Idle No More protests target bridges, roads across Canada

[arcticcat522]

[/QUOTE]Giving money to them isn't a solution because they have a problem with corrupt chiefs. My wife has heard firsthand from indigenous people at school that the money isn't handed out fairly. Friends and family of chiefs get $50,000 while others get $50... not a Harper fan but he was right, first thing we need to do is audit the reserves to find out where all the money is going and if it comes down to it, administer it ourselves.[/QUOTE]

Hahaha. What makes you think that would go over with them. Another part of all this that pisses me of is it doesn't matter what we do. The FN will be opposed and the media will be all over it. Just look at the pipeline protests. Everything FN is messed. You can't do anything with them. If you do, turns out the people you came to a solution with "don't speak for the rest of us"

[Tik-Tok]

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Born and bred Canadian here...I honestly never knew or even thought about what FN people have gone through in this country, we were never taught any of this in school. The British made damn sure that it was presented as rosy as possible.

I think it depends what school system you were in. Growing up on Van.Island, we learned a lot about FN in gr.9&10 social studies, and gr.11&12 history.

[tirebob]

I just grew up with a ton of FN friends and have FN family in the form of first cousins etc. We grew up in a small town surrounded by reserves and all existed together in the same schools, jobs, sports teams etc. Just like any group of people, there are the lazy deadbeats, awesome people, violent criminals etc including whites, FN, and every group period. We would attend their cultural events and they would attend ours. We learned the stories and histories first hand from those that lived them as well as lived before them and were passed down verbally through families and community. For the most part when we were all kids (school age) it was never even a consideration. Nobody gave a shit one way or the other. It was once we all became adults and started having ulterior motivations such as work or politics or education etc that people started becoming bitter and jaded. For the most part the vast majority of us have remained just as friendly, level headed and tolerant with the differences in each others worlds, but inevitably there are those on both sides of the fence that have become militant and intolerant with those differences and have become something less than desirable.

Where am I going with this? Nowhere, I guess, because there really is no real fix I can see happening short of some crazy defining revolutionary moment where one side completely fucks the other side and makes it impossible to go back. I just hope that we can all stand back and see that all of us are real people and have real and valid concerns and that a magical unicorn moment of mutual clarity and understanding happens that allows us all to move forward peaceably and happily, but I am sadly pessimistic.

[JRSC00LUDE]

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I think it depends what school system you were in. Growing up on Van.Island, we learned a lot about FN in gr.9&10 social studies, and gr.11&12 history.

Where I grew up we were the major commerce hub for 3 good sized bands, I spent 18 years knowing/hearing absolutely nothing worthwhile about FN people or culture.

It's ridiculous.

[jutes]

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You compare a reserve to a concentration camp and in the same post demand equality for your kids?

What kind of monthly payment do you think the average FN gets that you think your kids should get when you pass away?

They should get ZERO and get treated just like everyother white, brown, asian etc Canadian. We need to end the reserve system, they are government funded ghettos that bankrupt taxpayers and just hurt FN people. It's time to hold them accountable for every penny they recieve instead of Richy Chief filling his pockets and buying new toys every year. They get handouts from pipelines, highways and mines built near them and so on and so on yet they never end the begging for more money.

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If we tear up the treaties, would the natives not get back all of the land they gave up? I don't think that would work out very well for the non-natives in Canada.

Treaties are only valid if both sides agree to them, laws are man made. We don't have to abide by treaties made hundreds of years in the past, we choose to, we can choose not to. Natives fought a war, many wars with each other and Europeans. They lost. Game Over. What I see are self loathing people who cannot assimilate into our society, nor can they live traditionally. They are truely lost and its not my problem and it's not yours either. All Canadians should have the exact same deal in life and I question the ethics of anyone who thinks otherwise.

[gwill]

I cant help but laugh when someone wants to say first nations need to be equal to everyone else. First nations have been fighting for equality forever yet some who are more privileged are somehow jealous over what they have and want to level the playing field?

Why dont we send your kids to a reserve jutes? How about we take away their drinking water and see how they fair? You want everyone to be equal so that's a good place to start is it not?

In regards to the war reference. It seems to me first nations are winning a lot of battles being fought now. Theyve effectively shut our country down at the moment. Who's this affecting?

[arcticcat522]

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I cant help but laugh when someone wants to say first nations need to be equal to everyone else. First nations have been fighting for equality forever yet some who are more privileged are somehow jealous over what they have and want to level the playing field?


Why dont we send your kids to a reserve jutes? How about we take away their drinking water and see how they fair? You want everyone to be equal so that's a good place to start is it not?

In regards to the war reference. It seems to me first nations are winning a lot of battles being fought now. Theyve effectively shut our country down at the moment. Who's this affecting?

So, you agree FN should be treated the same way as everyone else .... Glad you agree, so we can stop all this madness/payments.

If me and 20 of my buddies build a few houses in the middle of nowhere, the Canadian government isn't going to build a water treatment plant.

[Misterman]

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Hahaha. What makes you think that would go over with them. Another part of all this that pisses me of is it doesn't matter what we do. The FN will be opposed and the media will be all over it. Just look at the pipeline protests. Everything FN is messed. You can't do anything with them. If you do, turns out the people you came to a solution with "don't speak for the rest of us"

FN are completely ununified. They are a bunch of different bands, with different prerogatives, all squabbling for their own agendas. This is why it appears everything pisses off the natives, is because everything WILL piss off one band or another. And the media just treats it like FN are all the same unified group of people. And how the heck would we even know what "goes over" and what doesn't with these people? None of them can have their voice heard because the "elders" or Chiefs speak for the people as a whole, and the chiefs are the ones fucking their own people. Not to mention the chiefs are responsible for spreading a bunch of misinformation and propaganda to dissuade the people from supporting anything that benefits them. Because the chiefs have to protect their own corruption scheme.

At a certain point we need to start ensuring this money that we've been shoveling onto a fire for the past umpteen decades, starts at least going to a positive cause. Whether FN people understand it is for their benefit or not.

At this point it really doesn't matter what they think is right or wrong. What they have been doing has been royally fucking over their own people.

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I cant help but laugh when someone wants to say first nations need to be equal to everyone else. First nations have been fighting for equality forever yet some who are more privileged are somehow jealous over what they have and want to level the playing field?

Why dont we send your kids to a reserve jutes? How about we take away their drinking water and see how they fair? You want everyone to be equal so that's a good place to start is it not?

In regards to the war reference. It seems to me first nations are winning a lot of battles being fought now. Theyve effectively shut our country down at the moment. Who's this affecting?

This is a giant shit pie of a post. How do you figure FN has been fighting for equality, by continually fighting for more than what is equal?

Why would you advocate sending Jutes kid's to a reserve with no drinking water, when his argument was that we should get these people OFF reserves where they don't have to worry about not having clean drinking water? Which is a giant strawman BS statement to begin with since the only people responsible for reserves not having clean drinking water, are the FN people running the reserve and squandering from their own people. Which they are allowed to do since there is zero transparency on where all the money goes due your precious Indian Act that you think is such a great thing.

Yes you're right, they currently are winning some political wars right now. And it's because our Supreme Court is handing them wins on a platter. The ironic paradox is that a "win" is actually a loss for them. Because these policies we continue to allow them to have, are directly responsible for their demise.

[gwill]

@Misterman you think first nations history is rooted in noble causes that was all well intended by a generous govt that wanted nothing but the best for first nation. I think I understand your knowledge on history with that.

In regards to the court cases you maybe right I dont know but the treaties do say they will "last as long as the sun shines, the river flows and the grass grows."

[kertejud2]

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Treaties are only valid if both sides agree to them, laws are man made. We don't have to abide by treaties made hundreds of years in the past, we choose to, we can choose not to.

There goes the validity of these court injunctions then. RCMP better go on home. The protesters can just choose to not abide by man-made laws.

[arcticcat522]

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This comes up a lot on discussions like this. Same with an earlier poster that said we should tear up the indian act. Canada was formed and was allowed to thrive thanks to the many treaties signed with first nations but now that theres an uncomfortable history involved everyone tries to ignore it or pretend it didnt happen or it wasnt that bad. Everyones always got an excuse why we arent responsible for anything.

If people showed a bit of empathy and the willingness to understand first nations issues/history you'd be amazed at what that would do.

Instead the answer almost always comes back to tear up the treaties and put an end to it all. That's the cop out people use instead of addressing and understanding the issues.

So do any other nations do anything close in terms of reconciliation towards the people who where done wrong?

[ExtraSlow]

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So do any other nations do anything close in terms of reconciliation towards the people who where done wrong?

This is actually a really helpful question. What country has done the best with this thorny issue and how can we use thier actions as a guideline towards resolution?

[Darell_n]

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So do any other nations do anything close in terms of reconciliation towards the people who where done wrong?

Germany sets the gold standard.

[sabad66]

I still don't get the the whole hereditary vs. elected chiefs thing. Are hereditary chiefs like a royal family where the title is just passed along the children/heirs? I do wonder which chief most band members stand behind. I would think the elected but no idea.

it sucks for LNG Canada and TC Energy since they did their due diligence and consulted ALL elected chiefs along the route, but then out of nowhere these hereditary chiefs seem to be calling the shots now and won't budge.

[kertejud2]

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This is actually a really helpful question. What country has done the best with this thorny issue and how can we use thier actions as a guideline towards resolution?

New Zealand would be the best, but it's hard to treat things the same. Of the four objectors to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People's (Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand), we're pretty much on par with the US and Australia. Some things are better, some are worse.

For one, the demographics are significantly different. New Zealand is over 15% Maori, and almost 10% more are Pacific Islanders (Canada is less than 5% First Nations, which is higher than the US and Australia). So there's a very large and influential bloc that can put political and economic pressure on forcing issues. It also kind of forces the issue because it's not like you can hide from it and just talk about 'the reserves' like it's some foreign place. If a quarter of Canada were made up of FN ethnic groups, you better believe our identity as a country would change significantly.

The other is that the Maori are much more of a monolith than what we have in North America. So when you've effectively got one group at the table, it makes meaningful reconciliation efforts a lot easier. Make languages official, prioritize cultural teachings, etc. Between Atlantic Canada to the Great Lakes to the Prairies and Pacific coast and Inuit, you've got a lot of different 'macro-groups' never mind all the individual nations within them. Which language(s) do you make official? There are the 3 big ones (Cree, Ojibway, Inukitut) but over 60 are registered. The government just picking three to try and integrate can effectively pick and choose what languages deserve to survive and thrive. How effectively could you even do it? Even at the provincial level you run into issues. BC has no languages in the Cree family, and Alberta is split between Cree and Athabaskan groups. So there's no practical solution for incorporating more language without alienating swaths of the people you're trying not to alienate. You run into the same issue when it comes to learning about culture. There's so many, even in the 'macro' sense, that there isn't a practical way to make it universal. So in New Zealand they've been able to make Maori culture as much a part of the country's culture as one can, while there isn't a more universal 'FN' culture we could do that with in Canada without running into the same alienation problem.


It's basically an issue that if you can come up with the solutions, you'll be regarded as one of the greatest people in history.

[hampstor]

The protesters today were very peaceful and nice to the staff where I work (in Victoria at one of the crowns). While protesters were at most of the entrances, they were respectful to the staff. They moved and made a path so people could enter/exit the building, and said good morning to my team as well. There was no attempt to stop people or traffic.

As far as protests go: 10/10 for being respectful and peaceful.

[ercchry]

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Germany sets the gold standard.

They still haven’t paid Poland!

[90_Shelby]

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I will place myself in the ignorant/naive category on this topic. With that being said, how does the arrangement in Canada with our First Nations relate to other countries around the world? For example, how do we compare to the US and their First Nations? Australia and their Aboriginals? How about the arrangement between Germany and the people (jews)/countries they impacted during WW2, can we draw any comparisons from anything Germany may have done for reparations? What is Russia doing for the people of Crimea when they annexed that territory? Are there any examples that could be compared across the world where the situation was handled differently? More successful then Canada's arrangement? Less successful then Canada's arrangement?

Big gulps huh? Alright, well, see ya later.

[Gman.45]

I graduated H.S. in 1991, and we were taught about FN in Canada and the Americas a great deal I thought, it was a large part of the course curriculum in history classes nearly every year. Maybe times have changed.

I grew up in a family on both "sides" of the FN "question" in Canada - during that time my aunt was Metis and the SK Minister of Government Relations (IIRC it was simply called Native Affairs back then), and my father being a cop, dealt with FN in a more negative fashion, since many of his customers were FN (3/4 of inmates in SK still are FN). So, family events were always a gong show whenever the subject of "how is work going" would come up.

My X wife was/is Metis as well, so I learned quite a bit about FN through some of her family.

It's complicated (obviously), but I mostly agree with Jutes now. Those who say they want the FN to "get back their culture" - I have to ask, how much of it, and what parts? Should they be allowed to go back to being a nomadic culture, constantly at war with other tribes/themselves, with no rule of law. Oh, and how about that slavery thing, since the FN in the Americas were by and large slavers (read Empire of the Summer Moon or any other book on FN history in the Americas, which includes many tribes that existed and still exist in Canada). For better or worse, much of the FN culture and way of life they had for hundreds or even thousands of years is gone, and is impossible to get back now.

Regarding the current protests - wtf is L/E doing right now? I mean seriously, W T F?! I thought the Unifor strikes in SK were ridiculous, with Regina Police and the RCMP doing NOTHING about protestors building blockades around businesses, and not even allowing people to leave and get vital medication the first 2 days of their stunts. I have a friend in management at CO OP who had to negotiate being "let out" when they first barricaded the plant, who ran out of insulin, and had to literally fight to get a care package his wife was forced to fight and bomb over the fence to get to him. The protesters then "allowed" him to leave the next day, while the cops stood by and did NOTHING. L/E just stands by and lets illegal actions like kidnapping -that's what it is essentially, using force to not let a person come and go as they please from their work, not to mention deny them vital medication- and using force, etc during a protest, take place with impunity.

Same thing with these FN protests, the L/E threaten reporters with arrest for "trespassing" on CP rail grounds, yet allow the protesters to stay and continue protesting. WTH is going on? Why are illegal actions allowed to happen with impunity, while joe blow and reporters get threats from L/E? Insanity. They better fix this quickly, or a breaking point may happen, with people taking matters into their own hands if L/E aren't allowed to do their jobs...(I suspect that the rank and file L/E officers would like nothing better than to enforce the law in this particular case, and that it's their white shirt leaders, the political yes men, that are standing in the way of that, ie no criticism of the L/E officers, just their orders).

[arcticcat522]

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Big gulps huh? Alright, well, see ya later.

I originally quoted you. You can have my gold star today....I'm going to google what the USA and Australia has done for FN, because apparently the treat them as well as we do and bow down when they want something. Learn something everyday.