Attawapiskat Crisis

inthedark · Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:04 pm Post subject: Attawapiskat Crisis

Here is a 12 minute video of financial mismanagement of EXTREMELY criminal proportions. The media in Canada has been whipping up a story and finally a commentator spells it all out with the facts from the "victimized" first nation's own reports and financial sheets. Disgusting!
Confused

www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/...5rm0.email

Vince · Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 3:26 am Post subject: Re: Attawapiskat Crisis

That is absolutely disgusting mate...the Band Leaders (Chiefs) are a disgrace to their people's heritage...but it's no different to what happens over here with our aborigines.

Cheers, Vince

lesterg3 · Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 4:50 am Post subject: Re: Attawapiskat Crisis

It is spelled P O L I T I C I A N.

It's tough being a politician. Half your reputation is ruined by lies the other half is ruined by the truth!

eeyouelder · Member Joined: Jan 26, 2005 Posts: 123 Location: Quebec

My two bits:

For many years I did teach on reserves throughout Québec. The actions taken by the band counsel is what makes or breaks the community. I have seen reserves that would resemble the well-off neighborhood of a large city, where everyone works the year around and I have seen the opposite where the houses are run down with plywood in the broken windows and drugs and alcohol are common and that is what is pitiful.
I remember my introduction to a certain chief when I arrived for the first time in his community and he was dead drunk on the floor of his house. Only one student showed up for class and after a few weeks I decided to leave for greener pastures.
In other communities I was invited in the homes by individuals for coffee and I felt right at home. In these communities the classes were always full. Education was important to them. The problem with these communities is that once well educated (doctors, engineers etc.) the children leave for the big city and only come back to the community for a visit

Suzanne · Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 10:04 am Post subject: Re: Attawapiskat Crisis

I don't know why he kept calling it racism, it's more like greed. I can relate to what's going on, but these people are so far away from main stream population that anything goes. I can think of a nice little spot in the 4 corners area of Arizona where the Zuni, Hopi, Navajo and Ute Indian tribes converge. It has areas of population in desert that is very dry, has very little vegetation or rain fall, the winter snow and rains can leave stranded families for days without even knowledge of their existence. These people prefer to live this way, without electricity or running water, tending their sheep and living life as they see fit.

The Navajo Nation in this area is probably the richest of the tribes, as they (whites) discovered oil there in the 1920s and of course wanted that part of the reservation back. They also mine coal and uranium. They have their Navajo Nation Oil and Gas Company now and provide scholarships for Navajo undergrads, they have a pipeline that covers 3 states, and have 10 related oil businesses in association. The people live on the largest, (it covers 26,000 sq. miles) richest (as far as money goes) reservation in the US. Yet most people on the reservation don't have access to electricity or natural gas, they use wood and propane for heating and cooking. Most homes don't have telephones or public utilities, and lack complete kitchen and plumbing facilities.

Ok here's a point to ponder, Navajo girls have 17 times the national average rate of cancer, the population has 4 times the national ave. rate for diabetes. Ever hear of bubble boy disease? In the Navajo Nation 1 in every 2,500 children, but in the US on average 1 in 100,000 children have Sever Combined Immunodeficiency. Virtually no immune system. Their unemployment level fluctuates between 40-50% and in some populations 80%.

They, as a people, have their priorities (just my opinion) and they have means to upgrade, but they only go so far. They also have an enormous struggle to do anything at all. The Native populations in the US, and probably everywhere, have the same roadblocks and fences and walls to get over.

You have to understand that when no-one owns the ground you live on, just as no-one owns the air you breath the ocean you swim in, there are no boundaries. When unrecognized boundaries appear, they are only a part of the landscape you haven't seen before and you climb over, cut through, go around. You are only a prisoner when you can't do that. Prisoners tend to submit to their environmental boundaries and give up on life as they know it. Prisoners still want the life they had to leave behind, it shows in the way they cope with life as they see it.

Suz

Suzanne · Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 10:14 am Post subject: Re: Attawapiskat Crisis

Hopefully what I said related to the video......I guess what I mean is the corruption is something that goes with life on the res. People are trying to cope. It's a very hard situation and the solutions may be obvious and cut and dried but not when it's you behind the wheel. The government officials are blind and deaf and so are the people they govern. It goes as it goes and nobody knows. That's just the way it is, everybody's fault and no-one's fault. My solution? MOVE! get out of there and don't look back. It's a huge mess that won't be cleaned up because it was wrong in the first place. You take over somebody's house and expect them to live there with you without turmoil? That's how it goes, what do you expect?

Suz

Tremblay · Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 10:52 am Post subject: Re: Attawapiskat Crisis

Very interesting Suz

inthedark · Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 6:02 pm Post subject: Re: Attawapiskat Crisis

Suz, you make some really good points. To clarify the term "racist" that the presenter used. I am of the opinion that he is Jewish. I get that from his mannerisms and his personal linguistic code. Your last paragraph resonates within me. My native heritage is from my mothers side back three generations out of Iowa. When you don't have boundaries like you said, anything goes. And that doesn't go over in todays western society. We have wealthy well managed reserves here in Saskatchewan also and we have reserves like Poor Man Reserve that was and is a money pit and has ALL of the social ills that could possibly befall a person, from rampant incest, sexual assault etc, virtually 100% unemployment alcoholism, drugs and the poor attitude that goes with it. Any way you cut it, its &uc$ed up.
I think that they HAVE to do what was done on a Labrador coastal community twenty years ago when the kids were huffing gas and that was to load the whole works up and move them in mass to Ottawa to school and dormatorys and BREAK the circle of despair. Those kids are now adults who came back to their community, educated and leaders to their people. There was some real HEATED political debates and flack but it worked.

For Lester- brother you have some saying! Keep them coming.
Chimo
ITD

Dimitri · Super Member Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 5946

Vince wrote:

That is absolutely disgusting mate...the Band Leaders (Chiefs) are a disgrace to their people's heritage...but it's no different to what happens over here with our aborigines.

I am just very confused with this situation myself, as the band leaders and councils have been known for decades to take the governments money and use it for themselves. But apparently stating that in Canada means your a racist evil white man who doesn't care about other cultures. Except that I grew up in a couple of places with large amounts of natives living off the reserve, that generally worked hard and kept good jobs to provide for their families, and they were the ones who complained about the band leaders the most!

This situation wont change unless the reserves are made to comply with the rest of Canada's laws, it might violate a whole bunch of our treaties with the natives but if they expect to be "helped" more then they already are, there needs to be accountability.

Not to say there are not rich thriving communities of natives in Canada cause there are many who leveraged their natural resources and money from the government to help the entire community, but if a tribe cannot manage itself, and they "require" more government assistance, they should be made to forfeit their "right" of self-destiny and their on reserve schools and services should be taken over by the government till the reserve can prove its ready to self administer itself again.

Dimitri

Vince · Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 1:40 am Post subject: Re: Attawapiskat Crisis

Unfortunately I don't think there is any easy answer to this problem.

One of the reasons I see for the problems with our aborigines is that 250 yrs ago they were essentially a Stone Age people...the British grabbed them and tried to "skull drag" them into European civilisation without any thought to their heritage, culture or legends. I would imagine it was no different for the Canadian Indians and the American Indians...the white man saw something he wanted, saw that the "natives" were not capitalising on it, so they simply moved in and took it from them. This was basically land at the start, then they discovered minerals etc. In the case of the Canadian and American Indians they were moved onto reservations, but the Australian aborigine was simply pushed "aside".

Slowly, but sort of surely, the aborigines are winning back their tribal lands, well some of them anyway, through Land Rights Legislation.

The same is happening in the Amazon...the natives down there don't stand a chance against the greedy capitalistic society that "rules" in that region now...if there is gold or other valuable minerals, then the rainforest is destroyed and the land raped in the name of profits and progress.

Cheers, Vince

eeyouelder · Member Joined: Jan 26, 2005 Posts: 123 Location: Quebec

In Québec a little bit more than half of the province is classed as territory of category 1 or 2 or 3.
Territory of category 1 is the reserve village and is run by the local band council. Territory of category 2 is territory, surrounding the village, which is reserved for the use by members of that village only. Territory of category 3 is territory reserved for the use by natives of all communities.
When the Québec government wanted to build a hydro power dam on a river in territory of category 2 they negotiated with the local natives and granted them royalties and a lump sum. That is why the Crees, the Naskapis and the Inuits are so rich (as a community not individually).
The last financial report that I received from the Inuits showed that for that year the interest on their placements was 120,000,000.00$, not bad for a community of about 9 000 souls. They also have their own airlines, Air Creebec for the Crees and First Air for the Inuits.

On territory of any of these category, if it is to be exploited by non-natives, than it must be approved by the local band councils and after negotiations and a settlement is reached, lumber can be harvested or a mine can be operated or a dam can be built.
Some other native communities exploit their territory to their interest by acting as outfitters for fishing or hunting enthusiasts. The Innus of Essipit have three such outfits. They also have boats equipped with radar etc. in order to take tourists observe the whales. They have camp grounds and luxurious cabins on the shore of the river to be rented out to tourists. In that community of about 400 resident members, all of them work and they have to hire about 40 non-natives.

All this to explain that if the native community desires to improve their lot that it can be done. Also it must be noted that natives do not have to live on the reserves but non-natives cannot live on a reserve on a permanent basis. I say this because I often get Europeans tell me that Canadians should be ashamed for ‘parking’ natives on small plots of land known as a ‘reserves’

Eeyou ni