Lives At Risk

There is much wrong with the system of aboriginal reserves throughout Canada. Their location is quite possibly the most societally destructive at fault. Far-flung reserves established at great distances from Canadian towns and cities fare the worst, separating their residents from the rest of Canada. Little wonder there is no employment; where will people work after all if they are not co-located where jobs can be found?

And as long as native Canadians live on reserves and are treated as wards of the state, unable to work because of their remote locations, dependent on public largess through tax dollars doled out to chiefs and band council members for fair distribution and just decision-making meant to improve the lives of all, where in fact those in control take advantage of their position of trust, they remain ill served.

Clean potable water cannot always be assured because, though generators and water purification plants are installed they're not always properly used due to ill training, poor techniques, disinterest. Alcohol and drug abuse are rampant within aboriginal society. People, after all, are bored, and desperately look for something to occupy themselves with, and dulling the empty spaces of ennui takes its toll.

The result is a dysfunctional society, one where parents ill serve their children by not caring for them adequately, nourishing them properly, teaching them useful values, because they are themselves poor stewards of their responsibilities and obviously poor role models. Neglected children are sent to schools that are incapable of arousing their interest.

Health maintenance for people on reserves is stop-gap at best, inadequately poor at worst. As for the homes that become unlivable a few decades after they were built, it is because upkeep, normal maintenance is never done. People who have no personal investment, tend to have little interest in maintenance. The property they live on is owned by the band, the houses they live in owned by the band, paid for by government.

The properties are left to moulder, deteriorate and fall apart from use and abuse, and then the cry goes up for government to step in and solve the issue. Aboriginals would be far better off making the move from their remote communities where they claim they prefer to live because it resembles traditional life for Canada's original inhabitants.

If aboriginal children are ever to advance and be enabled to secure for themselves all the advantages that they should be entitled to, they must be in a place where those advantages are readily available. To live, at no greater expense to the public than is now incurred, where the mainstream of Canadians do, where employment, optimum health care and education are all available.

The funding that is now in place to support aboriginal life in separate communities could be re-directed to help aboriginals maintain those parts of their heritage that have application and meaning to present-day life, while helping them to find a decent place for themselves as a proud part of Canadian society.