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Originally Posted by Slava
I totally agree. The issues are separate though and that's part of the problem with the whole reserve/treaty situation as well. We all know that the conditions on many, but not all, of the reserves are deplorable. There seems to be an unwillingness to address this adequately though because there is obviously corruption and conniving taking place.
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I don't know if the issues are seperate at all. The natives want self government where they simply receive money and they'll handle it and they don't want government oversight, therefore that model has failed and the treaty model has failed because of it.
Unfortunatley the whole argument that there are some reservations that are very well run doesn't over run the fact that a lot of them aren't and the natives don't want to seem to want to fix it.
The solution isn't more money or more funding. The government throws $7.9 billion dollars per year at this problem which is $6740.00 per year per person, that doesn't include the tax free status and other things that they get from the general social net.
If the natives want self government then the change has to come from the first nations without additional funding.
[QUOTE=Slava;3995846Idle no more has attempted to distance themselves from Chief Spence, but you still see the two lumped together. I'm not sure what the fix is here either because I know that if I were in a position to re-negotiate treaties or anything like that I would prefer not to have the other side represented by someone who A) doesn't appear to speak for everyone, or at the very least has no authority to do so and (B) appears to be shady in their prior dealings. [/quote]
Where has Idle no more tried to distance themselves from Spence. If they wanted to distance themselves they should be pushing for Spence and other reservation and band leaders to open up their books or resign. Instead she's viewed as a populist hero by idol no more.
At the end of the day the two biggest things that need to change are 1) educational levels and expectations. First Nations really needs to push for this period. Instead of some 18 year old kid getting a check for $25,000 dollars it should be a scholarship that they can only collect on if they graduate from high school. Maybe the funding needs to be broken down from the government. Instead of giving a crook like Spence a check for $90 million dollars it should be x million for education, please prove that you spent it on that before you get next years check, x for housing please prove that you spent this money on housing or you don't get another check.
I still think that the property ownership is huge, that way if someone wants to sell their home take their money and move to an urban setting they have that option.
I firmly believe that some of these failed reservations need to be shut down, a settlement reached on a per person basis and let them go on their way. Some of these reservations fail because of geography and lack of economic winning conditions, and a lot of these natives don't hunt and fish anymore, so give them options to leave.
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Originally Posted by Slava
At the same time though, something has to be done. Maybe that is through the AFN? I don't think that you can go along and throw money at the situation while continuing to let people live in poverty and poor conditions.
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The government is at fault not due to spending levels, but due to generally not controlling the situation properly. The natives are at fault because they're allowing abuses to happen and not demanding better of their leaders.