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E.R. Campbell said::goodpost:
I am in broad and general agreement with pbi.
As much as I am frustrated with the antics of the Warriors and as much as I hope they don't resort to e.g. IEDs, I acknowledge that First nations have many, varied and, above all legitimate grievances for which full and fair redress is overdue.
Our Supreme Court has said, over and over again, that Canada ~ all of us ordinary citizens and political leaders alike ~ has failed to uphold the "honour of the Crown" in our dealings with First nations. Now I know that many people are going to jump up and say, "I haven't done anything to anybody. Why am I to blame?" I'm happy to agree that you haven't done anything wrong, but you and I have:
1. Benefited, indirectly, to be sure, in most cases, from the unfair, often illegal treatment afforded to First nations peoples in the past; and
2. Failed to demand positive measures to ameliorate the situations of too many First Nations.
In 1867 we, all, those who were alive then and all of those who are only small children now, accepted, by the very act of staying in Canada, the obligation, the duty, to uphold the promises King George made to Canada's First Nations. Too often, more often than not, we failed and we still fail.
I don't know what the right answers are. On a personal, philosophical level I tend to favour assimilation ~ making everyone in Canada equal in every way. That would amount to "buying out" special status for many aboriginal Canadians and it would costs billions and billions, tens of billions of dollars. And it might be an unacceptable course of action. I am persuaded that however we settle First Nations' grievances it will costs us many tens of billions of dollars; none of us like new, higher taxes so we must, either, "grow the economy" or do without some other government programmes.
I agree with E.R Campbell in the sense that we need to put thing right with the natives and make the proper financial reparations to settle. However, once the numbers are agreed upon and the payments made the natives then should lose their special status and live on an equal footing with the rest of us. I realize that we're talking about significant dollar amounts to make this happen but for the most part much of it will end up back in the economy and in the governments coffers.