Here's the deal......again

So, a native grandmother, testifying at the MMIWG inquiry says social services failed her family.  Really?  How about you failed your family.  Firstly, her 21-year-old daughter was found dead in a dumpster in 2013.  Why was she wandering the streets of Regina?  Yep, a drug-addicted street prostitute. 

The year before, her four-year-old granddaughter had died of a heart attack because relatives -- in whose care she had been placed in the wildly-unsuccessful and tragic native kinship foster care program -- starved her to death.  Why was the child placed in the first place?  We all know the answer to that one.

Another grandson was left motherless after another death and this grandmother took him in.  But guess what?  "Social services failed her family."  It's all so outrageous.  "Make sure these workers are educated on our history, our background, inter-generational effects.  Make sure the workers understand this, get to the background of why these kids are in care," she added, unhelpfully.  If your kids are in care, look in the mirror.

To blame "the system" is unconscionable.  But that's what this whole inquiry charade is about.  Your tax dollars at work -- not.

On another note, Harrison Thunderchild has taken his band chiefs to court to be allowed to see what's going on with the money.  Good on him.  "I don't consider myself an activist.  I consider myself a concerned person who's been driven to a point where I can no longer remain silent," he said.  Stephen Harper introduced the First Nations Financial Transparency Act in 2013, but guess what?  First nations don't like it and many don't comply.  No kidding.  Every other body receiving public funds must release audited figures, but the natives don't want to.  Wonder why?

And good on Charmaine Stick, a member of the Onion Lake Cree who last year won a court order requiring her band to disclose basic financial statements.  Hasn't happened yet because -- surprise! surprise! -- the band is appealing. 

With the billions we're talking, natives need to hold their own leaders to account.  Not the rest of us.