Categories: Inside the Queensway

Pierre Poilievre shows his empathy for residential school survivors

After an introductory ramble from CFRA host Steve Madley, who muses that “we could…

by kadyomalley on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:17pm - 0 Comments

After an introductory ramble from CFRA host Steve Madley, who muses that “we could go and argue whether [assimilation] was the right policy or the wrong policy,” Pierre Poilievre offers his thoughts on compensation for survivors, First Nations leadership, and where “all this money” is going:

“That gets to the heart of the problem on these reserves where there is too much power concentrated in the hands of the leadership, and it makes you wonder where all of this money is going. We spend $10 billion dollars – $10 billion dollars – in annual spending this year alone … now, that is an exceptional amount of money, and that is on top of all the resource revenue that goes to reserves that sit on petroleum products or sit on uranium mines or other things where companies have to pay them royalties and that’s on top of all that money that they earn on their own reserves. That is an incredible amount of money. Now along with this apology comes another $4 billion in compensation for those who partook in the residential schools over those years. Now, you know, some of us are starting to ask, ‘Are we really getting value for all of this money, and is more money really going to solve the problem?’ My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self reliance. That’s the solution in the long run – more money will not solve it.”

Full interview here.

Tags: first nations, pierre poilievre, residential schools, steve madley

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Sophie

Cooper, I fully understand and respects your compaints about lack of funding to rural areas, but that only increases my argument. In case you are unaware, most reserves are in rural areas. Oh, and sir, do you have indoor plumbing? Or clean water? Or a hospital within 200 km of your home? or heat? IF you answered ‘yes’ to any of those questions, you are already better off than many of us on reserves.
Sophie

What I don’t undersatnd is why some people (K.Hogkins, hint hint hint) JUST DON’T GET IT. History happened, horrible history happened. horrible things happened to people in my family…. My grandfather was in a residential school. He became an alcoholic and abused my mother. SHE became both a drug addict and an alcoholic and abused myself and my siblings. My siblings and I are in foster care. My mother OD’d four years ago. The point: history still has the power to hurt.But that doesn’t mean we should spend our time debating over what we can’t change. Here’s what we CAN change: we can change the future. My guardian is the librarian who lives iiin the library. Or, rather, the library is the fromt half of her house. Hence the internet connection. But nobody in this community, including myself and including her, has access to indoor plumbing. Or treated water. Or (quite often) electricity. Just going to school every day makes me sad at the numbe rof people I see who are well on their way to becoming just like their parents. I hate the fact that I have good friends who are 14 years old with two kids and no place to go.We CAN fix this. We might not be able to save my generation, or yours (I’m assuming most commentators or over 16) but we can save this generation and we CAN save the next. Let’s start with indoor plumbing, then move on from there.
madeyoulook

Sophie, I have an idea about that indoor plumbing thing. Get off the reserve, move somewhere that has electricity and plumbing and access to quality health care and education, all the wonderful things that as a Canadian you more than deserve.
A race-based treaty of centuries past is declaring your entitlement to privileges that, if you were to step back and actually LOOK at your situation, is actually condemning you to isolation, dependency, poverty and shame. Free yourself from this shameful apartheid! Your fellow Canadians are actually a very welcoming bunch.
And, you know what? All of us have some cultural baggage from somewhere, and we are free to hold on to what is important to us. Our traditions, our religious beliefs, our sense of history, we get to keep all that stuff even if we’ve moved far away from wherever it is on earth we’ve left.
Or stay put, living in housing of questionable safety, while your fellow Canadians shovel gazillions of dollars to Band Councils for the Chief’s HiDef TV and his family members’ jobs, while you still get brown water with little black bits coming out of the tap.
The treaties tell us that no one can force you into a better life off the reserve. I just wish you could see the rest of us here in Canada as your fellow citizens, your neighbours, ultimately your intermingling family. Any time you’re ready…
Sophie

I would, but I’m 16. I am leaving, actually: this upcoming school year, I’m moving to Montreal to study health sciences at UdeM. But What happens here is still not right, and I will be back because thats part f the problem- everyone who leaves sees how good it is in Canada, and never comes back to try and fix the problems of those with no CHOICE but to be on reserves. Like, for example, those in **foster care** I don’t want another generation to grow up the way the previous ones have. Ultimately, the abolishment of the reserves is the best possible thing that could happen to any of us. To Aborginals and to other Canadians. Unfortunatly, the only people who benefit from reserves are the people who hold power. Democracy in action, eh? Meanwhile, lets try and stop the vicious circle of addicion poverty nd death that many aboriginals are caught in. Also, I consider myself Canadian. It’s just part of my identity, just like being bilingual and being Cree are.
madeyoulook

Sophie, “bonne chance” in your studies, and best wishes for a successful career and a satisfying life.
Please explain, though, about those who have “no choice” but to be on reserves. Why is that? I can only imagine that, if enough people came to the realization that “enough is enough, there’s this really cool first-world nation right at our doorstep, let us in to our own country already!” then the kleptocratic chiefs would have no power anymore. And the children in foster care would have a better chance, in all likelihood, off the reserve as well.
Please enlighten me: I get the sense that enough native people, who have thought things through anyways, cannot accept that squalid conditions in a hidden away reserve is all they should aspire to in life. So why does everybody put up with it? Is it really simply a case of putting up with the devil you know?
It’s getting late, I am off to bed, but I will look for your reply tomorrow, if you are comfortable sharing your perspective.
Cheers.
Sophie

It really is. Some people have lived on reserves all their lives, and thats all they know. Some don’t have anywhere else to go. The leaders talk a lot about ‘cultural genocide’ and ‘assimilation’ but it’s lies. Any native ‘culture’ that we have now isn’t something we should be particularly proud of. There are Ukranian dance festivals in Montreal. I’m fairly certain that native culture wouldn’t disappear, at least not the mythical ‘culture’ depicted in art and dance and song.As for the culture of abuse, drugs and crime? With any luck, it would be the victim of cultural genocide. Most people just don’t have the chance. I have an aquaintance who was thrown out of her house because she was pregnant. She went to Montreal, and died six months later of a heroin overdose. I think that.. those of us who want to do something in the world and make it a better place, we DO leave the reserve. The others… don’t care any more. They’ve given up. My problem with it is, it’s a vicious circle. Parents abuse children who grow up to become alcoholics, teen parents and victims of domestic ciolence. Then the circle starts again. Someday soon, the reserves will be abolished. Until then, all we can do is try to prevent damage to future generations.
Warisaron

Sophie- “Those of us who want to do something in the world and make it a better place, we DO leave the reserve.”

As a First Nations woman, with a BA, who wants to “do something in the world and make it a better place” I am not someone who is willing to leave the place where my culture and history lives. MOST Aboriginal people who want to make a difference do, in their own community. A sense of community is what holds reservation life together. Say what you will about the negative aspects, I will not disagree, they do exist there. Just as there are negative aspects of every place in the world. If you have found Utopia, please let me know where. Given these negative aspects, abuse, alcoholism, drug use, which happens in every city, I can take my education and compare. I choose rez life. I choose the place where my language is, where my history is, where my family is, where my heart is. This “mythical culture” that you speak of will die without anyone to stay on reserve to learn it and pass it on. Or do you know of a
place where you live, that I can go and learn the Kanienkeha language? I choose to live in a place where when tragedy hits, the community comes together and supports you. My family was recently hit with a tragedy, and I was overwhelmed with the amount of support that came from the community. The support came in donations of food, time, company, and laughter. All things that are needed in a time of grief and mourning. I have seen my community come together to support everyone, from benefit dinners for fire victims, to golf tournaments for the youth to attend NAIG. You’re right. We really should prevent this damage to future generations. Just think of what would happen to these children to know that their community came together and raised enough money for them to participate in NAIG? Think of the damage it would do to them. Are there problems on reserve? Yes. No one can say there aren’t. Can these problems be fixed? Again yes, with some help. I think that with some help, some REAL help, not this political crap that gets thrown around, the reservation system would benefit people. As for all the people who believe that Aboriginal People receive all this money (80,000) I too would like to see my cheque. I would go to my chief and council to ask but they’re a little too busy trying to get a school for the kids here, again. Sophie, maybe you should go talk to PM Harper. To say that reservations should be abolished, and that the real culture is the alcoholism and abuse, it sounds like you would be the perfect Indian who was successfully assimilated.
Sophie

I don’t know where you live. I live on a Cree Reserve in Northern Quebec. Also, you obviously didn’t read my previous comment where I said that I will be coming back after I graduate because I want to make a difference in the lives of my people. I am pround to be Cree. It is part of who I am. I am not, however, proud of the ‘culture’ I live in, because what was good about my culture has been replaced with a culture of abuse, alchoholism and poverty. I want to fix this, I want to change this. I think that if I live in a developed nation, I have the right to indoor plumbing. However, I’m one person. I’m 16. I can’t change the way reserves work by myself. I am sorry to hear that you took my comments the wrong way, as I think I would like to hear your thoghts on what should be done. Apparantly your chief and council work. Mine don’t. Not only do we not have a school, we don’t even have indoor plumbing or safe housing. It’s been like this for years. I don’t know where the money is going, but it’s sure as hell not going to improving the lives of those who live on it. I used to be angry, now I’m just sad. I’ve seen firsthand the damage these problems have caused. Then I watch as my friends, who are no more than 14, have children by themselves, can’t deal with it all so they drink and do drugs, and by the time the kids 5 is so constantly blasted that she neglects and abuses the child. The child is placed in foster care. The circle begins again. It was like that with my grandmother and my mother. I decided to make sure the circle stopped st me, but I watched as it happened to my friends, and to my friends children. All I want to do is stop the seemibgly never ending circle of poverty, neglect, domestic violence, drug abuse, sexual abuse, alcoholism, teen pregnancy, foster care, death. My only memories of my mother and father are of being beaten with a belt. My only memories of my grandfather are too horrible to discuss. This is the culture I’m supposed to be proud of? If we can change this circle, lets. And lets do it before the next generation falls trapped into it. I’m glad to hear that for you, the reservation system works. I can’t think of any of the positive aspects at the moment, possibly because I just heard that my biological mother has died at the age of 30 from a heroin overdose.When I look at what I see around me every day, I cry. And More, I pray that together we can change this. Because I don’t want my children and their children to grow up like I did.
Sophie

Sorry, wasn’t thinking straight. meant to write ‘father’, not ‘mother’. my mother died years ago.
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Jonathan Paul

Thanks a lot blogger for such a nice and informative blog about residential school children view.The residential schools aimed to produce workers that were able to be exploited for wages or for their crops. The students were taught to be hard working and obedient like all good white Christian workers. I really appreciate this post .

http://legallaw.sosblog.com/llblog-b1/Council-Cla…
Jonathan Paul

Thanks a lot blogger for such a nice and informative blog about residential school children view.The residential schools aimed to produce workers that were able to be exploited for wages or for their crops. The students were taught to be hard working and obedient like all good white Christian workers. I really appreciate this post .