A rchive Date
[ 09-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Poverty in the aboriginal community
By ROSANNA DEERCHILD -- Winnipeg Sun
June 8, 2000
I've lost count as to how many times I've heard the same views. Not only that, I've lost count of how many times I've trotted out the same opposing arguments.
The scene goes like this: Someone somewhere will bring up aboriginal people. They'll say something like, I'm not racist, but ... Why do you people always have to whine about being poor? You get millions of dollars from Indian Affairs. How can you be poor? I'll sigh really loud because I've had this conversation way too many times.
They'll say, without hesitating, you must squander all those millions away.
My brow will furrow slightly. I'll blink. Then I'll start quoting statistics because people justlove statistics. I'll quote the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Report whichsays -- right there on its very expensive government paper -- that Aboriginal people in Canada endure ill health, insufficient and unsafe housing, polluted water supplies,inadequate education, poverty and family breakdown at levels usually associated with the impoverished.
That means poor, broke, insolvent, on the breadline. Get it?
Is that ever enough? No, of course not. Gimme proof, numbers, percentages, they'll insist. OK, fine. Again, to recap:
* 84% of aboriginal households live below the Canadian poverty line.
* 29% of aboriginal people live in overcrowded housing.
* 74% of on-reserve houses in Manitoba fall below housing standard codes.
* 23% of on-reserve houses have neither piped nor well water.
Did you get that?
Eighty-four percent live below the poverty line. Read it slowly.
So, there you have it. Undeniable proof that aboriginal people are the poorest of the poor. The feeling is less than overwhelming. I feel a little sickened. Having to prove aboriginal people are the poorest of the poor isn't an argument I ever wanted to have. Having to justify it is even worse.
The other two chaps on this page will probably stand on either side of the fence.
One will perhaps say more money has to go toward the betterment of the First Nations.
The other may say First Nations people have to pull up their bootstraps and work just like everybody else.
The view from their computer screens is quite clear.
Then again, just because I'm aboriginal certainly doesn't mean I have a solution.
The very thought of going on about how we're poor because of this or that and what should be done about it makes me ill.
I don't want to refer to hundreds of years of history, endless volumes of government policies, societal opinions and our own self-destruction.
Nor do I want to ask the obvious question of who would want to be poor? The answer, the answer is no one. Poverty isn't a choice.
The bottom line is there is an entire segment of Canada that is not equal with the rest of the country. There are people who live in communities where one litre of milk costs five dollars. Where up to 14 people have to share a three-bedroom house. Where a five-year-old child gets diabetes or tuberculosis.
By the time that child is 13 years old, he will attempt suicide and maybe succeed.
This country calls itself the best place in the world to live. It brags about its charity to Third World countries. It goes on and on about the sacredness of basic human rights. And yet, despite insisting millions are being spent on reserves, those same reserves can't seem to get clean water and electricity.
Does anybody see a problem with this?
I've lost count as to how many times I've heard nothing but silence.
Rosanna Deerchild can be reached by email at info@ncifm.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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