Uncle Sparky
Pheasant Plucker
How do you know... you weren't there then... were you?
Canada Day 2017
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warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
300,000 years? I've heard that there's potential evidence that might move back human migration to the Americas to 140,000 years ago (instead of the currently accepted 30-40,000), but 300,000 is news to me
Either way that doesn't really affect what I said
Either way that doesn't really affect what I said
I was sarcastically agreeing with you. I'm of two minds in this - three, actually, once you add in all the Canadian history courses I've taken from Grade 3 through college.
Okay, four minds. Since we're not allowed to comment on aboriginal issues on CBC.ca (we might say something negative), I'm going to rant a little. I realize that humans have been on this continent at least 14,000 years (verified archaeological/anthropological evidence says so). But the fact is, they came from Asia. That's the part that a lot of modern FN people don't want to accept. They don't want to be considered "immigrants" to a place that previously had nobody living there other than plants and animals...
Well, guess what? There wasn't only one wave of humanity that came over. It happened over a period of millennia, with various groups deciding to stay in whatever regions they found livable. Eventually North and South America were populated, and later on the Europeans showed up from the east and I haven't heard a definitive version about who showed up from the west who didn't come via the Bering land bridge.
So the later waves of these people coming over were immigrants.
Of course the word has a connotation in modern times that says "Europeans who came and stole everything"... but the fact is that most of them were only interested in starting a new life and not particularly interested in going out of their way to do it violently. My ancestors in Canada only go back approximately 100 years. That's not old enough to be considered one of Stephen Harper's cherished "Old-Stock Canadians" TM. My great-grandparents and grandparents were farmers and my grandfather ran a sawmill for awhile. Other than dealing with the aboriginal owners of the land our cabin was on (on one of the north arms of Okanagan Lake in BC; rent was $200/year), I don't think my grandfather gave much thought at all to this issue.
The GG apologized to the indigenous people of Canada (the word "indigenous" is mandated use for CBC now) for saying they were immigrants. Personally, I don't think he should have apologized, but when you've got a bunch of people willing to disrupt the Canada Day festivities, I guess you apologize.
Charles was reasonably well-received in Ottawa this time. Shame he had to bring Camilla along, but that's protocol.Uncle Sparky said:
1. Yes, I was alive in 1996. No, I had nothing to do with that school, or anything else in Saskatchewan. I've never been there.
2. What about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? It's got quite a list of requirements, some of which will take a lot longer to implement than expected, and longer still for some people to accept. Some of us were already learning about the residential schools in our history classes.
3. At least Trudeau didn't just ignore the missing/murdered aboriginal women. Remember, when Stephen Harper was asked about it, he said, "It's not high on my radar, actually."
4. Yes, I am from Alberta. Not sure why that should matter, unless you're referring to your first point about Saskatchewan. I'm one of those anomalies in Central Alberta - I've never voted for any sort of Conservative party, whether provincial or federal. I've also never been a registered member of any political party.
Link?
Synobun
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Arguing the distinction is mostly useless from a relevance perspective anyways. What happened centuries ago is, well, history. Accurate history is important but largely meaningless in a modern "I am alive right now and not 300 years ago" lifestyle.
My issue with many of the native/aboriginal/First Nations/what-have-you arguments is that they argue for reversion to pre-European colonialism or empowering the reservation and tribal land policies to make First Nations individuals autonomous from Canada while enjoying Canadian services/advantages. It makes it difficult to pay proper attention to the problems relevant to the present (like the killings, like the racism, like the "lawlessness" found on the reservations) because someone will inevitably tell you that it's not enough or besides the point.
My issue with many of the native/aboriginal/First Nations/what-have-you arguments is that they argue for reversion to pre-European colonialism or empowering the reservation and tribal land policies to make First Nations individuals autonomous from Canada while enjoying Canadian services/advantages. It makes it difficult to pay proper attention to the problems relevant to the present (like the killings, like the racism, like the "lawlessness" found on the reservations) because someone will inevitably tell you that it's not enough or besides the point.
I'm here now. Makes no difference to me who arrived when.
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
If we label the Natives as "immigrants", just about everyone everywhere in the world is descended from immigrants, given that, from most historical evidence, humanity arose in one or a few areas and spread out, rather than arising in
To apply the "immigration" label to depict the movement of pre-historic hunter-gatherers tens/hundreds/whatever of thousands of years ago is, frankly, to stretch the definition out of shape. Immigration is not simply the act of moving from one place to another ; it's moving to a foreign country from another country. We can quibble over whether the French and British colonists fit that definition (they were moving to a colony of their own country, not to a foreign country
), but the idea that a place where nobody lives can be defined as "a foreign country" seems to me like it's a massive stretch. The Natives's ancestors were migrants, but I don't think immigrants describe them.
Plus, even if we were to agree the ancestors of the Natives were immigrants (and I won't), that would only ever make the natives descendants of immigrants. Not immigrants themselves. They're just not the same thing. At some point, after a family has spent generations living in a country, it's just downright ridiculous to label them "immigrants" because at some point, far, far back, their ancestors immigrated. Frankly, I find it annoying being refered to as an immigrant (though I'll accept it from Natives), and that's with four centuries - the Natives have a few orders of magnitude more than that.
There's also an implication of moral equivalency between the Native (who migrated into lands where nobody lived, and were the first to settle there), the Colonists (who installed themselves into lands where other people already lived, mostly didn't ask for permission, and eventually coerced the former inhabitants into abandoning the said lands - and even here I'm making a questionable equivalency between French and British colonization methods), and the actual immigrants (who moved into an established country with the intent to live as citizens of that country). Which is a load of bovine manure, for rather obvious reasons.
(And then there's the matter that, yes, slavery existed in Canada, and while it wasn't common a few people were forcibly transported here, which is decidedly not something that can be fairly called immigration).
"We are all immigrants" is an idiotic line, and it would be wise not to use it. The GG apologizing over it is perfectly reasonable.
To apply the "immigration" label to depict the movement of pre-historic hunter-gatherers tens/hundreds/whatever of thousands of years ago is, frankly, to stretch the definition out of shape. Immigration is not simply the act of moving from one place to another ; it's moving to a foreign country from another country. We can quibble over whether the French and British colonists fit that definition (they were moving to a colony of their own country, not to a foreign country
), but the idea that a place where nobody lives can be defined as "a foreign country" seems to me like it's a massive stretch. The Natives's ancestors were migrants, but I don't think immigrants describe them.Plus, even if we were to agree the ancestors of the Natives were immigrants (and I won't), that would only ever make the natives descendants of immigrants. Not immigrants themselves. They're just not the same thing. At some point, after a family has spent generations living in a country, it's just downright ridiculous to label them "immigrants" because at some point, far, far back, their ancestors immigrated. Frankly, I find it annoying being refered to as an immigrant (though I'll accept it from Natives), and that's with four centuries - the Natives have a few orders of magnitude more than that.
There's also an implication of moral equivalency between the Native (who migrated into lands where nobody lived, and were the first to settle there), the Colonists (who installed themselves into lands where other people already lived, mostly didn't ask for permission, and eventually coerced the former inhabitants into abandoning the said lands - and even here I'm making a questionable equivalency between French and British colonization methods), and the actual immigrants (who moved into an established country with the intent to live as citizens of that country). Which is a load of bovine manure, for rather obvious reasons.
(And then there's the matter that, yes, slavery existed in Canada, and while it wasn't common a few people were forcibly transported here, which is decidedly not something that can be fairly called immigration).
"We are all immigrants" is an idiotic line, and it would be wise not to use it. The GG apologizing over it is perfectly reasonable.
Is there something that should have happened that long ago that would have had a profound effect on modern-day Canada? Something unrelated to climate, geology, geography, etc., that is?
The study of ancient humanity is fascinating, but when you get right down to it, transplanting them to our time or our time to theirs would be like going to another planet where you can breathe the air (and the water back then would be a lot cleaner), but the society in which you find yourself would make no sense.
This is the reason why I find it impossible to sympathize with the Quebec separatists. "We've been hard done by! We were conquered by the English! We're a separate nation! We want autonomy! We want to leave, but don't forget, we still want our health care, pensions, infrastructure, military protection, utilities, and everything else we had before, including the Canadian dollar. But we're totally separate and our own bosses!"
It's like a little kid stomping his/her feet, declaring they hate their parents, they're running away, "you're not the boss of me!", and oh, by the way, they want their supper and their allowance before they go.
If the aboriginal people truly want everything to revert to pre-European times, they'd better be ready to give up their blue jeans, cell phones, TVs, trucks, living in modern houses, and everything else that's part of the post-European settlement world.
It's the same thing with cultural appropriation, btw. Yes, there are some nasty cases where a design has been stolen and improperly credited or unlicensed. But if an indigenous person is going to rant to the news sites that non-indigenous people are not allowed to use "indigenous words" or use objects that were invented by indigenous people, that person had best not be using non-indigenous words or using non-indigenous objects.
[/RANT]
It seems to me that at least some of their problems are being caused by corruption on the part of some of the chiefs. Remember Teresa Spence and her "hunger strike"? She seemed pretty well-fed, and she certainly wasn't living in an unheated shack like a lot of the people of Atawaspikat (sp?). When there are chiefs driving expensive vehicles and living as well as any middle-class Canadian but there's abject poverty elsewhere among their people, some without heating or running water, something's wrong and it's not the government's fault.
I'm not saying that there aren't some profoundly awful problems. The RCMP has done a miserable job of trying to solve the missing/murdered women cases, and few of them even seem to care. It's not right for anyone in Canada not to have clean drinking water, indoor plumbing, and heating (assuming they want it; I've voluntarily lived without indoor plumbing and we got our heat via a wood stove and clean drinking water was either from a well or we boiled the lake water).
I don't think it's a lack of money. Ottawa has thrown billions at this over the last umpteen decades. But there is definitely a lack of accountability as to how it's spent and by whom.
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
The Parliamentary Budget Office states (here) that there is a significant funding shortfall in First Nations Education, for one thing. Pretty sure the same thing appears in the Truth and Reconciliation commission report. (The Fraser Institute claims otherwise, but the Fraser Institute are rather notorious for bending the truth to fit their "SLASH TAXES" agenda)
Corruption is an easy answer, but there's an even easier one: the more remote a location is, the more it costs to get things done there. Basic food items cost more in Iqaluit (for example) than in Toronto ; because the only way food gets there is through sea deliveries during the summer months before the waters freeze. Remote roads are often seasonal, or at the very least bad, making it harder to get heavy machinery (for infrastructure work) or resources to those regions - meaning more money to spend.The people with the expertise to lead these works also tend not to like having to go spend a few weeks, let alone months living in a remote part of the country to supervise a project, far from their family, and the employees they need to bring with them don'T like it either. You'll probably need to pay a premium to get all those people working on what you need. Again, more money spent.
Can there be corruption? Perhaps there is. But there are much simpler and much less escapable reasons why fixing the problems on reservations cost a lot.
Then, "living as well as a middle class Canadian." How many mayors in Canada just live "as well as" average middle class citizens? Let alone MPP and MPs, let alone ministers and the Prime Ministers. Political leaders tend to be drawn from among the best-off members of a community, because they're the ones who can afford to campaign for the job. If the best-off members of a community are middle-class, what does that say about the rest of the community?
Corruption is an easy answer, but there's an even easier one: the more remote a location is, the more it costs to get things done there. Basic food items cost more in Iqaluit (for example) than in Toronto ; because the only way food gets there is through sea deliveries during the summer months before the waters freeze. Remote roads are often seasonal, or at the very least bad, making it harder to get heavy machinery (for infrastructure work) or resources to those regions - meaning more money to spend.The people with the expertise to lead these works also tend not to like having to go spend a few weeks, let alone months living in a remote part of the country to supervise a project, far from their family, and the employees they need to bring with them don'T like it either. You'll probably need to pay a premium to get all those people working on what you need. Again, more money spent.
Can there be corruption? Perhaps there is. But there are much simpler and much less escapable reasons why fixing the problems on reservations cost a lot.
Then, "living as well as a middle class Canadian." How many mayors in Canada just live "as well as" average middle class citizens? Let alone MPP and MPs, let alone ministers and the Prime Ministers. Political leaders tend to be drawn from among the best-off members of a community, because they're the ones who can afford to campaign for the job. If the best-off members of a community are middle-class, what does that say about the rest of the community?
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Personally I think that's fine. Since they came in the first couple waves of human colonization or whatever, I can understand why they might be miffed at the "immigrant" label. I mean, you would probably get the same reaction from ethnically Polish people who were told that they were immigrants to Poland. I was just moreso including them in terms of Canada frequently being defined or labelled as a "Nation of immigrants". I don't think it would be fair to be excluding any Canadians from this label, as in a way it applies to us all.
I'm not arguing so much about whether there's enough funding. In some areas, there obviously isn't. And on the matter of education, I do get that for kids in remote regions where there's not much to do and they don't see a future for themselves and they may not even have basic amenities like running water, they might not even see the point in going to school.
My argument is simply: Of the money that is provided, where is it going? When you've got a reserve where the chief drives an expensive vehicle, lives in a decent house, has cable, internet, and can travel and there are other people there who are living in unheated shacks without adequate plumbing, something is very, very wrong.
Just because corruption is an "easy" answer, that doesn't mean it isn't a very good possibility. And yes, I am aware that it costs $$$ to get things in Iqaluit whereas in Toronto it costs $$. There's an article on CBC now that talks about how some people there (Iqaluit) rely on Amazon Prime because they can get things for half the price that it would cost at the local store ($35 for diapers on Amazon Prime vs. $70 if bought locally).
It seems that nobody agrees on what a "middle class Canadian" means. I'm not one. My family used to be; my grandfather was able to sell the acreage for enough money to buy a house in the city for maybe a third of the price of a modern car. So I guess that's my definition of "middle class Canadian" - someone who lives in a house and doesn't have to keep wondering if the next rent increase is going to be the one that will necessitate a move. In a way, the economic downturn here in Alberta was beneficial for me - I didn't get a rent increase this year, and in fact was offered a nice signing deal both monetary and my cable and internet paid for the year. This building is much emptier than it used to be and the company wants to keep tenants. The manager is even willing to help me find another cat, since Chloe died and my lease says I'm allowed to have two.
As far as mayors go... yeah, even mayoral candidates have to be fairly well-off to afford to run these days. It doesn't always work - I remember a few years ago when one of them blanketed the city in posters and brochures with his photo on them that made him look like a model for dentistry service. Those teeth were blinding. And it had the opposite effect - his conceited "look at me" attitude just really turned people off.
I recall the first female mayor we had... she and her husband were fairly wealthy, as people in Red Deer reckon wealth. They lived in the priciest part of the priciest neighborhood, and surprise! Guess which neighborhood got plowed first in the winter, even though other parts of the city needed it more.
Of course other people have different definitions of middle class. Justin Trudeau thinks it means people who make a minimum of $100k, or so it seems. He doesn't actually seem to notice the rest of us who aren't anywhere near that.
bernie14
Filter Manipulator
well, the hypocrites argument is that the chief needs all those amenities, as they allow him to help all those "other" people.....
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
What we need is a federal or provincial body that oversees and audits where all this money is going. You can't just solve a problem by throwing money at it blindly
Except the other people always seem to not get much help and next thing you know, the chief is squawking to Ottawa for more money.
That's basically what happened in Attawapiskat. Money and materials were set aside for the new houses, and the money mysteriously vanished and only a few houses were built.
It's not that I begrudge anyone TV, internet, etc. Internet is a basic necessity these days; I know my own life would be pretty unmanageable without it, since I use it for a lot of things that used to require in-person visits to banks, utility companies, and stores. It's the obvious uneven distribution of basic necessities and services that bothers people who look at this situation and wonder what's going on.
Synobun
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Better access to assistance programs on the reservations would go a long way. A lot of problems in these communities are internalized and left to fester. Modern issues that are allowed to rot in a society that is trying to hold onto its ancestral roots makes for a situation where it keeps getting worse. A train with no brakes. Substance abuse and not being able to rely on the police to deal with crime both culminate into a violent, downtrodden environment that makes it difficult to climb out of.
For many, the only escape is to leave the reservation entirely. With some this is alright, but with others that essentially entails cutting yourself off from your family and friends. The more remote communities, as well, take a significant hit with every person that leaves which damages their potential to improve.
For many, the only escape is to leave the reservation entirely. With some this is alright, but with others that essentially entails cutting yourself off from your family and friends. The more remote communities, as well, take a significant hit with every person that leaves which damages their potential to improve.
On a non-argumentative note, somebody brought me a small box of Timbits today. The Canada 150 box they came in is quite festive.
No maple ones, though.
No maple ones, though.
Synobun
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On a non-argumentative note, somebody brought me a small box of Timbits today. The Canada 150 box they came in is quite festive.
No maple ones, though.
Every time I get a box, I always ask for assorted even though my favourite are the chocolate ones.
I don't quite know why. I regret it every time.
If you like chocolate, why not ask for them?
Normally I get half chocolate, half honey glazed. This time I wasn't asked what kind I wanted, so there were some honey, a couple of chocolate, one with sugar, and the rest were lemon.
The raspberry ones are quite good, but the nearest Tim Hortons is just a kiosk in the local mall and they don't always have raspberry.
Synobun
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If you like chocolate, why not ask for them?
Right? It's silly. They even ask me what kind I want! I just say assorted. No idea why.
Are the raspberry filling timbits there coated with sugar? They are here. I'm not too sure how to feel about them. The raspberry itself hardly tastes like anything to me so most of what I get is just the sugar which I'm not the biggest fan of.
Okay, repeat after me (and practice if necessary): "I would like 10 (or however many you normally get) chocolate Timbits, please."
And when you've got that memorized, get yourself to the nearest Tim Hortons and repeat it to the cashier.
It's a raspberry glaze, so there isn't any sugar coating.
Synobun
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Hmm. That's too difficult, methinks.
