[QUOTE="Neelsmith1234, post: 2890263, member: 119432"The money give to reservations is a tiny fraction in comparison
No. I hear this same argument every time I post about this stuff.
It's in the billions and it is well worth saving.
All the constant handouts achieve is perpetuate the dependency mindset.
We often hear of the clean drinking water issue. I was on a reserve that taxpayers spent millions installing a water and sewage treatment facility. A crew spent six months training people on the reserve to operate and maintain it. A year after the crew left the treatment plant was out of operation because nobody wanted to work on it. It literally fell apart.
The last visit I had there, there wasn't even clean water in the community centre. But Perimeter was flying up a pallet of PEPSI on my flight.
I have seen similar situations with fire engines. One place had a nice shiny truck brought up by rail. A year later it is no longer operable and all its windows are smashed and its tires are slashed.
I have seen firsthand band councillors using funds to take their own family to Disney World, NHL games and concerts.
The same councillor phones my boss monthly asking for "donations". We gave him a couple of things like a barbecue which ended up in his backyard here in Winnipeg. Hmmm. No more freebies buddy.
Yes it is an easy target but you don't seem motivated at all to do anything about it. You'd rather change the subject.
Of course it's not visible. Why do you think a lot of reserves won't even let non-members onto their reserves? Because the chief and council don't want us interfering with their brainwashing of their members.
"Bashing minorities"? It's their own leadership!
The reserve I was on, every house had broken windows, most houses had raw sewage from overflowing septic tanks.
And there's councillors living in big new houses in Winnipeg with a new 4x4 every year. They tell the band members all the problems are the settlers fault.
These reserves are hell on earth. Nothing to do, no jobs, no education, no running water or healthcare. They are breeding grounds for hate filled youths who make their way south,, where they have no way to get a job and end up surviving by working for or joining a gang. And then their problem becomes our problem.
For decades we have been looking the other way, or throwing money at the problem. And it has only worsened.
The last time I was there a lady from Winnipeg was with us and she had tears in her eyes on the way back. She said all those kids have no hope, none. We have created a generation of angry lost souls with no hope at all.
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Im not saying ignore it. But attention given to something should be proportional to impact. If you have a bleeding cut in your hand and a terrible headache, you deal with both. But the bleeding cuts needs more attention. Obsessing about saving a few billions on something while ignoring bleeding hundreds of billions on other things does not make sense.