Canada's First Nations - CF help, protests, solutions, etc. (merged)

[Kat Stevens]

Come come now.  This is obviously a witch hunt.   

Funny thing about witch hunts... sometimes they actually bag a witch.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Funny thing about witch hunts... sometimes they actually bag a witch.

She'll turn you into a newt!

 

[Kat Stevens]

I'll get better.

 

[OldSolduer]

I'll get better.

But cannot bridges be also made out of stone?

 

[Remius]

Funny thing about witch hunts... sometimes they actually bag a witch.

Only if the witch floats.  Then you burn it.  ;D

 

[my72jeep]

Only if the witch floats.  Then you burn it.  ;D

Oh my she will burn for days.......

 

[George Wallace]

Oh my she will burn for days.......

Yup....Only need a good wick.

 

[Bluebulldog]

Someone I was speaking with asked where he could apply for a job like that.

I asked him if he saw who he had to sleep with the get the job........

......There just isn't enough alcohol or therapy to reconcile that image in a damaged brain.

 

[The_Falcon]

Someone I was speaking with asked where he could apply for a job like that.

I asked him if he saw who he had to sleep with the get the job........

......There just isn't enough alcohol or therapy to reconcile that image in a damaged brain.

Roofies and GHB

 

[George Wallace]

Roofies and GHB

Where is the 'shudder' epicon?   

 

[Bluebulldog]

Roofies and GHB

That might explain why the guy was lousy at accounting.

 

[Remius]

That might explain why the guy was lousy at accounting.

Bah, he was probably very good at accounting.  Just not good at covering it up.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It is a crying shame that what is probably the best hope for First Nations - a good education for young people - has fallen by the wayside because some (most?) First Nations are playing politics with the issue.

This infographic compares black and white Americans, but it probably holds true (with more extreme numbers) for First Nations and whites in Canada:

The one thing that 70+ years of living and working on five continents has taught me is that race is totally meaningless, but: culture matters.

Some (man? most?) First Nations leaders are trying to create a cultural narrative that excuses them and their predecessors for generations, even centuries of inadequate leadership. Part of that creative process involves teaching First Nations youth that they are victims and that the big, bad Western/settler society owes them something and must be made to pay. There's some truth in all that - our society did lie, cheat and steal and First Nations do have many, many legitimate grievances for which some redress is due. But redress in the form of a land base and cash will, in many cases, be wasted, frittered away by leaders who are not held to account because the people are too ill-informed to hold them to account. Education - a good solid, Three Rs type education, is the best way out of the enduring trap of ignorance and poverty for First Nations.

It is a crying shame that they don't have enough good leaders ...

 

[Good2Golf]

*clink*  Mr. Campbell, that was the sound of you hitting the proverbial nail on the head.  :nod:

A close family member worked for decades with First Nations people and he lamented that the leadership was most often self-interested and that this reinforced the belief by many (the majority of First Nations members who receive a disproportionately small amount of the money provided as well as many non-First Nations Canadians who don't know the detail behind the front-page stories) that the First Nations on the whole are deliberately underfunded and neglected.  He noted that most Canadians don't appreciate the power and wealth that may band seniors accumulate at the cost of the general band membership.

As you noted, a crying shame that standout communities, with equitable sharing of wealth and true prosperity are in the minority.

Regards
G2G

 

[The_Falcon]

As you noted, a crying shame that standout communities, with equitable sharing of wealth and true prosperity are in the minority.

Regards
G2G

And these communities also don't receive as much attention in the media (mainstream or otherwise) or are summarily dismissed as being outliers, as their stories/success upset the narrative.  Heaven forbid they be used as examples/blueprints for other communities to become successful, and thus no longer be outliers.  Of course like most things in life, success takes actual hard work and perseverance, much easier to bitch, whine, moan, and block rail lines.  And what about all the professional non-native sh*t disturbers?  If the majority of Native communities did start becoming successful and less reliant on government hand-outs, what will those people do for a living?  Putting those people out of work, what cruelty.

 

[George Wallace]

............  And what about all the professional non-native sh*t disturbers?  If the majority of Native communities did start becoming successful and less reliant on government hand-outs, what will those people do for a living?  Putting those people out of work, what cruelty.

No need to worry.  They are unemployed, for the most part, professional protesters.  The will flock from one cause to another at the drop of a hat.  They are professional "Migrant Protesters".

 

[Brad Sallows]

>It is a crying shame that what is probably the best hope for First Nations - a good education for young people - has fallen by the wayside because some (most?) First Nations are playing politics with the issue.

It is worse than that.  Consider economist Tyler Cowen's thesis in Average is Over - that prosperity will tend to accrue to those with education and aptitude to work in automated and computerized environments.  If he is correct, people deprived of a solid basic education have fewer future prospects than most people currently imagine.

Disadvantaged kids do and will pay a heck of a high lifetime opportunity tax as the cost of providing professional whiners and progressives with occasions to embellish their perceived moral advantage.  Another opportunity for reform goes by, another year goes by, and the barrier of under-education ratchets up another notch.

 

[Old Sweat]

And discontent and militancy grow fuelled by frustration and by certain factions who see more merit in their claims than exists in law and practice.

 

[my72jeep]

The 2014 flood season is here and my Broke assed Town has taken in 87 people from Attawapiskat with more coming, Monday after noon I got a call to have a school bus ready to go to all the hotels to pick up any Attawapiskat people and take them to Bingo. The farthest hotel from the bingo hall is less then a half a km. when asked 1, why they need a buss. 2. why are we taking them to bingo. I was told Cultural Necessity.  You don't want to hear the answer to question #3 Who's paying for Bingo.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Members may want to take a look at Jeffrey Simpson's latest column in the Globe amd Mail. Mr Simpson asks a very pertinent question: "These First Nations communities, Mr. Anaya correctly observed, wish to be treated and to act as “self-governing nations,” based on treaties, historic occupation and culture, without enough of their people asking where is the capacity and revenue going to come from to provide the full range of services expected of “self-governing nations” with populations smaller than that of most towns? Who is kidding whom about the ability, given these numbers, to provide health, welfare, education, justice, policing and the other services rightly demanded by any population of its own government?"

OK, that's two questions, but they are both pertinent.

When dealing with First Nations governance issues we, all of us, are a bit like these guys:

The blind leading the blind