And which re incarnation RU Mr O maybeI believe that you might well look to your own compositional inaccuracies prior to commenting on the compositional transgressions of others.
Canada and First nations people going to War??
- Thread starter Quarter Mile'r
- Start date
It Wouldn't be U doing the cutting, thats forsure. I'd want a real MD not one trained by watching TV and who only practice is on the internet.
I'm very interested to know how many of the posters here have actually LIVED on a remote northern reserve (flyin only) and dealt with their crap on a daily basis. I lived and worked on northern reserves for 5 yrs so let me give you a little example of the things I've seen.
1) Someone mentioned the state of their housing. (living in ghetto conditions etc etc) The reason their housing is so bad is that they have no pride in ownership. It's a house that was given to them so they really don't give a flying f*&k what happens to it. In the winter they burn wood for a portion of their heat. When they run out of wood, (which always happens because they were to busy drinking to cut enough) they burn the siding off the house, then they burn the drywall in the house, and finally they burn the furniture itself. I've seen houses that were only 3 yrs old that were completely totalled. Is that our fault?
2) A great deal of their health issues are directly attributed to their diet. They live on pop and chips. They fly in one or two loads of actual groceries while bringing loads of pop and chips for days. No one is forcing them to eat that way. We supply the money for the groceries and they spend it on crap. Is that our fault?
3) People talk about FN being "stuck" on the ressies? What is stopping them from leaving, getting an education (which is paid for along with their housing while away from reserves) and living in the real world like the rest of us? We may have gave them land that was remote but we certainly aren't forcing them to live there.
I could go on and on and on about the things that happen on reserves. (The beatings, rapes, incest etc etc) I will tell you that very little of it is our fault.
What this country needs is someone in power with the balls to say enough is enough and some media to actually report what is really going on!! Does anyone remember the water situation in Kasatchewan NW ONT? I was there while it was happening. The cause of the whole situation was a broken chlorine pump that the wasn't fixed. They have FN people on the reserve that are supposed to be working at the water treatment plant but for some reason they just didn't bother fixing it. They brought in a tech from outside and the water was fine again in less than a week. Did anyone hear that side of the story? NO!! All we heard was oohh the poor natives. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars flying in bottled water for nothing and now they want millions more to rebuild the reserve a couple mile inland!! When do the FN take some responsibility for their current situation?
If you want to call me racist then go right ahead. If certain SP's don't want to see me because I'm prejudice towards indians then thats their prerogative. I've lived and worked with the FN people and I will tell you that most of their problems ARE NOT OUR FAULT!!!
1) Someone mentioned the state of their housing. (living in ghetto conditions etc etc) The reason their housing is so bad is that they have no pride in ownership. It's a house that was given to them so they really don't give a flying f*&k what happens to it. In the winter they burn wood for a portion of their heat. When they run out of wood, (which always happens because they were to busy drinking to cut enough) they burn the siding off the house, then they burn the drywall in the house, and finally they burn the furniture itself. I've seen houses that were only 3 yrs old that were completely totalled. Is that our fault?
2) A great deal of their health issues are directly attributed to their diet. They live on pop and chips. They fly in one or two loads of actual groceries while bringing loads of pop and chips for days. No one is forcing them to eat that way. We supply the money for the groceries and they spend it on crap. Is that our fault?
3) People talk about FN being "stuck" on the ressies? What is stopping them from leaving, getting an education (which is paid for along with their housing while away from reserves) and living in the real world like the rest of us? We may have gave them land that was remote but we certainly aren't forcing them to live there.
I could go on and on and on about the things that happen on reserves. (The beatings, rapes, incest etc etc) I will tell you that very little of it is our fault.
What this country needs is someone in power with the balls to say enough is enough and some media to actually report what is really going on!! Does anyone remember the water situation in Kasatchewan NW ONT? I was there while it was happening. The cause of the whole situation was a broken chlorine pump that the wasn't fixed. They have FN people on the reserve that are supposed to be working at the water treatment plant but for some reason they just didn't bother fixing it. They brought in a tech from outside and the water was fine again in less than a week. Did anyone hear that side of the story? NO!! All we heard was oohh the poor natives. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars flying in bottled water for nothing and now they want millions more to rebuild the reserve a couple mile inland!! When do the FN take some responsibility for their current situation?
If you want to call me racist then go right ahead. If certain SP's don't want to see me because I'm prejudice towards indians then thats their prerogative. I've lived and worked with the FN people and I will tell you that most of their problems ARE NOT OUR FAULT!!!
Thank you. From someone who lives in an area of the province where there is a high proportion of FN's I agree with your comments.
Just one point where I disagree..
Drywall doesn't burn. At least not without some SERIOUS heat involved, it's made from gypsum, not very flammable.
Of course jj … not surprising that your “factual assessment” would highlight something so innocuous… what? - everything else you’d accept verbatim, offering credence to such biased ramblings – take heart; it would appear you have someone else to reinforce your baiting predilection!
bcflyer, it’s unfortunate you wasted an opportunity to offer a first hand account, to speak to real issues, to offer substantive observations… your bolded “NOT OUR FAULT” summation suggests you hold this issue too personally, that you’ve lost any real avenue for objective comment. Your own words make it easy to dismiss your post for the bias it holds… and of course you follow the time-honored prejudicial practice of applying your “presumed” select narrow “experience” to the collective whole.
Fortunately you expose yourself and your agenda when you move from the subjective to the events of Kashechewan – an event well reported/well analyzed. Your narrow perspective sees Kashechewan as a single event, a single failure… then you have the audacity to suggest responsible FN people “just didn’t bother fixing it”. You would prefer to ignore the root causes of failure that truly reflect on history and past relations; the choice of the reserve location on a flood plain, the placement of the drinking water intake some 100 meters downstream from the community’s sewage lagoon, James Bay tidal influences… all of which add collectively to the inherent contaminated nature of the source drinking water – a situation that forces regular requirements for heavy doses of chlorine to kill E. coli to the point where the community at large suffers from severe skin rashes/disease. Health Canada had placed Kashechewan under a boil-water advisory more than two years prior to the catastrophic failure… an engineering consultant’s report was ignored; a report that warned of inadequate operations, maintenance and record keeping. The Kashechewan water plant operational failures are well documented with the government held accountable for failing to properly train FN personnel, failing to ensure there were industry certified personnel operating the plant, failing to design the plant with sophisticated monitoring (SCADA) capability, failing to provide an accountability hierarchy, failing to provide standards and guidelines, failing to instill requirements for regimented maintenance routines, failing to advise on requirements for clearly defined record keeping, etc., etc., etc. Right bcflyer, as you say, it’s so obvious… the FN people “just didn’t bother fixing it” (sarcasm highlighted for the sarcasm impaired!).
The issue of Kashechewan’s water failure truly reflects the greater failures – on the overall water quality issues across FN reserves and more pointedly on the failings of Canada… a postured 1st world country holding a segment of it’s populace under 3rd world conditions. We should be ashamed to read an Auditor General’s report that stated approximately 550 native water systems – representing 75% of all systems, posed significant health and safety risks. We should be outraged that a Conservative government is unwilling to act upon the Kelowna Accord agreements, a key component of which was intended to address FN heath concerns – to address drinking water quality. In Jan 2006, Harper spouts off he’s committed to the objectives and targets of the Kelowna Accord… Canada’s FN peoples are still waiting Stevie!
Money money money
Wow... I wonder which one of the people on here will be the first to chip in a little of their own hard earned money to sponsor the Kelowna accord.
The Kelowna accord reminds me a lot of our desperately failing healthcare system.. with the status quo being to throw more money at it. 1 billion for this.. 1.3billion for that... Guess what.. it doesn't work.. not in healthcare, and not with FN.
We need to look at how the money is spent and make some hard changes. It doesn't mean i don't care about FN, i just want the money to go to helping them instead of being wasted.
I honestly don't know if we are spending not enough or too much on FN. Lets spend the money properly so we can figure out what actually needs to be done.
Jack
Wow... I wonder which one of the people on here will be the first to chip in a little of their own hard earned money to sponsor the Kelowna accord.
The Kelowna accord reminds me a lot of our desperately failing healthcare system.. with the status quo being to throw more money at it. 1 billion for this.. 1.3billion for that... Guess what.. it doesn't work.. not in healthcare, and not with FN.
We need to look at how the money is spent and make some hard changes. It doesn't mean i don't care about FN, i just want the money to go to helping them instead of being wasted.
I honestly don't know if we are spending not enough or too much on FN. Lets spend the money properly so we can figure out what actually needs to be done.
Jack
OTBn Are you questioning the validity of my claims about what actually goes on in the Northern Reserves because I made a comment about burning drywall? If you took the time to do a "factual assesment" of your own you may be surprised to learn that drywall actually contains quite a bit of paper product which does in fact burn. Not well but it will burn.
Once again I ask you, have you ever lived on a remote reserve?(fly in only here) Have you spent years working on these reserves?
As for the Kashechwan debacle maybe you would like to read an article that is much closer to the truth. It was published by the Globe and Mail around the time of the incident. Again if you were actually on the reserve you would see this sort of thing going on on a regular basis.
All because of a broken $30 part
MARGARET WENTE
E-mail Margaret Wente | Read Bio | Latest Columns
November 15, 2005
What caused the water crisis at Kashechewan? In the official version of the story, the one the politicians and the band endorse, the crisis was caused by years of underfunding and neglect of water treatment plants on remote reserves. Only billions of dollars in new government spending can bring the water systems up to scratch and prevent the native population from being poisoned.
There's another version of the story. In this version, the water crisis at Kashechewan was caused by a broken $30 part.
The man who fixed it was Chris LeBlanc. He works for Northern Waterworks, a small firm in Red Lake, three hours away by air. He flew to Kashechewan on Oct. 15 -- one day after federal health officials discovered E. coli in the water. It didn't take him long to find the problem. The chlorine dosing pump was stuck. He couldn't fix the broken part, so he got the spare pump working and hooked it up to the chlorinator. Meantime, he dumped a lot of chlorine bleach into the reservoir to kill the germs.
It took him six hours to fix the problem. Within a few days, the water was clean again.
Everything that happened after that -- the barrage of hysterical publicity from the band leaders' media team, the dramatic evacuation, the airlift of a 20,000-pound water purifier by Hercules transport planes, and the army detachment that went with it -- was mere political theatre. By the time the Rangers got their water unit up and running, the local water had been safe for two weeks.
Before Mr. LeBlanc was summoned by the feds, the water plant had been run by two local men. "Nobody really trained us," one of them complained. But that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was their failure to follow a few simple procedures that would have prevented the water from being contaminated in the first place.
Remember the sewage lagoon? The one that overflowed into the water supply and turned it brown? As the Toronto Star found in a damning report, the problem wasn't caused by faulty engineering. The problem was caused by beaver dams, which blocked the sewage discharge outlet and forced the sewage back up into the creek. Three years ago, an engineering firm told the band to destroy the beaver dams. It did. But the beavers built new dams, and no one bothered to get rid of them again.
There was also an alarm system that was supposed to go off when the water was bad. But it didn't work properly. It went off all the time, and annoyed people. So five years ago, said one of the water operators, "we just shut it off." After the chlorination pump broke down, the operators started guessing how much chlorine to add manually. When people complained they'd added too much, they cut back. "The community doesn't like the smell of chlorine in the water," said Chris LeBlanc.
It's easy to say that local water operators need better equipment and more training. Indeed they do. But not all the training in the world will help if they can't follow instructions, and don't know how to problem-solve, and can't get the beaver dams cleared away, and aren't held accountable for their job performance.
Not everyone in Kashechewan is mad at the water operators, who are among the tiny handful of those on the reserve with salaried jobs. Also, a lot of people are related to them. "They are incredible people," said a member of the band executive. When things go wrong at the reserve, well, it's easier to blame Ottawa.
Nobody can guess the final cost of the broken $30 part. The government spent $500,000 to fly people out; it's costing another $10,000 or so a day to put them up. Paul Martin has pledged to move the whole community upstream, at a possible cost of $100-million. He has also promised $3-billion or $4-billion more to bring all 600 first nations water systems up to scratch, on top of the $2-billion we've already spent in the past decade.
Meantime, back in Kashechewan, the Rangers have produced 300,000 litres of drinking water no one needs. They have entered into protracted negotiations with the band about where to store the stuff.
mwente@globeandmail.ca
This is a much more truthful account of what is actually happening in the reserves around the country. The only "agenda" that I have is to open peoples eyes to what is really going on, not just what the native leaders want you to hear. The government doesn't have the balls to stand up and say it so someone has to.
Do you really belive that throwing more money at the problem is going to solve it? How many millions of dollars have been spent already? Are things getting any better? When do we say thats enough money, its about time for you to take some responsibility for your self?
Once again I ask you, have you ever lived on a remote reserve?(fly in only here) Have you spent years working on these reserves?
As for the Kashechwan debacle maybe you would like to read an article that is much closer to the truth. It was published by the Globe and Mail around the time of the incident. Again if you were actually on the reserve you would see this sort of thing going on on a regular basis.
All because of a broken $30 part
MARGARET WENTE
E-mail Margaret Wente | Read Bio | Latest Columns
November 15, 2005
What caused the water crisis at Kashechewan? In the official version of the story, the one the politicians and the band endorse, the crisis was caused by years of underfunding and neglect of water treatment plants on remote reserves. Only billions of dollars in new government spending can bring the water systems up to scratch and prevent the native population from being poisoned.
There's another version of the story. In this version, the water crisis at Kashechewan was caused by a broken $30 part.
The man who fixed it was Chris LeBlanc. He works for Northern Waterworks, a small firm in Red Lake, three hours away by air. He flew to Kashechewan on Oct. 15 -- one day after federal health officials discovered E. coli in the water. It didn't take him long to find the problem. The chlorine dosing pump was stuck. He couldn't fix the broken part, so he got the spare pump working and hooked it up to the chlorinator. Meantime, he dumped a lot of chlorine bleach into the reservoir to kill the germs.
It took him six hours to fix the problem. Within a few days, the water was clean again.
Everything that happened after that -- the barrage of hysterical publicity from the band leaders' media team, the dramatic evacuation, the airlift of a 20,000-pound water purifier by Hercules transport planes, and the army detachment that went with it -- was mere political theatre. By the time the Rangers got their water unit up and running, the local water had been safe for two weeks.
Before Mr. LeBlanc was summoned by the feds, the water plant had been run by two local men. "Nobody really trained us," one of them complained. But that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was their failure to follow a few simple procedures that would have prevented the water from being contaminated in the first place.
Remember the sewage lagoon? The one that overflowed into the water supply and turned it brown? As the Toronto Star found in a damning report, the problem wasn't caused by faulty engineering. The problem was caused by beaver dams, which blocked the sewage discharge outlet and forced the sewage back up into the creek. Three years ago, an engineering firm told the band to destroy the beaver dams. It did. But the beavers built new dams, and no one bothered to get rid of them again.
There was also an alarm system that was supposed to go off when the water was bad. But it didn't work properly. It went off all the time, and annoyed people. So five years ago, said one of the water operators, "we just shut it off." After the chlorination pump broke down, the operators started guessing how much chlorine to add manually. When people complained they'd added too much, they cut back. "The community doesn't like the smell of chlorine in the water," said Chris LeBlanc.
It's easy to say that local water operators need better equipment and more training. Indeed they do. But not all the training in the world will help if they can't follow instructions, and don't know how to problem-solve, and can't get the beaver dams cleared away, and aren't held accountable for their job performance.
Not everyone in Kashechewan is mad at the water operators, who are among the tiny handful of those on the reserve with salaried jobs. Also, a lot of people are related to them. "They are incredible people," said a member of the band executive. When things go wrong at the reserve, well, it's easier to blame Ottawa.
Nobody can guess the final cost of the broken $30 part. The government spent $500,000 to fly people out; it's costing another $10,000 or so a day to put them up. Paul Martin has pledged to move the whole community upstream, at a possible cost of $100-million. He has also promised $3-billion or $4-billion more to bring all 600 first nations water systems up to scratch, on top of the $2-billion we've already spent in the past decade.
Meantime, back in Kashechewan, the Rangers have produced 300,000 litres of drinking water no one needs. They have entered into protracted negotiations with the band about where to store the stuff.
mwente@globeandmail.ca
This is a much more truthful account of what is actually happening in the reserves around the country. The only "agenda" that I have is to open peoples eyes to what is really going on, not just what the native leaders want you to hear. The government doesn't have the balls to stand up and say it so someone has to.
Do you really belive that throwing more money at the problem is going to solve it? How many millions of dollars have been spent already? Are things getting any better? When do we say thats enough money, its about time for you to take some responsibility for your self?
Ah, the old "tin foil helmet' baby talk. Domestic examples: Dozens of people kidnapped by government and held without charges on suspicion of 'terrorism' (in Toronto), organized attacks and raids on many protests from APEC to anti-war marches, etc.; kidnapping of supposed protest 'leaders' (e.g. Jaggi Singh), murders of native protesters ( e.g. Dudley George), attempts at Waco-style executions (Gustafsen Lake), not to mention all the lower level violence and daily intimidation by government against whoever the enemy of the week is. If you are actually claiming that governments do not use violence and terror to get their way, then you are the only one in the world who believes this, and have your head way too far up your ass.
I have, back to 1857 in fact. Hence my statement.
You seem to be having a conversation with yourself. Talk to your doctor about pimozide. Which band council leaders are advocating "violence against the government"?
yep, you've obviously checked out of the debate.
Yup - me and Steven Harper - leader of the Conservative party... both endorsing the principles and objectives of the Kelowna Accord. Oh my... jj, why is Steven Harper a moron?
that you would (again) fixate on the minuscule, the trivial... burning drywall, that's your focus?
your claims - what claims? What have you really stated that's factual, that's objective, that can be substantiated? Perhaps it's because you have difficulty articulating...
since you highlighted a water quality example... are you really disputing the Auditor General's report on the state of water quality on FN reserves?
where does that G&M Kashechewan article differ from anything I stated - or the formal review/reports that document the failings? To summarize it as, as you say, "This is a much more truthful account of what is actually happening in the reserves around the country", speaks to your mindset, to your blinders... are you really that obtuse?
here - try again: "the choice of the reserve location on a flood plain, the placement of the drinking water intake some 100 meters downstream from the community’s sewage lagoon, James Bay tidal influences… all of which add collectively to the inherent contaminated nature of the source drinking water – a situation that forces regular requirements for heavy doses of chlorine to kill E. coli to the point where the community at large suffers from severe skin rashes/disease. Health Canada had placed Kashechewan under a boil-water advisory more than two years prior to the catastrophic failure… an engineering consultant’s report was ignored; a report that warned of inadequate operations, maintenance and record keeping. The Kashechewan water plant operational failures are well documented with the government held accountable for failing to properly train FN personnel, failing to ensure there were industry certified personnel operating the plant, failing to design the plant with sophisticated monitoring (SCADA) capability, failing to provide an accountability hierarchy, failing to provide standards and guidelines, failing to instill requirements for regimented maintenance routines, failing to advise on requirements for clearly defined record keeping, etc., etc., etc. Right bcflyer, as you say, it’s so obvious… the FN people “just didn’t bother fixing it” (sarcasm highlighted for the sarcasm impaired!)
a $30 dollar part - yup, someone with expertise, someone trained and certified was able to identify why the water was contaminated with E coli. One of the implementation plans to deal with the ongoing operational support requirements is to install Scada control systems and monitor the water treatment plant remotely... by the same Red Lake company. That control systems/remote monitoring approach is being recommended for many other FN reserve water plants... because those plants are currently not properly controlled and maintained - because no FN personnel were properly trained/certified.
sewage lagoons?... beaver dams? The fundamental problem is the water plant intake proximity to the sewage lagoon... coupled with placing the reserve on a flood plain... and the tidal surges from James Bay. Again, all this contributes to the inherent contamination of the incoming water source - forcing shock levels of chlorine to be used. Are you disputing the fact the reserve is perpetually flooded? Are you disputing the health review/reports on the cause of skin rashes/disease due to the shock levels of chlorine needed to deal with the E coli contaminated water source? Are you disputing the Health Canada boil water advisories?
The G&M article was correct in stating the personnel/plant required better equipment and proper training... and identifying that there was no accountability hierarchy in place.
There is a difference between agreeing with the objectives and agreeing that the accord will achieve those objectives.
No one is saying that there isn't a problem and that fixing the problem isn't a good idea. Those are the 'principles and objectives' that you speak of, but what about the details of how to meet those objectives? Sure the native leaders agree that giving them billions of dollars is a good thing (hey, if someone wants to give me billions of dollars I'd agree too). And the liberals were spending like drunken monkeys when they 'agreed' to throw billions at the FN leaders. Of course they hadn't actually budgeted it or anything.
Similarly, one can agree with the stated objectives of Kyoto (reducing carbon emissions) without agreeing with the methods that Kyoto attempts to use to meet those objectives (transfer of money to Al Gore, eastern europe, china and india via carbon indulgences and a transfer of the world's manufacturing base to china and india).
But I guess you're too obtuse to be able to tell the difference?
Just like Vancouver has been placed under boil water advisories quite a few times over the past couple of years..
Oh no!!! we better move Vancouver!!! Someone raise taxes, quick, it's gonna take BILLIONS to do that!!!
And, living in a flood plain!! Ack!!! We better move Richmond too!!!
More taxes!! Quick!!!
So, the basic problem with the water supply was that the maintenance and oversight wasn't being done by qualified professionals.
Hmm.. did that maybe have something to do with the fact that the band insisted on doing it themselves and just being given cash by the government instead of letting the government hire and pay an outside contractor to do the job?
This reminds me of another of the 'great ideas' in the Kelowna accord. You see, there was a problem identified: Currently, the FN children on reserves can go to 'tribal school' for elementary school but then they are transfered into regular high schools afterwards. When they get to the regular high schools they are way behind the other children in just about all areas and they have a lot of difficulty catching up and many of them never graduate high school due to all the frustration and difficulty involved with trying to catch up. They are also disruptive in the classrooms because they are also behind on the basic social skills that most of the other kids learned in primary school.
So, along comes the Kelowna accord with a solution: Give the FN leaders a bunch of money and give them control of their children's education until the end of high school, establishing tribal schools for that too.
Now, I agree with their basic principle: The kids are having problems in High School .
And, I agree with their stated objectives: More FN children with high school diplomas and less difficulties for FN children in high school.
But, I would probably try a different method...
YES, I know that this wasn't everything in the Kelowna accord, it covered a lot of issues, but their hammer was giving money to the FN leaders and they just assumed that everything was a nail.
Hmm.. did that maybe have something to do with the fact that the band insisted on doing it themselves and just being given cash by the government instead of letting the government hire and pay an outside contractor to do the job?
This reminds me of another of the 'great ideas' in the Kelowna accord. You see, there was a problem identified: Currently, the FN children on reserves can go to 'tribal school' for elementary school but then they are transfered into regular high schools afterwards. When they get to the regular high schools they are way behind the other children in just about all areas and they have a lot of difficulty catching up and many of them never graduate high school due to all the frustration and difficulty involved with trying to catch up. They are also disruptive in the classrooms because they are also behind on the basic social skills that most of the other kids learned in primary school.
So, along comes the Kelowna accord with a solution: Give the FN leaders a bunch of money and give them control of their children's education until the end of high school, establishing tribal schools for that too.
Now, I agree with their basic principle: The kids are having problems in High School .
And, I agree with their stated objectives: More FN children with high school diplomas and less difficulties for FN children in high school.
But, I would probably try a different method...
YES, I know that this wasn't everything in the Kelowna accord, it covered a lot of issues, but their hammer was giving money to the FN leaders and they just assumed that everything was a nail.
all rightee jj ... to the point where the Harper Conservatives have done nothing to extend on the Kelowna Accord objectives/principles... the Harper Conservatives would rather ignore the FN problems and concentrate on things like their "Obstruction manual"... "a 200-page playbook on how to frustrate, obstruct and shut down the democratic process" - shameful, shocking... a disgrace! --- http://www.thestar.com/News/article/215532
Thought you were a denier... are you not a denier?
What a dweeb you are - the evacuation was a government decision... nothing to do with FN requests/demands.
What are boil water advisories a symptom of... oh right... contaminated water - so what's your point?
The government of the day wrongly chose the site of the reserve - on a flood plain... and guess what - the reserve is subject to flooding - go figure. Haven't heard of any Richmond floods lately?
... I trust you'll corroborate that statement... and that your corroborating statement will also extend to advise that there was adequate monitoring equipment at the time - equipment that has since been replaced with sophisticated monitoring capability. I trust that same corroborating statement will similarly extend to encompass the full complement of some 500 reserves identified to have an inadequate/safe water supply and to (also) be lacking in proper equipment and operational monitoring.
