What is your plan Mr. Doryman. I have been to reserves, what do you propose we do.
I am sick and tired of people coming up with the excuse that
You really have no idea, do you? Go to a reserve or two. Try a couple of the remote ones. Read the treaties and the history. In other words, educate yourself.
It's not that I have no idea, it's just that I'm tired of being held responsible for crimes commited byy men long dead, for the simple reason that I am the same color and language group as them.
It is your problem. Your ancestors, and mine completely destroyed the aboriginal culture, political, and social system.
My ancestors were stowaways who lived on the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland, and existed until now as poor fishermen indebted to the local fishermen, if You want to point fingers, they should be levelled squarely at the aristocrats of this country in Ontario.
They tried to assimilate them into white-man society or at worst destroy them completely. This has resulted in the poverty, in the crime, in the unemployment, in the 'disenfranchisement' of aboriginal people who don't want to vote.
They want to work with Canada, just look at them participating in the army, in UN peacekeeping, in the first and second world wars.
What do you plan to do Mr. Doryman. If you want to get rid of their rights that they deserve for what I white-man did to them, I have one thing to say to you
I didn't say I wanted to abolish their rights, I said we should stop giving them handouts of cash. How about we stop treating them like second-class citizens who can only survive through the charity of Upper Canada, and start treating them like equals who can contribute as much as the rest of us. Because right now, by heaping handouts on them and letting them know that they're horribly screwed up because of our mistakes, we're implying that they can't help themselves; that the only way they can survive is through our good will and charity. That's bullshit. It's creatiing a culture of disrespect to Natives, both in those around them and in their own minds. The want to stand up and be contributing canadian citizens, so we should treat them like Canadians, not like dependents.
"It is time for you and I to pay for the white-man's mistake, and when, and when the aboriginal people of Canada are on the same level as other Canadians and not before, will we consider a different plan."
Understood. Adimos!