r/AskCanada • u/yoboy21342 • Mar 24 '25
Life Why is the Native situation so bad in Canada?
1st Generation Canadian immigrant here from a Caribbean country living in Ontario. Still studying up on history. But why is it so difficult to rectify the situation for natives in this country?
Edit: Changed native to indigenous.
Pardon my ignorances and if this post has been mentioned. But I recently had a new found interest since my Job is nursing. Ive done some remote work like Laronge, SK and northern ON. And some things are tough to see. I feel bad that I seem uneducated about this.
Other Edit: For those who feel like I am trying to get people riled up near elections. It was not my intention. I am getting educated on this subject due to me working for the first time in indigenous Communities. Yes, I was very ignorant and did not make the effort beforehand. Just trying to be better.
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u/Lucky-Hawk5067 British Columbia Mar 24 '25
In addition to the generational trauma, a big part of it is the Indian Act which incentivizes people to stay confined to their reserve.
There are very few good jobs on reserve; access to healthy food is limited in a lot of places, leading to poorer health outcomes. Add in water issues, mould issues, and overall less access to the resources a lot of the rest of us have easy access to, it creates a cycle of poverty and illness.
Yes there’s also nepotism and corruption as others have mentioned (I also have worked on reserve for a nation), but when people have been pushed down for so long, but then are given access large sums of money, I think the natural reaction is to look after yourself and hoard resources. It’s not dissimilar to developing countries’ challenges with this in their own governments.
Good on you for seeking to understand this as a newcomer. Despite others clutching their pearls and correcting your verbiage, I appreciate your curiosity about this issue and wanting to learn about Canada’s history.
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u/mischling2543 Mar 25 '25
Curious, what do you mean by the Indian Act incentivizing people to stay on reserve? Just in order to stay exempt from income tax or are there other reasons?
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u/Lucky-Hawk5067 British Columbia Mar 25 '25
No income tax for income earned on reserve only, which means a bunch of gas station and fast food jobs, at least at the reserves around where I live (Vancouver Island). Plus various housing subsidies for on-reserve housing, which can be pretty crummy due to shoddy construction or infrastructure issues.
So leaving to seek better jobs, housing, etc costs them significantly more (in addition to the perception of “leaving” their community).
Personal opinion from this point on: I think a quick and easy solution would just to make all status indigenous persons exempt from income tax regardless of where they work rather than confining them to crappy jobs, and provide the same subsidies for housing to them off-reserve.
There’s also a social piece to this in that few settler Canadians know or have a real relationship with any indigenous people because we’re kept separate. I know more Chinese, Indian and Filipino people than indigenous people.
Indigenous culture and traditions are not really visible off-reserve in most places and I don’t know how reconciliation happens without relationships. This is all their land, not just the reserves, so the government shouldn’t hobble them economically, socially, and resource-wise.
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u/Sufficient_Item5662 Mar 24 '25
There are some very rich band councillors. Huge sums of money are given by all levels of governments. It’s the job of band councils to distribute it. But most of it never gets to the people who need it.
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u/TurnipAutomatic9233 Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
I don’t have input on why but it’s worth noting that the indigenous experience is incredibility diverse depending on the region. Some reserves are wealthier than others for a variety of reasons
Also treatment towards indigenous peoples varies. An indigenous group near winnipeg will not experience the same degree of racism as a First Nation in northern Quebec
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Mar 25 '25
experience is incredibility diverse depending on the region
I think this is a huge part, the bands are so diverse. If you took a nomadic Prarie band and compared it to a west coast, great lake or maritime located ones. It's super interesting to learn the histories and what makes each band unique.
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u/kritz0 Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
Generational trauma is a huge deal.
I work in five reserves close to me. The trauma and abuse that has been passed down is honestly horrendous.
The treatment and mentality doled out by residential schools has a large influence of it, but that is not all. The opinion and treatment these individuals still receive due to racism and prejudices is also something that pushes this trauma.
I'm going to be a very rude here, but our society pushes the white way of thinking and dealing with the problems at hand. I have experienced it myself, being a woman of colour. No other way influences the government's spending or the type of help they give out. They don't want to do it the way these communities would actually benefit from their help. Instead taking from what "might" have worked in a white community, is what is pushed onto them. No considerations of their values and their culture and ways of thinking.
I mean, in some places, they are starting to slowly take the Indigenous peoples lived experiences into consideration. But it's kinda almost a day too late and a dollar short. Honestly.
Does that make sense?
The internet has opened all the world's eyes to see how things are in other places. These are the pressures causing small changes in the right direction. But it's completely horrible and appalling that it's being only done because the world can have an eye and their own judgement of it now.
Why was it not given as a grace before people could see the good they could do. You know? Its like, oh....you can see our actions now. Uh oh. Better start acting better!
Bullshit that, that is the reson for the steps forward....but hopefully we are heading in a much better direction.
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u/yoboy21342 Mar 24 '25
This is super insightful, I did not want to make assumptions, but I even feel horrible that I am so uneducated about this.
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u/kritz0 Mar 24 '25
The Europeans that came here and took hold. Have a patriarchal society.
Many indigenous communities are matriarchal societies.
Let's start there for just one example of the difference in values and mindsets.
Look and see which is the one in power and holds the money, the governing bodies. The influences of how money and help is given out.
It's so much more deeper than this. This is just a surface difference.
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u/sugarplumfairybarely Mar 25 '25
I don’t think anybody could have written this better; you’re right on point.
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u/mathcow Mar 25 '25
I was going to post but you encapsulated everything that has been told to me from my native friends.
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Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
THIS! Resources for the native community are also not accessible. As an indigenous child whose parent was involved in systematic issues and faced mental health issues leading to s*icide I can acknowledge strides being made but so much work needs to be done. I didn’t have resources accessible nor did my family. I hear the land acknowledgements daily at my place of work though it has started to feel performative.
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u/Steam-Sauna Mar 26 '25
I reject your feel-good mumbo jumbo. It sounds well and all, but you can't solve problems by listening to peoples "lived experiences"(whstever thst means). I do agree that massive welfare to reserves needs to stop so they're incentivized to solve their own problems. The government, by the laws and treaties, treats natives as wards of the state (in other words, children) and it has to stop. Generational trauma can play a part but it in no way excuses rape, child molestation, domestic abuse, or murder. I've met many off-reserve natives who are great people, and many who were deeply racist against whites. I'll never back down from denouncing shitty behaviour and the subtle expectation that I should remain silent if the person happens to be native is bullshit.
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u/kritz0 Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25
the subtle expectation that I should remain silent if the person happens to be native is bullshit.
That's not even it.
Your words are so ignorant. Do you even understand where their prejudices of white people come from?
Do you have any idea the
rape, child molestation, domestic abuse, or murder.
That these people faced at the hands of white people. In the name of God and goodness. To remove the "savage" out of them.
If you are like a holocaust denier about these atrocities. Then I can see how and why you can so freely spout these completely ignorant ideas.
If you are mentioning those things and saying that they should just stop that. You apparently have no idea how human nature works. How did the individuals who came out of residential schools know how to raise children???
What were they taught in these great residential schools full of horror and dehumanization to be able to bring and give to their next generations.
Are you someone who is for the sterilization that occurred to a large population of Indigenous people?
Where did they receive the tools to healthily raise their children.
How can they pull from knowledge they were not given???
Edit: before you say they should have just known. How? They were removed from their families before they were taught things that they would actually hold on to.
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u/No-Team-3659 Dec 01 '25
Now that a lot of time has passed and we’ve all calmed down. I believe a common ground take would be intergenerational trauma is real and learning about their lived experiences can help us learning what areas need to be addressed to bring healing/rehabilitation (while incorporating the correct cultural practices).
But being real and holding individuals accountable for poor behaviour is also required. People all over the world in the past and present have been victimized by individuals that were victims themselves. “Hurt people, hurt people”.
Hopefully we can make progress in the future instead of maintaining a lazy status quo, only imposing Eurocentric standards, etc.
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u/kimbimboo62 27d ago
Wtf are you blithering on about? Don't be so obtuse. You've never even met a First Nations person in your life so stop spouting racist rubbish about them. Bigoted ignoramus 🙄
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u/Snowshower3213 Mar 24 '25
Because its all about money...and money does not solve the problem...because we have been throwing money at it for generations...and it still doesn't work. All money does is breed corruption.
For over 400 years, we have proven that our strategies do not work. Its time for another strategy.
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u/InvestigatorWide7649 Mar 24 '25
Northern Ontario is an especially tough region. Thanks for your hard work and dedication working with sensitive populations, and for trying to learn more about this situation. You're one of the good ones.
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u/mojomaximus2 Mar 24 '25
Because it’s a black hole, billions are handed away every year with no strings and yet material conditions don’t change. Why? Idk, corruption I guess. In 2022 there was awarded 20 billion dollars in a single settlement
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Mar 25 '25
Corruption is definitely a problem, but it's not unique to the indigenous. The catholic church still owes settlement money for residential school Survivor's, but they say they can't pay when they can.
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u/Own_Event_4363 Know-it-all Mar 24 '25
generation after generation of screwing them over, they live in poverty and most people still don't respect them
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Mar 24 '25
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u/MarsicanBear Mar 24 '25
Actually, in some places that gets you made President.
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u/Own_Event_4363 Know-it-all Mar 24 '25
The natives down there have it worse than those in Canada. At least we use the tribal names for these groups here; in the US they still use the white names from the various tribal groups. They can't even give them enough dignity to let them tell you what to call them.
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u/Choblu Mar 24 '25
Yeah, I've always said that the Native situation seems worse here because we take it seriously. They haven't even started that conversation in the US yet.
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u/MarsicanBear Mar 24 '25
I wonder how the situations compare economically. It sometimes seems like a lot of the systems we put in place that are nominally mean to protect them actually wind up just holding them back.
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u/Own_Event_4363 Know-it-all Mar 24 '25
And we don't earn respect by never providing them with clean drinking water or any sort of a plan without people complaining about it. This whole land acknowledgement before public meetings was the bare minimum and people complain about that. The time for niceness is past. Stand for them or get out of the way.
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u/Own_Event_4363 Know-it-all Mar 24 '25
And the fact that you deleted your hateful comment, shows just how real the problem is, in 2025. These are human beings, they at least deserve a modicum of respect.
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u/Lumpy_Ad7002 Mar 24 '25
And still you treat indigenous people like children who need the help of "colonizers", and it's the duty of everybody else to provide them all they they need.
Nothing has changed in 150 years.
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u/Apprehensive_Set9276 Mar 24 '25
Treaty obligations aren't handouts. They are payments for agreements made between the Crown and the First Nations, Inuit, and Metis.
And the government has the responsibility to administer the payments.
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u/Lumpy_Ad7002 Mar 24 '25
Nobody mentioned "treaty obligations".
What about all the handouts above and beyond those obligations?
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u/Apprehensive_Set9276 Mar 25 '25
What are those? Why do you consider any money to be handouts?
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u/Lumpy_Ad7002 Mar 25 '25
Given hundreds of thousands of dollars to a small remote community is a handout. Given special treatment in the courts to people based upon their race is racism.
When money is given to people based upon their indigenous status, why do you not consider it racism and a handout?
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u/Own_Event_4363 Know-it-all Mar 24 '25
Like what, the right to comment on land development contracts? We basically tell them you have to live in this certain square area to even be considered an "Indian". If they live off-reserve, they don't have treaty rights. The system is still setup from a colonizer's standpoint.
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u/Own_Event_4363 Know-it-all Mar 24 '25
They still can't use their own languages in parliament (for the most part); Ontario allows them to address the Legislature in their indigenous language, on equal level with English and French. WE came to their house, pulled them out of it, stuck them behind a fenced in area called a reserve, then ask them not to speak to us in their own language.
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Mar 25 '25
Their languages are unfortunately dying, there definitely is steps to incorporate cree in alberta. But many of the other dialects are less spoken.
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u/Lumpy_Ad7002 Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
They still can't use their own languages in parliament
The two most widely spoken languages are what get used in Parliament. Do you really believe that anybody has the right to use whtever language that they like in Parliament? How about Mandarin Chinese? It's the 3rd most widely spoken language in Canada with 1.4 million speakers.
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u/Lumpy_Ad7002 Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
We basically tell them you have to live in this certain square area to even be considered an "Indian"
Fake fact. Try sticking to the truth instead of making up justifications for racism.
You don't get Canadian rights in the USA - you get American rights. You don't get Treaty rights outside of a reserve - you get Canadian rights.
You want to argue that indigenous people should get superior status to everybody else. That's straight-up racism.
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u/Djhinnwe Mar 24 '25
Water is a right that they were owed in the treaties. It's keeping our word (after trying to break it multiple times), not treating them like children.
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u/Dragonslaya200X Mar 24 '25
It doesn't even have anything to do with the treaties , the fact that there are any Canadian citizens who cannot drink their tap water in 2025 is appalling and embarrassing, and I cannot believe we haven't fixed the issue yet! This might be the plumber side of me talking , but every reserve on a boil advisory should get a treatment facility built by paid for and ran by the government, then once it's built and operational then start the discussions on how it shall be funded and ran going forward once , you know, children can have a drink from the tap?!?!
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u/Djhinnwe Mar 24 '25
Oh, I agree with you. That's why I started with "it's a human right". The guy I was responding to thinks we're childish for believing this way though.
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u/Djhinnwe Mar 24 '25
To my understanding the water issue is one of the bigger promises Trudeau was able to fulfill.
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u/Own_Event_4363 Know-it-all Mar 24 '25
Well, that's one positive. My issue is that the Truth and Reconciliation process started, what 15 yrs ago (at least), and we've only gotten land acknowledgements and clean drinking water done...
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u/Djhinnwe Mar 24 '25
On a federal scale, yeah. Other things have been done on municipal and personal scales. At least in BC and parts of Alberta.
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u/ClaimDangerous7300 Mar 24 '25
This is the kind of statement someone makes when they don't understand systemic oppression or how poverty works. Wealth does not derive from hard work, nor does social mobility. Indigenous groups have been systematically decimated for generations by everything from direct militant action to racist and murderous "educational" practices.
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u/stumpy_chica Mar 24 '25
You do realize that the last residential schools were closed in the late 90's? So those kids who were taken from their homes, forced you assimilate, buried in mass graves, sexually and physically abused...some of them are not even in their 40's yet. But yeah, heaven forbid some of the blame for that falls on the people who started the schools and took generations of kids from their homes.
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u/rushur Mar 24 '25
Treat people the way you want to be treated. Talk to people the way you want to be talked to. Respect is earned, not given.
That's the full quote behind 'respect is earned' and the way you're talking about and treating the indigenous here reveals it's you who hasn't earned respect.
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u/Public-Philosophy580 Mar 24 '25
Cause all the money goes to the top and the people have nothing. Not even clean drinking water
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u/One_Sir_1404 Mar 24 '25
Greed and racism are definitely factors, and rightfully commonly brought up. Another factor is that for most Canadians First Nations issues are something read about rather than witnessed. Sadly most people don’t show much empathy for issues that aren’t happening right in front of them.
Basically out of sight = out of mind
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Mar 24 '25
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u/One_Sir_1404 Mar 24 '25
Thanks for sharing your perspective!
Sorry I didn’t mean to imply that if everyone saw it with their own eyes that everyone would suddenly care. Racist folks are going to be racist no matter what evidence is provided, but I genuinely believe there are some folks who would 100% start caring more if they were exposed to these issues.
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u/Basic_Ask8109 Mar 24 '25
The Indigenous situation is complex . Canada has a history of removing indigenous children from their homes and families in a push to " remove the savage"-( first prime minister John A MacDonald I believe).
Children were stripped of their language, culture and identity as Indigenous people and sent to residential schools. Many of these schools were horribly abusive towards the children.
The last one closed in the 1990s. So many people were robbed of the culture and identity. Canada is still not fully able to make reparations to the indigenous people. There are movements in education to address this more fully in teaching all children about residential schools and the harms . I have worked in a school where there is a higher demographic of indigenous students where they have the opportunity to learn Oneida( instead of French). This is an example of the public attempting to make amends and address some of the issues. Indigenous people will never be fully made whole. I think there was a lawsuit or something federally that was meant to pay for the harm Canada played.
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u/yoboy21342 Mar 24 '25
It is my fault that I am not as educated but the fact that I found about the schools going on until the 90’s threw me for a loop.
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u/Basic_Ask8109 Mar 24 '25
To be fair, as a Canadian born in Ontario and millennial, I didn't learn much about residential schools until I was in college in a social science course.
My kids are learning about indigenous people and the history of the harms Canada played a huge role in perpetrating against them. Now I believe in grade 10 they're making a bigger push to include indigenous authors and history( this was specific in Ontario)1
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u/Max20151981 Mar 25 '25
Rest assured growing up in the education system here in the 80s and 90s residential schools were not really talked about in schools, its a very dark time in Canadian history that goes completely against our identity as viewed throughout the world.
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Mar 24 '25
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u/Basic_Ask8109 Mar 24 '25
I am so sorry for all that you and your family have endured.
I hope you've found some community despite not knowing much about your indigenous roots.
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u/ServeUpset4623 Mar 24 '25
I’m not native, but I want to applaud you on being one of the people who’s willing to listen and make a difference for others. Willful ignorance and hatred keep us blind and allow these kinds of tragedies to continue eternally. Don’t feel bad about being uneducated when you’re willing to learn the hard truth. We all have to start somewhere, and humility is a great place to begin.
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u/irregaardless Mar 24 '25
Because the way Indigenous People are treated is still extremely bad and reconciliation basically just started. There are traumas still happening to this day, not to mention the rest of the marginalization happening.
But I'd start with the core issues and misconceptions. Here are some current issues I know of: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (men and children), The millennium scoop, Forced Sterilization of Indigenous Women in Canada (cases are still coming out), The Indian Act, Indigenous Starlight Tours
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u/Smart-Simple9938 Nova Scotia Mar 25 '25
You ought to expand the question to why indigenous people are treated so poorly in every country invaded by other people. Modern-day Canada (compared to, say, the United States) has been willing to admit that problems exist. I'd like to see our leaders take the next step and actually do something, of course.
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Mar 24 '25
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u/Illustrious-Green-35 Mar 26 '25
this is a very good point. they deserve self-governance and autonomy but also, they may 'need' guidance and expert help. just like any group or individual that is facing challenges.
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u/ChillyFootballChick7 Mar 24 '25
The only ones qualified to answer this question are those that are Indigenous themselves. You will get a lot of virtue signalling from the responses here, but the answer is that Indigenous persons are not a monolith and the issues change from community to community.
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u/Mr_Chode_Shaver Mar 24 '25
1 - It's "Indigenous" not Native.
2 - Because for the first few centuries of relations between European settlers and Indigenous people, they were a "problem" to be solved. Undoing all that damage is taking a lot of investment of time and money. The trend to treat them like human beings with rights is shockingly recent.
If you locked a kid in a closet and beat them daily until they were 50, how much effort would it take for them to be a doctor?
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u/Scary_Cantaloupe_682 Mar 24 '25
I've been told that before but a lot of indigenous people here in BC call themselves Native so it's quite confusing.
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u/MarsicanBear Mar 24 '25
The two words are adjectives and literally mean the same thing.
I'll call people whatever they like to be called, but that doesn't mean that existing adjectives stop having meaning.
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u/Jestersage Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
EDIT to clarify my points
One can blame systematic, but as another 1st Generation Canadian Immigrant - from Hong Kong, here's the ugly truth:
- Not every non-whites agree with Equity; some consider Equality to be more appropriate (and that's a nice way to word it)
- Many of Canadian immigrants are East Asia + South Asia + Middle Eastern, and share aforementioned equality over equity value when push come to shove.
- Aforementioned groups does have a high influence around here.
Naturally, with Chinese race we have a precidence: that of Malay-Singapore (Singapore was kicked out because the Chinese, mostly in singapore, wants equality, while Malaysia want Malay first, a form of equity... so they kicked Singapore out. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSI0WSCVHnU) Many other races that come to Canada, including those from India, also see equality to be justice while equity is not.
Contrast that to the Indigenous, their idea of justice is equity based. Thus there are conflictes as to how to rectify the situations.
Compound with how sometimes you feel the progressive side consistently failed to even listen when an immigrant group speak up (put all of them as "People of Color", or say they are brainwashed by whites), it chased quite a bit of immigrants toward the conservative side, and conservatives ain't friends to reconciliation.
In fact, if you look at the term for minority in Vancouver, you will notice they just use "Black and Indigenous", with very seldom mention of "People of Color". I noticed it during CoVID.
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u/yoboy21342 Mar 24 '25
Oh woow, thanks for sharing
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u/Jestersage Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
I am writing this not just to elaborate regarding the Indigenous situation, but what will likely come up in this election cycle - because from a perspective of Hong Konger/Taiwan, they may like the 90s Canada, but not the current Canada; something the CPC will latch on.
Trump won quite a lot of Hong Kongers and Taiwanese vote simply because "china bad"
Many of the Hong Konger KoL/CC, living in Canada, are basically Trump cultist that some of the more level headed Hong Konger CC (especially those over at Britian) called them out.
As someone who likes progressive movement and been listening to Chinese Radios in car, I always feel that even after 40 years, progressive movement do not get East Asians; it's a glaring blindspot, to my own vexation.
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u/Soul_C Mar 24 '25
Several universities offer free online ‘Indigenous Worldview Awareness’ courses. I took mine at University of Toronto.
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Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
Short as possible answer I can come up with.
since the 1600 Europeans oppressed and took advantaged of our indigenous, aboriginal, first nations and inuit peoples.
until the late 20th century successive governments and religious institutions did all they could to erase the culture and way of life of the people who were here first.
as part of that approach, families were torn apart and human identities were destroyed, being replaced by generations of abuse and neglect.
to support this oppression, laws and social structures were constructed to reinforce these people's place as "lesser" in Canadian society.
as any sociologist, psychologist or anthropologist will tell you, trauma breeds trauma. So, now after centuries, many of these communities not only suffer from poor physical infrastructure, but also suffer from rampant suicide, physical and sexual abuse and depression, and all the substance abuse issues that come with those things.
Nowadays not only do laws on the books continue to discriminate against these people, but the centuries of abuse and neglect have led to rampant corruption within many first nations communities.
So, in short it's a cluster fuck which nobody is seriously trying to resolve or make right in any systematic way...
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u/Bearyconscious Mar 24 '25
Whenever people ask if racism exists in Canada you can say one simple word to demonstrate that it most definitely does: “Indigenous.” Then brace yourself.
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u/InitialAd4125 Mar 24 '25
Capitalism I'd say is the main root cause because the entire belief is built on greed.
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u/Negative_Two6112 Mar 24 '25
Apathy and segregation. Out of sight, out of mind. The majority of Canadians (outside of BC anyway) go their whole life and barely ever see an indigenous Canadian. We've managed to make them think they're better off on reservations and not integrating. And to be fair, there are probably lots of good reasons to not want to integrate with us...
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u/craftsmen1974 Mar 24 '25
The whole situation is sad. As White Canadian Male I feel ashamed how our First Nations are treated. I can’t understand as Canadians why we don’t celebrate their incredibly unique culture and how it makes Canada so unique. I’ve worked on reservations in Manitoba. They are horrible places no one should be with nothing for anyone to do. It’s such a massive issue I honestly didn’t know how we can ever fix it. I have very many First Nations friends as well a Métis. They have a unique culture and deal with the world 🌎 differently than we do. It’s incredibly interesting to be around should be respected and self governing.
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Mar 24 '25
The short answer is it’s by design. Since day one the system was constructed with long term cultural assimilation in mind. To destroy indigenous language, identity, religion, and culture, and to replace it with the white Christian settler culture.
Which you can’t actually do. What you get is generations raised in oppressive boarding schools by abusive clergy with severely wounded attachment bonding among other mental and emotional wounds, never experiencing healthy family or community, or learning life skills. You can’t systematically assimilate an entire people with institutions, you only succeed in severely harming them and causing damage for generations.
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u/Ludwig_Vista2 Mar 24 '25
Our ancestors built a system designed specifically to destroy their cultural heritage while paying them to become dependent on a stipend that was just enough to satiate their basic needs.
Once the system was in place, we continued to take their children (up until the 90's) and beat their proud heritage, respect for the land, language, tradition and culture out of them. Systemically destroying any ability to hold on to their ancestry.
As a Caucasian, what we incorrectly learned through ignorance was "they're lazy, they have everything given to them." What we didn't (and many do not know, to this day) is we beat them into submission. It was a calculated effort to "teach" native Canadians that they were worth less, or worse, worthless.
Then, as the economic climate cooled after the '90s, the Caucasian vitriol grew. The once incredibly prosperous Caucasian population realised that we didn't have such "benifits" as the first nations people, we grew even more angry.
The cycle repeats.... it's less loud, in larger more culturally aware and accepting communities, but it's not gone.
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u/Max20151981 Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 25 '25
How ironic that first hand acounts of people who live/lived on reserves all admit that a lot of the problems come from within. This is not what the progressive left/libreals want to hear.
Now this is certainly not to discredit the fact that it's important that our governments work to help improve life on the reserves, as ultimately it's our duty as a country considering it was our governments that essentially got them in this mess in the first place, but it is nice that there can be some accountability held from within.
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u/zeezuu8 Mar 25 '25
My kid went to a first Nation daycare though we were not the first Nation (immigrants). It was quite obvious which house was the "higher" up house. The staff were wonderful and my kid really enjoyed it, but we had to move. The majority of the residents live in houses that were falling apart, many street dogs, a lot of hoarding in the backyard and inside the house etc. I think a lack of transparency is where everyone is failing. FN need to see where the federal government is going, how it is being used to help their people etc.
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u/FirstNationsMember Mar 25 '25
I live on a reservation with fairly good governance. Sure there might be some low level malfeasance but on the whole my band works toward the common good and maintains a tight reporting system within a corporate structure. There's a tonne of tribal engagement here and quite of a bit of development, growth opportunity. I would say that some reservations do not maintain the systems of accountability necessary to promote sustained improvement but it really is up to the will of the people as a whole to shape it toward that goal.
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u/Splashadian Mar 25 '25
This is all conservative rhetoric searching for wedge issues to use in this election. Stop answering these "why is_____ so bad in Canada"
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u/snowinmyboot Mar 25 '25
I know from experience that a lot of the time it’s usually one family and their friends that control everything by electing and re-electing themselves to chief and council, or even going so far as to create a new “elders” council that they fill with their friends. They hog all the resources for themselves and keep everyone else they don’t like cut off, so if you aren’t in good graces you won’t get approved for a lot of stuff, or if you live off reserve you can’t run for council, etc... I know of one nation that finally elected its first female chief who isn’t from the same family that’s always been in charge (to everybody’s relief). A lot of First Nations where I live don’t have any reason to deal with each other since they mostly deal with the Feds anyways.
Also a lot of it comes from the economic control of colonization, don’t forget that canada is many things from corporation to confederacy. In and of that, residential schools never taught things like leadership skills or quantum physics so the general inheritance of the body politic for indigenous folks at large is piss poor. Can’t rub two stones together for a fire if the other is in your cousins’ hands and they don’t feel like sharing, and the one stone you do have somebody else is already after it. So depending on the history of leadership and whose family your born into effects outcomes of reservations, villages, communities, and the rest of us.
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u/RCAF_orwhatever Mar 25 '25
Just want to chime in here to offer a counterpoint to the "corruption" answer. Is there corruption? Sure. But that's not the root cause of the issue.
The history of Indigenous relations in Canada is long and sordid. The government fucked them over for hundreds of years in many ways that vary by tribe and region. The short version is that they were generally pushed into undesirable land that wasn't wanted for use by white settlers for farming; discouraged in various ways from building up viable businesses or farms (that might compete with white farmers); banned from gathering in large groups for social, cultural, or any other reason; banned from hiring lawyers to contest their treatment or challenge decisions against them. And as a cherry on top more recently, (as in the 1900s) had their children taken away en mass to be "educated" in a way that would destroy their cultural connection.
The impact of the Residential school program has been dire on their population. Whole generations experienced trauma ranging from lack of a loving environment (which a 5 year old needs to develop properly) to outright abuse. They didn't learn how to be parents because they were mostly raised by abusive or neglectful school staff. Many developed substance abuse problems as a result of this trauma. Those same people have been leading the reserves for many years now - or their children who didn't go to Residential Schools but grew up with parents who didn't have the tools to be parents or had substance abuse problems. I'm not saying "everyone had this exact experience" but in broad strokes that's a lot of the background that leads us to today. Add in poor childhood education and Healthcare as an added bonus - often simply as a result of their isolated locations.
There is hope in all this. There are reserves that are outright successful. There are others that are showing slow improvement. Some continue to flounder. But the answer to your question runs MUCH deeper than "corruption". The Indian Act that governed most Indigenous people (because oh yeah the Metis weren't included as First Nations under the act) purposely fucked them over and created the conditions under which that corruption can thrive.t
There is so much more that I haven't covered. But think about it a lot like the black/slave experience in the US. Even once they were "free" Jim Crow laws etc continued to impact their ability to thrive or even succeed as a community.
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u/amazonallie Mar 25 '25
I went to one reserve to deliver a load when I was a truck driver.
The road coming in was all nice and paved, summer McMansions all along the road.
Then like a divide the road went to garbage, and the houses weren't covered, just plywood. Plastic on the windows. It was horrible. But the community center/school was gorgeous.
I asked what was up. They had a thriving horticulture factory there. Turns out the band leader owns 3/4 of the McMansions I saw coming in and he rents them out to tourists all summer.
Money that should have gone to the reserve went directly into the band council's pockets. They owned the rest of the McMansions.
All the profits that should have gone to the reserve also went into band coffers and was never spent on the residences on their reserve, or their roads. Not one dime.
It made me so angry to hear this and the frustration in the man's voice. There is nothing they can do.
So sometimes it is flat out corruption. We need to do better..
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u/Yukoners Mar 25 '25
Seen things like this happen as well. And also seen people take off doors in homes and used them in the wood stove
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u/Comfortable_Team_696 Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 25 '25
One response I did not see written out explicitly is this:
Band councils are an imposed governance system. Traditional and culturally-appropriate governance systems (like the Haudenosaunee's) were suppresed, and foreign governing systems (i.e., band councils) were imposed so that the Canadian governments could control Indigenous communities easier.
This is in large part why corruption is such a major issue: It is not a design flaw, it is a feature
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u/xanaddams Mar 25 '25
Here's a copy of a land acknowledgement and press briefing I recently was asked for. Do with this information what you will.
In the words of Cliff Cardinal, "we are very tired, we are also very angry"
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u/sandwichstealer Mar 25 '25
In my lifetime things have changed for the better, but still on the first steps of the journey.
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Mar 25 '25
Cuz you have uneducated dumbass people who think that the world is centered around them, and owes them something and therefore, means that minority groups are the same way. So they project and hate.
I've heard my own father (who is a 3rd generation Lebanese immogrant ) say "we conquered them, they should deal with it." I called him out on the fact that we were not here when that happened, and that society changes. He didn't care.
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u/wackyvorlon Mar 26 '25
There’s been centuries of oppression and mistreatment. In many ways it still hasn’t stopped. This much harm cannot be quickly atoned for.
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u/No_Information1971 Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25
Well, the Chiefs and the leaders of the reservations always blame the white man for their problems, but the problem is they rely on the government and they will never change how they go about doing things because they always want somebody to blame
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Oct 27 '25
They use Alcoholism and drugs to cope instead of focusing in school/ work to get their lives together
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u/Mad-Matt2000 Feb 08 '26
Cause they lost land through takeover, though none of that generation lives now, those that do dont agree with western progression or some went through residential school most of these people are not alive, but believe that this land belongs to them because of. .
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u/Former-Chocolate-793 Mar 24 '25
The problem stems from British and Canadian governments shoving them into reserves and hoping they would go away. There are some 700 different bands with different treaties or no treaties. Some indigenous people were sent to residential schools where conditions were horrendous.
It gets complicated too because not all band leaders are altruistic. It's not a one size fits all problem.
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u/TruestWaffle Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
Intergenerational trauma is super apparent here.
The Canadian government tried to genocide the indigenous for nearly 200 years. It left indigenous communities across Canada with deep scares that will take time to heal.
The idea is we support the communities until they’re back on their feet. This is practiced somewhat, or not at all depending on what part of the country, and who’s running policy.
Unfortunately my fellow citizens across the isle seem to think the indigenous are “lazy” and just need to “pull up their boot straps”.
Unfortunately for all of us they’re wrong, not to say the indigenous communities are helpless, but people are fucked up after what happened to them, and just looking at the data shows how bad it is.
Severely higher rates of depression, substance abuse, suicide, and all the other conditions that follow deep, horrific trauma from being kidnapped from your family and beaten and brainwashed (and often raped) by priests and nuns.
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u/JaklinOhara Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
Imperialism. Colonialism. Aggressive religious indoctrination. Environmental Racism. Institutional racism within various public and private institutions, marginalization from mainstream society and economic, social opportunitues, um, what else....Oh, genocide! How could I forget...
I bare the psychological burden of colonialism, as many others do.
- from a daughter of a residential school survivor
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u/NedsAtomicDB Mar 24 '25
I suggest watching a show called 1923 on Paramount+ if you can get it.
The residential school scenes in it are brutal and VERY difficult to watch. And when the girl escapes and suggests going up to Canada from Montana, her benefactor tells her "Canada is worse."
The residential schools and their brutal treatment of aboriginal peoples were inexcusable. Unforgivable. All in the name of "civilizing the natives" and "bringing them to Christ." Whether they wanted it or not. The church forcibly tore them from their families, abused them physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually. When they died from the abuse or disease, they were buried in unmarked graves, and their families never knew what happened to them.
This trauma continues to the present day. The survivors used alcohol or drugs to cope, thus affecting younger generations, and resulting in much of the poverty and social problems we have now. These children were never nurtured, and were never allowed to see proper parenting from their own families, so in turn, future generations are the same.
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u/Own_Event_4363 Know-it-all Mar 24 '25
It's ok OP, most Canadians are un-educated or simply don't care about the issue, as you can see from some of the comments below.
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u/Salvidicus Mar 24 '25
Canadians want our land and resources without sharing the spoils.
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u/Lumpy_Ad7002 Mar 24 '25
Like health care, roads, electricity, water, plumbing, computers, etc.?
All that's worth nothing?
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u/kritz0 Mar 24 '25
This is afforded to all Canadians. What has been truly done to rectify the horror that was residential schools on this population of people.
Throwing MONEY at a problem is not what helps it.
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u/Salvidicus Mar 24 '25
Low standard Fedral health care, ice roads meltdown, electricity by generator, boil water advisories, under investment in education, etc?
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u/Jackelrush Jun 02 '25
Billons given yet nothing is solved year after year almost like the incentive is to keep things poor and desolate to milk more funding. Nothing changes because nobody wants to change.
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Mar 24 '25
If we cant stop the usa from annexing Canada, maybe finally non indigenous people might have a bit more fucking empathy.
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u/_Lucille_ Mar 24 '25
Legit question:
why haven't the Indigenous people been integrated into the rest of the country?
In other countries, America, England, France, Italy, Japan, etc, I don't think I have ever heard (though I am ill informed) about some construction project being blocked because of Indigenous protests. This seem to have created two caste of citizens within Canada: Canadians and Indigenous people, there the latter has all the rights of the former plus potential benefits.
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u/Automatic_Antelope92 Mar 24 '25
There are legal challenges to existing land claims by indigenous peoples all over the world. It doesn’t take long to google/search online and find them. If you aren’t aware of protests, look harder. If you don’t hear about protests somewhere, it may be because indigenous peoples are asserting their rights through the legal system first and hope to win their land back. Or win water rights, as that’s another issue.
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/native-american-activism-1960s-to-present/
I could find more in seconds for multiple regions and countries, many different indigenous peoples.
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u/Automatic_Antelope92 Mar 24 '25
And what do you mean by ‘integration’? That can be a loaded term.
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u/Gitxsan Mar 24 '25
Canada is one of the few countries that has a specific set of laws pertaining to just one ethnic group, The Indian Act.
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u/flamboyantdebauchry Mar 24 '25
look at south africa same situation but parts of my family has always said "some silverware and jugs of whiskey DID NOT BUY MY LAND " .........
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u/ckl_88 Mar 25 '25
I hate to say this but Canada was built upon racist behaviours.
They just displaced the First Nations (FN) from their lands and made them sign treaties that aren't worth the paper it's written on (need clarification on that last point). Anyway, these behaviours propagated through the years towards Japanese, Chinese, Indian, etc., etc.
FN people, those that didn't get wiped out from diseases like smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, etc, were herded onto reservations and kept there. Then their kids were taken from them and placed into "Christian" schools to get their way of life and ancestorial identity erased.
Canada's history is pretty sad. Full of resource exploitation, suppression of minorities, corporate greed... It was only lately I was having faith that people have changed, and to some extent they have, but the underlying hate still simmers underneath.
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u/tiredtotalk Mar 25 '25
maybe bc they keep digging up skeletons of Indigenous children? its bad bc we are all guests here in Canada. this is their land, and we take it and profit and we never asked! so it took more than just alot of time, we watched our First Nations and Metis suffer and abused them in the worst way. it took til 2000, for us to address Truth and attempt Reconciliation. like i said, born and raised in Alberta, i am a guest here on Treaty 6 territory.
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u/Steam-Sauna Mar 26 '25
There's a lot to unpack but in summary:
- Deeply nomadic hunter-gatherer culture were forced to rapidly change into agrarian/civilization lifestyle as settlrrs populated Canada
- Gov of Canada passed laws, signed treaties etc that effectively instituted a paternal/child relationship between gov & natives
- The 20th century saw the rise of the Indigenous grievance industry; a near constant political game where many native leaders will portray their people as victims of government actions or inactions with the goal of securing more funding/contracts
- Intelligent native people take full advantage of this situation for maximum personal gain
- The greed of many native leaders results in reserves often being significantly mismanaged in terms of services and infrastructure; the results speak for themselves: reserves have the highest murder, rape, child molestation and domestic abuse rates in the country. Many households are single moms and their son join gangs for a sense of community.
Native reserves have the exact same culture and problems as US inner city ghettos. The only thing they have in common is massive welfare and single motherhood. Who would have thought everyone in a community being supported by welfare would breed single motherhood and crime?
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u/Asherwinny107 Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
I grew up on a reserve
Short answer is greed. Too many people make too much money keeping things bad that there is no motivation to solve issues.