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First Nations - CF help, protests, solutions, residential schools, etc. (merged)

Happy Reading everyone,

Shared with all the usual caveats etc, etc etc..... 

Got the first link from the CBC Article here -> http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/01/07/pol-attawapiskat-audit-monday.html

The second from the Band's Official Web Page

It's heavily redacted in a lot of places, but it raises some eyebrows - >  http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/551444-deloitte-audit.html

Especially when read after this one -> http://www.attawapiskat.org/wp-content/uploads/2011-Management-Letter.pdf

Gotta love the information super highway.
 
Container said:
There are around 100 police officers in each of the CN and CP police- across the US and Canada. They are not going to be equipped to handle these types of duties. Dets of 3 or 4 officers for thousands of KM's of rail line. And their brass are just as weary of demonstrations and liability.

They call the police force of local jurisdiction when a train accident occurs. If they dont investigate major train incidents- which would seem like a logical extension of their duties....a tac troop to break up blockades seems....unlikely.

All true but only because they significantly downsized the scale and scope of their operations, through the 80s and 90s, because it was a significant cost for them.  Who's to say that if these kinds of blockades become more and more frequent and local police forces continue to show an unwilliness to enforce court injunctions, that someone within CP/CN might do a CBA and perhaps it might show that the expense of expanding is more than justified.  CP has actually been on a bit of a hiring spree for the last two to three years.  And remember both companies ultimately answer to their shareholders, if they start making a stink about loss of profits and revenue I am quite certain they will start looking at ways to address those losses.
 
We re on the same page and I agree. But I believe we may actually witness a strong armed blockade dismantling in the coming months- we'll see if the courts back up their talk.

If I was a wagering man Id bet against it- and that will cement the limp wristed responses as the only response. But thats just my guts talking
 
In my opinion there will be no solution to these problems unless we basically make a fresh start and start from scratch in negotiating the place of First Nations people in Canada.  We're trying to implement 19th Century treaties in the 21st Century.  The world has simply changed too much for this to work to the satisfaction of the bulk of either First Nations peoples or the rest of Canada (excluding of course those individuals who manage to profit from the current system).  Unfortunately a real solution will likely require much more leadership than we have available on either side. 

There are certain similarities to the Israeli-Palestinian situation in as much as for a true, lasting and just settlement to take place one side must accept the fact that their world has fundamentally changed and that there is no going back in time to a situation that simply does not (and will not) exist any more.  The other side meanwhile must realize that the current situation is unhealthy, counterproductive and unsustainable in the long run and that ultimately real sacrifices will have to be made to secure a long term solution.

Certain things were promised to the First Nations peoples in the historical treaties.  Many of those things no longer have the same value in today's society as they did when the treaties were negotiated.  Perhaps we need to find "things" (rights, resources, access, etc) that are of similar comparative value in today's society to replace the original treaty rights.  I think the "rest of Canada" must come to the understanding that the treaties were more than just land-swap "transactions" but also an accommodation between different peoples that had very different cultures and values seeking to share the land and resources in peace.  First Nations peoples on the other hand I think have to come to accept that the idea of having a separate group of people in Canada that have different fundamental rights than the rest of Canadians is unacceptable.  It may not be a pleasant truth for them to accept, but the Europeans were on the winning side of history in North America.  We are all Canadians now and all should have the same rights and freedoms under the law. 

I think we're still (on both sides) far from reaching this point of understanding, but it's my opinion that this is where we need to be before a real solution can be found.
 
GR66 said:
In my opinion there will be no solution to these problems unless we basically make a fresh start and start from scratch in negotiating the place of First Nations people in Canada.  We're trying to implement 19th Century treaties in the 21st Century.  The world has simply changed too much for this to work to the satisfaction of the bulk of either First Nations peoples or the rest of Canada (excluding of course those individuals who manage to profit from the current system).  Unfortunately a real solution will likely require much more leadership than we have available on either side. 

There are certain similarities to the Israeli-Palestinian situation in as much as for a true, lasting and just settlement to take place one side must accept the fact that their world has fundamentally changed and that there is no going back in time to a situation that simply does not (and will not) exist any more.  The other side meanwhile must realize that the current situation is unhealthy, counterproductive and unsustainable in the long run and that ultimately real sacrifices will have to be made to secure a long term solution.

Certain things were promised to the First Nations peoples in the historical treaties.  Many of those things no longer have the same value in today's society as they did when the treaties were negotiated.  Perhaps we need to find "things" (rights, resources, access, etc) that are of similar comparative value in today's society to replace the original treaty rights.  I think the "rest of Canada" must come to the understanding that the treaties were more than just land-swap "transactions" but also an accommodation between different peoples that had very different cultures and values seeking to share the land and resources in peace.  First Nations peoples on the other hand I think have to come to accept that the idea of having a separate group of people in Canada that have different fundamental rights than the rest of Canadians is unacceptable.  It may not be a pleasant truth for them to accept, but the Europeans were on the winning side of history in North America.  We are all Canadians now and all should have the same rights and freedoms under the law. 

I think we're still (on both sides) far from reaching this point of understanding, but it's my opinion that this is where we need to be before a real solution can be found.

As much as I would hope your suggestions are carried forward, I wouldn't bet on it. Activist FN leaders have no interest in changing anything. The victim industry is too invested in the dysfunctional systems to risk losing the gravy train. When you look at almost every grievance aired by FN spokespeople, they all come down to "give us more money". The real problem is that more money isn't the issue... better spending of current money is. Why are there well run bands in one part of the country and not in others? Why aren't the well off communities mentoring the less well off? I can't help but point out the example of the housing crisis where a $3M programme delivers 70K in services and has 2M in administration and salaries. Not exactly well run, and if done off reserve would lead to serious questions. I don't begrudge people earning a living, but the excess is, in a word, excessive.
 
Andre Coyne suggests the real issue is a split between factions of the Native community; between people who are working to modernize and adapt to the 21rst century (as suggested above) and those who have a vested interest in the grievance industry and will fight to the last taxpayer to secure their personal access to perques and power.

While I suspect the Prime Minister and the Government are broadly in support of the reformers, perhaps the Prime Minister's style of "planting wedges" (to borrow from Kirkhill) and slowly moving up the trail created constrains him from more openly supporting the reformers; if they are seen to "win" on their own it makes their (and thus his) position that much stronger. I only wish I was blessed by such patience:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/07/andrew-coyne-idle-no-more-movement-is-a-dispute-between-rival-factions-in-the-aboriginal-community/

Andrew Coyne: Meeting with Harper won’t settle aboriginal people’s problems

Andrew Coyne | Jan 7, 2013 8:56 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 8, 2013 8:54 AM ET
More from Andrew Coyne | @acoyne

If it does nothing else, the Idle No More movement of the past few weeks will have provided a valuable lesson in why so many aboriginal Canadians remain so chronically destitute — why progress has been so frustratingly elusive, and why it is likely to remain so.

The movement, with its vast and ill-defined agenda, its vague and shifting demands, its many different self-appointed spokespersons, is open to any number of different interpretations. But the absolutist rhetoric, the dismissal of dissenting opinion as so much “racism,” and above all, the rigid insistence on adhering to the same approaches that have so signally failed to date, do not suggest a happy future for aboriginal relations.

Ostensibly the movement’s ire is directed at the Harper government, though for reasons that are not widely understood. The four Saskatchewan women whose protests first ignited the movement may have been focused on Bill C-45, the omnibus budget bill — notably its provisions relaxing federal oversight of navigable waterways and lowering the threshold of democratic approval needed for bands to authorize development on reserve land.

But as more and more putative leaders have jumped in front of the parade, from Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence to the Mi’kmaw activist and Ryerson University Chair in Indigenous Governance Pam Palmater, the checklist has expanded to include the whole of the Harper government’s approach to aboriginal issues. Contrary to early media reports, it is not Harper’s neglect that inspires their wrath, but rather his activism.

In Palmater’s writings, the Harper agenda is nothing less than the deliberate “genocide” of aboriginal peoples, in the most literal sense of the word: not merely their “assimilation” or “termination,” in the ambiguous terminology preferred by other native leaders, but their complete elimination, “socially, culturally, legally and physically.” Though her most oft-cited specific evidence of this is the reduction in funding to aboriginal activist groups, she is in no doubt that the Harper agenda is about “getting rid of Indians once and for all.”

Nor is she alone in this belief. Here’s Daniel Wilson, former senior director with the Assembly of First Nations: “Indigenous death and despair serve the government’s purpose … through underfunding and interference with local governance, the current government is starving people off reserves [to] make it easier for the government’s friends in the oil, gas and mining industries to go about their business unhindered.”

How is this murderous agenda being pursued? Among the dozen or so bills activists cite are the following: Bill S-8: The Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act; Bill S-2: The Family Homes on Reserve and Matrimonial Interests or Right Act; Bill S-6: The First Nations Elections Act; and Bill C-27: The First Nations Financial Transparency Act. Oh, and: Bill S-212: The First Nations Self-Government Recognition Bill. Those monsters.

Related

    Christie Blatchford: Politicized policing around Idle No More blockades puts rule of law at risk
    Judge slams Ontario police for not breaking up Idle No More protests
    Six lessons from a brilliant, scathing year-old CBC report on Attawapiskat’s mismanagement
    Theresa Spence an ‘inspiration to all Canadians,’ former PM Paul Martin says after meeting with chief

If you are puzzled how providing safe drinking water or recognizing self-government add up to genocide, well, you need to take responsibility for your own racism. But here’s the thing. If you interpret Harper’s motives and actions in such a fantastic light, then it is not just his government you must denounce: it is anyone who collaborates with it.

And indeed, the longer Idle No More has gone on, the more it has become clear it is not so much a dispute between aboriginal Canadians and the Harper government, but between rival factions in the aboriginal community: between modernizers such as former chief Manny Jules, chairman of the First Nations Tax Commission, or Assembly of First Nations Chief Shawn Atleo, who are prepared to work with the Harper government, and what one might call the fundamentalists, such as Palmater.

The fundamentalists represent the traditional agenda of aboriginal activists, focused heavily on the legal and political arena. In this model, the advancement of aboriginal peoples is at heart a collective matter, based on treaty rights, land claims and reserves under communal property ownership.

The modernizers would not, I think, deny the importance of much of this. But their focus is less on abstract constitutional principles and more on giving individual natives and bands the tools they need to participate in a modern, market-based economy: education, for example, and property rights, a particular concern of Jules (he is co-author of Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights).

For Palmater and her followers, this is at best weakness, at worst betrayal. “The days of waiting for the AFN to do something are over,” she writes. Last year’s Crown-First Nations Gathering was a particular object of scorn: “Clearly, the AFN has crossed the line and no longer works on our behalf.” The Joint Action Plan that emerged from it, with its emphasis on education, accountability and economic development, is “the beginning of the end if we let it happen.”

Having been defeated last summer in her bid to unseat Atleo as AFN chief, Palmater evidently sees Idle No More as a chance for a do-over. Atleo, she writes, is in the “same category” as Senator Patrick Brazeau, “who acts as Harper’s mouthpiece tearing apart First Nations at every chance he gets.” Still worse is Jules, “who now promotes the destruction of reserves and the biggest assimilation policy plan created in recent years.”

So as Harper and aboriginal leaders prepare to meet again, we should be under no illusion this will settle anything. For those, such as Palmater, who regard “individual opportunity” as “code words,” who insist the way forward is to return to “our traditional ways of governing, learning, trading, sustaining and relating,” such co-operation is not the solution. It’s the problem.

Postmedia News
 
MedTech32 said:
The second from the Band's Official Web Page

It's heavily redacted in a lot of places, but it raises some eyebrows - >  http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/551444-deloitte-audit.html


Gotta love the information super highway.

sample #239
Purchases-Other
Description blacked out.
$1.79 million.
conclusion- no supporting documents.

Awesome.

I'm less mad at Mayor Spence and more mad at the government for not stopping this.
 
You may remember that the government appointed an administrator to run the band's finances, but the band took the Feds to court and a judge ruled that there was no evidence of financial mismanagement and overruled the government.
 
ObedientiaZelum said:
sample #239
Purchases-Other
Description blacked out.
$1.79 million.
conclusion- no supporting documents.

Awesome.

I'm less mad at Mayor Spence and more mad at the government for not stopping this.

IMO, the government was afraid of the whole "ERMAHGERD RACIST" hue and cry if they did stop it, look at what's going on now.  Damned if they do, damned if they don't. 

I have a friend who lives pretty close to that reserve.  She says there's absolutely nothing wrong with any of the houses on that land, and it confuses her as to why the ones in the shanties refuse to live in them.  They're all pretty much empty.

 
 
Old Sweat said:
You may remember that the government appointed an administrator to run the band's finances, but the band took the Feds to court and a judge ruled that there was no evidence of financial mismanagement and overruled the government.

Wasn't that just very recently?  This has been an issue for a while. 

I wonder if the judge seen the audit that was just published. 400 out of 500 transactions having no documentation? Seems crazy.  I think Ottawa should hire administrators to go to these money sinkholes and make sure the money is being used appropriately.  If people refuse then stop sending money.
 
ObedientiaZelum said:
sample #239
Purchases-Other
Description blacked out.
$1.79 million.
conclusion- no supporting documents.

Awesome.

I'm less mad at Mayor Spence and more mad at the government for not stopping this.

Sure, and the spin doctors would have just said, they cut our funding, and our people are forced to live in poverty - cut to scenes of shacks, shanties, and dilapadated houses, which they have lots of. This was a chief that was largely supported by the media until the bands finances, and her colossal mismanagement came to light recently. Had she not gone on a diet, called it a hunger strike, and chose to erect a teepee on Victoria Island, yet sleep in a hotel........the media at large would probably have still given her every support.

In a way, the INM movement, and her theatrics have been a benefit, it provided very little cover for her once the SH1t storm began, and the layers of BS were pulled back....now the mainstream media cannot refute what's being said, and neither can her or her handlers.......just what the Feds need to reign in what was obviously beyond their control before....and the public at large will then support it.
 
I just don't understand why it took this long to come to light.  Why it took so long to even send an administrator up there.

I'd like to take a look at the Attawapiskat councils bank accounts or under their mattresses.
 
ObedientiaZelum said:
Wasn't that just very recently?  This has been an issue for a while. 

I wonder if the judge seen the audit that was just published. 400 out of 500 transactions having no documentation? Seems crazy.  I think Ottawa should hire administrators to go to these money sinkholes and make sure the money is being used appropriately.  If people refuse then stop sending money.

But....but...that means you don't trust them to handle their own money.....that's demeaning... ::)
 
GAP said:
But....but...that means you don't trust them to handle their own money.....that's demeaning... ::)

Nooooooooo, it's racist.
 
GAP said:
But....but...that means you don't trust them to handle their own money.....that's demeaning... ::)

Scott said:
Nooooooooo, it's racist.

And that is exactly the sort of objective and unbiased reporting you would get from most of the Legacy media, ObedientiaZelum, the very second you had brought up this issue before now.

This government is run by strategists, and since the revelationsabout Chief Spense's financial conduct have come to light the issue is now clearly tilted away from these memes. The Prime Minister, his cabinet the PMO and PCO can move forward with that threat neutralized. Look for some relatively simple "fixes" to come from this week's meeting with the AFN, in order to demonstrate real progress and build some momentum that further deflates the protesters and marginalizes them both on the reserves and in the media.
 
>Perhaps we need to find "things" (rights, resources, access, etc) that are of similar comparative value in today's society to replace the original treaty rights.

We already have it.  It's called "citizenship".  To each person, an identical set of responsibilities/duties and rights/entitlements.
 
In my view there are two COAs here.

COA 1: Give the First Nations whatever money they are entitled to under Treaties and have them self-administer. That way, when schools don't get built, drinking water isn't available and health problems abound they have no one to look at but themselves.

COA 2: The federal government demands full accountability for financial transactions and takes full responsibility for the provision of services that in any other community are provided by local and provincial authorities.

I suspect that many of the problems on reserves, and the tensions between First Nations people (as a distinct group from the chiefs) and the rest of society result from the blending of these two COAs. The problem is that money flows into these communities in addition to services. Thus, the band councils can always point back to Ottawa and say "yes they gave us some money but it wasn't for what you are mad about. They are supposed to provide that directly." In return, the people of the communities do not DEMAND accountability because it is much easier for them to be mad at faceless "Ottawa" rather then their neighbor on band council who is someone they probably have known their own life. Remember that most native communities are relatively small towns. 

One of the worst structures that an organization can find itself in is one where there are multiple lines of responsibility without clear delineation. If First Nations want to be treated as sovereign then the Federal government should do a lot more of option 1 and none of option 2 besides those services (such as defense, air accident investigation, etc) that it provides to any other province or municipality.

My  :2c:
 
jeffb said:
In my view there are two COAs here.

COA 1: Give the First Nations whatever money they are entitled to under Treaties and have them self-administer. That way, when schools don't get built, drinking water isn't available and health problems abound they have no one to look at but themselves.

COA 2: The federal government demands full accountability for financial transactions and takes full responsibility for the provision of services that in any other community are provided by local and provincial authorities.

I suspect that many of the problems on reserves, and the tensions between First Nations people (as a distinct group from the chiefs) and the rest of society result from the blending of these two COAs. The problem is that money flows into these communities in addition to services. Thus, the band councils can always point back to Ottawa and say "yes they gave us some money but it wasn't for what you are mad about. They are supposed to provide that directly." In return, the people of the communities do not DEMAND accountability because it is much easier for them to be mad at faceless "Ottawa" rather then their neighbor on band council who is someone they probably have known their own life. Remember that most native communities are relatively small towns. 

One of the worst structures that an organization can find itself in is one where there are multiple lines of responsibility without clear delineation. If First Nations want to be treated as sovereign then the Federal government should do a lot more of option 1 and none of option 2 besides those services (such as defense, air accident investigation, etc) that it provides to any other province or municipality.

My  :2c:

My vote's on number 2. Directly deliver education, healthcare, etc. Pay for it out of government coffers. That's the most accountable solution in my mind. Some may object because it leaves little scope for creative use of funds...
 
I saw on Global news tonight that their news crew were ordered off the reserve or be arrested for tresspassing.....
 
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