The author of this important take on the legacy of Canada’s Indian residential schools, freely available to all readers, and re-posted with his kind permission is Rick August, a former social policy analyst with the government of Saskatchewan.
While working in Northern Saskatchewan during the 70s we routinely shared our meals with the children on reserves. The parents would pool the gov cheques and hire a flight to Laronge to purchase alcohol. (Not available on reserve) The co-op would sell out of kolbasa and corn flakes each month, there were no gardens on res. $kk worth of fishing equipment was supplied and seldom used and never maintained. Brand new raised bungalows were stripped inside and burnt for heat while huge tanks of fuel oil sat unused. Lack of ownership removes pride in oneself and one's accomplishment. Abolish reservations and help individuals grow. Reservations are an example of a communist system at work. You own nothing but be happy.
Clearly you just don't respect indigenous traditions, John. Of course periodic starvation was also an indigenous tradition, and the indigenous themselves don't much respect that tradition either -- naturally enough they want to have their tradition cake and eat too -- so I guess you're in good (i.e., indigenous) company. My question is, who exactly were the indigenous/hippie ideologues back in the late 60's who insisted on the maintenance of the (clearly racist and antiquated, no?!) reserve system? What was their motivation? What were they after? What was the end game/ideology? Were they just haters of the glorious 18th-c. European 'Enlightenment' and its perhaps rather self-conceited child 'Western Civilization'? How are they ideologically related to the current crop of ideologues running the Indian industry?
I agree, but suggest that the inflated transfer payments from the federal government are in reality augmented welfare payments for a more privileged class on the reserve. The people at the bottom get basic welfare cheques, but the chief, councillors, administrators and employees of largely make-work reserve programs are really receiving welfare cheques - only much bigger ones.
The question of what to do with uneducated and largely unemployable people from reserves has bedeviled politicians for generations. As you point out, what’s the use of simply moving these people to dependency in a city or town. I suggest that this problem has no answer unless and until the chiefs give up their hopeless “nation to nation” project, and admit that reserve residents need education, training and motivation - in other words assimilation - in order to get out of their rut. This doesn’t mean abandoning their cultural pride and indigenous identity. But the chiefs won’t do that, because they insist that there is no cultural gap to bridge - i.e. reserves are nations and reserve institutions are as advanced as western institutions, just different. This conceit is preventing underclass indigenous from advancing
I'm not sure 'we' is entirely accurate. PET's white paper proposed dismantling of the reserve system and repeal of the Indian Act in 1969/70 and it was shouted down by Cardinal et al. "let them live in their ghettos." Now the "ghetto" has turned into an incredibly almost beyond imagination lucrative grift system that benefits the best grifters. Why would those people want it dismantled? Billions with little to no accountability. Why would they want that system taken down. An almost pervasive exceptionalist position in Canada. Bowed to by millions. Why would they want to get rid of that.
If our government collectively represents us then it is "we" the people who elect them. PET had it right but his gutless Minister in charge (Jean Chreitian) (a typical politician ) capitulated to the activist parasites of the "Indian Industry" opening the flood gates to the delusional and lucrative narrative that prevails today while the social and economic disparity grows. Of course these parasites of the "Indian Industry " don't want to get rid of Canada's "Apartheid ". Its extremely lucrative and better yet its politically virtuous in today's "woke culture ",the grinding poverty and social dysfunction of most Indignous Canadians not withstanding. We need leadership in both communities to embrace reality with integrity and courage.
The "1969 White Paper" was 55 years ago.Whats changed? 5% of our population disproportionately fill our prisons, astronomical and ever increasing numbers of Indignous children are in government child care, Drug and acholsim are rampant with all their attendant virtues of rape,murder, incest, domestic violence and family breakdown. Does that sound like we're getting it right after 55 years of deferring to the "Indian Industry " for solutions?
Of course not but until we get some leadership with some integrity and the courage to break with the conventional, false and prevailing narrative, "The Road to Hell, Paved with Good Intentions " will keep spiraling ever downward as it has since 1969!
Same reason as any other group of culturally degraded and materially impoverished wards of the welfare state: recovery of self-respect and human dignity and flourishing.
I'm not sure they see it that way. or more precisely, the elites speaking for them do not see it that way. and the more we give them obesiance and self-flagellation and money, the worse it gets and the more they like it and figure they're achieving revenge is the only word I can use.
I think there's something to that: the worse it gets (even if its all lies), the more they can indulge in the ressentiment and imaginary moral superiority of the noble innocent victim. But that's no real path to self-respect and human flourishing.
After generations of dependency (since the Great White Mother promised food and security) it becomes an entitlement. There is no shame in that anymore than EI, Family Allowance or CPP.
...or 'free' health care, 'free' education, etc. Sure.
But the fact of relatively dire (by modern Canadian standards, if not by traditional 'indigenous' standards) poverty and conspicuous social/cultural dysfunction remains. Not to mention they have eyes to see (even if they fail to understand)! They aren't stuck on reserves. They can travel, visit other places, see that they are not flourishing relative to those off reserve. The inevitable result will be some combination of shame and blame.
The conventional narrative (and the courts/Gladue) have pretty much removed personal agency. Therefore entitlement has replaced ambition or shame.
This trait or transition is not peculiar to Indians. One morning at our farmhouse kitchen table three or four neighbors were haveing coffee during PETs term. The Agriculture Minister was Eugene Wbelan. Whelan was trying to impose "Orderly Marketing " or Marketing Boards. (A socialist concept). Western farmers weren't haveing it so Eugene came out with an unsolicited bribe called the "Western Grain Stablization Payment". That morning my dad announced to his neighbors that he had received his first "Welfare check in the mail". Somewhat sheepishly every man at the table admitted the they too had received their first "welfare check " which nobody had applied for. Whelan just sent it by decree like the metric conversion these farmers were still struggling to embrace. They were in a word , ashamed. However nobody sent the checks back and they came in every year. Then one day about fifteen years later under the Mulroney go government my brother and I were driving into Saskatoon for a cattle sale we noticed a large farmer protest takeing place at "Saskatoon Place"(arena). We decided to take it in. 16,000 farmers filled the place to the rafters and speaker after speaker got up to the podium to condem the Mulroney government for canceling the "Western Grain Stabilization Payment ". In about 15 years this "welfare payment " had gone from something to be ashamed of to an entitlement!...What would happen after a hundred and fifty years of dependency?
The same thing happened between East and West Germany when the Belin.Wall came down. The east Germans had lost their productivity after fifty years of dependency under communism and the West Germans resented haveing to support them while they transitioned to a market driven economy. It will take time but we must change direction with respect to our Indignous Canadians.
So you're saying Amerindians aren't special? They're just regular corruptible human beings like the rest of us? I think I have to agree with you there!
I have a slightly different take on PET’s 1969 initiative. Namely, it wasn’t done with the proper preparation, he gave up too easily, and most importantly it completely wiped out the wisdom contained in the Hawthorn Report from a few years earlier. Hawthorn didn’t recommend any sudden change. Instead, it advocated leaving welfare in place on reserves for those who wanted to remain there and remain dependent on the government. However - and this is a big however - Hawthorn recommended welfare at a basic rate, with no frills. This would incentivize those who wanted a better life to leave uneconomic communities, while letting the old, and hopelessly dependent live out their lives there. If Hawthorn had been implemented (Cairns) I wonder if we would have been much further ahead today. The sudden dropping of the White Paper was followed by a half century of Ottawa sending increasingly large cheques, and what look like permanently dependent communities
Interesting. So the question is, what difference would that make? Entrenched welfare dependency is a thing off-reserve too, isn't it? (Is it any improvement -- and for whom? -- to have the same welfare-dependent people living in Winnipeg instead of on reserve? It presumably will be in some respects, but there's still an open and disputed question of what values -- and whose interests -- you bring to bear in making that assessment.) In any case, the point is really not the absence of sudden change, but the non-radical nature of the change, isn't it? I don't know enough about the details of the system, but it seems that the dynamic you describe should already be in play, notwithstanding larger cheques. And perhaps the 'hopelessly dependent' aren't just the old but a stable and growing class? And isn't the more important question not how big the welfare cheques are, but who is benefitting from the much bigger (non-welfare) cheques, the transfer payments from the Canadian governments to the tribal (i.e., essentially Indian municipal?) governments (i.e., the cheques that those in the right positions can get relatively rich off, even if the rest of the tribe lives in squalor). It seems that the latter would continue to prop up the whole corrupt apartheid system, disincentivizing integration, responsible government and citizenship, economically rational and sustainable choices, self-reliance, etc.
I guess one should ask when Trudeau brought in millions of Middle East immigrants did he assign them to reserves or integrate them into main stream society where opportunities are more fluent? Once again it depends on choices and direction provided for a better life! If drugs and alcohol are one’s only option then what root will they take! The easiest way out of poverty! Oblivion?
The most important aspect of this arrangement is the children continue to suffer due to alcoholism, drugs, and no incentive for a better life! Simply look at the child suicide rates on reserves! Inadequate medical, dental, mental health, education. Throw more money at these problems without accountability is the real injustice for all! Nepotism, favouritism are two more reasons for failure! Basic rate welfare will only reach those in power that manage it!
While working in Northern Saskatchewan during the 70s we routinely shared our meals with the children on reserves. The parents would pool the gov cheques and hire a flight to Laronge to purchase alcohol. (Not available on reserve) The co-op would sell out of kolbasa and corn flakes each month, there were no gardens on res. $kk worth of fishing equipment was supplied and seldom used and never maintained. Brand new raised bungalows were stripped inside and burnt for heat while huge tanks of fuel oil sat unused. Lack of ownership removes pride in oneself and one's accomplishment. Abolish reservations and help individuals grow. Reservations are an example of a communist system at work. You own nothing but be happy.
Clearly you just don't respect indigenous traditions, John. Of course periodic starvation was also an indigenous tradition, and the indigenous themselves don't much respect that tradition either -- naturally enough they want to have their tradition cake and eat too -- so I guess you're in good (i.e., indigenous) company. My question is, who exactly were the indigenous/hippie ideologues back in the late 60's who insisted on the maintenance of the (clearly racist and antiquated, no?!) reserve system? What was their motivation? What were they after? What was the end game/ideology? Were they just haters of the glorious 18th-c. European 'Enlightenment' and its perhaps rather self-conceited child 'Western Civilization'? How are they ideologically related to the current crop of ideologues running the Indian industry?
I agree, but suggest that the inflated transfer payments from the federal government are in reality augmented welfare payments for a more privileged class on the reserve. The people at the bottom get basic welfare cheques, but the chief, councillors, administrators and employees of largely make-work reserve programs are really receiving welfare cheques - only much bigger ones.
The question of what to do with uneducated and largely unemployable people from reserves has bedeviled politicians for generations. As you point out, what’s the use of simply moving these people to dependency in a city or town. I suggest that this problem has no answer unless and until the chiefs give up their hopeless “nation to nation” project, and admit that reserve residents need education, training and motivation - in other words assimilation - in order to get out of their rut. This doesn’t mean abandoning their cultural pride and indigenous identity. But the chiefs won’t do that, because they insist that there is no cultural gap to bridge - i.e. reserves are nations and reserve institutions are as advanced as western institutions, just different. This conceit is preventing underclass indigenous from advancing
We have legislated "Apartheid" (the Indian Act) and can't figure out why we have such grotesquely different social and economic disparity! 🙄
I'm not sure 'we' is entirely accurate. PET's white paper proposed dismantling of the reserve system and repeal of the Indian Act in 1969/70 and it was shouted down by Cardinal et al. "let them live in their ghettos." Now the "ghetto" has turned into an incredibly almost beyond imagination lucrative grift system that benefits the best grifters. Why would those people want it dismantled? Billions with little to no accountability. Why would they want that system taken down. An almost pervasive exceptionalist position in Canada. Bowed to by millions. Why would they want to get rid of that.
If our government collectively represents us then it is "we" the people who elect them. PET had it right but his gutless Minister in charge (Jean Chreitian) (a typical politician ) capitulated to the activist parasites of the "Indian Industry" opening the flood gates to the delusional and lucrative narrative that prevails today while the social and economic disparity grows. Of course these parasites of the "Indian Industry " don't want to get rid of Canada's "Apartheid ". Its extremely lucrative and better yet its politically virtuous in today's "woke culture ",the grinding poverty and social dysfunction of most Indignous Canadians not withstanding. We need leadership in both communities to embrace reality with integrity and courage.
The "1969 White Paper" was 55 years ago.Whats changed? 5% of our population disproportionately fill our prisons, astronomical and ever increasing numbers of Indignous children are in government child care, Drug and acholsim are rampant with all their attendant virtues of rape,murder, incest, domestic violence and family breakdown. Does that sound like we're getting it right after 55 years of deferring to the "Indian Industry " for solutions?
Of course not but until we get some leadership with some integrity and the courage to break with the conventional, false and prevailing narrative, "The Road to Hell, Paved with Good Intentions " will keep spiraling ever downward as it has since 1969!
Same reason as any other group of culturally degraded and materially impoverished wards of the welfare state: recovery of self-respect and human dignity and flourishing.
I'm not sure they see it that way. or more precisely, the elites speaking for them do not see it that way. and the more we give them obesiance and self-flagellation and money, the worse it gets and the more they like it and figure they're achieving revenge is the only word I can use.
I think there's something to that: the worse it gets (even if its all lies), the more they can indulge in the ressentiment and imaginary moral superiority of the noble innocent victim. But that's no real path to self-respect and human flourishing.
After generations of dependency (since the Great White Mother promised food and security) it becomes an entitlement. There is no shame in that anymore than EI, Family Allowance or CPP.
...or 'free' health care, 'free' education, etc. Sure.
But the fact of relatively dire (by modern Canadian standards, if not by traditional 'indigenous' standards) poverty and conspicuous social/cultural dysfunction remains. Not to mention they have eyes to see (even if they fail to understand)! They aren't stuck on reserves. They can travel, visit other places, see that they are not flourishing relative to those off reserve. The inevitable result will be some combination of shame and blame.
The conventional narrative (and the courts/Gladue) have pretty much removed personal agency. Therefore entitlement has replaced ambition or shame.
This trait or transition is not peculiar to Indians. One morning at our farmhouse kitchen table three or four neighbors were haveing coffee during PETs term. The Agriculture Minister was Eugene Wbelan. Whelan was trying to impose "Orderly Marketing " or Marketing Boards. (A socialist concept). Western farmers weren't haveing it so Eugene came out with an unsolicited bribe called the "Western Grain Stablization Payment". That morning my dad announced to his neighbors that he had received his first "Welfare check in the mail". Somewhat sheepishly every man at the table admitted the they too had received their first "welfare check " which nobody had applied for. Whelan just sent it by decree like the metric conversion these farmers were still struggling to embrace. They were in a word , ashamed. However nobody sent the checks back and they came in every year. Then one day about fifteen years later under the Mulroney go government my brother and I were driving into Saskatoon for a cattle sale we noticed a large farmer protest takeing place at "Saskatoon Place"(arena). We decided to take it in. 16,000 farmers filled the place to the rafters and speaker after speaker got up to the podium to condem the Mulroney government for canceling the "Western Grain Stabilization Payment ". In about 15 years this "welfare payment " had gone from something to be ashamed of to an entitlement!...What would happen after a hundred and fifty years of dependency?
The same thing happened between East and West Germany when the Belin.Wall came down. The east Germans had lost their productivity after fifty years of dependency under communism and the West Germans resented haveing to support them while they transitioned to a market driven economy. It will take time but we must change direction with respect to our Indignous Canadians.
So you're saying Amerindians aren't special? They're just regular corruptible human beings like the rest of us? I think I have to agree with you there!
Maybe it’s time to integrate ….???
I have a slightly different take on PET’s 1969 initiative. Namely, it wasn’t done with the proper preparation, he gave up too easily, and most importantly it completely wiped out the wisdom contained in the Hawthorn Report from a few years earlier. Hawthorn didn’t recommend any sudden change. Instead, it advocated leaving welfare in place on reserves for those who wanted to remain there and remain dependent on the government. However - and this is a big however - Hawthorn recommended welfare at a basic rate, with no frills. This would incentivize those who wanted a better life to leave uneconomic communities, while letting the old, and hopelessly dependent live out their lives there. If Hawthorn had been implemented (Cairns) I wonder if we would have been much further ahead today. The sudden dropping of the White Paper was followed by a half century of Ottawa sending increasingly large cheques, and what look like permanently dependent communities
Interesting. So the question is, what difference would that make? Entrenched welfare dependency is a thing off-reserve too, isn't it? (Is it any improvement -- and for whom? -- to have the same welfare-dependent people living in Winnipeg instead of on reserve? It presumably will be in some respects, but there's still an open and disputed question of what values -- and whose interests -- you bring to bear in making that assessment.) In any case, the point is really not the absence of sudden change, but the non-radical nature of the change, isn't it? I don't know enough about the details of the system, but it seems that the dynamic you describe should already be in play, notwithstanding larger cheques. And perhaps the 'hopelessly dependent' aren't just the old but a stable and growing class? And isn't the more important question not how big the welfare cheques are, but who is benefitting from the much bigger (non-welfare) cheques, the transfer payments from the Canadian governments to the tribal (i.e., essentially Indian municipal?) governments (i.e., the cheques that those in the right positions can get relatively rich off, even if the rest of the tribe lives in squalor). It seems that the latter would continue to prop up the whole corrupt apartheid system, disincentivizing integration, responsible government and citizenship, economically rational and sustainable choices, self-reliance, etc.
I guess one should ask when Trudeau brought in millions of Middle East immigrants did he assign them to reserves or integrate them into main stream society where opportunities are more fluent? Once again it depends on choices and direction provided for a better life! If drugs and alcohol are one’s only option then what root will they take! The easiest way out of poverty! Oblivion?
The most important aspect of this arrangement is the children continue to suffer due to alcoholism, drugs, and no incentive for a better life! Simply look at the child suicide rates on reserves! Inadequate medical, dental, mental health, education. Throw more money at these problems without accountability is the real injustice for all! Nepotism, favouritism are two more reasons for failure! Basic rate welfare will only reach those in power that manage it!