In this episode, I talk about the dire situation in Canada's Indian Affairs system, and why we need to do something about it. I also talk about why it's time for the media to get on board with the problem, and how we can fix it.
00:00:00.000It says, the only sacred cow that terrifies politicians more than Canada's vaunted health care system is the catastrophic Indigenous affairs system.
00:00:10.780I mean, to try and address problems with Indigenous peoples in Canada with any plan aside from throwing money at it and offering intergenerational apologies is to invite accusations of racism and garner political ostracization.
00:00:22.660If politicians can't find the courage to state the obvious when it comes to the mess with Indigenous citizens, then maybe it's time for media members to start this ball rolling.
00:00:31.180The taboo with this issue must, and if we are ever to dream of seeing improvements, we have to drop that taboo.
00:00:38.880I've worked in energy exploration for more than 20 years.
00:00:41.600Much of my time was spent working on or near Indian reserves and working directly with the citizens on them, watching the condition on those reserves going from bad to worse every year.
00:00:49.980It was one of the most heart-wrenching and frustrating things I've lived through.
00:00:52.920There's lots of fantastic people living in those reserves, but they're living in abject poverty and misery, and no amount of money is going to change that.
00:01:02.240How can we possibly think that we could separate a segment of the population based on race, constantly tell them every problem in their life is due to the malignant action of settlers of prior generations,
00:01:12.400shower them with money, and expect them to become well-adjusted citizens in the modern world?
00:01:16.700The legal term for these racial enclaves is Indian reserves.
00:01:27.800It's racial segregation, and that's no better than what we used to decry in South Africa,
00:01:31.960and it won't create racial unity or prosperity any more effectively than the South African model did either.
00:01:37.360You can't fix the ills created by race-based policies by implementing more race-based policies, yet we keep trying.
00:01:44.020We need to take a results-based approach with Canada's reserves.
00:01:48.700Spending on Indigenous affairs has been growing in leaps and bounds, yet the situation continues to get worse by every measure.
00:01:54.880Isn't it time to admit we can't spend ourselves out of this problem yet?
00:01:59.0802024 federal budget, it's a massive free spending endeavor, and despite this, activists immediately condemned it for underfunding Indigenous people.
00:02:06.800Currently, just in federal spending alone, more than 15,000 a year is dedicated for every man, woman, and child of Indigenous descent in Canada.
00:02:14.960They also get loan guarantees, grants, tax exemptions, free post-secondary education.
00:02:21.020And the provinces spend billions on top of that.
00:02:23.360And municipalities with countless programs and grants.
00:02:25.680This is above and beyond every service granted to them as Canadian citizens.
00:02:29.180They still also, of course, get health care, education, use roads, get full access to all those tax-funded services, as they should.
00:02:34.620But in theory, this should make Indigenous people the richest, most well-adjusted people in Canada, shouldn't it?
00:02:40.300Well, instead, they suffer with poverty, lower life expectations, high crime, low education levels, high domestic abuse statistics, massive addiction issues, mental health challenges, suicides.
00:02:50.140They lag average Canadians in every measure of standard of living.
00:02:54.240Yet some folks, some idiots, still think we can spend our way out of this.
00:02:58.040If every Canadian had just spent one day on the average Indian reserve, the national attitude on this system would change in a hurry.
00:03:04.620How could somebody go out and spend a day looking at the piles of trash, the dilapidated houses, the wild dogs, and worst of all, the broken state of the citizens and residents, and imagine for a second that this system can work?
00:03:16.160People need to ask themselves, what's the long game?
00:03:19.200Most reserves are in isolated areas with few economic opportunities.
00:03:22.540The populations are doomed to lifetimes of dependency, which leads to depression and social breakdowns.
00:03:28.140The reserves aren't going to become hubs of technological advancement or educational institutions.
00:03:31.900They're not going to become manufacturing centers or tourist destinations.
00:03:35.020They're just going to keep growing in population and dependency while disorder and misery spreads.
00:03:39.860The main employer on most reserves is almost always the government, whether federal or provincial or banned administration jobs.
00:03:44.920And nepotism is rampant among these jobs.
00:03:46.820Many of them are high-paying but token roles.
00:03:50.220I worked on one reserve in northern Alberta where the person assigned to manage the band's land affairs was the chief sister, and she didn't even know where the boundaries of the reserve were until I showed her on a map.
00:03:59.780Band managers are usually non-Indigenous members brought in at great expense to take care of the actual management of the reserve.
00:04:05.680The local members, unfortunately, are usually in too dysfunctional a condition to take on that role.
00:04:09.800I'm not shooting at the Indigenous people as a race, though I doubtless I'm going to be accused of that.
00:04:14.720Look, any race kept on reserves as Canada's Indigenous people will be just as messed up after a few generations.
00:04:21.660It's the system and the entrenched attitudes towards the issue.
00:04:24.960Look at the endless debate over clean water and Indigenous reserves.
00:04:28.160Every government with every party gets hammered on that issue.
00:04:30.820Don't you think one would invest in getting clean water by now?
00:04:34.280Actually, they did, and they have, and they do.
00:04:36.600It's just that their efforts are failing.
00:04:38.700Bringing water and septic services to rural areas is no small task.
00:04:42.100In urban centers, you get plants for treating fresh water and disposing of sewage, and it's all connected with pipes for the water and effluent.
00:04:48.060That doesn't work well in areas where the houses are separated by hundreds of meters, if not miles.
00:04:52.020In rural areas and reserves, people have their own water wells outside of reserves and septic systems.
00:04:58.420Homeowners have to maintain those systems, though.
00:05:16.300I'm not saying that people are dysfunctional because of their race.
00:05:18.500I'm saying they're dysfunctional because the system is breaking them.
00:05:22.960Until people are willing to point that out, though, it's not going to get any better.
00:05:25.700If Canada's Indigenous people were living in luxury and happy, I might grumble about the expenditures of taxes, but I can at least accept it.
00:05:32.000When we spend this much on the issue, though, and they're living in misery, I have to call it out.