“Residential schools are only one very small piece of the problems faced by Aboriginals in Canada. A far greater contributor to their persistent poverty, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, dropout, family violence, etc. is the corruption within their own band councils. Money comes from the government in well-intentioned programs designed to “help” them (nevermind the question of whether cutting them off might help them more in the long run), but that money often gets wasted or spent on things it wasn’t intended for. In the name of “self-governance”, the ones who really do need assistance don’t get it unless they are friends or family of the band council. That’s why the problems persist and the cheques from Ottawa keep on rolling in. –ANONYMOUS”
People literally -live in fear- about speaking out sensibly on native issues… hence why the comments above are anonymous.
Unreal that we live in such a society today.
The residential school issue does meet the criteria of genocide. Children were taken from their parents to be raised in a non-native environment, this is a form of genocide. Garg, it goes way way deeper than some kids who got sick at a boarding school who may have died at home. The trauma the survivors have to deal with is a horrible legacy, they were forced to learn a new language and were beaten if they spoke their native tongue or tried to engage in their native rituals and practices.
The destruction of a culture is genocide even if you don’t kill the people.
Garg, I think if you research a few different sources you might come to a different conclusion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system
In 1909, Dr. Peter Bryce, general medical superintendent for the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA), reported to the department that between 1894 and 1908, mortality rates at some residential schools in Western Canada ranged from 30% to 60% over five years (that is, five years after entry, 30% to 60% of students had died, or 6�12% per annum). These statistics did not become public until 1922, when Bryce, who was no longer working for the government, published The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921. In particular, he alleged that the high mortality rates could have been avoided if healthy children had not been exposed to children with tuberculosis.[citation needed] At the time, no antibiotic had been identified to treat the disease.
Yeah, natives have some current cultural issues with alcohol and substance abuse issues, perhaps a legacy of being raised by people damaged by the residential school system. The natives in the West have not been beaten down as badly as the ones in the east for the most part.
The destruction of a culture is genocide even if you don’t kill the people.
Really? That reminds me of an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where some dude who was on the TV show “survivor” felt equal to an old Jewish man who had survived a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. Having to adapt to modern culture is not the same thing as losing your life and the people you love. “Genocide” is a very strong word and we should use it carefully.
What I completely fail to understand is why the school/government/church gets blamed for things like disease? The Child death rate was probably DOUBLE for first nations children that didn’t go to residential schools… At at the same time, my grandmother almost died of the same spanish flu, watching many of her own friends pass.
The state is responsible for any inadequate conditions (which can directly relate to mortality rates) because those children became wards of the state for all practical purposes.
I would be very interested to know if the child death rate was actually higher or lower in residential schools. It’s ridiculous to assume “probably DOUBLE” without any source to back that up.
I’m not native, I don’t know any natives, so I’m uninterested in their current or past issues by lack of association. I’ve got my own problems… like how green my lawn is.
What I completely fail to understand is why the school/government/church gets blamed for things like disease?�  The Child death rate was probably DOUBLE for first nations children that didn’t go to residential schools…�  At at the same time, my grandmother almost died of the same spanish flu, watching many of her own friends pass.
The state is responsible for any inadequate conditions (which can directly relate to mortality rates) because those children became wards of the state for all practical purposes.
I would be very interested to know if the child death rate was actually higher or lower in residential schools. It’s ridiculous to assume “probably DOUBLE” without any source to back that up.
My sentiment comes from the fact that there were GROSS problems BEFORE the residential schools, and that’s why the government requested the church to come in to try and “help” these people.
The problems first nations children faced existed long before settlers even arrived in the new world.
And that said, the challenges the world faced at the time, -like the spanish flu- were overwelming…
The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920)[1] was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic which infected 500 million[2] people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—1 to 3 percent of the world’s population[3] at the time—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.
As for “learning new languages” I was FORCED into learning F-ing french. A community that’s farther from me than RUSSIA. But you don’t see me in a bread-line asking for the money out of your wallet.
And please excuse the government for trying to teach these children to read, or rather, understand what there parents are widely quoted as calling “the magic of the talking paper”.
I have researched extensively on this topic, and at the next model parliament IN the legislature I’m going to run a party of young people that abolishes the indian act. RACIAL legislation that “first classes” one group of people over another based entirely on their “ethnicity and race”. You can rank with those who want to defend racial debt slavery, I choose to rank with those who believe in real equality. Excuse me for having enough.
Yeah, natives have some current cultural issues with alcohol and substance abuse issues.
These are not current issues, they are 400 year old or more issues.
Don’t get me wrong, Residential schools were a bad idea. We should have left these people to their own end. And filth.
Oh, and everyone in the government 70 years ago is dead…
So I’m still not understanding why this tragedy is MY fault? and why I personally get targetted for reparations? and why my thoughts in general are socially censored or considered uncooth?
There are Canadians, and then there are “first” nations. We/YOU serve them. � Make no mistake.
I’m not ok with being anyone’s slave, except Jennifer Love Hewitt.
IN OTHER NEWS / MORE OF THE TRUTH
http://www.canada.com/mobile/iphone/story.html?id=7980597
Canadians now see truth behind First Nations chief
Monday, February 18, 2013
By Mary Lou Nordstrom, The Daily NewsChief Theresa Spence’s worst fault was to breach Voltaire’s ‘Liberty, Equality and People’s Rights’ on the Attawapiskat Reserve.
And the next one was her hunger strike was for money and she had medicinal tea, lemon water and fish soup.
Attawapiskat has 1,500 people the size of a Canadian Hamlet. It differs in unpaid elected mayor and council. Chief Spence paid herself $70,000 a year tax free, Clayton Kennedy, town manager $310,000 a year tax free.
With 21 full paid politicians, its own health authority, school board, power corporation, development corporation, and a corporation to run the hockey rink for which they purchased a Zamboni-like machine for $96,000 during a housing crises. In 2007, Band Manager George Lanouette was paid $173,000 tax free and Mike Gull $126,000 tax free as technical services manager.
About $450,000 a month pours into Attawapiskat as welfare payments. They own nine million in stocks in Apple, Disney and Chinese cell phone companies. In 2011 they spent $200,000 on gifts and $36,000 on goose hunting. Wayne Turner spent $68,000 in travel expenses in two months.
Under Harper’s government, Aboriginal Affairs spending has increased from $6.1 billion in 2006/2007 to $7.9 billion in 2012.
By blocking the road to De Beers diamond mines, Chief Spence is cutting off Attawapiskat’s cash cow from which they have received millions, or is this holding De Beers up for more money?
Sadly Chief Spence brings shame on her fellow Canadian First Nations who are trying to rise to equality, liberty and people’s rights on and off their reserves. The blinders are off, Canadians now know that Chief Spence has enough money, when well managed to shed the reservation system and become free of our Paternalistic Indian affairs government.
I wish all the Attawapiskat people a better life with equal rights.
Mary Lou Nordstrom Nanaimo
Wow, 2 negative votes for sticking up for kids who were ripped from their families, stuck in boarding schools and often molested and beaten.
Garg, you equate being forced to learn french with being taken from your family and native ways and stuck in a boarding school?
I personally know natives and some live on the reserve. No doubt there is a huge amount of room for improvement, no doubt many take advantage of the system, again, lots of room for improvement. But really, feeling hard done by because you don’t want to hear about what happened to native kids?
Stupid laws like individual natives on the reserve don’t own the land their house is on so they cannot get a mortgage from a bank. The worst part of the Indian question is that most of the band leaders are corrupt and the money does not get to the everyday natives. Rather than going on about how unfair it is that kids who were stolen from their parents and raped get special treatment we should go after the crimes that occur every day NOW and that is the corruption at the band leader level.
Never said it was anybodies fault personally but we don’t get to pick and choose where our individual tax dollars get spent. I don’t like speed limits therefore I protest my taxes get spent on enforcing speed limits! :-D
The UN definition of genocide does not require the plan be to kill everyone but to destroy a culture. That was EXACTLY what the plan was, to destroy the native culture by making a law that ALL native children be raised by the state.
Let’s be clear on this. A law was passed that required you to hand over your children to the state to be educated according to the state wishes not your native ways.
An amendment to the Indian Act in 1920 made attendance at a day, industrial or residential school compulsory for First Nations children and, in some parts of the country, residential schools were the only option. The number of residential schools reached 80 in 1931 but decreased in the years that followed. The last federally-operated residential school was closed in 1996.
That is hardly the same as having to take a 1 hour french class a few times per week for a couple of years.
Let’s be clear on this. A law was passed that required you to hand over your children to the state to be educated according to the state wishes not your native ways.
Anytime the state intervenes and tries to do social engineering it always backfires due to the corruption of individuals on both sides who take advantage. I think what Gargantua is saying is that everyone should be treated equal. A society without racism is one where everyone is treated equally by the same laws. No preferential treatment for whites; no preferential treatment for Aboriginals or any other group. All are created equal.
Let’s be clear on this. A law was passed that required you to hand over your children to the state to be educated according to the state wishes not your native ways.
Anytime the state intervenes and tries to do social engineering it always backfires due to the corruption of individuals on both sides who take advantage. I think what Gargantua is saying is that everyone should be treated equal. A society without racism is one where everyone is treated equally by the same laws. No preferential treatment for whites; no preferential treatment for Aboriginals or any other group. All are created equal.
This.
What’s wrong with Equality Mal? Why do you insist on holding up RACE based legislation? That’s so last century man…
The UN definition of genocide does not require the plan be to kill everyone but to destroy a culture. That was EXACTLY what the plan was, to destroy the native culture by making a law that ALL native children be raised by the state.
Actually, the plan (which went terribly wrong) was to educate first nations so that they could be integrated into society…
You see, we arrived in what 1492?
All of the 1500’s - First nations did not adapt
All of the 1600’s - First nations did not adapt
All of the 1700’s - First nations did not adapt
All of the 1800’s - First nations did not adapt
After 400 years of not adapting - and almost being WIPED OUT. The government took the pains to try and do something for first nations, and to try and modernize the culture for it’s own sake.
You have to look at the whole picture here Mal. Ironically the residential school system is the reason we have First Nations doctors and lawyers and so on today.
After 400 years of leaving these people to their own end, on average - they still couldn’t read, and children received NO formal education. This was a big problem. Think about where people who cannot read often are today.
All that said, first nations are hardly the ONLY group who has had their kids taken away from them to go to schools. Your own children have to go to school by LAW for 30 hours a week. OR YOU GO TO JAIL. And I’m guessing you’ve never heard of the Doukhobors?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doukhobor
These -white- folks went to JAIL after having their children stolen from them. In-fact, the government made them their own prison no more than an hour’s drive from where I grew up. But you don’t see the Doukhobors receiving -equal- support, simply because their skin happens to be the wrong colour.
Racism is wrong Mal. Please stop supporting it!
The reason I take this issue so seriously, is because everytime a band of natives goes and blocks a road, or blames the -white man- or accusses -the canadian public- of stealing their land, and burning their talking sticks. All Canadians get victimized.
@Young:
I’m not native, I don’t know any natives, so I’m uninterested in their current or past issues by lack of association. I’ve got my own problems… like how green my lawn is.
If anyone deserves a negative vote, it’s the old fat white guy that spends 3 hours at Home Depot comparing lawn fertilizers.
Garg, don’t set me up as a straw man. Exactly where did I say I supported giving natives special treatment? I think if you were a native kid and got screwed in a church run boarding school you should get special treatment, not because you are native but because a priest was screwing your bum.
Garg, are you saying going to a local public school is the same as being taken from your family on a reserve and stuck in a boarding school 100s of miles away out of contact from you family for months on end being taught in a foreign language and being beaten for speaking your own language? Public schools out west are way more harsh then I remember then in the east lol?
Trust me, the natives I know who live on the land on reserves around here have zero interest in adapting to a 9-5 job and why should they if they are not collecting a cheque from the government? I do agree there is a culture of dependency and that things must change. I’m just not sure white washing what happened to native kids in the residential school system is the way to change things. Perhaps a change in the property laws so that natives can get mortgages on their land so they can attract investment onto native lands would be a start. Garg, how familiar are you with native land property rights? Thought so…… Women lose their status rights when they marry a non native but men do not. There is much room to improve the toolset natives have so they are not dependent.
Devil’s advocate mode…read this…
http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/the-residential-school-system.html
Garg, many might consider it racist to state the natives should just give up their way of life for ours since theirs is so obviously inferior. I think with proper land rights and treaties settled the natives could be very self sufficient.
I don’t think you’re understanding where I’m coming from Mal.
I want to leave these people alone and to their own ends. Today. Right now. They should be able to live however they want to. The canadian public does too. In fact, the most successful referendum in our entire nations history, was a decade ago in British Columbia, when the government asked the public if they would be in favour of phasing out ALL first nations treaties, procedures, and policies provincally. It recieved some 80+ %. Then the government did nothing :S.
But to leave these people alone - as they deserve, That means we stop sending money. But everytime we talk about stopping the money, First Nations block roads, bridges, railroads, businesses and terrorize the Canadian people. People today live in fear of speaking out against injustice committed by First Nations, lest they be called Racist…
You realize that the money spent on Indian affairs over the last 100 years, is roughly equal to our ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT right?
It’s almost dollar for dollar, by the time you calculate +/- interests.
The reality is, these people DON’T want to be left alone, if it means the free money stops. That’s the issue at issue here.
British Columbia, when the government asked the public if they would be in favour of phasing out ALL first nations treaties, procedures, and policies provincally. It recieved some 80+ %. Then the government did nothing :S.
Phasing out treaties? Is that like phasing out your mortgage with the bank? One cannot unilaterally decide to break a treaty. If the natives own the land you have to pay to use it. If we signed a treaty 100 years ago and it seems unfair now, tough. The Indians don’t get to retroactively change treaties in their favour.
It is true that the blockades are not lawful and those should be dealt with. This occurs in Ontario too. Google caledonia land dispute. There does need to be some standing up to the bullsit that occurs. I just question the white washing of the residential school system as your first salvo. I say go after corrupt chiefs and change land ownership laws so natives can actually own land on the reserve and develop it.
But the land did belong to the indians and they have a right to some of it. It’s true they’re some abuses that can be constructively dealt with. Forcing all natives off their land so they can work in starbucks is not a solution ie tearing up all the treaties……
It’s also true the further you move west the stronger the indian land claims are. Not too many natives left east of quebec. The natives in southern ontario were long ago supplanted by whites. I do see in BC how strong the native land rights causes are.
Again, those are separate issues from kids being screwed by priests in the residential school system.
You realize that the money spent on Indian affairs over the last 100 years, is roughly equal to our ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT right?
I don’t believe this, would love to see you cite some facts to support this.
Garg, you want to talk about injustices. How about Quebec language police bitching that an italian restaurant favoured Italian over French on the menu! Can’t use the word pasta!
Quebec language cops target ‘pasta’
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2013/02/20/20596011.html
No sooner did I post that link that I came across this related link to Native blockades
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/02/20/attawapiskat-blockade-smells-of-coercion-judge
Nice Malachi.
What a joke.
I suppose pates sounds better!
And is pizza a French word now?
As an Italian restaurateur I know how I would have reacted and it would have been by uttering a sentence using these 9 words:
whore, is, you, mother, a, and, your, off, fuck.
But then I have always had a way with words!
I need to clarify.
There were NO TREATIES in British Columbia, until the Nisga treaty in the mid 1990’s. Which was imposed on the citizens of British Columbia without their input.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/aboriginals/bc_treaty_referendum.html
The Treaty Referendum I mentioned, was to allow “British Columbians” to have a say in the treaty process. Of course the CBC link I’ve cited suggests it’s “racist”.
I don’t see how letting people have a -say- in a treaty process is -racist-. But that’s the world we live in today.
For those of you who don’t know, CBC is also known as the “Communist Broadcasting Centre”.
The Indians don’t get to retroactively change treaties in their favour
Actually, that’s exactly what they are trying to do. I seem to recall hearing Theresa Spence say that first nations legislation was “out of date”. Yet at the same time, cling to a 300 year old treaty.
It’s time to phase out the special race based privledges, and release the citizens of canada from the second class citizenship slavery they live in.
And don’t get me started on the language police…
Native bands in B.C. say their land was taken from them without treaty, negotiation or payment. Native groups have therefore claimed most of the province as their ancestral home.
For the record, 107% of British Columbia is claimed as native land.
107%, how is that possible you ask? Because the different tribes have overage claims on each other, because for this 10 year period, or that 20 year period, they “felt”, their “oral history” implied they owned larger areas.
Theresa Spence is a crook from what I see.
