Living up to the Canadian dream

The big news everywhere these days is about the housing crisis and the terrible third world conditions in my home community of Attawapiskat First Nation. It is time that this news has gone viral.
I have been writing about the deplorable third world conditions in First Nations across this country for years now. Attawapiskat and many other First Nations in Canada are dealing with a crisis involving housing, underfunded education, inadequate water and sewage infrastructure, as well as severe social problems that have a lot to do with the history of colonization, assimilation and systematic abuse of my people. It is not a pretty picture but it is a snapshot of reality.
How did it get this way? It is not as though suddenly a lot of people woke up and realized just how bad the crisis was in Attawapiskat and other First Nations. My people have been living in these deplorable conditions for many decades. The relationship between First Nations and the government of Canada has been rotten for a long time. It was founded on the signing of treaties in which First Nation leaders at the time were coerced or tricked into signing documents they really did not understand.
In general my ancestral leadership understood that the government of Canada agreed to share the lands and that Native people would be compensated for this new reality. What they did not understand was that our First Nation nomadic peoples would be forced to live on small land parcels where there was great difficulty in following the traditional pursuits of hunting and gathering. To make matters worse there were very few opportunities for employment, even though mining and forestry companies actively harvested natural resources worth billions of dollars from our traditional lands.
For a long time First Nation members in this country were very much a forgotten people. However, many individuals managed to get a good education and that has resulted in strong political organizations, intelligent and dedicated leaders as well hard working educators, health professionals and business men and women. You could say that in this day in age, we are a force to be reckoned with.
Many are saying this focus on Attawapiskat is a major turning point in terms of educating and informing Canadians as well as people internationally that the First Nations of this first world country are living in poverty and deplorable conditions. Of course this kind of a jarring reality also brings out the bigots and racists.
These people claim that the financial management in First Nations is questionable and perhaps corrupt. They say that the millions of dollars that are spent in First Nations is more than enough to assist these communities. There seems to be a great disdain by many for the assistance the government of Canada and provincial governments provide to First Nation communities. Rather than be appalled at the fact that most First Nations people are living in terrible third world conditions, some choose to blame these communities for this reality.
That is an ugly reaction.
For too many years, I had to put up with listening to my people being labelled as welfare bums, lazy Indians and drunks. I admit that there are a lot of problems in First Nations especially in remote communities. That has a lot to do with decades of systematic abuse and not to mention the tragedy of the residential school system.
I also hear a right wing sentiment in complaints about how much money goes to First Nations in this country. Nobody seems to be aware of or is willing to talk about the billions of dollars that is handed out to major corporations in Canada every year.
In October 2008 the Canadian government handed over $25 billion to take over bank held mortgages to ease a growing credit crunch. It has also been reported that by mid 2010 the government had actually purchased $69 billion of mortgages from Canadian financial institutions. They claimed that this was not a bail out.
With this kind of information, you can understand why First Nation people can’t figure out why the government of Canada does not contribute adequate funding to provide a life for Native people that is at least comparable to the mainstream. It’s time to make things right across this country and to do it quickly and with much humbleness, gratitude and respect. It is good to finally see our government finally making moves to correct this injustice.www.underthenorthernsky.com