The “comments” posted below the CBC’s online news are often pretty vehement. Part of me thinks it is good to be able to see what various people think without their opinions being buried in political correctness. Another part of me thinks that the world would be safer if some of these folks were kept in cages.
I was willing to take Ford at face value up until he had that travelling freak show speak at his inauguration, trying to be as insulting as possible. Now I definitely take Ford at face value, for that sort of deliberately insulting intolerance is the sort of thing for which I have no patience in a person who represents the people and who holds power over many aspects of their lives.
The degree to which the Star hounds after Ford is irrelevant to me, for I am no longer interested in learning what Ford might have to say. I just skip over the articles on Ford, and simply assume the worst, for he has already proven what he is and what he is not. Life is too short to waste it on trying to separate the shit from the Shinola in the sparring between Ford and the Star. Mentally, I file reporting on Ford (by whatever newspaper) in the same bin as “Weekly World News: The Word’s Only Reliable News!” and other fish wrap. I’m just glad that I no longer live or work in Toronto, so his decisions have almost no effect on me.
Every Joe-Blow is an expert on military aircraft, government pensions, the criminal code, gun registry, minimal sentencing, energy policy, free trade, climate change, and on and on. I wonder why need elected officials after all, since every Tom, Dick, and Harriett seems to be an expert.
I reel between wanting to chime in and ask for cites, and plain calling the, fucking dipshits. Oh, and the grammar and spelling is precious too, isn’t it?
Pfffll, it’s only 17 pages long. Ever been on some of the other bulletin boards where threads go to hundreds of pages? A real pain to read if you start from the front, but normally there is no need to.
I want to be able to say to my New Year’s Eve dance partner “Hey, remember that terrific opera singer I was telling you about, well he’s holding a year long discussion on Canada” rather than “he’s blotto.”
How about getting the new thread up and running prior to New Years, with the first post being “Don’t post here until 2012.”
Well, there’s a great sign. It’s okay for the chief to hire her boyfriend to spend the money, but the guy sent from Ottawa to figure out where the money goes isn’t welcome.
The system’s so broken I really don’t know how it can be fixed. I don’t think anyone knows. It’s like if a vase were to be thrown from the top of the CN Tower, explode into a million peices on the street below, and people are arguing over who’s in charge of the glue.
Here are the band’s financial statements going back to 2005. They don’t need a guy from Ottawa to figure out where the money goes; they have better transparency than Tony Clement’s G8 spending. That information was found through the National Post’s re-publication of an article originally published on the site âpihtawikosisân.
Yes, the system is very badly broken. Blaming the band for its problems is not going to help anything. The Canadian government, no matter what party has been in power, has never bargained in good faith. It borders on ‘genocide by neglect’.
The allegation is that, while millions have been spent, actual housing remains unbuilt, to the point that the reserve was declared a disaster area.
Perhaps that is the government’s fault and the resources expended were inadequate, and perhaps it is the result of corruption.
I cannot see how having an independant financial manager is “blaming the band for its problems”. To outward appearances at least, rejecting such “interference” looks more like guilt over personal wrongdoing by those in charge than genuine outrage at government high-handedness.
What was it, giving 2000 people $90,000,000 over 5 years? Call that neglect?
It isn’t neglect. Its simply incompetence with a generous dash of hopelessness.
To start with, why does the federal government attempt to fund the construction of single family detached dwellings ? Many working Canadians can’t afford to live in them and must live in apartments. That cuts downs on the costs of water supply, sewer, electrical distribution and heating big time. Construction and maintenance. Many natives used to live in long houses and I’ve seen a painting of an archaic Inuit winter village where the igloos were packed adjacent to each other. so why single family detached housing?
I lived for a time just several miles away from another decrepid Treaty Nine reserve. I drew water from a creek daily to nourish about twenty men. They have the cleanest water imaginable in Northern Ontario. I can’t understand why the water quality up there in the Attawapiskat reserve requires expensive treatment.
Once you spend some time and see these god awful reservation communities up close you just want to pull your hair. Sure, I just mentioned two little things regarding government waste, but what about alcoholism, glue sniffing, education drop outs and lack of any meaningful local resources that can sustain these communities that just don’t want to move. This has been going on for generations, and all we can do is stand by, make it look good by pumping in money and come up with band aid solutions that will keep the press at bay for a season.
So who’s at fault here - the government that gives the reservations millions of dollars, or the natives who stay on the reservations where there is nothing going on and nothing to do but drink and drug, or the citizens of Canada in general who haven’t got the faintest idea what more to do for natives other than subsidize them with our taxes?
I remember many years ago that there was this band on the east coast that essentially lived in a shit hole. They wanted the government to move them to another location to resolve the issue.
I also remember the news reports of how bad it was. They showed neglected houses which include frozen water pipes and reported it was the government’s fault for not repairing them. One telling photo was of stagnant, dirty water sitting in a bucket. Next to mop. Next to a broom…
So, what was stopping someone from picking up the broom and sweeping out the dirt? What was stopping someone from emptying the bucket and filling it with clean water and rinsing the mop to clean the floor? What was stopping someone from getting some picks and shovels and digging the pipes down further? Well, there was nothing stopping anyone from doing any of this, yet somehow it was the government’s fault it wasn’t happening.
