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

[Humphrey Bogart]

How does the desire for human dignity magically create financial resources to achieve this goal?

The CBC article you linked suggested some pretty staggering costs. Don’t get me wrong, it would be incredible to be able to provide the best modern amenities at every desired location in Canada. How do we actually accomplish the grand ideas that we have? Seems like a lot of whimsical fantasy without a business plan or financial case for making this a reality.

The real reason we are required to do this is because we have these agreements called treaties, military, economic, political or otherwise which were relationships that developed between the First Nations and the Crown going back hundreds of years. 

These relationships were based on the principles of mutual respect and cooperation.  Principles that have been eroded by paternalistic and colonial policies enacted by many successive governments and the people of Canada writ large.

You talk about business cases but how can we make a business case when we have been conducting our business in bad faith?

It's time for this country to accept its transgressions, find some sort of truth and reconciliation, and pay the piper.

 

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=Humphrey Bogart]
The Federal Government needs to provide long term infrastructure because it's the Federal Government's responsibility to do so as the land belongs to the Crown. 
[/quote]

I was surprised to read land on a reserve doesn't belong to the natives but to the crown. Maybe step 1 should be giving property on reserves over to the people living on them.


[quote author=Humphrey Bogart]The reason the Federal Government needs to fix the water system in Attawapiskat is because it is they who created the problem in the first place.[/quote]

Gull said he asked officials with Indigenous Services Canada during a teleconference call on Monday to provide free bottled water to the community of 2,000, because many can't afford to purchase supplies from the local Northern Store.

The cost of the expansion is estimated at about $300 million to $400 million over 20 years.

20 million dollars a year for a community of 2000 people. A community that can't support itself. Does that seem reasonable? It doesn't seem sustainable to me.

What action has been taken?  In typical Canadian Government fashion?  None!

Audit investigation (2005–2011)

The audit "shows an unacceptable level of expenditures for which proper documentation was not provided."[32] Aboriginal and Northern Affairs representative revealed that of the 316 homes, 85% are "unfit for human habitation".(CBC 2013-01-07).[31] The total amount of all AANDC funding to Attawapiskat First Nation which includes health, education, infrastructure, housing and administration, [notes 2] etc. was approximately $104M over that time (Deloitte and Touche 2012-09-28 p. 6).[29] The area under scrutiny by the audit, was the c. $8.3M for "housing-related activities through the Capital Facilities and Maintenance (CFM) program, which included $6.85M for housing maintenance; $1M for immediate housing needs; and, $450K for housing renovations under Canada's Economic Action Plan." One of the positive outcomes was the observation that AANDC, CMHC, and Attawapiskat First Nation, "worked in partnership at the regional level to determine allocations of housing funds for the Attawapiskat First Nation."

It was revealed in the audit[29] that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) only conducted one physical condition review of Attawapiskat First Nation housing units during the period from April 1, 2005, to November 2011. The April 2009 review was conducted on a very small sample in a single 27-unit housing project built in 1990 and 1994. These units had "poor indoor air quality, high water table and overcrowding." CMHC did not share this report with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development (Indian Affairs and Northern Development).[33] Recommendations included changes regarding loan eligibility, improvements in reporting, book-keeping, for example, CMHC Physical Condition Reviews must be shared with AANDC. It was noted that there is a chronic problem with collection of rent in arrears which impedes loan payments to CMHC and the challenges of evicting tenants [54] in this impoverished, remote northern community already plagued by overcrowding. In it the auditors found "an average of 81 per cent of files did not have adequate supporting documents and over 60 per cent had no documentation of the reason for payment." Additionally, the letter delivered to Chief Spence stated the audit revealed "no evidence of due diligence on the part of Attawapiskat of funding provided by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada for housing projects and Health Canada for health-related projects.

I think maybe if the government was more diligent with where all this allocated money was being spent the settlement wouldn't be in such dire condition.

 

[Throwaway987]

You talk about business cases but how can we make a business case when we have been conducting our business in bad faith?

Could our very discussion be an example of the business case for bad faith bargaining throughout all these years? If the FN people do not have any true power/leverage over the GoC, isn’t the least cost option to provide the illusion of action to minimize the risk of conflict? It’s morbid and disturbing to say but it seems like continued bad faith bargaining is still cheaper than that $200 million for 2000 people...

The US or China would not be having these difficulties with the GoC. The thinly veiled threat of one’s true power would be sufficient to accomplish real change.

 

[Brad Sallows]

If I read this correctly, the City of Kamloops (pop. a little > 100,000) had just under $200M expenses in 2018 ($2,000 per resident).  $20M per 2000 would be $10,000 per person.  (Kamloops has a state-of-the-art water treatment system.)  Basic municipal infrastructure provision and maintenance should be achievable for less than $10K/person, even given the cost premiums associated with remote locations.  The main question is how much the provision of housing adds to costs.

If we persist with this 18th/19th century apartheid scheme in which some people pay rent to other people based on ancestry, problems will only magnify.  As progressives are often fond of saying, it's time to move on and adapt to the modern world; as progressives always insist, we should not have hereditary castes; as the Liberals and NDP declared during the last federal election, we should have exactly one class of citizenship.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Maybe step 1 should be giving property on reserves over to the people living on them.

One of the flaws of the reserve system is that the people generally (some? many? most?) can't own land as individuals.  That limits their ability to build up equity, or to secure loans.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Some of the bands have opted for private ownership, much opposed by many bands. To much power is concentrated in the various power structures, which almost everyone has a dog in the fight and no good reason to change.

 

[FSTO]

I was recently at my high school reunion and one of my classmates is a 60's scoop participant. She refuses to say she was a survivor because to her it was the best thing that ever happened.
Anyway, she was adopted to loving parents and had a normal middle class SW Manitoba upbringing. She always knew her native family but it was so disfunctional that she rather stay in the world outside of the reserve. She is now married to a former US Marine, has a successful trucking business in Nebraska and fully reconnected with her native family.

Now the odd part. Her grandfather was able to retain title to 75 acres that adjoined the reserve (located near Grandview MB) and she has been given 7 acres. Her husband loves the region so they are going to build a house on the property and she is planning to run for Chief of the tribe. She wants to shake things up and feels that since she is independently wealthy she will be able to use the federal funding for the betterment of the entire tribe vice lining her own pocket.

As for the 60's scoop, she was approached by advocates to talk about her experience but her story did not fit the victim narrative and she was not going to lie so they parted company.

 

[garb811]

If I read this correctly, the City of Kamloops (pop. a little > 100,000) had just under $200M expenses in 2018 ($2,000 per resident).  $20M per 2000 would be $10,000 per person.  (Kamloops has a state-of-the-art water treatment system.)  Basic municipal infrastructure provision and maintenance should be achievable for less than $10K/person, even given the cost premiums associated with remote locations.  The main question is how much the provision of housing adds to costs.

If we persist with this 18th/19th century apartheid scheme in which some people pay rent to other people based on ancestry, problems will only magnify.  As progressives are often fond of saying, it's time to move on and adapt to the modern world; as progressives always insist, we should not have hereditary castes; as the Liberals and NDP declared during the last federal election, we should have exactly one class of citizenship.

And missing from the discussion is the fact that no major project in Canada is completed without there being extensive negotiations about funding splits between the various levels of government and the water treatment plant cited is a stellar example of that. It looks like the residents of Kamloops paid less than 50% of the cost directly, if this archived document is valid:

The original BCF application included a cost estimate of $35.5 million for the major wastewater treatment upgrade initiated by the City of Kamloops. This request was modified to focus on the core components of the project, estimated at $21.3 million and reflecting a provincial-federal funding commitment of $14.2 million.

If Kamloops, at a population of 90,000 give or take, can't afford to build and/or upgrade critical infrastructure on its own, how do you think any community of 2,000 people is pulling that off without the vast majority of the funding coming from provincial and/or federal sources?

The reality is every community in Canada has its hand out at one time or another to get or maintain the basic services, it's the Canadian way...

 

[Kat Stevens]

I hope everyone understands that you can build a 47 jillion dollar state of the art purification system on any reserve. Building infrastructure is not the problem. it's acquiring, training, and retaining enough people who actually give a fuck about operating and maintaining those systems that matters. I've been to three reserves with perfectly adequate treatment systems in Manitoba to install purification and bottling systems as a stopgap measure because their government provided treatment plants have been allowed to rot.

 

[Jed]

I hope everyone understands that you can build a 47 jillion dollar state of the art purification system on any reserve. Building infrastructure is not the problem. it's acquiring, training, and retaining enough people who actually give a fuck about operating and maintaining those systems that matters. I've been to three reserves with perfectly adequate treatment systems in Manitoba to install purification and bottling systems as a stopgap measure because their government provided treatment plants have been allowed to rot.

And others have been mysteriously burnt to the ground.

 

[daftandbarmy]

>Maybe step 1 should be giving property on reserves over to the people living on them.

One of the flaws of the reserve system is that the people generally (some? many? most?) can't own land as individuals.  That limits their ability to build up equity, or to secure loans.

I assume you've had some experience with first nations that give you the confidence to suggest that as a viable option?

 

[Jarnhamar]

I assume you've had some experience with first nations that give you the confidence to suggest that as a viable option?

Me? No not exactly. But I'm guessing that someone is going to take better care of something when they own it. Like a house or land.

Some of what I'm reading indicates reserves leadership don't want members owning land because then they could choose to sell it to non-FN members.

I guess that sorta makes sense, but then again you have guys like Chief Ron Giesbrecht of the Kwikwetlem First Nation.

Chief to about 120 members where he made a salary of $4800 as chief. Plus his salary of $80,000 as economic development officer and an $800,000 bonus for a land(?)deal he worked out with the government of BC. A deal his band members said they weren't consulted on (nor did they know about his 80K salary and 800K bonus).

I wouldn't want people owning land either. But I don't understand how the crown can technically own the reserves but then buy parts of it?

 

[YZT580]

When Maggie started divesting HM government of council flats she did so by giving ownership to long-term residents.  People swore that the neighbourhoods would descend into anarchy.  They were wrong.  People do take pride in ownership.  Give a kid his first car and he'll drive it into the ground or run it dry of oil like as not.  When he has to pay for it, he'll be out there on sundays polishing it.  As for the water problem, I can buy an RO system capable of purifying the water for less than 800 dollars and install it within a couple of hours.  Filters are 120 a year.  There is no excuse for people to not have good water with 20 million a year to spend.  Someone is making large deposits towards their retirement fund IMHO>

 

[Brad Sallows]

>I assume you've had some experience with first nations that give you the confidence to suggest that as a viable option?

I stated a flaw that limits advancement; I'm not sure it has a solution acceptable by all concerned.

It is viable (as in, could be done): parcel out lots and grant title in fee simple.  Owner sells lot; does what he wishes with the money.  New owner does what he wishes with the lot.  Or, owner keeps lot and takes out a loan secured by the property; does what he wishes with the money.  Etc.

But then the (obvious) concerns: over time, transfer of ownership to people without reserve membership, accompanied by permanent migration of reserve members to wherever they saw greener pastures.  The question of whether all property owners should have a right to stand for elected office and vote in local elections.  All the usual things remarked upon as illiberal xenophobia in other contexts.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

When Maggie started divesting HM government of council flats she did so by giving ownership to long-term residents.  People swore that the neighbourhoods would descend into anarchy.  They were wrong.  People do take pride in ownership.  Give a kid his first car and he'll drive it into the ground or run it dry of oil like as not.  When he has to pay for it, he'll be out there on sundays polishing it.  As for the water problem, I can buy an RO system capable of purifying the water for less than 800 dollars and install it within a couple of hours.  Filters are 120 a year.  There is no excuse for people to not have good water with 20 million a year to spend.  Someone is making large deposits towards their retirement fund IMHO>

UV water purifiers work with solar systems, that's what I am putting in my cabin. Still needs filters to strain organic material out.

 

[QV]

... There is no excuse for people to not have good water with 20 million a year to spend.  Someone is making large deposits towards their retirement fund IMHO>

Well, Trudeau did make it easier for that to happen.  What a good idea!  :

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/first-nations-fiscal-accountability-dropped-after-liberals-cut-enforcement-measure-at-end-of-2015

 

[Navy_Pete]

When Maggie started divesting HM government of council flats she did so by giving ownership to long-term residents.  People swore that the neighbourhoods would descend into anarchy.  They were wrong.  People do take pride in ownership.  Give a kid his first car and he'll drive it into the ground or run it dry of oil like as not.  When he has to pay for it, he'll be out there on sundays polishing it.  As for the water problem, I can buy an RO system capable of purifying the water for less than 800 dollars and install it within a couple of hours.  Filters are 120 a year.  There is no excuse for people to not have good water with 20 million a year to spend.  Someone is making large deposits towards their retirement fund IMHO>

From what I read, the issue is the lake they are drawing it from isn't suitable for the size of the town, really isn't clean. A long term solution is to run the collection out the the river (see https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/attawapiskat-water-quality-emergency-1.5204652).  Sounds like they also have issues with the sewage system being undersized, so it's the entire infrastructure from start to finish.

Giving them ownership of an undersized system that sounds like it was kludged in and not suited for purpose isn't really a fix. You need a proper water source with a sufficiently sized collection treatment system and the safe distribution system. Doesn't sound like they have any of those, nor the expertise to design, build, or operate one. This is the culmination of decades of neglect and piecemeal fixes, and what happens when you spend decades bandaiding things.

n RO system is just a microfilter so doesn't actually purify anything. UV systems are good, but you normally use chlorine or something else to make sure there is no contamination in the distribution end (but in lower levels). Some of the other reserves are drawing from water sources that have been massively contaminated by industrial pollution (approved by the Fed govt of the past) that needs special treatment, so it's a complicated issue and you need bespoke solutions tailored to the site and population.

Long term they need to give them the tools to be self sufficient, but the water and housing crises are going to cost billions to sort out after being left to fall apart for so long.  Think this would be a good opportunity for some of the successful bands to start pooling together their expertise (and maybe start some companies to be able to compete for the contracts).  There is enough work you could train and employ a whole generation on working on basic infrastructure projects on the reserves.  There is a lot of distrust in the fed govt (justified and understandable IMHO), so these kind of initiatives may be more successful.  There is something similar for the fire services, but it's ad hoc and limited by the very small resources they have access to to do outreach to other communities.

 

[YZT580]

I may be being naive, but if DART can airlift, assemble and have a 60,000 litre potable water system in use within a day or two this really should not be a serious problem, even if the system is only temporary while a more permanent fix is installed.

 

[Kat Stevens]

UV water purifiers work with solar systems, that's what I am putting in my cabin. Still needs filters to strain organic material out.

UV sterilizes water, not purifies it. The problem with UV is that it's effectiveness degrades over time as lamp intensity drops and bio slime builds up on the quartz sleeve. UV is a barrier kill, not an all system kill. Any failure of the lamp contaminates everything downstream from the lamp. If I were drawing from a surface water source, I'd be looking at chlorine injection with a carbon filter farther downstream to neutralize it after it's done it's job.

 

[Blackadder1916]

I may be being naive, but if DART can airlift, assemble and have a 60,000 litre potable water system in use within a day or two this really should not be a serious problem, even if the system is only temporary while a more permanent fix is installed.

How far does that 60,000 litres of water go?

To quote from a report about water useage at FOBs, the WHO considers 50 litres per person per day the "minimum" sustainment requirement (that to keep someone alive and healthy) in the "developing world" (those places described by someone as "******* countries").

World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also developed planning factors for water use. The availability of clean potable water is a major concern in the developing world, and WHO has dedicated much effort to determining minimal sustainment requirements. WHO guidelines consider many options, and the availability of water weighs heavily on the usage. However, they recommend 50 liters per capita-day (13.2 gpcd) as a basic human right (Gleick 1996). This would meet the minimal needs of sustainment based on their analysis. This is very close to 13 gpcd as recommended by CASCOM.

So if we take that 50 litres as an acceptable goal for the residents of a reserve to meet the standard of someone living in a mud and grass hut then that ROWPU would have to pump out 77,500 litres of potable water to meet the needs of the 1550 persons living on the Attawapiskat First Nation.  But there are limitations on what that 77,500 litres would provide.  If we would like them to have the luxurious standards that someone (say like a soldier on ops in a FOB) in a more advantageous situation receives, then the 13.2 gallons (US measure) would have to be increased to approx. 34 gallons (the figure the US Army uses for planning purposes) so that one could get a shower twice a week and have a small load of laundry done once a week; of course sanitation needs would have to be centralized latrines,  and food preparation and hygiene (showers, laundry, etc) would also need to be centralized.