Quality of Life

"After we adjust per person and for inflation, the trend line is dramatically higher. It's not as if we haven't been trying to solve some of the ills we see on native reserves and elsewhere. It's not as if governments haven't tried to throw money at the problem. They tried to throw a lot of money at the problem."
"Every aboriginal Canadian is eligible for the benefits and social programs given to every Canadian. Any aboriginal can show up to a hospital, any aboriginal can enroll at a local school, every aboriginal Canadian can drive the same roads every Canadian does. But we do spend extra money on aboriginal Canadians specifically."
"Are there access issues for aboriginals and non-aboriginals living in rural areas? You bet there is. If you're living in [Fort McMurray], you don't have access to the cancer clinics in Calgary. But that has nothing to do with whether you're aboriginal or non-aboriginal. It's a factor of geography, not ethnicity."
Marl Milke, researcher and senior fellow, Fraser Institute

According to the just-released Fraser Institute (conservative think-tank) study, spending on Aboriginal and Indian Affairs has increased by a whopping 882% in the last six decades. The result is that $9,045 was spent per capita for the 2011-12 year. Which compares with total federal program spending for all Canadians to close to 400% in the same time period.

The study reminds, in its assessment, that most aboriginal Canadians live off-reserve, with access to the very same government programs their non-aboriginal counterpart Canadians can access. Studies conclude what most of Canada knows, that the quality of life on First Nations reserves is hugely short of the standards Canadians living elsewhere depend upon.

The quality of housing and drinking water and of education, consequently, falls short of national standards, as pointed out by a 2011 auditor-general report. Additionally, child and family services are not comparable. The reliance by government on inadequate funding mechanics that prove untimely, along with onerous reporting burdens don't aid the situation.

First Nations people are able to access federally provided benefits inclusive of health insurance covering the cost of vision care and pharmaceuticals. It's simple enough to blame the disparity in quality of life on a lack of federal funding, but despite an increase in such funding in desperate attempts to ameliorate the grim situation, success remains elusive; life on remote reserves is bleak and miserable.

"Reserve governments generally do not exist on their own tax base, they exist on a colonial model that gives money from Ottawa to a distant location. Money flows top down, into a local community. That is the exact wrong way to design a model for sustainability", explained Mr. Milke.

The Assembly of First Nations in their own report, the Federal Government Funding to First Nations: The Facts, the Myths, and the Way Forward, points out that the provision of services and amenities to sparsely populated reserves located in remote geographic areas is more costly. A fact that eludes no-one, for it most certainly is; transportation of people, goods and services cost infinitely more.

But this is a matter of choice, where people decide where they want to live. The AFN is front and centre, consolidating their influence and power by persuading aboriginals that they should be prepared to honour their ancestors and their past by living as their forbears did, paying homage to the land they hold dear at any cost. And the cost is extremely dear.

In high rates of unemployment, in total dependence on the handouts of federal, provincial and municipal governments, in inferior services resulting from isolation and cost, in family dysfunction when people have no goals and few aspirations other than to live up to what the AFN persuades them is their inherited quality of life.