This past Thursday I had the great honour to be present when Calvin Helin was interviewed in Vancouver. I found him to be an extremely intelligent, thoughtful, and well spoken gentleman – truly an inspiration!
Here’s Part 1:
And here’s Part 2. If you like what he has to say, you can join his Facebook group here.
Welfare will destroy ANY PEOPLE who embrace it.
It must end.
Ayn Rand is right
So is Sarah
So am I
Not much chance of Calvin having tea and bannock with Phil Fontaine and the boys.
Liked the expression: Indian Industry. As in,
Welfare Industry
Immigration Industry
Employment Insurance Industry
Gun Regsitry Industry
Environment Industry
…
There are almost as many poverty pimps (social worker of various sorts) on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside than there are poor, mentally ill, or addicted or a combination of same. And they are exacerbating the problem, not fixing it; but then think about it, why wouldn’t they?
Here’s hoping that the new generation has better luck dumping the feds. They don’t want to go. The band is a reason for their existence, and a cash cow for ‘consultants’ mandated in the negotiating for Band monies… Calvin Helin is the right stuff .
It is as the gentleman stated ‘not good business to solve the problems you are hired to solve’. It means you are working yourself out of a good job. I don’t know about eastern Canada but anyone from the West with any experience has viewed what the Indian Act has done to natives.
My best friend growing up was a Mohawk living in a small BC town with a Kootenai native reservation nearby. My friend had little to do with the Kootenai to my knowledge. SIngle mother who worked hard, she raised her large family in a rented appartment in town. Her kids were a tight family who had goals and worked, on the whole, successfully towards them. The kids were all excellent athletes and very popular in school. You would think these kids would have been role models for the Kootenai but to my knowledge they were resented.
As a footnote. My childhood friend now heads up his own company in the USA which employs over 700 people. He sits on national Boards that promote native financial independence but says it has to come from within. Something given is not valued as much as something earned.
Appropos of my earlier post – for that matter, is there much chance that Calvin will be having tea and bannocks with John Duncan???
When a nation is defeated by a more powerful nation, the conquered people always lose their way of life and their independence. Most conquering nations make the conquered people slaves, in greater and lesser degrees.
The North American Native Indians were tribal and fought each other for power and resources before Europeans ever landed here. Internal warfare made the tribes weak and ripe for picking by invaders because they could be picked off one at a time – the tribes had a history of fighting each other and were happy to see their enemy go down thus the did not see the ‘trend of conquest’. Many Chiefs scouted for the invaders and fought with them against other tribes because they did not see the big picture, they were told that they would be sitting at the table when the goodies from the conquered were handed out – they trusted drive by conquerors!!
Like all collaborators the conquered, including the collaborating tribes were treated like dirt by the victors and the defeated (similar to the Nazi collaborators in Europe – no Nazi’s defended their ‘pals’ when the going got tough).
The inhabitants of pre 1492 North and South America were not defeated by superior force or manpower; they were defeated by internal greed and disease and they let themselves be conned by the invaders.
Unhappy people, some who are already slaves, do not fight for their oppressors. The Eastern Europeans fought, voluntarily, for the Nazis because they saw Stalin as their worst enemy.
In a strange anomaly of History, North America became the cradle of an incredible new Republic with a Constitution that took power away from the Chiefs/Kings and gave individuals the power to govern themselves. Freedom seeking people from all over the world flocked to the new nation to build lives for themselves and their children. The success of the United States of America sent shivers down the spines of every dictatorship in the world. Dictatorships unravelled, Kings and Dictators fell; by 1914 the Elites knew that they were in big trouble…so they created World War One. World War One bled nations blue and killed the hopes and the prosperity of a generation. The Evil Ones moved in for the ‘Kill’. World War Two was to take the independent spirit of the New World down and it failed because of a common knowledge of freedom. Wilson and FDR could not convert the proud citizens of United States to cow to Communism. The people rebuilt and prospered, in spite of corrupt Presidents and congressmen.
Divide and conquer could not be utilized within a nation of self governing individuals so the gument began to create ‘Special Interest groups’ to single out for special rights. Women, Native Indians, Black people…Huge demographic ‘groups’ were given the opportunity to pile on an imaginary ‘enemy of the people’, the driving force of Freedom: the independent male.
Canada, because of it’s proximity to USA and it’s BNA Act basically was settled by the same ilk of Freedom loving people and we did live like Americans for most of the last century.
The Native NA Indian people were defeated but because of the Just Constitution of United States, they had the same God Given Rights as any other individual and they were taking advantage of their God given rights until the gument made them ‘special deals’. These ‘deals’ were designed to cripple a whole demographic of people and it has destroyed many. Mr. Helin points to the way out – let us hope that all freedom loving citizens heed his words.
Thank-you Robert for this excellent post.
Great to see Calvin Helin getting the acknowledgement he so richly deserves. Calvin’s first “groundbreaking” book Dances with Dependency was published in 2006. He has been working tirelessly since long before that to improve the lives of First Nations people through economic self-sufficiency and independence. I encourage everyone to join his Facebook group.
I wish Mr. Helin the best. I hope his idea’s take root in the USA.
He needs to run for office.
Robert, an outstanding post!
I’ve been exploring themes along these lines for years now and regret to say I had not heard of Mr Helin until today. Thank you for this.
Ron
Met hom a few years ago at a fraser inst presentation. He was very much opposed to the kelowna accord. As you might imagine indian affairs was not pleased.
Honest Injun!
The welfare state should be abolished on moral grounds. But it’s not the top priority. A person on welfare produices zip and takes $10,000 or so out of the economy. The worst regulatory bureaucrats cost the economy millions in lost productivity and have salaries close to or over six figures. One bureaucrat carrying out the wrong policy can do more damage than dozens of people on welfare.
The policies that should be undertaken immediately are: streamline the tax systems, especially the corporate tax, by killing loopholes but imposing a very low rate; end business subsidies and incentives; deregulate the economy in large part; stop funding activist groups completely. The idea is to enable the creation of lots of productive jobs in the private sector while dropping worthless, wasteful ones in the public sector. Welfare can be seriously reduced just through attrition, at first. It also faces the problem of the “welfare trap”, in which the extras like dental care and prescription drugs make for an effective marginal tax rate of over 100% when a recipient finds a job. I’m not sure there’s a solution except to replace welfare with voluntary charity, which is what it should have been all along.