Debate for Canadians: Let's get rid of the Ministry of Indian and Northern Affairs

Great Debates
1

This should be fun.

In recent months a number of stories have come to light that have shown Canadians - the less well informed ones, anyway - that life for Canada’s aboriginal people living on reserves (still legally referred to as Indians, hence the title) to put it mildly, sucks. Reserves have shitty services, foul water, few jobs, and little hope. Many of them are conveniently located in the middle of nowhere.

Last year, Canada’s Ministry of Indian and Northern Affairs, which is charged with helping these people, spent a staggering $5.6 billion. Total department income was $336 million, which didn’t even cover operating costs, so it’s safe to say this is pretty much a cost centre. This is in line, given inflation, with what the government has historically spent over the last several decades. That’s just within this Ministry’s budget; transfer payments and related expenses covered under other ministries add at least a few billion more.

In spite of this astonishing sum of money - about $8000 for every man, woman and child, just out of the INA Ministry - the condition of our reserves and the state of Canada’s aboriginals remain deplorable. It’s a national disgrace.

At present Canada has about 700,000 status Indians. Of course, not all status Indians live on reserves; some are Indians living off reserve, and some, like my former softball teammates Ted, are thieves who have parlayed their 1/32nd Indian blood into tax benefits, but he’s the rare exception. Let’s assume the 700,000 is our working figure.

Here’s my proposal:

  1. Fire all the employees of Indian and Northern Affairs. If they can find work in another Ministry, hey, sure, transfer them, otherwise go find honest work.

  2. Take the entire budget, $5.6 billion, and simply give it to all the status Indians in Canada. That would be about $650 a month, every month. Mail them a check, or do direct deposit. If you’re a family of four, you get $2600.

This money would be completely free, no strings attached. No income test, no taxes, no deduction, no limits. You’re a status Indian, you get $650 a month, every month. Got a kid? $1300. Seven kids, a husband, and your Mom lives with you? $6500 a month. Tax free. If you’re working full time, you still keep all the money. Don’t even declare it on your T4. No residency-on-the-reserve requirement, either. Want to move to Mississauga or Gatineau or Calgary to find work? Just send us a change of address card so we can mail you your cheques. Or a cancelled cheque for direct deposit. Or come on by the office and we’ll hand you 13 crisp $50 bills. Whatever works.

How could this system possibly work worse than the one we have now? Our current system assumes that the best way to spend the money is for white people in Ottawa, in association with a small number of aboriginal co-conspirators, to decide how the money will be spent in various “programs,” money which unsurprisingly is frequently wasted or funneled into crony businesses. It’s not working. Unemployment is ridiculously high. Indian kids snort gasoline in reserves located a thousand miles from anywhere because they have nothing to do and no hope for anything better. The money continues to pour in with no discernable effect while other Canadians act proud for making silly, meaningless symbolic gestures like having Indian dancers at government ceremonies and plastering inukshuks all over everything.

Whaddya think? How would you change this program to make it better? Would other countries with similar issues, like Australia, benefit from such a plan?

2

I don’t think giving money directly to the Indians would help. They already receive substantial monetary advantages and it hasn’t made much of a difference.

In my opinion, the true problem lies in the differences between the Indian attitudes, beliefs and culture as compared to the ‘White man’. Since the White Man culture is the predominant one in Canada, it’s hard for an Indian to achieve much success and happiness. Their way is not wrong, in many ways I think it is superior, but it is different. Different in ways that are a disadvantage when trying to prosper in a White Man’s world.

For example, a oneness with, and respect for, mother nature is central to the Indian culture. It is an extremely important aspect of their lives. In mainstream ‘white’ Canadian society it’s hardly important at all and really has no effect on your ability to succeed.

On the other hand, stable high-paying employment (9-5 type of job), money and formal education are all things that are important in the White Man’s world. In the Indian culture, these things are not valued very highly. I have worked with and been friends with, many Indians, and I never met one that had even finished high school. The government programs designed to encourage Indians to pursue higher education were pretty meaningless.

Perhaps the government should stop trying to impose programs designed to lead to a white man’s ‘success’ and instead focus on what ‘success’ means in the Indian culture.

3

Throw in each person getting a portion of band land (randomly assigned) as private property with no taxation for 10 years and you got me sold.

4

Query: How is it theft if the law provides for someone of 1/32 Indian blood to be designated as Indian?

5

But what, literally, would this mean? Spending money teaching Indians how to hunt and trap and build houses in the old style? Going without electricity and indoor plumbing? (Those things cost money – part of “White Man’s” culture.) How, other than oneness with nature, would you define what success means in Indian culture? You say formal education is not important in Indian culture, and imply that maybe it shouldn’t be required of Indians. But would you really be satisfied if Canadian Indians were illiterate and innumerate? How many Indians want to go back to living like Nanook of the North (which I sense may come across as a slur to some, though I’m talking about the literal Nanook in the documentary of the same name)?

6

Sure.

[Hijack] Why stop there. Let’s get rid of a few more Departments and Agencies while we’re at it. I just went to the government website and counted 188 Departments and Agencies. That doesn’t even include the sub-departments within; for example Environment Canada has 10 subcategories, Industry Canada has 18, National Defence 20, and 22 for the National Research Council.

My God how did we ever get to this point where our tax dollars are spread over hundreds and hundreds of different special interest departments? I wish we could fire everyone and start with a clean slate focusing on CORE services.
Here’s a few gems:

  • Status of Women Canada
  • Laboratory for Foodborne Zoonoses (LFZ)
  • External Advisory Committee on Smart Regulation
  • Canadian Race Relations Foundation
  • Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board
  • Canadian Heritage Information Network
  • Ceremonial and Canadian Symbols Promotion
  • Federal Public Sector Youth Internship Program
  • Modern Comptrollership

IT just goes on and on and on and on [/Hijack]

7

First let’s make sure we know what we’re talking about. Laboratory for Foodborne Zoonoses - sounds like an important part of the public health system (hint: deals with such things as Mad Cow Disease). Modern Comptrollership - this is the government’s ongoing effort to improve accountability for the money it spends - arguably a good thing to be pushing for. Don’t fall into the Proxmire error and condemn stuff based only on the title.

Having said this, I agree that there are agencies, departments, and programs which could be shut down without any ill effects whatsoever. I see a lot of these, as the Federal Government department I work for (disclosure statement) seems to have the majority of the hastily-conceived “let’s throw money at this issue and hope it goes away” type of programs dumped on it by the politicians for us to somehow make happen. 5% of our expenditures and 95% of our problems. (And it looks like the planned organizational reforms will give us all of the crap programs.)

8

Specific to the status Indian issue, while part of the problem may be cultural, part of it is no doubt the fact that we pay them an incentive to stay on the reservation, generally in areas with little productivity and infrastructure. When you subsidize something, you get more of it. This is the problem of welfare. By subsidizing poor choices, we are doing the Indian population no favors. And over the years it has become a multi-generational issue, with kids disadvantaged because they live in economically depressed areas and have no role models.

Besides, I’m not so sure how powerfully anti-capitalist the Native culture really is. When Indians have had an opportunity to build wealth, they’ve done a pretty good job of it. Alberta is full of powerful Indian families who own considerable wealth. You can see Native ownership of business all over Canada.

And when conditions became right for Indians to open casinos, they sprung up all over the continent.

They need opportunity, not welfare. Rickjay’s solution is a pretty good one - we still live up to treaty obligations, but we do so in an evenhanded way, leaving them free to make their own choices.

9

Well, I don’t think that RickJay’s proposal is any worse than what’s happening now, however, I have just a couple of thoughts.

Because of miss management, abuse, boneheadedness by the Ministry of Indian and Norther Affairs, there are now a bunch of serious problems endemic to most native reserves such as alcoholism, FASD, PTSD, diabetes, etc, etc.

I think it’s unfair and unwise to ignore those problems and just throw $$ at people in the hopes that they go away - for that reason, I think there still needs to be some sort of govt. agency that oversees the provision of services that address those concerns.

Secondly, I think that education is really, really important for native people - currently my dad is involved in a diploma program in rural Manitoba for native populations teaching business - essentially so that younger members of indian bands have some skills to actually manage the band/reserve when older members decide to retire - lack of skills and useful education is a serious concern for these bands and this program is an attempt to address that. I think that sort of thing should continue to be funded by the govt. as it is now, independent of any other monies given directly to native people.

So, I guess my opinion is that putting more money into the hands of native peoples is a good idea. However, that shouldn’t come at the expense of other important programs designed to address problems created by the current govt and bygone govts.

10

I know you mean well, man, but that’s honestly as (incorrectly) stereotypical as the idea of lazy blacks or drunken irish, albeit a lot nicer. Indians are as complex as any people.

11

Yes, it’s hard to recognize cultural differences without the danger of stereotyping. I tried to tread carefully. It’s safer to say we are all human, all complex people and cultural differences don’t matter. But if we go that route than we might as well abandon any attempt to help one specific group.

Is Irish culture the same as Indian culture? Is it the same as the White Man’s culture? If you are afraid to acknowledge the differences for fear of stereotyping then the very existence of a department of Indian and Northern Affairs becomes meaningless.

12

Here is the problem with the proposed solutuion. The Federal government spends as much as they do because they actually have to provide all services for the reserves that we normally consider provincial territory (Education, law enforcement, medical services and infrastructure like clean water and roads).

If you decide to suddenly disband the Office and simply hand money out then what happens to those services? Do you expect these people to suddenly, after all this time, pick up the pieces?

There are some very important social issues that have to be dealt with first.
How will handing out money help clean up the alcoholism, spousal abuse and general problems that reserve life seems to breed? How will this undo the damage caused the last time we tried to forcibly to assimilate the children in the 1950s (believe me there was another attempt to shut down Indian affiars)?

I believe that Indian affairs is run poorly at present. Look at the fiasco with the ecoli outbreak caused by years of neglect on one reserve. The Office should be given to someone who actually wants to affect change and help our Native population. Unfortunately it has been used as a jumping spot for MPS to get the choice portfolios.

Scrapping it is not the solution, however.

And in truth even if the government was spending 10 billion a year it still comes out ahead on the treaty. After all, for the cost of keeping 700 000 status Indians on the reserves under our care we get all of this land and free access to a shitload of resources. You tell me who is getting the raw deal?

13

I would expect the reserves/band lands to be incorporated as municipalities, services to be provided through a tax base/provincial and federal funding and people to leave them in droves.

By your argument there would be no end to the existence of an entire federal department whose sole purpose is to provide a bizarre parental hand for a segment of citizens. I can’t imagine that as a country we would want that.

14

I’m not saying no end… the goal should be to strive for complete self sufficiency in the bands. That is gonna take a long time. There are changes that will be required but we can’t simply hand them a wad of cash and wish them well.
The idea that they should simply assimilate and scatter is of no help either. We can not simply ignore the problem away by taking their last lands away and hope they disapear into the general population. The governemnet tried to break the cutural bonds before and that made the situatuation worse. There is a generation that grew up not fitting in either world. That has lead to hopelessness and despair.

We have to respect teh fact that they are a distinct people who deserve the right to their own form of self determination. To gain that they are in the ironic situation of requiring the government look after their interests until they are on their feet. Remember the Treaty created the situation in the first place.

What is being propsed is something that will free tax dollars for us but instead we have to find a real solution for them.

15

A collection of semi-autonomous state-lettes dependent on natural resources and gambling? How exactly does that help anyone? Cultural obliteration a la 1950’s Indian schools simply is not in the cards with RickJay’s proposal. Unless we’re saying that existing on band lands is equivalent to culture, which obviously it isn’t. I would argue for a slower transition period but the idea of providing funding and property to people to allow them to use those resources to their own ends seem obvious. The fact that many may leave to pursue their interests outside of the reserves is an assertion of their own identity.

Vibrant communities of all cultures exist in the country. Hell, we even have a federal department for it.

16

It’s not so much acknowledging culture which I have a worry about, but “respect for nature” is a very vague and actually useless as a descriptor of cultural traits. Just sayin’ that it’s a poor way to phrase it.

Anyway, though I’m not Canadian, might I suggest refocusing the efforts of the bureau on offering scholarships instead? Maybe small business start-up funds? Those are often good investments.

17

I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that all registered Indians get to go to University for free. The problem is so very few of them even graduate high school.

This is a very complicated issue. One that I don’t think could be solved by RickJay’s proposal. While it is fairly obviuos that the ministry is doing a piss poor job, I don’t think just giving out the $650 no strings attached is the right way to go. I feel that most of this money would be just pissed away as well. What is the solution? To me, what is needed is an effective gov’t ministry, however the chances of that happening are slim. Mostly because, IMO, most Canadians (and I would say Americans and Australians) really truly don’t give a shit. Of course we feel bad when we see such things as the horrible e-coli breakout, and hearing about kids as young as 8 sniffing gas, but in a week or two its forgotten. Hell you still sometimes here about Walkerton, I can’t even recall the name of the reservation where the most recent e-coli breakout happened.

18

The government does a bad job so we should let them keep doing a bad job and with any luck it might get better?

What are the success metrics of the ministry? Is it to have all citizens under it purview reach high school? Is it to have 90% employed once they reach 25 years of age? Is it to fund the existence of remote communities with no external economic reason to exist? What exactly is their role?

As far as I can tell it’s to maintain Indians as a separate class of citizen divorced from the rights and obligations of the rest of the public and ensure that they never leave the ramshackle communities they’ve been shoehorned into.

19

Not all reserves are in remote locations.
Let’s take Vancouver, where hardly anyone knows that the huge UBC campus, complete with a golf course owned by one of Canada’s richest men (immigrant David Ho, I believe) is actually a 99-year-lease from land owned by the Musqueam nation. In the past two years there’s been a huge push to develop more private housing on this land too.

Sure, you could give all the Musqueam kids scholarships to UBC, but they get free tuition already, so that’s pointless. And even with the incentive of living next to a university campus, many kids barely make it through high school. Why should they, when their parents didn’t and their parents get free money to blow on booze, dope, and anything else just because they’re Indians.

Growing up in a reserve is like growing up in a ghetto. Only the truly exceptional survive to do anything with their lives. So just throwing hundreds a month at broken families will do jackshit except cause inflation in the price of dope, and make the local beer stores a lot richer.

I know plenty of smart, capable Indians who have succeeded in life, who I met while working on the TV show First Story. But they’re the first people to say they come from the most fucked-up families and neighbourhoods imaginable. They’re working to be role models for their people, but it takes a lot of work.

As a society, we tried abandoning Indians on the reserves. Didn’t work.
We tried stealing all their children and having them raised by bigots at boarding schools. Didn’t work.
We tried leaving them alone again. Not working.
There’s got to be a middle ground, but it’s going to take time and effort to raise a generation of Indians to be smart, capable people, and convince them to be role models for more of their brethren. Where’s the Martin Luther King of Canada’s First Nations?

20

Whoa.
Wait, is this 1/32 Indian blood ON, or OFF the reserve?
If it counts off the reserve, even MY family qualifies for that! (My great grandmother was Indian). I asked my mother why we have never taken advantage of the tax benefits. She said, “Jotun, it wouldn’t be right for us to do that!”*

I hope I don’t offend anyone with this, but does anyone else find the 1/32 mark reaching a little too far back? Just about everyone I know is at least 1/32 Indian. No joke!

Does anyone else find this weird?

*I have nothing against people who qualify, and get, tax benefits. After all, it is Canadian law.