More Promises

The big new start to better times for our First Nations people ended just where it started several hundreds of years ago.Treaties were written and approved by the First Nations and Britain with the idea they would be honoured by both parties. In most cases these treaties were never expected to be acted upon as the basic reality was that the native peoples would either be assimilated or in such small numbers that they would never challenge the treaties.

Here we are in 2012 and these First Nations are still for the most part treated as second class citizens and we as a Country are or should be ashamed or embarrassed for the conditions under which these people are supposed to live.

This conference could have decided in a matter of hours that the education, health needs and housing with clean water would be addressed immediately. More promises and studies only means that a million of our citizens will live in conditions that can only be classified as being as bad as most third world countries. The Kelowno accord was to give the First Nations $5 billion to begin to build proper houses, clean water and schools as well as address the health issues of these Canadians. This government cancelled this accord and things have remained the same.

The problems and issues with the First Nations are basically with the outdated and totally useless Indian Act. This legislation does not address the needs of 2012 and will need to be changed. Everyone who has been working with the First Nations is very familiar with the lack of proper funding for programs like education and housing on the reserves.Underfunded programs make it impossible for the children and young people to get a proper education so we are left with thousand of Canadians who are unable to compete for jobs in our society.

All the other issues are the same, studied to death, underfunded, poorly managed and the losers are the people who depend on these programs. There is plenty of blame to go around. But surely after all these years the problems are known and now we need solutions not more promises.

I listened to the grand chief of all the First Nations and he gave the finest speech I have listened to in many years. It was factual, emotional ,and laid out the situation in a helpful way but the Prime Minister and 11 cabinet ministers were there to listen and learn and tell the First Nations that things would change in small  and steady ways. Meanwhile we have people who have no schools, clean water or health services. When we had natural disasters in our country or in foreign lands the Canadian People were most generous in helping to solve the problem. When Haiti was hit with the terrible earthquake our resources were used to help and are still being used. Why can we not use this same energetic approach to our own people.

The result could be welcoming over a million bright and talented people to our workforce and their contribution would help our economy. I have been hearing about this issue for over fifty years and I feel that it is just as bad as it was then and maybe even worse. I hope this time we get it right and our First Nations can take their place in Canadian society with dignity and not second class citizens.