01 December 2011

Too many Chiefs, er... handouts...

...not enough auditors...another 90 millionWow... lemme get this straight... wooden shacks, no plumbing... obviously this racist Conservative government is intent on starving aboriginal populations into submiss... wait a minute...
Since 2006, the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs alone has provided approximately $80 million (CBC News tonight said it was actually $92 million) to Attawapiskat First Nation, which does not including funding the community will receive this fiscal year.” According to the 2001 Census, the population of Attawapiskat was just under 1300 people. That means one federal government ministry gifted the community with over $61,000 for every individual on the reserve.
Question number one here has to be... what's happening to all that cash? And that's a question that applies not just to Attawapiskat... but right across the breadth of this country. Some folks, somewhere... are sitting on a Tony Montana size mountain 'o cash. Which brings us back to the actual problem here. If, despite this annual obscene infusion of billions of taxpayer dollars, aboriginal peoples are still living in abject poverty... apart, of course, from the aforementioned epidemic of widescreen televisions... it's because their (cough, cough) "leaders" are screwing them over. And that, my friends, is part of a bigger picture. The oft-quoted figure of 8 to 12 billion dollars gifted annually to First Nations communities seems to be one of the largest continuing expenses in the federal budget... and it's obviously not working. Well, I'm with Kathy Shaidle... it's time to think outside the sweatlodge...
The solution to Canada’s intractable “Indian problem” seems obvious: Give every card-carrying native one million dollars cash, tax-free. (It will be the last tax-free perk they’ll ever enjoy and the last government entitlement they’ll be eligible to receive.) In return, they drop all treaty disputes and other suits against the government and the Catholic Church. Then they move off the reserves. This Crown land will be turned into toxic waste dumps and - assuming some of the natives get homesick - maximum-security prisons.
Every aboriginal a millionaire... no more 10 billion taxpayer dollars down the toilet every year. Win-win... right?