[jammies]

There has been a discussion in the past about this very subject, and it provoked some strong reaction against what was seen as the "imposing" of a solution upon the various Native groups. My personal opinion is that, because these groups are represented by people whose direct interests are threatened by ANY change which no longer has room for chiefs and councils, this is unavoidable and the root of the reason why nothing does in fact change.

I think that there is only one long-term way forward: complete abolition of the entire system, conversion of reserves into municipalities, and the ending of any special status for individuals. This will be a huge, painful process, but the thing is that sometimes there is no good solution, only differing bad ones, and this is the only that is likely to be a permanent ending to the problems, though it will doubtless take generations.

The methods involved in doing so are open to debate and refinement, certainly, but there is nothing to suggest that tinkering with the current system can do anything to fix was is and has always been an unworkable set of compromises that strove to protect little isolated cultural islands against the tide of assimilation. The results of this foolishness have been only to institutionalize the prisoners of these reserves so that they are comfortable neither in their cells nor in the alien world outside; the culture of the ghetto replacing or transforming the original cultures intended to be preserved and the inhabitants of that ghetto resentful of their place neither in the world of the past nor the present.