So, while Chief Spence, and others, may long for “nation-to-nation” discussions, there is I think a genuine question as to whether there’s enough of Aboriginal culture that has survived to even dream of that lofty status, or if the culture isn’t irreparably damaged already. Smudging, drumming and the like do not a nation make.
They don’t a “culture” make, either.
First, to go on a hunger strike is emotional extortion. It’s an act of terrorism for it holds the other person hostage. You don’t negotiate with terrorists. Harper should not meet with her or with any other Canadian who goes on a hunger strike because they want the government to do something.
What does she want? A meeting with the PM? Over what? She doesn’t want to make the salaries and costs of the band chiefs and executive public? But it’s taxpayer money; it’s not privately earned money. Therefore, it MUST be made public. No debate, no negotiation, no discussion. It’s public money so it’s public record.
My suggestion is to get rid of the reserves. They prevent employment, for they are public lands, ceded long ago by treaties and owned by the government, and thus, the land in the reserve cannot be privately owned by an individual native.
The native individual can’t own and care for his own house. He can’t get a mortgage on that house to set up a business. And, there are no private businesses allowed since all revenues go to the collectie, to the whole band.
Such an infrastructure is only suited to a hunting and gathering economy where all members hunt and gather and share the results. When you remove this work style from the band, and instead, ship in food from the outside, paid for by an external agent, the collective economic role instantly disappears and they sit around and do nothing. It becomes essentially a refugee camp.
Get rid of the reserves. The whole First Footstep and People is over. There’s essentially no such reality as ‘First People’ for manking has migrated since his first appearance. Furthermore, peoples have taken over each others lands since that time. It’s over.
Assimilate and keep your heritage as a memory, just as other peoples do, in their various rituals around the year which they celebrate as Canadians and also, as descended from Italians and Germans and Ukrainians and so on.
No, the reserves are not sovereign lands and this woman has no right to self-define them as such. If they were, they wouldn’t be taking a penny from the Canadian taxpayer.
Get rid of the reserves. Pay each individual a ‘new settlement’ sum of money and, that’s it. Then, they can get real jobs and real self-respect for what they do not for what they imagine they were.
The predictable bawling of racism, is interesting to read at the NP, when the hustlers are asked to show where the racism occurs in the article, they wander off into insinuation and innuendo. Actually, Blanchford has injected a great big gob of reality into the discussion, and the leftards hate it
ET, well said. The reserve system is destroying the natives and their culture.
It appears that PM Harper’s government is beginning to legislate some financial accountability from the native leadership and those with a vested interest in maintaining the system are pulling out all stops in the “Idle No More” protests and this Chief Spence might just get nailed with having her hand in the cookie jar.
The Liberals and NDP see votes in supporting these groups.
I believe in upholding the treaties to the letter of the law, if they are entitled to four dollars a month and to retain their culture that’s fine by me however free everything ends.
Spence’s stunt is nothing but a self serving ploy to maintain her position at the trough.
The “reserve system” works just fine for her.
Doesn’t N.A. belong to the Asians? Afterall, they migrated here over the Bering Strait thousands of years ago. If we are going to trace back land ownership to its source and begin “giving it all back”, then we might as well get it right.
“They don’t a “culture” make, either.”
Well, sort of. Kind of like the ‘culture’ you find in a petri dish. Diseased.
Even if Stephen Harper landed a helicopter on her teepee she’d not win many hearts and minds. Nobody is buying her BS but the chatterati. At best, she martyrs herself for a CBC biographical drama.
Right, ET. No negotiating with terrorists.
This “hunger strike” ploy by “Chief” (sic) Spence is grandstanding of the worst kind. Just open the books, you shyster, and allow Canadians to see how our public monies have been spent, aka squandered, by your band, Chief Teri.
Can you imagine if PM Harper gave into her obscene demands, how many other trough-feeders would try the same thing to either get more or to gainsay having their accounts made public? PM Harper and Canadians ~ for he represents all Canadians ~ cannot acquiesce to this blackmail.
(The only good thing I can see coming out of this foul hunger strike is that it might improve the Chief’s health …)
Why do the Natives feel that the white man needs to repay them forever for conquering Canada a few hundred years ago? If we owe them forever for becoming dominant in Canada, why don’t the Cherokee and Iroquois (for example) owe countless other Indian tribes that they conquered before the white mans arrival?
For example, why wouldn’t the Iroquois have to pay support for the remaining Erie Indians that they conquered and exterminated?
Me thinks that the Natives believe in the old saw: OK for me but not for thee.
and as scottish comedian Billy Connolly observed after listening to their music. The language seems completely devoid of consonants.
“First, to go on a hunger strike is emotional extortion. It’s an act of terrorism for it holds the other person hostage. You don’t negotiate with terrorists. Harper should not meet with her or with any other Canadian who goes on a hunger strike because they want the government to do something.”
Hear hear! Well said ET.
And, further, doowleb, why don’t the Natives sue the British and French governments for allowing their citizens to come to Canada in the first place? How much further back would they like to go?
As you point out, there was a lot of internecine warfare between Native tribes, who scalped each other, ate their enemies’ hearts, and took their land if they were victorious. Why just pick on British and French/European descendants? (Well, aside from all of the booty they can wrest from the “white man’s guilt”? …)
This is such a fool’s game, which only fools would take seriously — fools and shysters wishing to extort gobs of money from present-day Canadians. I refuse to feel guilty and to be held an emotional hostage to the Natives’ utterly unreasonable, obscene, and mean-spirited demands.
Hey, my family and I don’t have a big-screen TV. Should I go on a hunger strike to demand that the Canadian taxpayer buy us one? After all, my British ancestors who arrived here in 1799 and who greatly contributed to the democratic process here in Canada, are now being dissed by the chattering classes and wiped out of Canada’s history books. That’s not fair! I demand redress, and a big-screen TV would be a good start.
ever heard their singing ,seems to be a language that is completely devoid of consonants. —-Billy Connolly.
Well, batb, are you a Preferred Species? If so, go for that big-screen TV! If not, then you are well and truly fokked.
Judging by the number of chins she has this could take a while.
The problems with the reserves are in no particular order.
No fiduciary responsibility; the government gives the Chief/band council money, and the Chief/band council often doles out the majority to themselves and their cronies leaving crumbs for the rest of the members. There are too many Theresa Spences and too few Billy Diamonds.
No pride of ownership; no one of any culture values stuff that is given to them free, but that which is earned with sweat and stiff muscles is valued and maintained.
A lack of focus on technical education; almost all who leave the reserve for a higher education study law so they can become lobbyists clamouring to get more funding from the government. If Attawapiskat had a plumber, an electrician, a furnace installer and a general construction foreman and each able bodied male was employed for x number of days annually for home building and renovation, there would be no housing problem. These are one or two year programs at most technical colleges so for the price of one lawyer you could have several skilled tradesmen. Neighbouring bands could club up and have the skilled tradespeople on a circuit to defray costs.
This belief that the rest of the country owes them and that treaties should be abandoned or re-negotiated. Sorry, but a deal is a deal and you already live tax-free and soak up over $10B annually from taxpayers. If we re-negotiate you should get a lot less.
“It’s an act of terrorism for it holds the other person hostage….”
Only if you cared.
Personally I don’t care if she starves herself to death, so I’m not terrorized; I’m more concerned with those that would buy into this ridiculous ploy especially with my money in hand.
She should starve to death and prove her point first, not that any rational person seriously thinks this self indulgent whale would ever consider such a thing.
“Give me your money or I’ll blow my brains out” only works on the feeble minded in our society.
It gets sillier and sillier every year and only their liberal sycophants keep it from getting even sadder than it already is. Their heritage is just used as window dressing to add some sort of solemnity or validity to their demands for more money.
We hate us some injuns!
Since there are 630 “First Nations” in Canada, poor Stephen Harper would spend his entire mandate (and the next couple) meeting each chief for the one to two weeks demanded by Spence and get nothing done, but perhaps her goal.
All I’ve heard from Spence and other assorted Native activists to justify their protest is a string of shop-worn bromides and platitudes that I’ve already heard from every hack politician in the land. Apparently they don’t like the idea of reserves being able to lease land to non-Natives. What on earth is wrong with that? Outside investment is the only thing that would lift any reserve out of poverty permanently.
The bottom line is that when all property is held collectively, and no one can offer that property as security on a loan, no one is going to do anything to improve their lives. That’s the main lesson of the Soviet “experiment” which seems lost on people like Spence.
They advocate for their traditional style of life…Two hundred years ago, who built their frame construction houses? However did they survive the non-AGW enhanced winters?
To those who critize Native languages, is it their fault that you have not learned to speak “Trout”, in fact the Canadian Taxpayer is all ready paying to bring back and educate the modern day Indians in long dead languages that no one speaks anymore. Languages like “Trout”. What they need is a big dose of reality. No special deals like one on one meetings with Harper. All bands need an indepth forsenic audit, and long jail sentences for the fraudsters. Also offshore accounts should be examined. Farting and Tap Dancing in fake head dresses is no more a culture or a nation than the blacks fake Kwanzi fantasy. Call it what it is a shakedown a scam and a fraud. If anyone studies history at all anymore. In a quick read of any studies on stone age culture. You will find that 95% of these cultures were no more than small family groups of at most 30-40 people. Wandering around here and there. If the groups became larger the game diminished too quickly. And starvation resulted. To call these small remnants of a stone age culture Nations is a sick joke on them and us as taxpayers.
Two things. Chief Spence doesn’t even look Indian. I’m not sure she could even pass as Italian or Greek.
If she is getting weak, it’s the congestive heart failure from living the good life, not from hunger. I see no signs of anything like a hunger strike.
To give you an idea of how this woman has literally grown fat on taxpayers funds in 2010 $34 million was pumped into the Attawapiskat reserve of some 1,500 people. $11.2 million, 32% of the reserves grants and 36% of its entire expenses went to the band leaders, like Chief Spend, salaries and benefits while the rest of the band lived in 3rd world squalor.
Trudeau’s dad and Chretien bailed on solving the first nations affairs by failing to follow through on the only solution to this ever expanding problem. Pay a decent sum to each native and thats the end of it. If you want to live on an unsupportable piece of land in the middle of nowhere that is your call and you are on your own.
No treaty ever signed would have given the natives what they demand today. Talk to or read the comments of people who actually worked on these reserves building and endlessly repairing their establishments to really get a grasp on the futility of their task.
kevinw – if you’re going to post hateful comments, have the decency to use your full name so that I don’t need to go to the trouble of tracking you down via internet provider when the CHRC comes calling..
“…there is I think a genuine question as to whether there’s enough of Aboriginal culture that has survived to even dream of that lofty status, or if the culture isn’t irreparably damaged already.”
There is likely a good balance of “cultures” if we were represented by say, the Spawn of Satan (Justin), as the nullity of multiculturalism is roughly equivalent to a residual and romantic narrative of stone-age utopia.
ET has the long term fix, assimilation, but does anyone in Ottawa have the guts and support to let it see the light of day? The first step would be to privatize land in individual title to FNs thus motivating them to resist and hopefully break away from the paternalism and widespread corruption of the band governance. Anything “imposed” by Ottawa could be used in uniting the bands against the Crown.
KVB >
“They advocate for their traditional style of life…”
That’s the thing; they are not prevented from living their traditional lifestyles at all. All native peoples are more than legally eligible to go out into the wilderness like their ancestors to hunt, fish, and trap or starve and die of infectious diseases all they wish.
They just want free 4×4’s along with a house and everything else the rest of us need to educate ourselves and work for.
This is really not as complicated an issue as the Liberals would have us believe.
KVB >
“They advocate for their traditional style of life…”
Last I heard and read from them was they were demanding running water – that ain’t traditional way of life either.
There was a time when they didn’t want money either they wanted beads – do they still want them as a traditional way of life rather than beads.
Excuse my ignorance on the subject but is “injuns” a bad word like n*gger or something?
I can’t keep up anymore; I remember they used to use the I-word in old westerns all the time when I was growing up.
That’s the problem with a taxpayer funded CHRC when you find your life ruined for saying something you thought was perfectly ok to say, even used regularly in the MSM a few years earlier.
When will the CHRC start running black people’s lives for saying “cracker”? Obviously I can say the C-word because I’m white, well online white anyway, you never really know about real life posters for certain.
But shouldn’t we be FAIR and SOCIALLY JUST by running black or red people’s lives for saying things we don’t like as well? After all it’s our money paying for it.
“Last I heard and read from them was they were demanding running water”
When my family arrived from Scotland in 1831 they wanted housing, food, and fresh water as well.
They chopped trees and built houses. They broke ground and grew food. They used a ‘new’ invention called a shovel, and dug a well.
Why is it I get the feeling that crosscut saws, axes, and shovels, are not what the natives are referring to when chanting ‘Idle No More’?
Hey she may be from the bush but she has seen Blazing Saddles before. She is drawing inspiration from the scene where the black man holds a gun to his own head and tells everyone to back off or the ni**er gets it.
all this FN (and I don’t mean fist nations)gives me a pain in the wallet!!!!
That’s the problem with a taxpayer funded CHRC when you find your life ruined for saying something you thought was perfectly ok to say, even used regularly in the MSM a few years earlier.
That’s the hallmark of communism/socialism, keep the laws and regulations undefined or constantly changing. Keeps the people off balance and easier to control.
‘Idle no more’, heh, irony…
kevinw’s just trying to stir trouble here, making reasonable posters with legitimate concerns about Chief Spend and her preposterous hunger strike and exorbitant and absurd demands sound discriminatory and, oh my, racist — whatever that word means anymore.
No one here hates Natives; what we hate are the irrational demands made on the rest of us, vis a vis improving the lot of Native Canadians — we shouldn’t even have such an appellation: You’re either a Canadian or you’re not a Canadian, forget the hyphenation garbage — when they receive, and have received, billions of taxpayer dollars and still seem unable to lift their people out of grinding poverty and appalling living conditions.
We also hate the graft and corruption that seems institutional in Native governance — again, an illegitimate appellation, as there should be one law to govern all Canadians, not different laws to cater to different cultures within Canada. When it’s patently clear that band leaders’ corruption is frequently at the heart of so many Native woes, it’s scandalous that irresponsible Native leaders refuse to be held accountable for their expenditures of public monies and that, instead, they try to indict the Canadian government, which means the rest of us, by questionable tactics like a hunger strike.
Let Chief Spend end her hunger strike, likely more healthy than when she began it, and open her band’s books for audit. That would be a win-win situation for everyone involved. Her finally being accountable will be good for her soul.
Don’t forget pit lamping as part of “native culture”, they used to use bright spotlights and rifles when hunting long before the white man. (/snarc)
When my grandma first got involved with the rural school board it was the hope and dream of the elders at the local reserves that they would be able to go to the same schools and have the same opportunities as the “white” kids. Now, the reserves in the area each have their own school and teach in their native language through high school age. The ghetto that they are creating siphons hope, will, and ability from their youth. Pride cannot be bought, the fact that it’s harder to compete with the new ways than the old elders had thought doesn’t mean that they should give up. They used to pride themselves on being warriors and survivors, and still like to talk as though they are. The talk is there, but they younger ones have a hard time keeping eye contact when they’re talking to you. Any who succeed in life are branded as apples (red out/white in), similar to the ghetto black culture in the US (and possibly eastern cities, I haven’t seen much of that in Alberta or BC). The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions, but only someone who really hated a people would give them welfare.
It doesn’t matter what we say to those who could improve their lives most by listening to us. KevinW is a good indication of why the Indians have fallen into this trap. There are many who can’t separate ideas and the people that have them. Or see that a people are not subject to the same limits as their culture. Or see that dependency is not a viable long-term culture.
She is trying to distract the media from any enquiry into the final resting place of all that money provided to the reserve.
“Let Chief Spend end her hunger strike, likely more healthy than when she began it, and open her band’s books for audit.”
Apart from the salutory Christian compassion so evident in this comment, and throughout this most illumnating thread, I have to ask… batb, precisely which “books” do you want to see “opened” for audit? The audited financial statements published annually online? The grants and contributions agreements audited annually by INAC?
As for the question our amiable hosted posed regarding Aboriginal culture: I really hate to break it to you all, but most Irish folks potato harvesters anymore, and most Jews aren’t nomadic herders in the desert.
But hey. Don’t like treaties and land claims? No problem. I’m sure that Inuit will gladly take Nunavut back. Pretty sure both Russia and the US will interested in bidding.
I agree, but they could keep the reserves as “ancestral lands” which any member of the tribe had a right to go to and hunt, etc. Heck, even allow them the mineral rights which could be used for trust funds for scholarships, etc.
But, we need to end this “first nation” BS; and the “superior-in-harmony-with-nature-culture” BS. Other choice: Stop all the money; let them live as they did before whitey’s technology. How’s that life span, huh?
Awesome comment from the NP comments.
“Being somewhere first doesn’t mean you own anything. Do you think the USA owns the moon?”
“Awesome comment from the NP comments.””Being somewhere first doesn’t mean you own anything. Do you think the USA owns the moon?”
Wow, that’s awesome. Unfortunately it has nothing whatsoever to do with the nature of land title, treaties, land claims, land use or occupancy, as recognized in Canadian and international law, but I’m sure it sounds profound to the folks who’ve been conditioned to respond to the Big Screen Teevee Trope.
There is always a Big Screen TV Because … trough pigs and irresponsible fools like Spence make sure there are ALWAYS Big Screen TVs. And it does not matter one whit to them that they sacrifice things like water treatment plants and other useful infrastructure to get them.
Balbulican … were you born stupid and clueless or have you been practicing?
ballessbulican
actually it is an excellent comparison as the Indians were mostly nomadic wanderers, as, when the game became scarce they had to move to survive, so land ownership was NOT part of their culture. Throw in the fact that there were very few indians as far north as canada (a good estimate is about 250000), and one has to wonder what the he!! these fools are bitching about
Attawapiskat is Treaty 9 land. Treaty 9 reads as follows:
“the said Indians do hereby cede, release, surrender and yield up to the government of the Dominion of Canada, for His Majesty the King and His successors for ever, all their rights titles and privileges whatsoever, to the lands included within the following limits”
http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100028863/1100100028864
The surrender of sovereignty could not be clearer. Nation? Sure – the Royal Proclamation said as much – but that does not mean sovereignty, viz. “two nations warring in the bosom of a single state” – Lord Durham.
A necessary condition of sovereignty is that other sovereign states recognize your sovereignty. South Africa tried to create 100% sovereign Bantustans but they failed because the rest of the world would not recognize them. Chief Spence is a Canadian citizen with all the rights and benefits citizenship confers; if that weren’t the case then she may have a point.
I’ve noticed something about culture.
Europe, with a landmass a little less than Ontario, has many different languages, music, songs, art, literature, dress, etc. All very distinctive.
The North American Indian, with 2 and a half times the area, all dress the same, beat the drums the same, wail the same. In fact, the Indian representation at the Vancouver Olympics were virtually the same as depicted in any 1960s western. Seems they derived their culture from Hollywood. Same as the rest of North America.
NME666: Partly but not quite right. When your economy is based on agriculture, and occurs in a context of growing urbanization, “ownership” of land moves to the individual, and large complex legal systems defining exactly what that “ownership” means come into play. Aboriginal economies, for the most part, were based on a mixture of communal agriculture, hunting, and harvesting; in the the more remote regions, that usually entailed at least one seasonal migration. Not “nomadic” – there were regular sites and patterns of land use and occupancy.
Neil: I haven’t met very many Inuit or First Nations leaders who are advocating secession or independence. The late Jose Kusugak put it well: “We’re First Canadians, but Canadians first.”
The problem is that Canada is reneging on its treaty and claims obligations, the agreements it made in order to gain rights of entry, access and development. Surrender of title has always been contingent on the “other side” living up to its side of the agreement.
OMMAG: if you have a substantive point to raise, I’ll gladly address it.
“The North American Indian, with 2 and a half times the area, all dress the same, beat the drums the same, wail the same.”
Heh. And those ASIANS. All that weird music and jabbery language. All sounds the same too, have you noticed?
Jesus wept…
“The problem is that Canada is reneging on its treaty…”
I’m willing to be persuaded that this is the case; would you kindly cite which clause in which Indian treaty the Crown has reneged upon? Or withdraw the accusation in the absence of any proof thereof? Either would be fine.
Here’s a list of treaties if it helps: http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100028653/1100100028654
” but most Irish folks potato (sic) harvesters anymore”
Not the best example of traditional Irish life; the potato is not indigenous to Ireland or anywhere in Europe and was only very recently introduced – for the vast majority of its existence there was no potato cultivation in Ireland.
“The late Jose Kusugak put it well: “We’re First Canadians, but Canadians first.”
I’m sure Mr. Kusugak was a fine man but he was an Inuk, and if you take a moment to educate yourself on aboriginal issues you will learn that the Inuit are not considered First Nations. They very recently arrived in Canada c.1000 AD and slaughtered the existing Dorset culture in what can only be described as genocide. Not “First Canadians” by a longshot – the original Indian settlers arrived here between 10 and 20 thousand years ago.
” I’m sure that Inuit will gladly take Nunavut back.”
International law requires more than a few hundred years of continuous habitation for aboriginal title to be conferred. I’m mindful of NCLA but the Inuit claim to the land simply does not meet the test of aboriginal title.
” Aboriginal economies, for the most part, were based on a mixture of communal agriculture”
This simply isn’t true. While some agriculture was practiced in some parts of Canada it was the exception rather than the rule and was done on such a small scale that it wasn’t intensive enough in size to compare to agriculture in the Old World.
“Not “nomadic” – there were regular sites and patterns of land use and occupancy.”
The Nootka has some of the richest land in Canada but still had summer and winter camps (and did not grow food in any meaningful way) – no permanent occupancy of land, in other words.
I don’t mean to sound pedantic but virtually every single thing you said was factually inaccurate. Please, take a moment to educate yourself before spouting off on these matters.
When I was growing up in the Northeastern USA, one thing was very noticeable when driving around areas of the city that were considered “ghettoes”. More than 50% of the ghetto driveways had late-model Cadillacs parked in them. My neighborhood, which was the proverbial “middle-class” (a mix of blue-collar and non-management level white-collar) had lots of Fords, Chevys and the occasional Buick or Mercury – but not so much as a single Cadillac.
And when race riots occurred in the ghetto during the late 60’s, the houses (rental property) were frequently burned, but cars were left untouched.