say 90% of natives are integrated and can't trace their problems directly to the government, the payments will most likely stop. Every native I know that has a normal life wants nothing to do with government handouts.


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