Our Founding Citizens

Anyone who has known me will attest to the fact that I have a genuine interest in our First Nations people. History paints a ugly picture of how we messed up our many opportunities to bring these valuable people into the Canadian fold. Without attaching blame to the historic facts of just how we attempted to eliminate our aboriginal people let me be clear; governments, churches and the military have in their own turn caused massive destruction to a proud and valuable people.

Maybe through ignorance, maybe through policy, the past 400 years have not been kind to the First Nations. Dreadful, short term policies have turned proud people into third world economic and social wasteland. Most Canadians have only heard or seen pictures of our native people. They rely on the snippets of information given through the movies or newspapers who paint an inglorious picture of our fellow Canadians.

Picture yourself as a free spirited, independent and totally free group suddenly overwhelmed by the movement of thousands of Europeans who stormed across Canada taking what they thought was valuable land, and leaving in tatters a bunch of now homeless people to fend for themselves without resources. Most were killed when they tried to defend their homeland and the rest were herded on to reserves of worthless land and expected to gain the Canadian Dream living in shacks without even the most basic needs attended to.

In 2011 our First Nations people for the most part are no better off than most developing world peoples. There are exceptions where some of the First Nations found themselves on resource-laden lands and did well. The Inuit are fairing a little better in most cases but the Canadian Indians in our cold northern areas are suffering.

Every time the First Nations sign a treaty with the Federal Government the plan falls short. and once again we do not fund at a proper level to enable our young people to be able to cope with the modern complexities of Canadian society.

There are over two million First Nations people in Canada and they could become a valuable resource for our starved labour economy and take their place in the multi-faceted job market instead of lingering outside the Canadian dream "world of plenty". One of my hopes for the year will be a new wave of conscientiousness towards our forgotten people and a new dawn of hope on the horizon.