Happy New Year

Hi Friends
As the old year passes I feel compelled to write up some sort of year end message for this blog.
The Aboriginal communities have had some wins and some losses in this year that are noteworthy.

The Ontario First Nations communities stood strongly united, against the Ontario's government's attempt to impose the HST on their citizens and won a partial victory. The off reserve membership was overlooked for complete tax exemption, yet we did have some of our treaty rights protected.

Elections were held in many reserve communities, and in one notable community the INAC officials sought to impose an INAC sanctioned election, but the citizens of Barrier Lake refused their interference. To what end is still undecided. Here I have to say that I personally do not support the Barrier Lake F.N. in their fight. The main reason I do not and can not support the Barrier Lake First Nation in this stand off is because of their wanting to follow a hereditary chief system. This type of system effectively bans any of their off reserve members from participating or even being represented. As I have mentioned countless times, and the numbers bear it out, that a full 70 percent of any reserve's population lives off their territory. This is a pretty big number of your citizens to ignore, don't you think?

In this same vein there are about to be more off reserve citizens added to the band lists. The McIvor decision, is to be addressed this coming January 31st, after two extensions were asked for ( and granted) by the Canadian government, whereby the descendants of the out married women will be having their children (the second generation) named as Indigenous citizens...a redressing of the gender discrimination in the Indian Act...not a complete fix, but at least a step in the right direction. The males have historically been able to pass status down to their grandchildren, but not the women.
This legislation will meet some of these inequities , but as mentioned not all. I guess that will be another fight for another day, and perhaps another government.

Electoral reform was the mantra of the day in the Aboriginal communities, once the main stream press got hold of and began publishing the, in some cases, bloated salaries of the various chief's and councilors. Some members from extremely impoverished reserves, felt so ignored that they were left with no choice but to contact the Taxpayers Federation. The revelations brought to light even prompted one conservative member of parliament ( I wonder who exactly) to introduce a private members bill. Bill C575 is just one of Shelly Glovers "babies" for this year as relates to First Nations.
Electoral reform is badly needed, but we don't have to reinvent the wheel here, nor do we have to time travel back to the signing of the original treaties to do this.
We must however realize that to call all the reserves within Canada "Nations within the Nation of Canada" is not working in our best interest.
We, First Nations, I think must be willing to look at ourselves as Nations according to our language, culture and history. Refining our groups from many small reserve First Nations down to a more manageable historic groups such as Anishinabek, Cree and so on, with a registry for people of those Nations, to vote and other wise employ the democratic process, no matter where you live.
This would solve one of the major problems with the on reserve voting system currently in place.
I have heard, and have no reason to doubt, nepotism rules these tiny communities. On many reserves the largest family controls the vote, leaving many from smaller family groups to suffer the insult of having no representation, even after a democratic election.

A more workable system might be to have the funding administered from the regional offices. Taking the funding out of these little communities and relocating them into the regional offices, and having them administered from afar would go a long way, I think in sorting out the funding for these smaller communities, much the same way the provinces handle the funding issues for the municipalities.

Then the bad chiefs and councils need to be held to task for their unfair treatment of their communities. As it stands the Aboriginal communities have no recourse to deal with those that would exploit them. Many have implored the AFN for real aide, only to be told "not to elect these types"if your unhappy. Others have had to wait for INAC to act in their defense, which usually turns out to be the lamentable results of third party management, and thus no help at all.

The good news is the inclusion of Aboriginals and Aboriginal communities under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, coming in June of this year. At long last the exploitive chiefs and councils can and should be held criminally responsible for any proven embezzlement of funds. Perhaps finally, there will be real recourse for the people.

As we all struggle to reach our potential, INAC has committed funding to the education programs, along with a controversial Active Measures program designed to move able bodied men and women off social assistance on reserves. Handled intelligently this could be a good start, mishandled it could turn into work-fare as previously tried here in Ontario, with disastrous results.

The SIS initiative ( Sisters in Spirit)has been shut down through the governments refusal to fund the data base set up if the NWAC doesn't use a different moniker. The promised funding is to now go to the RCMP data base for missing persons, with no designation for the missing and murdered Aboriginal women.. This being called "apples and oranges" by Conservative M.P Shelly Glover.

The German language has a word for Ms. Glover's affliction...Schadenfreaude, defined as; pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. Thats how I see it any way.

Happy New Year Friend

regards Debra