Love that kid’s smile! Impressive that he made the video entirely on his own.
They must get really stoned in Britain if they confuse our maple leaf with the cannabis leaf.
Oh, shit, that’s funny. 
No, wait, that’s only the flag of British Columbia, not all of Canada.
You thread about mincemeat reminded me that I’m going to try your recipe someday - I loves me some mincemeat!
Really, MacKay? Suing?
Your choices were, essentially:
-
admitting that perhaps the planning and execution of your little helicopter ride was a bad idea, but that you did, in fact, learn A) B) and C facts about Search and Rescue, and give praise to the military. You could have just said that it was a poor decision, but with valuable insight, and it won’t happen again.
-
sticking to the already-proven lie that it was a “last minute emergency” when, in fact, it took 4 days to plan, continuing to insist that you just HAD to get out by 'copter instead of a 2 hour trip, and that everyone else is lying and just trying to smear you
Why the fuck would you insist on sticking with #2?
The cost of the helicopter ride is, in the scheme of the overall Canadian budget, trivial. The optics, however, are not - you look bad, your party looks bad, you make the military and SAR personnel look bad (especially in light of the cuts to SAR your government is making) and seek to pin the blame on someone, anyone but yourself and your office, where the blame clearly lies. Threatening to sue the opposition over the fact that they are doing their jobs, in very much the same fashion that you, yourself did your job when you were an opposition member is pathetic, childish and, frankly, makes you look even more guilty of wrongdoing.
You are an idiot, Peter MacKay.
Who’s blamed them?
EVeryone’s arguing over where the $90 million went, whether it’s enough or too much, so on and so forth.
It dosn’t seem to occur to anyone that the point is obviously not what the $90 million was septn on, but that we’re deliberately sustaining a community that needs $18 million+ a year just to exist. The government doesn’t have to give $18 million a year to the 2,000 people who live within a few hundreds metres of where I’m sitting. They don’t have to give $18 million a year to towns and villages of 2,000 people all over Canada. They ONLY do this for reserves, and they do it only because we’ve decided some people should be legally different from others.
While I realize that’s the product of treaties signed with the Crown and is insanely difficult to change, it’s the central problem. We’ve stuck 2,000 people in a hamlet that has no rational reason to even exist, and are paying money to force them to stay there, and have set up a legal framework whereby they don’t even own thir own homes (in fact, they can’t own them.)
Go on, increase the spending. Blame them, or blame the government, or blame God, or blame anyone. Double the spending. Send in managers or auditors, or don’t send them in. None of that will make any difference at all.
RickJay a few clarifications:
No one is “forced” to live on a reserve. Any status Indian is free to live throughout Canada to the same degree as non-status Canadians. The Band Council of a reserve can ban people from entering or residing on the reserve (the law may change on this), including their own members, so although no one is forced to live on a reserve, people (including band members) are sometimes forced to not live on a reserve. People who live on remote reserves do not necessarily want to leave their families, their communities and their cultures to find employment in non-native communities, and even if they do, they often do not have the skills needed to hold down jobs, and often have psychological and addiction problems that stand in the way of holding down jobs. In short, although they are not forced to live on a reserve, for the most part their off-reserve prospects are bleak.
Indian status, extended medical benefits and Ontario sales tax exemption are not related to residence. What is related to residence is income tax exemption concerning income earned on reserve by a status Indian. Notably, reserves do not have the authority to demand taxes, which is a double edged sword, for although it saves reserve residents from property and educaton taxes, it also means that reserves do not have the use of funds raised from property and education taxes, and does not have the unfettered ability to decide how much of its funds should be spent on which priorities. Reserves can raise funds through leasing land, which gives some reserves some discretionary income, however, remote reserves are very limited in this respect because there are few people who live on remote reserves who could afford to lease land.
People on reserves can own their own houses, but cannot own the land. The benefit to the reserve is that the land is not broken up and eventually sold off to non-Indians. The drawback is that investing in buildings on a reserve is somewhat risky, given that the Band Council has absolute control over the land upon which the building is built and (as set out above), can ban anyone from the reserve. Band councils hold tremendous power over who gets what jobs on a reserve, and how funds are distributed on a reserve. Band councils tend to be elected along family lines. This results in a problem of haves and have nots being determined by which family is in power. It also results in significant instability when one family falls out of grace and another comes into power. Often Band council decisions are made for the benefit of specific family members rather than for the benefit of the community (thus the misuse of funds that often leads to third-party management). Few banks and investors are interested in dealing with these problems, which makes financing very difficult for people who live on reserves or who are running businesses on reserves. (RBC is a notable exception – it is actively developing its reserve business).
That being said, I think you raise the fundamental but often politically incorrect point that remote reserves are unsustainable.
Small isolated communities with no economic base offer no hope to their citizens at anything other than a welfare-like existence – thus the tremendously high rates of murder, suicide, violent crime, drug and alcohol addictions, binge drinking (as distinct from alcoholism), diabetes, youth pregnancy, limited education, and a pervasive attitude of dependancy rather than self-reliance. Resource development on or nearby reserves holds out some hope for some reserves, but ultimately, life on a remote reserve is not sustainable without massive government subsidization by non-aboriginal people who are are used to living in a world in which people are expected to congregate where there are jobs, and relocate when seeking jobs. To put it simply, one must follow the caribou, but one cannot do this when one is socially and economically rooted to a specific location.
I have a confession to make.
I once rode a helicopter, not to a camp, or from a camp, but from one camp to another.
But did you make the flight while dangling from a winch?
Are you actually going to take that word THAT literally? Do you believe I am actually of the impression that people are physically forced to live on reserves, or that I believed status Indians are not allowed to live elsewhere? Holy moly.
And you went right along to make the same point, too. The fact is that the policies and economic incentives the government has put into place makes people stuck in a rut they can’t see a way out of. If you don’t like the term “forced,” we can use another.
Use another. Don’t spread the false idea that status Indians are forced to live on reserves, for I have come across quite a few who really do believe that they are not permitted to live elsewhere. Remember that most of the people reading this thread are from a country where aboriginals were at various times forced onto reserves.
Gee Rick, relax. Muffin was fairly nice about it. And about the part where you mistakenly said that reserve Indians can’t even own their own homes. I learned something there too.
Owning a house on land you can’t own is not owning a house.
A house without land is a trailer, not a house.
Can’t say that I agree with you on that one. Nor, do I expect, would my grandfather, who leased land and built a house on it. It’s still in the family all these many decades later, well used and well appreciated.
“Incentivized”? I cannot speak for other parts of Canada, but here in Alberta, gas is always cheaper on a reserve. Tobacco is always cheaper on a reserve. I believe that in some provinces, sales taxes are waived if purchases are made on a reserve. At any rate, certain taxes do not apply on reserves, and they are willing to pass the savings on to you. No, they should not be offering these discounts to whites, but they do, in order to attract business.
There is an incentive to live on the reserve, in other words, and while these tax discounts nominally apply to Aboriginals off-reserve as well (for certain purchases), that doesn’t always occur: Aboriginals forget to show their status cards, or don’t have them, or similar. Better to stay on the reserve, where everybody knows you and there is no question that you qualify for cheap cigarettes.
A few Aboriginals of my acquaintance locally have remarked on how expensive things are off-reserve. They find it remarkable that we non-Aboriginals can actually make ends meet. Of course, we’re not getting government assistance, and so “dealing” with the situation is normal to us. They have never had to “deal,” so they are surprised.
No, though there was quite a lot of gear moved via nets below the choppers. I’m trying to figure out a way to twist the facts to make it seem as though the taxpayers were funding my ride, but I can’t quite get there. Twas in my younger days, planting trees up near Fort Nelson, and the access to our campsite via rolligon was a whole day for one round trip. We would have been a week or more moving that way, or one day with two choppers.
See, the reforestation is mandated by BC law, but it’s paid for by the logging companies as part of the terms of their…ohhhh!
Yes, the taxpayers of BC did pay for my chopper ride! Since they mandated reforestation of logged land, the costs of reforestation are no doubt accounted for when logging companies agree to a given stumpage fee. I’m sure they’d agree to higher fees if they weren’t on the hook for reforestation.*
Peter MacKay eat your heart out.
Granted, our choppers cost $650/hr if I recall correctly, and my various rides came to maybe 15 minutes in total…
*There’s a really good chance I’m getting the structure of stumpage fees wrong here, but I’m way too lazy to do research to support my lame joke. 
Lame joke but cool story.
Come to think of it, one of the fellows with whom I used to canoe had a terrific summer job in which he was paid by the government to be flown about in helicopters dropping various mixtures of napalm to see what mix worked best in different conditions for controlled burns. I don’t think anyone should be allowed to have that much fun and get paid for it out of the public purse. 
Meh. a friend and I used to joyride in a Cessna 172. An hour’s rental cost $70; we’d split the cost. He was a private pilot who needed the hours to stay current, I was just somebody who liked to fly. We had a great time flying around southern Ontario.
Word to the wise: stray into Pearson airspace only if your transponder is working. Just saying, is all… 
Just for fun:
Québec leans predominantly left, more than the ROC, while BC bucks the trend and goes to the right.
Oddly logical!
discussed somewhat in thisGame Room thread
Yeah, I was going to post in that thread but didn’t.
Canadian kids will pick up a stick at a very young age and the natural inclination will be to grab the top of the stick with your dominant hand and bash away at things with one hand. As the kid becomes more dextrous the second hand will come into play. That’s the theory I’ve had all my life anyway.
I didn’t hold a stick till I was 6 or 7 years old (coming from the UK) and my natural inclination at that age was to place my dominant (right) hand on the bottom.