Aboriginal Self-Responsibility

Evacuations are taking place again of aboriginals living on reserves in areas of the country vulnerable to spring flooding. It's become a yearly event. To prepare yet again for the mass evacuation of people, to take them temporarily to other areas of the country where nature doesn't threaten to unsettle the lives of people living in rural or urban communities.

Not that there are not rural and urban areas that aren't touched by seasonal flooding. These non-aboriginals manage to cope; the federal government doesn't declare potential disaster nor mount a mass evacuation. The surrounding community becomes involved and offers help as needed.

It's different in native communities, in tribal areas, on Canada's many reserves. Those reserves - and they are many - that remain impoverished, both in spirit and materially. Where social dysfunction is the order of the day. Where children are raised in households barely resembling functional familial groups. Where children learn at an early age to fend for themselves. Where education is not recognized as a priority and boredom sneaks illicit activities into daily life.

A report just issued by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, written by Metis researcher Joseph Quesnel, asserts that Canada is long overdue for a change in aboriginal policy. And that adopting some very key and successful initiatives pioneered from the Maori experience in New Zealand may just be the way to begin. But, to begin with, the overdue settling of native land claims must be settled.

Only then will it be possible for aboriginals to learn to become self-reliant. With finalized legal entitlement to ancestral lands, they could begin to use that land to develop their own resourceful responses, to emerge with their own economy, for their own use. They will require education to enable them to fulfil this kind of vision for their future. And there are other, successful reserves which could serve as a template.

In New Zealand the government decided it could no longer support failed policies toward its aboriginal commitment. So in 1984, it acceded to the Maori determination for independence. Handing over powers for the Maori to identify their singular development needs, and to begin to deliver their own services to their own people. A one-time cash payment along with assets cemented treaty settlements.

This was so successful that by 2003 the Maori were contributing tax in amounts greater than their original transfers of cash and kind from the New Zealand government. There are now 22 Maori Members of Parliament, accounting for 20% of government representation. According to Mr. Quesnel's study, "There was an understanding that any movement toward indigenous cultural and political self-determination had to be accompanied by economic self-reliance.

"They could not call themselves self-governing while receiving handouts and massive government transfers." Yet in Canada, where the federal and provincial treasuries commit $18-billion in transfers to Canada's aboriginals, there is precious little to show in the way of success. It's government funding that simply sinks into a black hole of diminishing returns. Which doesn't stop Phil Fontaine and the Assembly of First Nations from demanding ever greater contributions to aboriginal well-being.

It's more than adequately obvious that government funding, however well-intentioned, adds nothing whatever to aboriginal well-being. Where there is no vested interest in the lands and the homes and the civil institutions within reserves, there is apathy and disinterest and an inability or an unwillingness to be involved, to demonstrate pride, to attempt to help themselves.

Aboriginals succumb to a malaise of the soul. Encouraged to live in that environment by self-serving chiefs, they bide time, and present as maladjusted indigents.

The Maori, in contrast have never embraced a reserve system. Their people have integrated into the larger community. They receive no transfer payments from government coffers. Until Canada's aboriginals are willing to understand and to accept that time goes forward, not backward, and the past cannot be re-visited, they are destined to the status quo.

This is no way to celebrate their heritage. They live on reserves, on "traditional lands", but they don't live traditionally.

The 2006 Census indicated that 54% of aboriginals live off reserve, and reserves will continue to shrink as ever more aboriginals begin to migrate to urban centres. Oddly enough, despite all the misery that Canada's native communities have endured, their life expectancy, at 72.9 in 2000 was the highest among the four populations studied (Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia).

Canada must begin to focus more strenuously on the advancement of its aboriginal populations. That means taking serious steps to educate the young, to offer aboriginal youth the same opportunities as other young people in Canada. Their needs are no different, their opportunities should reflect those of any other youth within the country.

The opportunity for self-improvement, self-reliance and self-respect for their families must be advanced. Encouraging independence and conveying the real impression that there are expectations they can succeed can imbue people with the realization that they indeed can succeed in achieving independence. Material and practical assistance should be proffered when required, when sought.

But aboriginals, no differently than any other segment of the Canadian population, should be prepared to make a place for themselves and their children in this country. The dignity of self-reliance, of taking responsibility, should no longer be denied them. Living on government hand-outs, not facing the challenges inherent in taking on normal responsibilities denies them a future.

The unrelenting, horrendous problems on native reserves of teen suicide, alcohol and drug abuse; unemployment and high-school dropout rates belong in the dustheap of history.