A rchive Date
[ 12-04-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/jacobs.html
Natives need private property rights
By MINDELLE JACOBS -- Edmonton Sun
April 12, 2003
There has been perennial hand-wringing over native on-reserve housing, as has been grimly documented in numerous studies over the past 20 years. Back in 1985, a government task force reported that one-quarter of reserve housing needed major renovations and one-third of units were overcrowded.
Eleven years later, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People also found that one-quarter of reserve units needed repairs. The commission concluded that aboriginal housing was substandard and a threat to health. According to this week's auditor general's report to Parliament, the situation is bleaker than ever.
In 2001, the Indian Affairs Department estimated that reserves had a shortage of 8,500 houses and almost half the existing 89,000 units needed renovation. The department says that 4,500 additional houses will be needed annually for at least the next decade to accommodate a population that is growing at twice the Canadian average.
"Unless action is taken quickly, the already unacceptable housing conditions are only going to get worse," said Auditor General Sheila Fraser.
Aboriginal leaders have long argued that the crisis stems primarily from a lack of funding. It's hard to believe that the $3.8 billion spent on reserve housing over the past decade hasn't been enough to meet the needs of the approximately 97,500 households on reserves. Even if a case can be made for increased funding, I'd argue a wholesale change in ideology is needed even more.
For the most part, the concept of private property is alien to reserves. Reserve residents can't get mortgages because land and housing is owned collectively.
As Fraser's report points out, there is no collateral on reserves, government subsidies are necessary and ministerial loan guarantees are available but must be supported by the community. As of March 2002 outstanding loans were more than $1.2 billion and about $10 million had yet to be recovered from bands as a result of defaulted loans.
Also, many bands and native organizations believe aboriginals have a treaty right to free on-reserve housing. (Ottawa disagrees.) As a result, Fraser's report notes, many natives are unwilling to pay for their housing needs and some bands don't apply for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation funding because it requires a financial contribution from the community.
Not surprisingly, many reserve residents neglect to maintain and repair their homes.Mould - often the result of poor maintenance and overcrowding - is a problem in many reserve homes, the report says.
Another complication is that bands are responsible for ensuring housing meets the federal building code. But most inspection reports that Fraser's department reviewed showed that housing didn't meet standards.
Fraser also criticized Indian Affairs' spending habits. In 2001 and 2002, the department reallocated millions of dollars for emergency housing "with questionable results." It's not known whether the money was even spent on housing.
Fraser's conclusion: Indian Affairs and the bands were just anxious to eat up the money before the end of the fiscal year. What this tragic set of circumstances demonstrates is that the reserve system is simply exacerbating the already dysfunctional lives of many natives.
A first step would be to give on-reserve natives property rights. A better solution, however, would be to dismantle the reserves. Other minority groups have successfully integrated into Canadian society while maintaining their culture. Natives should do so, too.
"The true progress of aboriginal people," wrote Tom Flanagan in First Nations? Second Thoughts, "will depend upon emancipation from political control, whether exercised by federal bureaucrats or their own politicians."
In other words, natives need to join the 21st century.
Mindelle can be reached by e-mail at mindy.jacobs@edm.sunpub.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@edm.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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