[andyt]

CommanderSock CommanderSock:

Andy, it needs to be race based. Specifically for natives.

The key is to get natives out from their secluded zones (reservations) into mainstream Canada. Get them to send their kids to school, get them to go to the doctor regularly to cut and prevent diseases and other illnesses, and ultimately get them working. This will bring their fertility rates in line with the rest of Canada within a generation or two (it did with Black Americans in the US).

Some natives could even find common ground with certain immigrants too. Hopefully we'll see higher rates of intermarriage between Native, whites, and recent visible minority immigrants. That would be a definitive bonus in helping them integrate.

The key is to get them out of there, and as Brock said, get them educated. We have to target natives specifically. It's not whites or blacks hiding in reservations brainwashed by greedy chiefs. And since we share one country with them, we can't keep ignoring the problem because it will bite our kids in the ass. I for one would rather see my grandson (assuming I have children) marry a native, not talk about killing or hating one.

As far as giving money for uni and such, I disagree with race based initiatives. Give the money to anybody that needs it. If it goes proportionately more to natives because they are poorer, I have no problem with that.

As for getting them out of their reserves - good luck with that. The whole native myth these days is about going back to traditional ways. You'd just be called a racist if you tried. What they want is white man's living standards, but on reserves where there is no economy to support it. Any attempt to shut down the reserves, or even just have a mass migration from them would be deemed racism. Ain't gonna happen.

Aside from all the race based goodies you want to give natives, do you see any sort of responsibility on their part to actually do something to better their condition?

[CommanderSock]

andyt andyt:

As for getting them out of their reserves - good luck with that. The whole native myth these days is about going back to traditional ways. You'd just be called a racist if you tried. What they want is white man's living standards, but on reserves where there is no economy to support it. Any attempt to shut down the reserves, or even just have a mass migration from them would be deemed racism. Ain't gonna happen.

I believe (you can correct me if I'm wrong) that it's illegal to force people to migrate internally as per the UN.

We should be giving them incentives to get out of the reserves, not shut them down and kick everyone out. That would be a terrible mistake and it's illegal. This is why we need racealicous goodies to get them out on their own to come here.

Like I said, I'm not an expert, just a dude with an opinion, and these are ideas. Bolsa familia style money transfers with strings attached like mandatory schooling, medical requirements (mandatory annual medical checkups), etc. Completely free schooling, in any school in Canada, up to PhD level for natives (and natives only). I'm sure there are plenty of other incentives we can come up with to give them a leg up to enter mainstream society.

As for holding them accountable? Well, their population in 2000 was 800,000. In 2006 it was 1.3m, in 2010 it could be 2m, we'll see based on the census results. Our incentive should be that if we don't get them integrate now, by 2050 their population could reach 15-20m. In that case they'll pry this country from "whitie’s" cold dead hands one way or another (and whoever else is living here, Canada won’t even be 60% European by then). Better sort the problem now than to have a massive, segregated, disgruntled population one day decide to simply swoop into our cities looking for work and political power overnight (read the great African migration north or the Barbarian invasion of the Roman Provinces).

Or we could try and nip the problem by the bud, and minimize the long term impact of their eventual integration.

My 2c.

[EyeBrock]

CommanderSock CommanderSock:

andyt andyt:

As for getting them out of their reserves - good luck with that. The whole native myth these days is about going back to traditional ways. You'd just be called a racist if you tried. What they want is white man's living standards, but on reserves where there is no economy to support it. Any attempt to shut down the reserves, or even just have a mass migration from them would be deemed racism. Ain't gonna happen.

I believe (you can correct me if I'm wrong) that it's illegal to force people to migrate internally as per the UN.

We should be giving them incentives to get out of the reserves, not shut them down and kick everyone out. That would be a terrible mistake and it's illegal. This is why we need racealicous goodies to get them out on their own to come here.

Like I said, I'm not an expert, just a dude with an opinion, and these are ideas. Bolsa familia style money transfers with strings attached like mandatory schooling, medical requirements (mandatory annual medical checkups), etc. Completely free schooling, in any school in Canada, up to PhD level for natives (and natives only). I'm sure there are plenty of other incentives we can come up with to give them a leg up to enter mainstream society.

As for holding them accountable? Well, their population in 2000 was 800,000. In 2006 it was 1.3m, in 2010 it could be 2m, we'll see based on the census results. Our incentive should be that if we don't get them integrate now, by 2050 their population could reach 15-20m. In that case they'll pry this country from "whitie’s" cold dead hands one way or another (and whoever else is living here, Canada won’t even be 60% European by then). Better sort the problem now than to have a massive, segregated, disgruntled population one day decide to simply swoop into our cities looking for work and political power overnight (read the great African migration north or the Barbarian invasion of the Roman Provinces).

Or we could try and nip the problem by the bud, and minimize the long term impact of their eventual integration.

My 2c.

Sock, you are a noble guy. Very good post. I've already repped you recently but I'd give you another 5 for the past few posts. Good stuff.

[Gunnair]

$1:

This tiny native reserve of 300 people in rural Nova Scotia is governed by three of the highest-paid politicians in Canada, including one band councillor who made almost $1-million in tax-free income last year, according to federal government records.

Glooscap First Nation Chief Shirley Clarke reacted angrily on Tuesday to what she described as "inaccurate, negative publicity" surrounding aboriginal salaries, which came to light this week and turned the spotlight on her quiet community.

Yet, Ms. Clarke refused to explain what was inaccurate, or discuss what she and her two band councillors — her sister Lorraine Whitman and their cousin Michael Halliday — are paid.

On Monday, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation released federal documents showing the salaries, honoraria and travel per diems paid to all First Nations chiefs and councillors across the country in 2008/09.

Hundreds of reserve politicians made six-figure salaries last year, including 82 who were paid more than Prime Minister Stephen Harper's income of roughly $300,000.

The highest salary — $978,468 — went to an unnamed band councillor at a small Mi'kmaq reserve in Atlantic Canada.

Although the records do not include the names of individuals or reserves, other details make it possible to identify which reserve is home to the million-dollar councillor.

The federal records say the councillor represents a band of 304 members.

The Nova Scotia government also lists Glooscap's population as 304.

The records say the same reserve received $912,563 in funding from the Indian Affairs Department last year, exactly the amount separately listed in Glooscap's audited 2009 financial statement.

No other reserve in Atlantic Canada matches the 2009 population of Glooscap and its federal funding amount from that year.

The federal records say Ms. Clarke and three councillors were each paid more than $209,000 in salary, honoraria and travel expenses last year.

The councillor who made $978,000 received more than $700,000 of that for what Ottawa calls "other remuneration" — income typically paid for work related to band-owned enterprises, such as gas stations and casinos, or band-awarded contracts, such as road-paving and snow ploughing.

On Tuesday Ms. Clarke, Ms. Whitman and Mr. Halliday invited journalists to the Glooscap band office to hear a statement from the chief.

"The document provides an inaccurate perception that we are unjustly overpaid for the limited work we do on behalf of our community," she said.

"Unlike non-Mi'kmaq politicians, we do not receive vehicle allowances, pensions, benefits, insurance or dry cleaning reimbursements.

"It is unfortunate that once again, the public is too easily entertained by inaccurate, negative publicity once again, focusing on the Mi'kmaq."

Ms. Clarke and her councillors declined to answer questions from reporters. Each was asked if they were paid $978,000 last year. Each refused to comment.

On the reserve, band members who did not want to be named said they were shocked to learn through the media that their chief and councillors were paid such sums for running a small community.

Glooscap's official membership stands at 300, but only 87 members actually live in the community — a store and gas bar, a video lottery parlour and the band office and health centre, surrounded by modest but tidy homes on the outskirts of Hantsport.

One Mi'kmaq woman said many Glooscap residents are unemployed and collect $110 per week in welfare payments. She said the Glooscap reserve, like dozens of others across Canada, is run by a small group of powerful families.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/tiny+reserve+defended/3875413/story.html

$1:

Five Things to Know about the big chief paycheques on native reserves


A lot of Canadians gasped this week when the Canadian Taxpayers Federation revealed that 80 First Nations chiefs across Canada were paying themselves richer salaries (after tax) than the Prime Minister of Canada, to administrate bands typically the size of villages, while another 222 were raking in more than their province’s premier. The National Post’s Kevin Libin offers up five other realities about native governance.

One — The bill

Conservative MP Kelly Block’s pending private member’s bill that aims to require aboriginal chiefs to publicly disclose their salaries may not change the way many First Nations are governed.

As appalled as many people may be when chiefs help themselves to colossal paycheques, the reality is there is frequently a widespread consensus in a lot of native communities that chiefs are entitled to make their own rules.
More than a decade ago, the Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples recognized that because most reserves are so small, dominated by larger families, the system naturally tends toward oligarchy, where two or three large clans take turns running things, enriching themselves and their friends and family, before eventually being exiled by another powerful clan.

“There’s no protection [from] the Elections Act. There’s nothing to prevent outright promises of jobs, payoffs, kickbacks, the situation is just hugely corrupt,” says John Reilly, author of Bad Medicine: A Judge’s Struggle for Justice in a First Nations Community, an account of his years in an Alberta court dealing with the social distress emanating from the relatively wealthy Stoney Nakoda Nation nearby. Recall that when Indian Affairs conducted a poll of First Nations members in 2003, only 51% supported the federal government’s proposal, via Bill C-7, to improve on-reserve accountability; 37% said they were satisfied with their band’s governance — a number that aboriginal author and reform advocate Calvin Helin notes “accords roughly with the number of family members that Chief and councils are likely to have in a community.”

Two — Reaction

Even if a majority of members are outraged at their chief’s salary, they won’t necessarily protest.

When Ottawa hands over block funding to band councils, it’s really handing over power: the power to control who gets jobs, who gets housing, whose kids get money for college. Staying on the administration’s good side is a common survival strategy for many individual First Nations members. When Judge Reilly tried ordering a Crown investigation into the Stoney reserve in 1997, he commented “I have been told over and over again that people are afraid to participate because of repercussions … Residents of the reserve describe it to me as a ‘prison without bars.’” As Jean Allard, the former Manitoba MLA and former leader of the oldest Métis organizations in Canada, notes “There is no mechanism within the system that allows grassroots Indians to exert their rights as Canadians in a democratic country.” Meantime, some bands are ruled by a hereditary chief, or by band custom (where elections are spotty).

Three — Secrecy

Even if Ms. Block’s bill passes, Canadians — and First Nations people — still won’t always know what chiefs are raking in.

If it’s passed, Ms. Block’s private member’s bill, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, will go some distance to shedding light on the traditionally concealed payrolls of First Nations. But it can focus only on the money chiefs pay themselves out of federal funds. On many reserves, chiefs’ salaries come, also, out of businesses that are owned and operated by the band. Chief Harry Sharphead of Alberta’s Enoch Cree First Nation may award himself the equivalent of a $275,000 off-reserve salary annually — about 30% more than the provincial premier, as the CTF revealed in April—but the Enoch Cree own a thriving casino, and a golf course, as well as oil interests and retail outlets, from which Mr. Sharphead draws some of that wage. A 1988 court case ruled that any records that reveal details of income earned from proprietary band-owned businesses are protected by privacy legislation—at least until some government cares to take a run at legislating otherwise.

Four — The Model

Chiefs that champion transparency and good governance aren’t particularly keen on sharing their salaries with the outside world, either.

Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band in B.C. is frequently held up as a model of good reserve management: it’s been 15 years since that band, thanks in large part to his leadership, began earning more on its own, through its businesses, than it collected in federal transfers. Every one of the roughly 450 members gets an annual dividend from the profits earned off Osoyoos’s businesses, which include a winery, hotel, golf course, RV park and restaurants. But even the iconoclastically reform-minded and fiscally vigilant Mr. Louie discloses his salary only to band members, not the Canadian public.

There is, generally, a sense among natives—often understandable given their history—that their “dirty laundry” is their business, and not that of non-natives, says Albert Howard, co-author of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry. It’s the same “us against them” instinct, he says, that often results in First Nation communities closing rank and refusing to cooperate with police after a murder. “They say ‘we don’t do that, we settle these things among ourselves,” he says. The trouble is, he notes, is that such things rarely get settled.

Five — The option

Ottawa always has the option of sending money directly to individual aboriginals, instead of solely through the chief and council.

Mr. Allard may have one of the most interesting ideas for improving First Nations governance that you’ve never heard about. Under early treaties, the Indian Affairs department agreed to pay $5.00 to every individual aboriginal (many bands still celebrate “Treaty Days” where members symbolically line up for their yearly allowance). Mr. Allard’s proposal argues that, adjusting the amount for inflation to a few hundred dollars and sending it directly to First Nations citizens, would liberate them from the dependency on—and, often, subjection from—the chief and council with the purse strings. He writes: “The fundamental virtue of treaty money is that it frees individuals and gives them control over their own lives; something we should want for every man and woman in Canada.”

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/11/24/five-things-to-know-about-the-big-chief-paycheques-on-native-reserves/

Ahhhhh... the power of 'pit and gallows'...

[Chumley]

CommanderSock CommanderSock:

As for holding them accountable? Well, their population in 2000 was 800,000. In 2006 it was 1.3m, in 2010 it could be 2m, we'll see based on the census results. Our incentive should be that if we don't get them integrate now, by 2050 their population could reach 15-20m. In that case they'll pry this country from "whitie’s" cold dead hands one way or another (and whoever else is living here, Canada won’t even be 60% European by then).
My 2c.

I predict a 3 way between the people that are having the most babies - the immigrants, capitol C Christians, (not the non practicing ones), and the natives.