Canada's First Nations - CF help, protests, solutions, etc. (merged)

[Haggis]

Time for Trudeau to dust off the "asking for more that we can afford to give". It worked last time.

 

[lenaitch]

Just a thought experiment. The negotiation and settlement for past 'behavior' and future compensation are separate issues. Once the annual per-member/per nation "compensation" amount is determined going forward, should this be instead of or in additional to all other government spending for things like housing, policing, resource royalties, etc., etc. Hmmm.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Just a thought experiment. The negotiation and settlement for past 'behavior' and future compensation are separate issues. Once the annual per-member/per nation "compensation" amount is determined going forward, should this be instead of or in additional to all other government spending for things like housing, policing, resource royalties, etc., etc. Hmmm.

Very good questions.

On the past vs. future, I suspect there'll be a fair bit of negotiation/haggling re: how much is owed in no-longer-1850 rates of treaty annuity - I've only just skimmed the judgment, so that's a WAG.

On the per-capita vs. in addition to bit, apples and oranges. The Treaties (to grossly oversimplify) said they'd get the annuity (the $4/year or so - varies a bit from treaty to treaty, as well as things like fishing nets, ammunition, and even a suit a year for the Chief - those last two, I think, have $ given in lieu now) AND that the Crown would make sure they have places to live and schools to go to.

Again, I'm far from a legal beagle on this, so I (as always) stand to be corrected.

 

[Brad Sallows]

the Crown would make sure they have places to live and schools to go to.

Our version of apartheid is working so well.

I can guess that there is enthusiastic advocacy for keeping the advantageous bits and trimming the disadvantageous bits, but it's past time to throw out all the rent-seeking and differential privileges and responsibilities and fit everything into the federal-provincial-municipal model. What's good for one small community is good for all small communities, and the converse for what's bad.

 

[dimsum]

Our version of apartheid is working so well.

Apartheid is a pretty loaded term.

Are you suggesting that the Indigenous folks are being kept separate, not allowed to join “regular” Canadian society, inter-marry, etc? Or that non-Indigenous are not able to access certain benefits (taxes on Reserves) that Status people can? Or something else altogether?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Apartheid is a pretty loaded term.

Yes. "Version" necessarily implies something different. Is it acceptable if we just have "apartheid-lite"? Forbidding something outright is worse than structuring disincentives in legislation, which is worse than true equality before the law which is not contingent on birth, marriage, inheritance, votes of admission, etc.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I can guess that there is enthusiastic advocacy for keeping the advantageous bits and trimming the disadvantageous bits ...

... it's past time to throw out all the rent-seeking and differential privileges and responsibilities and fit everything into the federal-provincial-municipal model. What's good for one small community is good for all small communities, and the converse for what's bad.

And like with other problems, if it was simple and easy to do, it would have been done long ago simply and easily.

In your fed-prov-muni model, since municipalities tend to be "creatures" of the province (exist by way of provincial legislation), will provinces now take the lead in dealing with First Nations? How will FNs feel about that? How will the provinces feel about that?

And the Treaties signed by the Queen's reps of the time - toss those, or start from scratch? I'm going to guess starting from scratch, with both sides well lawyered up with a ton of legal decisions in place (at least generally) supporting the Indigenous claims most times they've come up, it could mean a ton more $ from Team Fed at least.

Yeah, having federal legislation in place since time immemorial has painted both sides into a corner, with add-on's here & there trying for better solutions, but leading to a messier shack. Don't know the answer, only that it ain't going to be easy.

 

[Eaglelord17]

It is going to get interesting in my neck of the woods with these settlements. Payments will be going out around mid August and are generally in the 100k area depending on the band the members belong to.

I imagine a lot of local business are going to make a lot of money shortly, especially car dealers. I also expect the death rate to climb pretty quickly for a short while unfortunately.

Lots of infighting over the money already, which is just sad to watch.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Apartheid is a pretty loaded term.

Are you suggesting that the Indigenous folks are being kept separate, not allowed to join “regular” Canadian society, inter-marry, etc? Or that non-Indigenous are not able to access certain benefits (taxes on Reserves) that Status people can? Or something else altogether?

This was the official policy at the root of the Indian Reservation system, ostensibly copied by South Africa in the implementation of their Homeland system...

 

[Brad Sallows]

And like with other problems, if it was simple and easy to do, it would have been done long ago simply and easily.

Yes. What I wrote is just my usual this-is-the-way-it-ought-to-be, based on the aspiration of one class of citizenship and the notion that neither citizens by birth nor naturalization are obligated to pay rent to people who happened to live on or near a particular piece of ground at a particular point in time. The rentiers and their layers of advocates would be losers, and all the people locked into living in particular places with particular lacks of opportunity would be winners.

In your fed-prov-muni model, since municipalities tend to be "creatures" of the province (exist by way of provincial legislation), will provinces now take the lead in dealing with First Nations?

Yes, but the "dealing" would be no different than the relationship between the province and municipal councils and mayors.

How will FNs feel about that?

Probably some would hate it. The fiction of a nation-to-nation relationship with a G7 country is attractive, but absurd for groups of a few hundred or even tens of thousands. The entire edifice is a colonial hack suitable for maintaining peaceful relations between locals and chartered monopoly trading companies which really, really needs to be modernized.

How will the provinces feel about that?

No idea. But they're already stepping in to provide some services. Either the government of Canada should be covering everything, or the provinces.

And the Treaties signed by the Queen's reps of the time - toss those, or start from scratch? I'm going to guess starting from scratch, with both sides well lawyered up with a ton of legal decisions in place (at least generally) supporting the Indigenous claims most times they've come up, it could mean a ton more $ from Team Fed at least.

Some groups have already settled and moved on, and some have not. There'd have to be some sort of initial startup funding to set up municipal governance and establish boundaries within which munipalities have powers of taxation. Some of the existing lands would have to be trimmed and revert to crown land. After that, municipalities are either viable - meaning, they have a commerce and tax base and customary provincial funding which can support a community of whatever size they are - or they're not. Those which are not revert to whatever the status is of all the small communities without self-governance.

Yeah, having federal legislation in place since time immemorial has painted both sides into a corner, with add-on's here & there trying for better solutions, but leading to a messier shack. Don't know the answer, only that it ain't going to be easy.

It isn't merely difficult; it's essentially impossible. There won't be a negotiated solution to "one status of citizenship". What's unforeseeable is the alternative - what eventually happens when all the people taxed by governments with immoderate spending appetites are fiscally pressured beyond reasonable tolerance and start asking hard questions about hereditary privileges? (They won't care about the hereditary obligations, which often enough are sufficiently harmful that their input won't be needed to get the obligations trimmed.)

 

[lenaitch]

This was the official policy at the root of the Indian Reservation system, ostensibly copied by South Africa in the implementation of their Homeland system...

Our treaty 'system' pre-dates the SA apartheid policy. Segregation no doubt existed informally, but as a state policy, it and the 'homeland system' only dates back to the 1950s.