Senator Lynn Beyak says First Nations should give up status cards
 

Regardless of the labels we might place on her, she has sparked the discussion on a long overdue and ignored debate. There is a long history of racism and abuse that seems to make its way into most discussions. That can't be ignored, but it can stall progress - look at the ongoing debacle that is the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, as an example.
Long term, what is the best way to move forward together while keeping a culture from going extinct?

In other news prices of glue set to drop

The only reason a "culture" would go extinct is if they didn't care enough to keep it established. Come up northern BC and go on a Res tour. You'll see exactly why we have stereotypes on Native people.

Berz out.

Hit up a major city in central Canada, Regina, Saskatoon or Winnipeg and you'll also see the same thing.

BC is nothing compared to Northern Sask/MB/ON.

I hate getting into this conversation as I sound like a prick, but go experience it. Live on a reserve in these places for a couple years. What is seen in major cities, or reserves outside of major centres is far from what happens in the rest of the country.

There are serious issues, and support is definitely required. A paycheque and tax relief isn't the way to go about it.

and they have to use out houses to crap in the worst of area's.

then things like this when third world countries at least have clean running water http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-s...eton-1.4286206

Agreed. When I was policing a northern MB community, it was a huge eye opener for me. As well, I found that my friends/family back here could never relate to the issues I encountered.

She's right about one part of this. The reparation payments and funding system for aboriginals is one that has long grown out of control because it's an issue nobody wants to talk about or try and tackle for fear of looking like a racist or an asshole.

But you do have to think at some point "how much is enough", for how many years, and how many dollars are we going to pour into an endless drain to try and make ourselves feel better about what we did 100 years ago.

Over the years of working on remote sites I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of people, and it's people you wouldn't even know reaping the benefits of the funding to aboriginals. People who are like 1/16 or less aboriginal taking advantage of free education, not paying taxes, etc. etc. Many of them coming from well-off families, or relatively middle to upper class households.

The money is not going to those it was intended to go to, because the population we are looking to protect is dwindling, or else just isnt interested, or isn't given the opportunity to access the resources because much smarter people are finding a way to get into it first.

Like I said it's an unpopular opinion, but there does need to be a line somewhere that we say: "hey a tiny minority of the population is receiving an inordinate amount of rebates, incentive and reparations. While a much larger group of our society goes unaided and gets fuck all and is hurting much more"

What you think is the best way to go?

About your out house comment some of the tour attractions in China still use out house. Actually is not even an out house is like just a pipe with shit and pee running around the wall and the stalls are just wooden boards between the person next to you. Anyone walks by can see you shit and poo.... so yea.

thats what happens when you refuse to live anywhere but a community that is a 3 hour plane ride away from the nearest city plumbing/infrastructure.

There is a reason why 95% of the population or whatever live along the Canada/US border, thats where things are..

I dont really have a problem with status cards, whatever, they can have a leg up that way (although the percentage of people who actually use the card to better themselves, whether it be through education, business, etc. is minimal im sure) The reservation system is obviously a broken one that gives it's inhabitants virtually no motivation to do anything with their lives, or even seemingly get a high school education.

At some point you kind of have to get over the past and try to move forward with your lives and make the best of your situations, generations that were not even alive during the residential school programs, "cultural appropriation" etc etc should not have to bear some sort of burden for what governments were doing GENERATIONS ago. People have no connection to that time and those people yet all we hear still is how the current govt and current people dont accept the blame of their forefathers.. enough is enough

I have two good stories as to how our tax dollars are effectively spent on native programs.

The first is a good friend of my families who was a home builder for 30+ years, he eventually landed a fairly lucrative contract to build homes on a few different reservations within BC. Stories that were passed down onto his company through government reps told of previous companies not really giving two shits about the people moving into these houses and having a fairly standoffish approach to their builds on these reservations.

Our family friend told his company and employees that they were going to take pride in these builds (even if they were just vinyl shit boxes) and were going to transition the new owners as they would any other home owner, full orientations, deficiency checks, run throughs of the systems of the home etc. treat the people with respect and dignity the previous builders seemingly hadnt.

He ended up building approx 30 homes and abandoned the contract. He said from the first home he built, not a single resident took an ounce of pride in their brand new FREE home. No one ever called back for deficiencies like doors jamming, drywall cracks etc. They would be called back because the new owner had dragged the drywer across the room, cut a hole in the ceiling, and vented the dryer into the joist space of the living room.

Or drive by 2 months later and the front stairs would be pulled off for fire wood, 20+ holes kicked in walls a month after moving in. etc etc. this was the case with literally EVERY house he said.

Another gooder on how your tax dollars are spent effectively is a guy who used to work at my former company. He grew up with a native girl from the north shore who ended up getting some minor degree in marine studies. She was essentially ushered through a govt. subsidized program to get people into government roles. From the description she was essentially a conservation officer with a bit of background for marine study.

The govt. built her a new dock somewhere along the north shore, bought her a $175,000 zodiac, and funded endless make work projects as a beacon to the people around here to do "good" in their lives.

So many tax dollars are simply flushed down the toilets with these programs because people dont give two shits. Drive through a reservation anywhere in the interior etc. and people have brand new 2017 snowmobiles that got left out over the summer and will rot in that spot until they are burned.

But hey, gotta appease those hurt feelings from hundreds of years ago.

Some good articles on how much, and how money is being flushed down a toilet within the current system:

Federal funding not a problem for First Nations as yearly spending has risen to $9,056 per capita, study finds | National Post

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blog...tantial-growth

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/arti...-first-nations

Those articles establish a few things:

1. We spend much more on aboriginals than we used to.

2. We send much more on aboriginals than other citizens

3. Aboriginals enjoy benefits MUCH greater to that of the average citizen, while maintaining all the same rights and priveledges of other citizens.

4. Despite points 1, 2 and 3, aboriginal communities continue to live in ruins, as money and funding is flushed down the toilet through lack of accountability and the common understanding that if the problem starts to look solved then the money will stop flowing.

Item 4 is the disappointing one. The thought that "if we look like we are suffering, then nobody will take the money away". It's honestly why I believe reservations continue to look the way they do while the remainder of the community around it looks like a regular suburban area.

Can someone offer up a better reason? I mean it's established we spend more on the reservations than other areas, so why is it reservations continue to operate like third world countries, while everything around them looks normal.

:inout:

On the plus side I applaud her actually opening dialog on the subject. Any time you run a risk of offending people en masse, it's a huge risk politically. Unfortunately, You are going to have a huge divide with all the non Indian people saying enough is enough and all the Indian people saying we want more.

Berz out.

not to mention super virtue signaling white knights just waiting to jump on the next lgbt/racist debacle

paging Manic!

:chairdance:

You need a non-white Prime Minister to lead this.

Preferably some immigrant who moved here from a 3rd World Country, experienced living in a 3rd World Country and realize how lucky he/she is to live here, faced racism while growing up in Canada, toughened up, and became successful.

It's a real fucking shame that it's become wrong to have an opinion that goes against the grain. All of a sudden you become a troll or hater.

Berz out.

After watching an episode of History Buffs (one of my favourite YT channels) on the film Dances With Wolves (one of my favourite films), I started to rethink my positions somewhat regarding the Sioux at Standing Rock. This episode ties it all to the film and gives an interesting perspective on that situation which is worth watching. Unfortunately I can't recall the exact timestamp where Standing Rock is discussed at length but it is most of the second half:

I can see how a largely nomadic people who thrived for over 14,000 years in the Americas with little or no contact with outsiders might struggle to adapt. They weren't some comparatively advanced people that were conquered and just needed to learn the language, customs, and power structure of the conquerors like the Norman conquest in England. The conquerors, in this case Canada, hasn't exactly been helpful, to put it mildly, in helping them transition to our way of life.

Residential Schools, which were still a thing within my lifetime, were one of those attempts. One of my classmate's at TRU attended a Residential School and had such poor hearing which he said was from being smacked on the ears. One of the most prominent buildings in north Kamloops is an old Residential School which the Kamloops Indian Band now operates out of. A nice visiual reminder that is hard to avoid and I'm not sure why they didn't just demolish it.

Don't get me wrong, natives are no angels. This Continent is rife with genocide and violence, long before Europeans landed. Recently, I even learned that people like the Cherokee owned black slaves and fought on the side of the Confederates during the Civil War.

My son is 1/4 native. Unfortunately his grandfather is not in our lives to be able to shed some light on the family history. My ancestors were colonists so the meeting of those two backgrounds would make for some interesting dinner conversation. Knowing how fucked up my teeth were and how expensive braces were, it would be nice if he could benefit from having status.

I just don't see how we can continue the way we are going without complete assimilation. Immigrants come to Canada and hold onto their culture and heritage so I don't see why they couldn't.

I don't understand why people get so offended by this. I am mostly Native, with a bit of Scottish, Irish, Chinese, and Hawaiian. My uncle is the Chief of our band, and my father is the hereditary Chief (Just means my grandfather was Chief and my dad is older than my uncle, but didn't want the job).

I think in a lot of cases a buyout could be really good. There are a lot of great Indian bands out there, and a few really shitty ones. This proposed payout would be good for Indians who are members of shitty bands. The types of bands that misuse funding and funnel the money into the people that are in their tribal councils rather than use it to better their communities. It would also be great for taxpayers too, if we could get rid of the crooked bands. If anything, it is good to open the conversation about how and why to spend any money going to anyone receiving tax money, regardless of race.

On a side note. My mother was sent to the Residential school in Kamloops when she was just 5. When she was 13 or 14 she was in the first test group of Native kids that were integrated into a Catholic school.

I find it amusing how you just said you wish he was status to get his teeth fixed. What about everyone else? Just because he's native he deserves free dental? How is that anything to do with Indian history? Trust me I'm not knocking you at all just pointing out the facts.
My wife is status. Her family is from Haida Gwaii and her father is in line for chief but didn't want the job. We use it for is cheap gas on the rez's up here. We also paid no taxes on our vehicles (we shouldn't be paying taxes on used vehicles anyways fuck you ICBC) and all Her medical stuff is covered by status medical. We don't live on a Rez. We don't do ANYTHING Indian related (pow wows and shit)
Do I think it's fair? Not really? Do we use it? Yes why not? Would I care if it was taken away? Nope.

Berz out.

When I worked as a cashier in a store that was built on native land the people I saw status cards from weren't people you'd expect to see a card from. I'm sure if I dug into my history I could find that I'm 1/16 or some shit but I don't bother because I think it's a bullshit system that needs to be changed. Just throwing money at people never has and never will work.

Hell even when I went to school in a town with a large aboriginal population I think I saw maybe 1 native guy going to class there in the year I was there, even though loads of locals could have been getting a free education.

Originally maybe, but Columbus rolled up over 500 years ago. Take most modern people and dump them into a pre-1492 environment and I doubt they'd do very well. A lot of people like to blame the "evil white man" but right now everyone's putting on jeans in their house before they hop in their car to go to the store to get food. Oh and they're living past the age of 45, which is probably pretty nice.

Why would they have to give up their culture? Obviously people need to blend things at some level (everyone should probably be conversational in English or French) but I don't see why they can't maintain it the same way immigrants do. The majority of what people from any background do has nothing to do with their culture or heritage.

Here's the main reason why the Crown (federal and provincial governments) can't get out of the Aboriginal business:

Aboriginal rights are contained in the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 91 of the Constitution specific states that the federal government is responsible for Status Indians. Section 35 of the Charter upholds Aboriginal rights.

Aboriginal status may not be fair to many of you, but it's part of our Constitution. The only ways to get rid of it are to change the Constitution or to make every Status Indian extinguish their rights. The latter is what the Senator is suggesting, but you can't really treat the extinguishment of Aboriginal rights like the settlement of a class action lawsuit. Besides, this would really only impact people who are Aboriginal today - what about those who are born tomorrow? Lawyers would probably argue that Indian status and Aboriginal rights exist outside of statute, which means that you would have to remove Aboriginal rights through a Constitutional amendment. Amending the Constitution is a non-starter in Canada and would open up a Pandora's box of other grievances, such as Quebec's special status in Canada.

Chretien wrote his White Paper when there was no Charter. It's a much different legal context with respect to Aboriginal rights today.

You know whats funny, in an age of transgender, and the government allowing everyone to be whatever they want to be.

What if one day I wake up and decide, fuck I really feel like an aboriginal. I like crossbows, and chasing buffalo's bear foot, and camping every night. Fuck it. I'm going to be a Navajo. Who's going to stop me. Gonna stop paying these bullshit taxes, go to school for free, say fuck you to my dentist and my doctor.

My views are quite simplistic but to start...

A good majority of people in these places have no reason to strive for anything. Before the white man came along, the drive was survival. Food, shelter.

Now they have shelter given to them, and money in their pocket for food. Without any direction, why would they do anything else other then be a stereotypical native. The upbringing of these families is generally very abusive, both physically and with drugs/alcohol.

I honestly compare the upbringing of a Native American on a reserve to the upbringing of some extremely wealthy family friends I have. Brought up in a dysfunctional family, but they had all the money in the world. These kids are now 27, and 30 and can't even pay for their cell phone bill. They never needed to. House built for them, cars purchased. Credit cards in hand. Their dad complains that non of them want to go into business to take over his business so when he dies they won't lose everything.

Guess what, they don't want to. They've never had to lift a finger in life and have had everything given to them. He discourages any effort for going down a different avenue with school, but for fucks sake at least they want to do something. Right now only one of them works. Baby steps in life. Let's first pay a cell phone bill, maybe pay for gas and we can work from there before running a business.

What am I trying to say? Well, a slow assimilation I guess. It will hurt, but to society as a whole it will bring less drain. Their culture can be saved if they want it. Every other culture seems to keep it.

This bring back memories to my times in Pukatawagon Manitoba. I worked for a company which was owned by the reserve. The band had someone who wanted a job. They asked me to put him to work. Marcel was really neat. Probably close to 50 years old, missing half his teeth, had a bunch of kids and just idolized me (I was maybe 21 at the time). He use to tell me all sorts of stories. Like the time he caught a baby goose and brought it home and put in his bath tub so he could show his baby daughter. Marcel couldn't pronounce my name (It's Colten), so he called me Golden. On many occasions Marcel wouldn't show up which was acceptable because the caribou were heading through the region, or the fishing derby was on. But one day another man showed up and introduced himself. "Marcel doesn't want to work anymore, but he said I could take his job."

I thought that was really nice of Marcel. I don't think Wayne lasted the day though.

Lol.

Anyhow, it's a touchy issue, and it needs fixing. Handing rich kids money isn't doing society any better, but at least they can purchase higher quality drugs/alcohol if they want.