I know of at least three VERY expensive water plants in BC on reserves that lie derelict. Cost to taxpayers in the tens of millions, including operator training that seemingly went in one ear and out the other.
What's not to understand about the causes of reserve pathology ? It's as plain as the nose on Justin Trudeau's face. Isolation, despair, hopelessness and alcohol and drug dependency are the consequences of delusional thinking about cultural independence and solidarity. Living in an intellectual vacuum of self importance is an action that has consequences that scape goating the federal government will never remedy. Pierre Trudeau and John Chretien had the correct and practical approach in 1969 which has been ignored ever since by glad hand politicians anxious to appear progressive by sacrificing reason and common sense on the altar of political correctness. Only in Canada you say ? Pity.
"We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment." ~ C. S. Lewis
May l ask, what did the Shamattawa people in northern Manitoba do to sustain themselves before colonization?
Was it the white colonizers (perhaps miners) that poisoned their lands and fresh water supplies? If so, it is surely the federal government that should clean the mess up.
And again, please forgive my ignorance but, aren't the FNs already receiving money from the Federal Tax Fund? I communicate via FB with an indigenous lady on a reserve whose only job seems to be writing cheques and telling her people what time they can collect from the band office. (I like to keep track in my diary so l know when NOT to go into town myself).
Ocassionally she posts about an injured Rez dog that need to be brought into the town vet, a black bear that's making a mess of thir local garbage dump, ATV or Snow Mobile drivers messing with their trap lines, RV owners camping on a nearby lake, and the list goes on and on.
I wonder if there will ever be an end to this insanity. The treaties are, according to the FNs "living/breathing" documents that can never be renegotiated.
Prior to colonization, Shamattawa would have drawn water from the rivers and lakes. I am not aware of any claims of poisoned land or water in the Shamattawa area and I don't think there is much if any mineral exploration in the area. Shamattawa is very remote.
The spiel that treaties are living documents is actually a cue that the treaties can be tinkered with on an ongoing basis. As living documents, they can be adjusted to meet contemporary circumstances.
Not in the legal sense, as far as I know. There is no law, treaty etc stipulating that treaties are "living documents." Tracing the history of 'living documents' would be interesting but anecdotally it seems to have come up relatively recently with expansive interpretations of the treaties from treaty commissioners, jurists and human rights commissions. On the face of it, it defies most standards of contract law to have contracts (which is what treaties are, more or less) that can be revised over time to greater benefit one of the parties. For ordinary citizens it means a terrifying limitlessness to how much we/Canada can be indemnified with no mechanism of rolling back the new amendments.
The point seems to be the sentiment behind the Practice Directive: do the most possible for status Indians whenever possible or permissible. The Crown is the only party bound to the letter of the treaties even if the Indians keep re-writing them. As Canadians, we've been ill-served by an Opposition that is afraid to criticize anything to do with the aboriginal file. You might know better than I but did you hear of any Opposition criticism to the Practice Directive at any time?
I haven't specifically watched for references to the directive in any opposition criticism. I should have been. It's a terrible poison pill Jody left for Canadian taxpayers.
Not in our lifetime, Shelley. Conditioned dependency has become endemic throughout the FNs and we are paying the cost. Really liked that story about the bear in the dump, though !!!!
For sure treaties can be renegotiated. It happens all the time in court. And the plaintiff is always the band. One example is the Williams treaties of 1921. Essentially the band changed its mind and was successful to the tune of 1.89 BILLION. It was the judge's last case and he was Anishnaabe.
A colleague has suggested there is a fundamental conflict of interest in a ward of the Crown also acting as the Crown (being both the ward and the guardian).
The Feds should have appealed the settlement in this case as the judge was also the plaintiff.
Say a Reservation is the same as a Corporation and the Band Members are it's employees. The government of Canada is the Rez/Corps only customer and the Treaties are contracts.
Within the Treaty/Contract the Government/Customer agrees to pay the Rez/Corp for Services/Products rendered.
Bear with me.
The Rez/Corps expenses increase (i.e. staff salaries go up, raw materials are more expensive, the band office needs extensive renovations, etc.) and the Rez/Corp profit margin is reduced.
Next, the Rez/Corps legal department notifies the Gov/Cust that they need to renegotiate the Treaty/Contract in order to stay in business The Gov/Cust counters that they are prepared to increase their payments but, they need assurances that the Rez/Corp "products" will be substantially better.
Is there a proviso in the re-negotiated Treaty/Contract that the Gov/Cust will provide water treatment plants, new office buildings or provide staff/employee training and free education instead of cash/money?
So, yes l am probably comparing apples to oranges with too much emphasis on good business practices but, what l fail to understand is what "product" the Gov/Cust is receiving.
Furthermore if l, and other tax-paying Canadians could be considered Shareholders in the Government, l'd seriously question the CEO (PM) and the CFO (DPM) for paying billions upon billions for a non-existant product.
It’s not a good analogy because the reserve/Indian model is built on wardship. It’s a Crown fiduciary responsibility to take care of its wards. Contemporary funding largesse is predominantly discretionary, that is, the Crown goes way beyond what is stipulated in the treaties.
So, as wards, the FNs are being treated like little children with no right to self-determination, no equality, no sovereignty and if they want a raise in their allowance, they get it?
pretty much. If they stay on the reserve. Every Canadian has the right to self-determination and equality. Let's leave the "sovereignty" nonsense out of the equation.
Extremely well argued. Congratulations. I’m sure I’m not alone in regularly thinking: “why isn’t the water problem solved” after decades of complaints and promises. It couldn’t be that effort wasn’t applied by the Feds. Too bad the Trudeau Sr./Chrétien white paper of 1969 was rejected. Maybe it will be revived when genuinely progressive Indigenous leaders step up. But first we need to talk about it more.
PET got his revenge when he said he would keep Indians in their ghettos for as long as they wished. Were it only a burden for the native activists who rejected the White Paper in its day but for the generations after, it's been a human disaster. I wonder what everyone would have been saying in 1969 if a reserve declared a state of emergency over suicides?
I know of at least three VERY expensive water plants in BC on reserves that lie derelict. Cost to taxpayers in the tens of millions, including operator training that seemingly went in one ear and out the other.
It's not just the water plants, its everything.
Sounds like Canada's miltary equipment. Derelict and beyond repair.
What's not to understand about the causes of reserve pathology ? It's as plain as the nose on Justin Trudeau's face. Isolation, despair, hopelessness and alcohol and drug dependency are the consequences of delusional thinking about cultural independence and solidarity. Living in an intellectual vacuum of self importance is an action that has consequences that scape goating the federal government will never remedy. Pierre Trudeau and John Chretien had the correct and practical approach in 1969 which has been ignored ever since by glad hand politicians anxious to appear progressive by sacrificing reason and common sense on the altar of political correctness. Only in Canada you say ? Pity.
"We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment." ~ C. S. Lewis
Great comment.
what an incredibly appropriate C.S. Lewis quote.
May l ask, what did the Shamattawa people in northern Manitoba do to sustain themselves before colonization?
Was it the white colonizers (perhaps miners) that poisoned their lands and fresh water supplies? If so, it is surely the federal government that should clean the mess up.
And again, please forgive my ignorance but, aren't the FNs already receiving money from the Federal Tax Fund? I communicate via FB with an indigenous lady on a reserve whose only job seems to be writing cheques and telling her people what time they can collect from the band office. (I like to keep track in my diary so l know when NOT to go into town myself).
Ocassionally she posts about an injured Rez dog that need to be brought into the town vet, a black bear that's making a mess of thir local garbage dump, ATV or Snow Mobile drivers messing with their trap lines, RV owners camping on a nearby lake, and the list goes on and on.
I wonder if there will ever be an end to this insanity. The treaties are, according to the FNs "living/breathing" documents that can never be renegotiated.
Prior to colonization, Shamattawa would have drawn water from the rivers and lakes. I am not aware of any claims of poisoned land or water in the Shamattawa area and I don't think there is much if any mineral exploration in the area. Shamattawa is very remote.
The spiel that treaties are living documents is actually a cue that the treaties can be tinkered with on an ongoing basis. As living documents, they can be adjusted to meet contemporary circumstances.
Is there actually written somewhere authoritatively that treaties are living documents, just out of curiosity?
Not in the legal sense, as far as I know. There is no law, treaty etc stipulating that treaties are "living documents." Tracing the history of 'living documents' would be interesting but anecdotally it seems to have come up relatively recently with expansive interpretations of the treaties from treaty commissioners, jurists and human rights commissions. On the face of it, it defies most standards of contract law to have contracts (which is what treaties are, more or less) that can be revised over time to greater benefit one of the parties. For ordinary citizens it means a terrifying limitlessness to how much we/Canada can be indemnified with no mechanism of rolling back the new amendments.
well, that was why I was asking, yes. If the treaties cannot hold and can be subject to the whims of either party then what's the point.
The point seems to be the sentiment behind the Practice Directive: do the most possible for status Indians whenever possible or permissible. The Crown is the only party bound to the letter of the treaties even if the Indians keep re-writing them. As Canadians, we've been ill-served by an Opposition that is afraid to criticize anything to do with the aboriginal file. You might know better than I but did you hear of any Opposition criticism to the Practice Directive at any time?
I haven't specifically watched for references to the directive in any opposition criticism. I should have been. It's a terrible poison pill Jody left for Canadian taxpayers.
Not in our lifetime, Shelley. Conditioned dependency has become endemic throughout the FNs and we are paying the cost. Really liked that story about the bear in the dump, though !!!!
Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.
William Shakespeare
For sure treaties can be renegotiated. It happens all the time in court. And the plaintiff is always the band. One example is the Williams treaties of 1921. Essentially the band changed its mind and was successful to the tune of 1.89 BILLION. It was the judge's last case and he was Anishnaabe.
A colleague has suggested there is a fundamental conflict of interest in a ward of the Crown also acting as the Crown (being both the ward and the guardian).
The Feds should have appealed the settlement in this case as the judge was also the plaintiff.
So help me understand.
Say a Reservation is the same as a Corporation and the Band Members are it's employees. The government of Canada is the Rez/Corps only customer and the Treaties are contracts.
Within the Treaty/Contract the Government/Customer agrees to pay the Rez/Corp for Services/Products rendered.
Bear with me.
The Rez/Corps expenses increase (i.e. staff salaries go up, raw materials are more expensive, the band office needs extensive renovations, etc.) and the Rez/Corp profit margin is reduced.
Next, the Rez/Corps legal department notifies the Gov/Cust that they need to renegotiate the Treaty/Contract in order to stay in business The Gov/Cust counters that they are prepared to increase their payments but, they need assurances that the Rez/Corp "products" will be substantially better.
Is there a proviso in the re-negotiated Treaty/Contract that the Gov/Cust will provide water treatment plants, new office buildings or provide staff/employee training and free education instead of cash/money?
So, yes l am probably comparing apples to oranges with too much emphasis on good business practices but, what l fail to understand is what "product" the Gov/Cust is receiving.
Furthermore if l, and other tax-paying Canadians could be considered Shareholders in the Government, l'd seriously question the CEO (PM) and the CFO (DPM) for paying billions upon billions for a non-existant product.
no product is received.
It’s not a good analogy because the reserve/Indian model is built on wardship. It’s a Crown fiduciary responsibility to take care of its wards. Contemporary funding largesse is predominantly discretionary, that is, the Crown goes way beyond what is stipulated in the treaties.
So, as wards, the FNs are being treated like little children with no right to self-determination, no equality, no sovereignty and if they want a raise in their allowance, they get it?
pretty much. If they stay on the reserve. Every Canadian has the right to self-determination and equality. Let's leave the "sovereignty" nonsense out of the equation.
So a bit like paying money to the British Monarchy and supporting a Govenor General and getting nothing tangible in return?
or like paying money for people to spit on you and your country.
except severals orders of magnitude more money. 50 million a year compared to 50 BILLION a year.
Extremely well argued. Congratulations. I’m sure I’m not alone in regularly thinking: “why isn’t the water problem solved” after decades of complaints and promises. It couldn’t be that effort wasn’t applied by the Feds. Too bad the Trudeau Sr./Chrétien white paper of 1969 was rejected. Maybe it will be revived when genuinely progressive Indigenous leaders step up. But first we need to talk about it more.
PET got his revenge when he said he would keep Indians in their ghettos for as long as they wished. Were it only a burden for the native activists who rejected the White Paper in its day but for the generations after, it's been a human disaster. I wonder what everyone would have been saying in 1969 if a reserve declared a state of emergency over suicides?
I wouldn't hold your breath on that one. Progressive indigenous leaders are as scarce as hen's teeth.
…and yet that can be said about many good causes.