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  #41  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 4:02 PM
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Originally Posted by esquire View Post
It's not that I don't value my ethnicity, but I put my own well-being ahead of vestigial culture (and I say this as someone who speaks a rudimentary form of Ukrainian and who is generally familiar with Ukrainian ways and customs... in other words, I still have some real ties to the old country). Frankly, it would be immaterial to me in the long run whether or not Ukrainian culture and society remained alive and I would not accept having to make profound personal sacrifices to protect it.

Your line of thinking illustrates the risk of looking at people as being defined by their social groups... it's basically telling someone this: "it doesn't matter if life in Attawapiskat means that you'll be unemployed for your whole life and you'll live in terrible conditions... you need to do it to protect the culture". What a misguided approach.
That's exactly how I think. I lean more to the collectivist side of the individualist-collectivist spectrum. It's against the norms of Anglosphere culture, but I still believe in it.
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  #42  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 4:08 PM
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I think it may help to have as a starting point the actual recommendations from the report. This is where things are relevant to Canadians and First Nations alike - the actual policy changes that are recommended at a Federal Level to try to do things better:

English:

http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstit...n_English2.pdf

French:

http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstit...ion_French.pdf
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  #43  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 4:12 PM
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc View Post
That's exactly how I think. I lean more to the collectivist side of the individualist-collectivist spectrum. It's against the norms of Anglosphere culture, but I still believe in it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with it, but you have to then be prepared for people to put up with less than ideal conditions to support the collectivist cause (which they may or may not personally believe in or support).

Great if you think that a bunch of isolated reserves are a good idea because they preserve culture and identity in a way that is apparently not feasible in towns or urban areas, but you will have to deal with the inevitable side effects of having people living in them who are cut off from the modern economy.
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  #44  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 4:33 PM
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Originally Posted by geotag277 View Post
I think it may help to have as a starting point the actual recommendations from the report. This is where things are relevant to Canadians and First Nations alike - the actual policy changes that are recommended at a Federal Level to try to do things better:

English:

http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstit...n_English2.pdf
That list is humungous. Funding to the CBC? Wha?
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  #45  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 4:51 PM
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Originally Posted by Vorkuta View Post
That list is humungous. Funding to the CBC? Wha?
The list is not only humongous, it has several vague and vacuous recommendations, and it seems to largely pretend we haven't tried many of these things before.

http://cwrp.ca/aboriginal-child-welfare

http://actionplan.gc.ca/en/initiativ...-education-act

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fniah-spnia/index-eng.php

After skimming through the list myself I'm a bit disappointed in it. There seems to be very little of value or consequence in terms of ACTUAL federal policies that deviate significantly from our current course of action.

If I didn't know any better I would say the list was padded with vague and vacuous recommendations just to be able to say "we made a list of 94 recommendations!, isn't that a huge number!, let's pat ourselves on the back!".
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  #46  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 4:54 PM
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Originally Posted by lio45 View Post
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.

historical us

The closest thing achieved (but only for the Inuit) is Nunavut.
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  #47  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 5:05 PM
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Originally Posted by geotag277 View Post
After skimming through the list myself I'm a bit disappointed in it. There seems to be very little of value or consequence in terms of ACTUAL federal policies that deviate significantly from our current course of action.
On one hand, it wasn't set out to set a path that actually deviate from the current course in major, transformative means. The current course has ceased the practice of the Residential Schools. What it asks of the government is to take care of those who are still recovering.

For major transformation, that is going to require something else, perhaps a much larger effort to transform Canada. The TRC is not a legislative arm. It was never designed to provide substantive changes to the relationship, but to act as a reminder of what has been done. The larger efforts are going to require a lot of shouting in the House of Commons to complete.

The TRC was never set out to address the following issues:

- Sovereignty
- Poverty
- Economic independence

The TRC was set out to address the following issues:

- Health of the survivors
- Health of the survivors' dependents
- Education of survivors
- Education of the survivors' dependents
- Education of the Canadian public
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  #48  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 5:17 PM
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Re intégration as a solution

Sounds like it could end up being Residential Schools Part Deux Lite. Only kinder gentler.

A lot of the posts here also hint at an inhérent incompatibility between aboriginal cultures and modernity and prosperity. Actually native cultures are no less compatible with modernity and prosperity than Japanese culture is.

If it appears that way it is because we made it so.
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  #49  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 5:27 PM
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Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
Re intégration as a solution

Sounds like it could end up being Residential Schools Part Deux Lite. Only kinder gentler.

A lot of the posts here also hint at an inhérent incompatibility between aboriginal cultures and modernity and prosperity. Actually native cultures are no less compatible with modernity and prosperity than Japanese culture is.

If it appears that way it is because we made it so.
It has nothing to do with the culture itself. It has to do with geography. Imagine if the Japanese decided that to be true to the Japanese culture meant living in a small, isolated settlement 100 km away from the nearest other settlement, with no road or rail connections. That settlement would probably become an economic and social basketcase too.
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  #50  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 5:27 PM
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Ssiguy, would you be alright with a thread titled "Are we tired of the gays?" I mean with their demands for same sex marriage and all their other calls for equality. Explain how this is different than your tired of the natives suggestion.
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  #51  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 5:53 PM
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This thread should not exist.
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  #52  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 6:09 PM
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Originally Posted by red-paladin View Post
This thread should not exist.
Fair enough, as purely political threads should probably be discouraged in the Canada subforum anyway... although it makes me wonder why some politically-oriented threads are OK but not this one.

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  #53  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 6:09 PM
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Originally Posted by red-paladin View Post
This thread should not exist.
It should definitely be re-titled... I think I know what the author intended, but it does look rather inflammatory.
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  #54  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 6:34 PM
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This thread should exist, but the title says a lot about the original forumer's view on this deep, historical and complex topic. To everyone else's credit except ssiguy's, we've managed to carry out an intelligent conversation about Canada's Aboriginal people despite the fact that the original title suggests that "the" Natives are some monolithic special interest group, and specifically a special interest group that's whiny and always demands hand outs.

I'm not an expert on the social and economic mobility of Aboriginal people, but my own POV as the son of two immigrants from very different ethnic cultures with almost nothing in common with one another is that prosperity trumps identity. I'm fully in agreement with esquire that knowing your roots and being aware of who you come from doesn't matter if you're starving or vulnerable. In many ways - and this is an English Canadian sentiment, and an immigrant's sentiment, especially - but clinging to some identity is, in some way, an opiate. And what good is a societal or cultural identity when it's all inauthentic, to begin with? In the words of the historian Eric Hobbsbawm, "tradition is invented".

I'm also reminded of the infamous Maggie Thatcher quote: "There's no such thing as societies. There are individuals, and there are families."

Like Parizeau's "money and the ethnic vote line" that we've been debating ad nauseam in one of the other threads, Thatcher's line is cruel - and a callous position for a government, if no one else, to take - but, ultimately, when it comes to how people organize themselves, I think this is almost universally true. You are an individual. You have agency. When push comes to shove, the farthest your sympathies can really extend are to your immediate family and close friends. If things are shitty in a society, you have the option to leave and to bring your closest family and friends with you.

And I think that the thing that most non-Aboriginal Canadians have to realize is that Aboriginals are more willing to uproot and move if it improves their than a lot of people; certainly more than a lot of white, middle class Canadians. Aboriginals aren't any more tied to tradition than anybody else. They're pragmatic. If the situation sucks, they know it and they flee. Aboriginals leave reserves in droves. Aboriginals leave reserves in droves despite the fact that the barriers to them leaving are incredibly high and, once they leave, they often have a poor support system in the cities they leave to. Despite this, there are a lot of untold stories of Aboriginals leaving the reserve and finding success in new surroundings.
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  #55  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 6:40 PM
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Originally Posted by red-paladin View Post
This thread should not exist.
+1.

Some people posting in this thread don't seem to understand the fundamental nature of the treaty relationship*. The treaties are the foundation upon which our country and our constitution were built. Mass relocation, forced assimilation and a host of other paternalistic "solutions" to the "native problem" are at odds with the most basic laws of the land (yet we've still tried them all and they don't work). They are also at odds with recent developments in international law.

We cannot view First Nations as just another ethnic group (or collective of ethnic groups) or as just another layer of government. They are sovereign nations that pre-exist the foundation of the country. That sovereignty has never been legally extinguished.

There are several social issues plaguing First Nations (and Inuit and Métis peoples). I don't think we can isolate the residential schools as the sole substantial root cause of those issues. The schools played a huge part in breaking families and breaking cultures, but there's a whole host of other factors that went into it. Canada has done some pretty terrible things in the past and continues to do some pretty terrible things today. The TRC report is a starting place. We should not squander the opportunity for constructive change we have before us right now. We cannot allow these relatively modest recommendations to sit on a shelf somewhere next to the Royal Commission report gathering dust while we wait another twenty years until the next major inquiry.

All of that said, we really must drop the notion that there is a one-size-fits-all solution to the various issues confronting First Nations. First Nations are diverse with diverse needs requiring diverse solutions. We cannot tackle the "native issue" in one fell swoop. We have a long road before us and we can chose to take small steps forward or to stand still here, our hands thrown up in mock helplessness.

(*The courts have clarified the nature of this relationship over the past few decades, but we're still a ways off from exactitude. The definition of "sovereignty" is still fairly vague and there remain large chunks of the country where treaties have yet to be signed)

(Written from the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit Nation)
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  #56  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 6:44 PM
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^ Well there we have it, might as well shut this conversation down. Because there are treaties.
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  #57  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 6:46 PM
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^ Well there we have it, might as well shut this conversation down. Because there are treaties.
Without treaties there is no Canada.
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  #58  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 6:55 PM
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Originally Posted by hipster duck View Post
I'm also reminded of the infamous Maggie Thatcher quote: "There's no such thing as societies. There are individuals, and there are families."
I could not disagree with that quote more if I tried.

An individual is meaningless. No man is an island. The entirety of a person's meaning is dependent on who they are relative to other humans in a society.

I sometimes wonder if I was born in the wrong country. This viewpoint of mine is extremely against the grain for anglosphere values.
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  #59  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 6:58 PM
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Originally Posted by wg_flamip View Post
Without treaties there is no Canada.
Last I checked, no one here had the authority to unilaterally implement federal policy changes. There is nothing preventing us from discussing ways to improve the lot in life for many Canadians. Don't attempt to shut it down just because it might not be in full accord with your worldview.

Last edited by esquire; Jun 5, 2015 at 7:23 PM.
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  #60  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2015, 7:02 PM
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Originally Posted by wg_flamip View Post
(Written from the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit Nation)

*The traditional territory of the Wyandot people, who were then displaced by the Iroquois, who were displaced by the Mississaugas; which was claimed for New France, then conquered by the British Empire, who purchased it from the Mississaugas, which then later became part of the sovereign state of Canada.

Land tends to change hands a few times the years. Not sure that any group anywhere can really claim moral ownership of any piece of property on this planet. But, we can certainly make do with what we have right now, and working within the established treaties to afford more sovereignty to the various nations contained within them sounds like a good start.
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