Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

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LovelyLadyLux
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Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Over the last couple of weeks a news story very specific to a remote, very small, First Nations Indian village has been unfolding whereby a group tried to commit suicide in a single night.

I've attached a precis of what has been going on however it again brings to the forefront of who has social and personal responsibility for what?

We have thousands of small extremely remote rural villages all through the north. The people who live there claim cultural identities and lay claim to the land and deal mostly with the Federal gov't as it is the Feds who provide funding to aboriginals.

If one drives through most any of the Reserves or Native Lands the standards of "upkeep" are nil. Broken down furniture, cars, appliances are typically strewn everywhere, stray dogs wander about - they're pretty grim places to live. Nobody gardens or even ascribes to having a tidy yard.

This morning the TV News show the Head Federal people there and making speeches about how "WE" have failed these people and how "WE" need to do more.......

This highlights for me the entire question of how much responsibility "WE" should have for everybody else. What is the solution? Do we 'round 'em up and move them south where there are more people hence more services i.e. mental health, substance abuse, probation, public health? And (I know you're not aware) but ALL First Nations people scream immediately that nothing we do is cultural relevant to them or sensitive and on and on. They want help but is never right.

No easy answer but this particular village by way of suicide attempts is screaming for help. What to do?

This is the article:

The Canadian First Nations community of Attawapiskat declared a state of emergency this month after 11 people tried to kill themselves in a single night, bringing the total number of suicide attempts since September to more than 100.

The spike this month snapped the world's attention to the tragedy unfolding in the remote coastal community of around 1,500 people in northeastern Ontario. The crisis has since deepened, with another five children reportedly attempting suicide on Friday, leading local MP Charlie Angus to denounce "a spiralling situation that is taking us into unknown territory".

Although the surge is alarming, the crisis itself is not new. For decades, Attawapiskat and other First Nations communities throughout Canada have experienced high rates of suicide, amid long-standing social problems that include systemic poverty, family violence, educational failures and substance abuse.

Why has the situation in Attawapiskat escalated to the point where more than 100 people have attempted suicide in a matter of months?

Eric Hoskins: There's a whole set of circumstances - whether it's inadequate housing, or a lack of income opportunities, or the massive and continuing negative impact of the residential schools saga - that have all contributed to making this situation that we're finding today.

We've been investing in mental health services, but part of the challenge has been that for the last decade, the level of coordination with our federal partners and the commitment from the federal government has not been what we believe it should have been, so that made it more challenging for us to approach this in a coordinated way.

UN criticises Canada for treatment of aboriginal people

The resources that we've provided to date at all levels of government have been clearly inadequate. We've failed the youth in First Nations communities, particularly those in the remote, northern, fly-in communities. And that's not unique to Ontario - that's something that we all share nationally as well.



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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by Horus »

We dont have First Nation people, but we do have Pikey's better known as Gypsies, most are wayward thieving gits with no respect for the law, basically they are itinerant thieves. Now if they threatened mass suicide I reckon quite a few of us would chip in for the requisite materials required to carry it out :a9:
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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

It is really really hard to explain the situation of the First Nations people. It is honestly very complex.

First Nations people can live anywhere in Canada. Most of their lands are Reservations and Reserves belong to the Band or Tribe. You can never aspire to OWN your home on Reserve.

Way back when if a First Nations woman married a white man she and all her kids lost all STATUS. STATUS is a designation by both the tribe and the Feds that give free healthcare, free university education (probably less than 1% take advantage of that perk), pay NO sales tax and can freely cross the Border between Canada and the USA. These are the main perks but there are lots of others.

Now most women have had their Rights reversed.

The average Reserve looks like you're driving through a garbage dump. The argument is that it is not within the culture of a First Nations person to have a yard, grow a lawn, grow flowers. Most were nomadic so when they (ahem) crapped up an area they moved on. Most Reserves look extremely depressing. Apparently it is also not within their culture to look after the INSIDE of a house either and, for instance, when they ran out of firewood (although they LIVE WITHIN easy reach of forests - meaning you couldn't walk in a straight line for 100' without walking INTO a tree) on the entire reserve they opted to carve out the INSIDE walls of the NEW HOUSES the Gov't just gave them and burn them in the fire place to keep warm!!! Course this negated any insurance sooooooo ???

Who is at fault? Apparently us for something but WE (white people) are blamed!

Some First Nations opt to live traditionally (yet they all have TVs, microwaves and as many modern conveniences as they can get) in extremely rural remote areas.

Isolation can be a real honest to God killer. So you live in totally isolated areas where the primary activity is alcoholism. The winter months you might not even get more than a couple hours daylight. No jobs. No nothing. The entire village or town of 1500 of you get so depressed you all form pacts to kill yourself. There is minimal education, no jobs, no skill development, cousins marry cousins (honest) and so it goes - BUT - you'll never guess whose fault it is!?!?!?!

Culturally too - and this is an FYI - while I can type this onto E4U Forum I honestly cannot TALK about First Nations here, in person, as bluntly as I am. Here you cannot talk and especially criticize First Nations people (or the French in Quebec).......soooooo we have PROBLEMS we honestly can't talk about out loud.......Makes for interesting problem solving IF there is even a solution other than to just keep giving giving giving giving and making people more and more dependent to the point where over multi-generations they have no ability to look after themselves. NO self determination. Sad sad sad.
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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by Horus »

We have exactly the same problem with our ethnic minorities, but in the UK replace First Nations with Gypsies, they behave in a similar manner. As they move from place to place they leave a trail of rubbish and trash behind them and use public land as a toilet. They too make all sorts of claims regarding lifestyle and culture, but basically they are just wasters who don't want to contribute to the system, but want to take out all they can from it.
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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by Jayway »

Portugal has Gypsies called ciganos..they are primitive, they travel in carts with horses tied on behind. They are very superstitious and were the reason I got this cottage as they were stealing all the crops. They don't come now as they are also afraid of an insane witch cursing and stoning them. I have a very bad temper.
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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by Horus »

:lol: :lol: I like your style :up
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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@Jayway - you actually THREW stones at them too didn't you?

I can see it ;)

Our First Nations people have intermarried to the point it has cause birth defects and problems. They have different speech patterns (often just stop mid-sentence and don't re-start for another 30 seconds to a minute), don't make eye contact (not in a shifty way they just look down), do NOT stimulate their kids at birth or when young so developmental delays are super common. It is nothing for a 4,5,6 yr old NOT to be potty trained or to have more than a couple of words. It is real typical for a child to just point and grunt and the adult gives it to them. Add that to often locking children away for prolonged periods of time when the adults are otherwise occupied (drinking/drugging/whatever) and you have very slow people.

Real serious problem here as anytime we (whites) try and intervene we're accused of destroying their culture, taking their children and on and on. No win situation at all.
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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by Ruby Slippers »

Sounds like you are describing a fair few Australian Aboriginal settlements, LLL!
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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by Horus »

I wonder why it is that so many of the so called First Nations/Aboriginal groups always seem to be lethargic and lacking any ambition to better themselves, but try and lay it at everyone elses door?
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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

We as in Canadians way back when tried to 'help' the First Nations. I honestly can't see that as we (white people) moved across and inhabited Canada we tried to take over/enslave the First Nations people however there is documented evidence that the Hudson's Bay Company did hand out blankets laced with small pox which totally decimated the populations these were distributed to. WHY the HBC did that I'm not sure but there are examples of that type of matter happening. Totally tragic and unexplainable.

At some point in our history it was decided and determined that we would 'help' the First Nations people. We (mainly religious groups) rounded up all the children and placed them into Residential Schools where the kids were denied their own languages and religion, raised in boarding situations, beaten, sometimes killed, not returned to their families and even if they were they were unable to communicate with them - was NOT at all a chapter of Canadian history that was nice. Was terrible what happened to First Nations people. Why did we do this? Optimistically I'd like to say we were trying to help them be like us but they're not. Full stop they are not.

There are several different types of First Nations. They all moved about however the First Nationa here on the coast had more established summer camps and winter camps. Because of the easy availability of trees they did build long houses - permanent structures. The First Nations of the prairies followed the buffalo and the tribes back east were just more nomadic moving about the land (but no permanent homes).

They had verbal language but no written language and even now Researchers have found that something of the order of 75% of First Nations children are unable to actually SEE the black written word on a page hence reading is extremely difficult and requires a different type of visual scanning and input for them to be able to read. There is nothing in their back ground that has ever required them to mentally learn to process linear words. They can read pictures but not words.

Has this kept them back? They are not nearly as quickly and easily expressive as we are.

They all live within a very large extended family system and it is very common for children to be born of one mother and dad yet raised completely by other distant relatives.

Anyway - the above is extremely extremely simplistic. The gov't now is and has been actively trying to fix it and make reparations but really not much changes with First Nations people no matter what we do.
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Re: Crisis in Attawapiskat - Who is responsible?

Post by Horus »

I always get a bit annoyed about all this ethnic preservation, providing it is a slow steady process then change is inevitable. We are all influenced and subjected by global events, the old British Empire for example means that English is the most universal spoken language. Now Welsh for example is barely spoken by anyone else in the world other than an ex colony in South America and is mainly promoted by a stalwarts in the North West of the principality. It is never going to be a common language even in Wales and only survives by being force fed to school children. There are lots of examples of where the indigenous population has been usurped by another culture, it has happened several times throughout the UK's history from Romans to Vikings to the Norman French and some may even say it is happening now with Islam. We are all hostages to history and although we may not like it at the time there is often little we can do, the same goes for tribal or Aboriginal groups, They may wish to roam the country without hindrance and live in a certain way, but if that conflicts with changes that took place maybe more than a hundred years ago, then they are only holding themselves back in a modern world. The French have an ongoing campaign to stop their language from becoming Anglicised, again it is like trying to hold back the sea. The English language has incorporated many French and other foreign words in its spoken form and is none the worse for it, in fact it is all the more richer for that.

Most of these so called 'traditions' are nothing of the sort, in the UK the itinerant Romany Gypsy was a traveller living in a small wooden caravan pulled by a horse and living off the land in what was a very rural England. Today's Gypsies are just about anyone who can afford a huge modern caravan and a big 4x4 or a lorry to tow it with and a desire to pay no income tax, ignore the national laws and set themselves up as something special in society with 'traditions'. The majority are what are known as Didycoys and are of Irish origin who maraud all over the country at will leaving their trash behind them and to add insult to injury most have proper homes in Ireland. They too claim the right to roam freely, but demand that local councils provide suitable camp sites complete with all mod cons that become a permanent feature with the same people living there for years and are hotbeds of crime. To my mind all of this First Nation/Aboriginal/Romany claim is just an excuse to behave in your own way whilst ignoring the rules of society, but claiming the benefits of it.
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