Truth & Reconciliation Part II
 

Moderator's note: The thread title has been changed from what was a peculiar but familiar title. This thread is to reflect the many views after the conclusion of the formal Truth & Reconciliation Commission. This thread is for the discussion of the recommendations by the TRC and other possible policy changes that may be required in the future. The following text is from the original poster and reflects his views.

Interesting how a major report on the Residential School systems has come out using the term "cultural genocide" came out a couple days ago and yet no thread here.

Lots of recent posts on "what is your weather like today", Highways, skylines etc and yet not a peep on a system that was responsible for 6000 deaths, cultural devastation, and untold pain and suffering. Are Canadians suffering from Native fatigue?

Another report of things we already knew with the obligatory opposition parties denouncing the government's inaction and indifference but always making sure their disgust is in front of the cameras. Canadians again having to say they are sorry and being told they should be ashamed yet 99.9% of Canadians had nothing to do with it.

Another report where Canadians have two reactions..........disgust at what happened and wondering how much this new report is going to cost them. In short, are we getting tired of the Natives?

Canadians watching good money after bad being spent on Natives with absolutely no results and never a paper trail. Native Chiefs deriding the government of the day about the horribly living conditions on their respective reserves yet always seem to do exceedingly well themselves. A reserve system that is more akin to a feudal one than a democratic one. The latest example just came out this week that $300 million was spent on Native housing and resulted in just 99 new houses.......that's $3 million a piece. Even Vancouver could build housing cheaper.

Chiefs who refuse to reform the current system and the Natives who do not hold them accountable. People who decry the lack of jobs but refuse to leave their completely isolated Reserves. Parents who have many more kids than most Canadians yet no way to provide a decent standard of living for them.

People have been vilifying Harper in the last few days for his apparent indifference to the report but is he really being just reflecting the views of a lot of Canadians {like ourselves} who are tired of Natives demanding respect and understanding from everyone else but no demanding it from themselves?

It's difficult to find a way to respond to a post like this.

While there are elements of truth in what you say, there's also a mean-spiritedness which does not represent the way I believe that Canada should respond to a group of people who have been treated poorly from virtually the first moment that the Europeans who would later form our country encountered them.

Yes, there has been a tremendous amount of money spent by the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, but the one thing that we should have understood by this point is that this is not an issue which can be solved simply by spending money.

At times, it almost amazes me that there are some actual success stories amongst Canada's First Nations Bands.

I'm getting exasperated just trying to formulate my response to what OP wrote, so I'll just say that no, I am not tired of "the Natives". Nor do I think any true Canadian would be. As Steveston wrote above, this is not really about the money.

I also believe that the more appropriate term would be First Nations.

Ssiguy, could you provide some links to the articles your are talking about? Thanks.

Well...the settlers basically tried to eliminate them and their culture so yeah..."tired" might be an understatement...

The narrative of corruption etc etc, while not without some truth is just a way for all of us to feel better about a generally racist country/system that really just wishes we wouldn't have to deal with the reality of how this country was built.

If we tell ourselves the reason a segment of the population is struggling is because they can't figure themselves out, even after all we've given them, then we don't have to take any responsibility or feel guilty.

European settlers and their colonial culture were "tired" of the aboriginal peoples as soon as it was realized that there was value in the land. Some people are still tired and wish the problem would just go away.

There are many tired people in a Canada. There also seems to be a growing number of people willing to face not only the past, but the present of the shitty stuff Canada has done/is doing. :shrug:

gunnar777........................who is OP?
Klazu..........the report came out this week.

I think you guys are misunderstanding me. I am not saying I agree with the excuses I wrote but rather reflecting what I think a lot of people feel.

I too am horrified by what happened and know that there are still a lot of bigotry still out there against the Natives. I know abuse such as this has multi-generational consequences and fetal alcohol/drug syndrome is rampant and there are no quick fixes.

But let's also be serious here kids............this damning report came out 2 days ago and not a peep was spoken on this site but tons of new comments on the ever essential weather, highway, skyline, etc threads. It's also not because people don't like making new threads................Parizeau died the day the report came out but a thread for him was immediately started and is already up to it's 5th page.

Considering that most of us on this site and policy and political junkies and no one bothered to start a thread then imagine how the rest of the citizenry feels. harper may seem offensively indifferent but if we can start a Parizeau thread and not at the same time start a Native thread dealing with our country's own cultural genocide then maybe his indifference really is reflecting the views of many or even most Canadians.

I guess my biggest problem is I don't know what it all means. "What do I need to do?" in the micro and macro sense.

canadians with the sort of values that are contemporary right now are in a tight spot with the natives. i mean, they are a conquered people. they were defeated and lost their lands. there was murder and rape and abduction and domination and all of that.

it's not a historically uncommon thing, but it is an extraordinarily ugly and sad thing that non-native canadians remain unlikely to address by vacating the premises.

so we do other stuff, or don't do other stuff, in varying degrees. deep down we know what happened, though, and that it was decided by pre-20th century canadians and europeans with much bloodier and more hierarchical values than are currently fashionable.

and we live in their houses.

Chinese, south asians and now native. Any other ethnic groups youve grown tired of?

Well it's a skyscraper website, so I'm not surprised we've got stuff about construction and not major political events.

As for the price of houses, when everything has to get flown into a community it costs massive sums just to stock your fridge, let alone build a house. Add in bureaucratic issues where they have assigned contractors and what not and 3 million a house doesn't surprise me that much. I think I've heard of cities builind million dollar bust stops and pushing a million by adding a few flower pots somewhere.

More specifically - Corrupt Chinese immigrants who are single single handedly inflating the Vancouver real estate market with their 'ill gotten gains' :rolleyes:

oh...oh my.

Historically, there seems to be two ways that can "work". 1) Conquerors mingle with conquered (kinda like what the Romans did in Gaul, and then the Germanic tribes did with the Gallo-Romans, etc.) or 2) Conquerors dislodge conquered, but the conquered still have their own land and autonomy somewhere else (kinda like Wales and Cornwall for over a millenium).

I wonder what would happen if we let the First Nations "have" one province. Of course they'd have to move there, and abandon the reserves (just like nearly all Eastern First Nations in the US were moved to Okla Territory, but hopefully with less tears). No land in southern Canada is empty at the moment, obviously and unfortunately, but maybe we could give them a corner of NW Ont or a Prairie province and have them join confederation as 11th province? Non-natives would be welcome there too, if they wanted. But natives would have a critical mass in that province, and become normal Canadians. A bit like the Québécois, actually.

You just learned about residential schools two days ago...? Then yeah, it's major news (for you).

A great statesman passing away is much more important news than a report on something that everyone already knew about, IMO. (FWIW, the media here clearly agrees with me if you look at the coverage ratio between the two for this week!)

I understand it's only a thought-experiment, but I'll throw in the point that these are "nations", not "a nation"... I'm not sure amalgamation would be agreeable to all of them.

I'm still making my way through the summary of the report. I understand the actual report is in six volumes.

Canada (and Anglo-Canada) has been in a major identity/cultural development and maturation phase of late, and the aboriginal issue doesn't fit in at all with the dominant narrative themes of a benevolent country that the entire world looks up to, opens its doors to everyone regardless of race, etc., takes care of its own, etc.

As such, it's extremely convenient (for most people anyway) that the issue be ignored or at least swept under the carpet.

Hopefully this wasn't a post asking for "proof"?

This is very annoying when people do this.

We may not all agree with all of the OP's analysis but certainly most of the factual stuff there is well-known and out there in the public realm.

He's certainly not making this stuff up.

Apologies if I read your question wrong.

For what it's worth though, one could say that Nunavut is basically the Inuit "province" (although it's obviously a territory). It's a bit easier in that regard because the Inuit are concentrated up there and there is no one else around to quarrel with their claim. A lot tougher to duplicate that with First Nations because they are spread out over much more populated areas.

Realistically the way to do duplicate that with FN would be to carve out a chunk of northern Sask, Manitoba, NW Ontario that are largely FN-inhabited. Then you'd have one big chunk of Ojibway and Cree-inhabited land. Northern Alberta would make sense too, but obviously that's touchy given the energy activity up there. Put the capital in Prince Albert or Thompson, and there you go.