Smoke and Mirrors

Hi Friends
The papers are full to bursting with Indigenous news today, and though I had hopes of there being good news, this was sadly not to be.
Once again the greed of the First Nations chiefs and councils were highlighted,as if they were the only government waste going on, and are a primary reason for poverty among indigenous people. Are we the only ones with untrustworthy politicians?
Is greed and abuse of the public purse only to be found in Aboriginal communities? Would a few overpaid councilors in a handful of Canadian towns be blamed for Canada's entire budget deficit?

Having just come through the municipal elections here in Ontario, I can answer that with a resounding no. Yet do the main stream media ask that the less then stellar mayors or their councils hang their heads in shame over their "selling out" to the land developers, or answer for their conflicts of interest around the same issues? What of the incumbents who have their best friends heading up their "charities" with little or no thought to the openness and accountability, mantra trumpeted daily at the Chiefs and councilors of the reserves.
What of INAC's openness and accountability. They too are on the public purse, heading up a massive bureaucracy of some 5,137 workers, up from the 3300 in 1996, and then add in the cost of the ever growing Indian industry a small army of consultants, lawyers, and other assorted ghouls feeding on the most impoverished citizens of this country.

I'll bet INAC's funding hasn't been capped at the mean two percent, as the reserves have had to struggle under since 1996, with increasing populations and crumbling infrastructure, eroded health, and educational services, along with the growing populations? The 1985 amendment brought up the populations of status Indians from 300 thousand to 600 thousand status Indians in Canada. With yet another amendment due this coming January, which will once again increase the status population by an estimated 45 thousand, and possibly more.

These amendments were achieved through court challenges, first launched by Jeanette Corbiere-Laval, and later taken up by Sharon McIvor, to address the sexual discrimination in the Indian Act, and finally as a constitutional challenge, won in the Supreme Court of Canada in November of 2009.

Now I have to say right here, I am not very enamored of this current sitting Canadian Gov. and have watched them take this nation from internationally respected, to our current state of collective decline. This I am sorry for and do not expect much in the way of solutions from this "band of thieves,and miscreants" as to solving the current state of affairs on the reserves. Not that there isn't a blue print, if you will, in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (an investigative commission set up in 1996 to study these issues within the Native communities, and the many recommendations that came out of this investigation) should they actually WANT to solve the problems. I personally don't expect much from a government who has trampled on it's own constitution, as has been done in the Omar Khadr, child solider case currently being tried in Guantanamo...or the abuse of enemy combatants in Afghanistan, or the suspending of civil liberties here in Toronto during the G-20-G-8 weekend this past summer.

No doubt there are some greedy Chiefs but they are being outed by their own. Can we expect the same from INAC?

regards Debra