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Indigenous

Canada’s Indigenous Model is Not Sustainable

Published

12 months ago

11 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht

The stated purpose of the extra indigenous spending that has always been there, and the virtual explosion on indigenous spending since 2015 is meant to fix that problem. But these massive expenditures have now reached the point where they risk destabilizing the country.

Canada’s parliamentary budget officer, Yves Giroux has spoken out about the alarming rise in Canada’s contingent liabilities related to indigenous claims. Todays estimated 76 billion dollars is many times the 15 billion dollars it was when the Liberals took power in 2015.

This is one part only of the massive increase in spending on indigenous matters that has taken place since then.

Federal spending per indigenous person has always been much higher than spending per non-indigenous person. The higher level of spending has been justified because most indigenous people do much worse on virtually every health and social indicator than the mainstream population. Their health is poorer, and their lives are shorter.

This disparity was generally known as Canada’s “Indian problem”. That term is no longer fashionable, and the extra spending is now said to be necessary to achieve “reconciliation”. Regardless of the terms, what is clear is that since Confederation there has always existed a large rural and urban indigenous underclass that does poorly compared to the mainstream. The stated purpose of the extra indigenous spending that has always been there, and the virtual explosion on indigenous spending since 2015 is meant to fix that problem. But these massive expenditures have now reached the point where they risk destabilizing the country.

Perhaps it’s time for Canadians to ask if the “nation to nation” reconciliation plan that spending is based on is working. Is it fixing the problem?

A recent CBC report proves that it is not. Instead, the problems are getting worse.

The CBC investigated an indigenous community at St. Theresa Point where 24 people sometime share one house. Almost all of the houses in the community are crumbling and need to be replaced. Families struggle to achieve basic hygiene. Living conditions resemble what one would expect to find in a third world community, and not in wealthy, modern Canada.

St. Theresa Point is typical of hundreds of other Indian remote reserves. Most are almost totally dependent on the federal government for their survival. There is virtually no real employment. The poorest people in those communities are directly dependent on welfare checks, but even the chief, councillors and other employees receive their paycheques from the transfer payments sent by Ottawa. In reality almost everyone in the community is on welfare of some type.

Unlike in other rural communities, people on poor reserves tend not to move when economic opportunities decline. In small-town Canada, the rules are simple: If the towns or farms can’t supply enough jobs, one moves to the city where the jobs and careers are. But on remote reserves, most people stay put, even if there are no jobs or careers there for them. And most of those who do move to the city do not do well. A lack of education, poor job skills, and lack of motivation usually consign reserve residents who move to the mean parts of town where many end up in gangs, crime and prostitution. The result is that the people who stay in uneconomic remote reserves become more and more dependent. Low education levels sink even further. And succeeding generations become ever less likely to be able to provide for themselves and their families.

To make matters much worse, addiction problems are endemic. At one time, alcohol was the drug of choice. Now, amphetamines, fentanyl, and prescription drugs have been added to the list, with the family violence, sexual abuse, crime, teenage pregnancy and fetal alcohol births that inevitably follow from chronic drug use.

And reserve populations are growing. Although status Indians living on reserves currently comprise only about 1% of the total population, they are the country’s fastest growing demographic. The cost of operating these communities is crippling now, but in a few years, it will be completely unsustainable. Pretending that these desperately poor reserves are sovereign “nations” that will somehow magically become prosperous and self-supporting is a cruel joke on the young people hopelessly trapped on them. The prospect of hundreds of dependent reserves teeming with, unemployed, and largely unemployable young people, with massive social problems, is a frightening dystopia – hundreds of Gaza strips. But it is where we are headed. To make things even worse, the government-promoted false genocide and “missing children” narratives have made many of these people very angry.

Although there is no treaty right, or any other right to free housing on a reserve the reality is that if the government did not provide housing for the reserve residents, they would be unable to provide housing for themselves. The strange result is that Canadian taxpayers – many of whom will never be able to afford to buy a house themselves – pay through their tax dollars for houses for the rapidly growing reserve population. These houses deteriorate quickly, because they are considered “free” by the residents, and have to be fixed and replaced in a wasteful and expensive cycle.

And it is a national disgrace that most reserves are dead ends for most of the young people born into them.

The late Farley Mowat described northern indigenous settlements as “unguarded concentration camps”. That might be a somewhat harsh way to describe reserves, but at best most are human warehouses, plagued with social problems. The young people living there deserve some hope, and Canada’s current plan for them offers them none.

So, Canada’s current indigenous plan is clearly not working. Is there a better plan for success?

Maybe we should ask Wab Kinew, Manitoba’s new premier. He is indigenous and highly successful. How did he get there?

The formula is actually not complicated. It has nothing to do with massive welfare giveaways, “nation to nation” utopias, or incredibly expensive “reconciliation” projects. It definitely has nothing to do with staying in a community that lacks economic opportunities, and waiting for handouts. It involves education, hard work, and going where the jobs are. Kinew’s parents realized that a stable home and education were key. Wab did the rest. He worked his way up the ladder in the usual way, and went where the jobs were. He did that with his indigenous identity intact.

Not every young person has Kinew’s talent, but everyone can follow the formula that made Kinew, and many other indigenous achievers successful.

The alternative – spending ever increasing amounts on a steadily increasing list of demands from a growing dependent reserve population is not an option. We don’t need the parliamentary budget officer to tell us that it is not sustainable.

As for remote, uneconomic reserves, like St. Theresa Point, they should be gradually and humanely closed down. It has been recognized for many years that reserves long ago had served their purpose, and should be phased out. As far back as 1911, it was said:

“Department officials were increasingly coming to the view that reserves had outlived their usefulness. Frank Pedley suggested that they resulted in the isolation and segregation of Indians, and thereby hindered progress…and encouraged the tribal form of government.”

The reserve system was not ended in 1911 because the chiefs and ruling families refused to give up their privileged positions. It isn’t happening today for the same reasons. We still have the same Indian Act and reserve system that has held indigenous people back for almost 150 years. (Senior Ontario lawyer, Peter Best, describes the toxicity of the reserve system in his important book, There Is No Difference)

So, the long-term plan should be to find a way to overcome that resistance, and find a fair way to phase out reserves, and the antiquated Indian Act. The reserves that are economically viable can merge into existing rural municipalities, or become stand-alone municipalities. Opportunities should be made available for young people from uneconomic communities to move to job centres, and receive help to succeed there.

In the meantime, the example of Wab Kinew is proof that there has never been a better time or place than today’s Canada to be an educated and ambitious young indigenous person who is willing to study, work hard, and go where the jobs are.

Brian Giesbrecht is a retired judge and senior fellow at Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Watch Brian on Return to Reason here.

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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

False Claims, Real Consequences: The ICC Referrals That Damaged Canada’s Reputation

Published on December 16, 2024

By

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Nina Green

The University of Manitoba has not provided the name of a single Indian residential school student who went missing and whose parents did not know at the time what had happened to their child. Not one.

Why has Canada twice been referred to the International Criminal Court on the basis of false claims about Indian residential schools?

The answer is simple.

The ultimate cause is the University of Manitoba’s National Student Memorial which falsely claims that it is a list of students who died on the premises of Indian residential schools and students who went missing from Indian residential schools. The University of Manitoba site tells users to:

Click on a region below to see a list of residential schools. Each residential school page contains a list of students who died or went missing at that school.

Those claims by the University of Manitoba are not true.

Firstly, the majority of the 4139 students currently on the University of Manitoba’s Student Memorial Register did not die on the premises of an Indian residential school. Most died elsewhere, as established by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report entitled Missing Children and Unmarked Burials, which is in Table 4. Location of residential school deaths, 1867–2000 on page 21 states that only 423 named students died on the premises of an Indian residential school over the course of 133 years, an average of 3 students a year.

Thus, the majority of students did not die on the premises of Indian residential schools. They died elsewhere – in public hospitals or of illness or accidents on their home reserves, accidents which included house fires, drownings, gunshot wounds, vehicle accidents, falling trees, being hit by trains, and other accidental deaths, as established in hundreds of provincial death certificates.

Secondly, none of the students on the University of Manitoba’s lists went missing from an Indian residential school. To date, the University of Manitoba has not provided the name of a single Indian residential school student who went missing and whose parents did not know at the time what had happened to their child. Not one. And far from being ‘missing’, in fact hundreds of provincial death certificates establish that the students were buried on their home reserves by their families and communities.

Based on the University of Manitoba’s misleading lists, the media and the federal government uncritically accepted the false claim by the Kamloops Band on 27 May 2021 that the Band had discovered ‘the remains of 215 children’. After three years, the Band downgraded that false claim on 18 May 2024 to the claim that it had merely discovered ‘215 anomalies’, which could be anything, and are almost certainly the remains of the 2000 linear feet of trenches of a septic field installed in 1924 to dispose of the school’s sewage.

The first referral to the International Criminal Court by a group of 22 lawyers

Only a few days after the Kamloops Band made its false claim, on 3 June 2021 a group of 22 lawyers sent a 14-page complaint to the ICC requesting the Prosecutor to initiate an investigation of a ‘mass grave’ of Indian residential school students which had been discovered at Kamloops. The claim by the 22 lawyers that a ‘mass grave’ had been discovered at Kamloops was, of course, false.

The International Criminal Court quickly declined jurisdiction in November 2021, and on 13 September 2022 Dr Chile Eboe-Osuji, former President and Judge of the International Criminal Court, informed Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray and those present at her National Gathering in Edmonton of the reasons for doing so. As reported by Chief Derek Nepinak, Dr Eboe-Osuji stated unequivocally that:

There is no pathway to the International Criminal Court for the situation of the historical Indian residential school system in Canada.

Dr Eboe-Osuji’s presentation has never been made available on the Special Interlocutor’s website, and requests to both Kimberly Murray and Dr Eboe-Osuji for a copy of his presentation have gone unanswered.

The second referral to the International Criminal Court by Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray

Undeterred by the ICC’s refusal to accept jurisdiction and the reasons offered by Dr Eboe-Osuji in his presentation to her 13 September 2022 National Gathering, Kimberly Murray pursued the issue based on the University of Manitoba’s lists falsely claiming that all the students on its lists died on the premises of specific Indian residential schools or went missing from those schools.

On 29 October 2024, Kimberly Murray delivered her final report to Minister of Justice Arif Virani. However, as she told the Senate Standing Committee on Indigenous Peoples on 27 November 2024, Kimberly Murray also sent her report to the International Criminal Court, requesting Canada’s prosecution by the Court.

How the ICC will react to Kimberly Murray’s referral of Canada for prosecution is as yet unknown.

Damage to Canada’s international reputation

Canada’s reputation has been irreparably damaged by these two referrals to the International Criminal Court based on the University of Manitoba’s National Student Memorial which falsely claims that it is a list of students who died on the premises of specific residential schools or went missing from those specific schools.

It cannot be reiterated often enough:

(1) that most students whose names are on the University of Manitoba’s National Student Memorial did not die on the premises of a residential school;

(2) that most students on the University of Manitoba’s National Student Memorial died in public hospitals or of illness and accidents on their home reserves;

(3) that the University of Manitoba has never provided the name of a single student who ever went missing from an Indian residential school whose parents didn’t know what happened to their child; and

(4) that the majority of students whose names are on the University of Manitoba’s National Student Memorial were buried by their families and communities on their home reserves. Over time, their families and communities have forgotten them, and through neglect of the grave markers, no longer know where in their reserve cemeteries they are buried.

The University of Manitoba’s National Student Memorial has misled Canadians and has resulted in two referrals of Canada for prosecution by the International Criminal Court based on false claims about ‘mass graves’ and ‘missing’ and ‘disappeared’ Indian residential school students.

The federal government and the Catholic Church must demand that the University of Manitoba take down its false and misleading National Student Memorial.

Nina Green is an independent researcher who lives in British Columbia.

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Indigenous

Trudeau cabinet adviser says residential school grave skepticism is ‘hate’ speech

Published on December 12, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves Kimberly Murray believes there are mass graves despite unfounded claims of secret burials and deaths of Indigenous children.

An adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet said that even though there is skepticism toward unfounded claims of “deaths and secret burials” of Indigenous children at residential schools, deliberate deceptions of the graves should be considered “hate” speech.

The comments were made by independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves Kimberly Murray at a recent Senate Indigenous Peoples committee meeting. She said it is “one thing to say you don’t believe there are burials,” and it is “your opinion and you can have freedom of speech to say that.”

However, Murray then said that when a person says “there are no burials, that First Nations people or the Indians are lying because they want you to go burn down churches or they want to take away your cottages,” this is “inciting hate against Indigenous people.”

“That’s the type of speech we need to stop,” she added.

The reality is that Canada’s Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations confirmed it spent millions searching for “unmarked graves” at a now-closed residential school, but the search has turned up no human remains.

As reported by LifeSiteNews in August, Trudeau’s cabinet will expand a multimillion-dollar fund geared toward documenting thus far unfounded claims that hundreds of young children died and were clandestinely buried at now-closed residential schools, some of them run by the Catholic Church.

Murray, who said she thinks there are mass graves at residential schools, claimed that those fully denying graves exist are somehow inciting “hate speech” that she said is “not protected by the Charter and it is getting worse in the country.”

“We need to ensure survivors and communities are safe. We need to send a clear message to Canadians that it is not OK to incite this kind of hate,” she said.

“When the children died, government and church officials did not return the children home for burial …They were buried in cemeteries at the institutions, often in unmarked and mass graves which were sometimes dug by the other children.”

“The indigenous leadership has exploited an obviously false claim — pocketing a mountain of tax dollars, while our moribund mainstream media sits in silence,” the judge said.

Giesbrecht was vocal about criticizing the claims made by the legacy media and the Trudeau government that the Catholic Church is complicit in the deaths of thousands of Indigenous Canadians who attended government-mandated residential schools.

As a result of the claims, since the spring of 2021, 112 churches, most of them Catholic, many of them on indigenous lands that serve the local population, have been burned to the ground, vandalized, or defiled in Canada.

The church burnings started in 2021 after the mainstream media and the federal government ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the now-closed residential schools.

Giesbrecht observed that the reality is that historical records “clearly show” that “the children who died of disease or accident while attending residential school were all given Christian burials, with their deaths properly recorded.”

Despite the attacks on Canadian churches, Leah Gazan, a backbencher MP from the New Democratic Party, brought forth a bill earlier this year that seeks to criminalize the denial of the unproven claim that the residential school system once operating in Canada was a “genocide.”

Canadian indigenous residential schools, run by the Catholic Church and other Christian groups, were set up by the federal government and were open from the late 19th century until 1996.

While there were indeed some Catholics who committed serious abuses against native children, the unproved “mass graves” narrative has led to widespread anti-Catholic sentiment since 2021.

Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MP Jamil Jivani urged support from his political opponents for a bill that would give stiffer penalties to arsonists caught burning churches down, saying the recent rash of destruction is a “very serious issue” that is a direct “attack” on families as well as “religious freedom in Canada.”

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