Family Feelings

Hi Friends
We here in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta are all celebrating the Family day weekend, along with our Manitoba neighbours who too are celebrating, Louis Riel day.

On this family day week-end I have been thinking of other families. The ones on isolated and marginalized reserves. Families who may very well be mourning their lost loved ones, lost to crime or suicide, or addiction.Families struggling with the ever present realities of poverty.

I have also been thinking of the chiefs of these communities, and asking myself what are their responsibilities to their community members. In any small town in the country there are many poor, eking out a living or subsisting on welfare, and the mayors and town councilors are not being hounded by the media or the tax-payers federation embarrassing them over their salaries. Unabashedly demanding they do better by their citizenry.

Now that sounds like I have taken a side here and have defended the chiefs for their lack of action...I assure you I have not!

The main difference between small town Canada and the reserves is this, most small towns may have a majority of their better off community members being related, and can also be painted as nepotists, as far as the doling out of the plum jobs and appointments, but on the reserves the relationships are always much closer, and the disparages, by definition more hurtful. Those on reserve are not merely friends and neighbours, but are also cousins, in-laws and closer family members, as well as friends and neighbours.
Most small town have a middle class, as well as working poor and then the richer class. On reserve there is only the extremely poor and the well off band administrators.

As it falls to the middle class to pay for social programs via taxation these are met in small town Canada, as well as in the rest of the country. Having no middle class on reserve leaves the reserves with out that safety net. It will, as in times gone by, then, be up to the chiefs and councilors to fill this gap between the haves and have nots.

To that end I have complied a list of relatively inexpensive ideas/solutions for the chiefs to employ at the reserve level, (kind of fill the middle class gap as it were) to invest in their citizens for the betterment of their communities as a whole.

Night after night we hear of kids falling into gang lifestyles, and addictive behaviors, with the main reason being cited, as little or no activities for entertainment of the youth.

Additionally, high unemployment on the reserves leave the adults beaten down and self medicating with alcohol or drugs. Vandalism and violence, are out of control in most of these communities, all studied and assessed as symptoms of extreme poverty.

With real caring for their own, and exercising real leadership skills, the chiefs could, and should take some of their own salaries and invest in their communities. Build a legacy as it were ala the great leaders from our past.

Why not buy a large screen T.V and a DVD/blu-ray player for the children and youth in these communities. This could be set up the school gym, or the community hall as a make shift theater. The good news is the price of large screen televisions have fallen as have the DVD/blu-ray players, and most movies are on DVD/blu-ray format making them easy to ship and store.
Favorite TV shows, cartoon, and dramas as well as many educational programs are also available on disc formate as well.

Take some of your earnings and plow up a community garden plot, with certain rows designated to the seniors home or the school for lunch programs.

Hire the language speakers to run a craft and learning center for the young, and employ the youth for community clean-up projects. The elders have little need of big salaries, nor do the youth really, but these people do need the rewards of salary, as any one would.

These are activities that would foster family and community spirit as well as a notion of self sufficiency in all.


" A leader is a dealer in hope..."
Napoleon Bonaparte

Please enjoy the family day holiday, these people, our children, parents and relatives, are who we all profess to be doing it all for any way!

Regards Debra