Time to get outta' Dodge

I know I have been on about Attawapiksat, but there is a lot to say. Unless the natives themselves get pragmatic, nothing will happen. The government -- by that I mean the taxpayer -- can't do the job on its own. Money is not the answer. Look at the billions funnelled into reserves year after year. After 200 years, at $12 billion per, I wouldn't even dream of doing the shocking and hideous math!

No, the native leadership has finally to admit the reserve system doesn't work for the people who have to live on them. Oh, it works for the chiefs all right. The reserve system engenders never-ending rivers of money. That's why they have kept it. Money. But money always comes with strings; there's a price for everything. Chief Theresa Spence has ordered the third-party manager, sent in to help, off "her" reserve. "Just give us the cash, don't tell us what to do with it." Ah, but that's where the corruption starts.

Mark Milke, the Fraser Insitute expert on aboriginal affairs, points out that Atitokan, a small Ontario town with double the population of Attiwapiskat, pays all civic officials and servants, i.e., the mayor, councillors, road crews, etc., $3 million per year. By contrast, what do the Attiwapiskat leaders pay themselves? $11 billion. As Ricky Ricardo used to say..."Lucie, you have some s'plainin' to do!"

In non-native Canada, communities and towns have been spawned by resource development -- commodities such as minerals, lumber and ore. But when the resources dry up, or the export markets shift, these communities wither and die and residents are forced to re-locate and start all over again.

To their everlasting detriment, aboriginals have not accepted this reality. Their chiefs tether them to a reserve system (money, again) that does not allow for moving and starting a new way of life in economically viable and sustainable communities. That's the problem. The average reserve has absolutely nothing to sustain it except taxpayer funds. There are a wretched 3,000 in this sorry state across the country; there are 12 currently under third-party financial management; 120 under water advisories...85,000 new housing units urgently required...It goes on and miserably on.

It's time to get real. The reserve system does absolutely nothing to help the pitiful and abject people living under its tyranny. It's time to get outta' Dodge.