[BigParm]

When the catch up is in the form of hiring quotas for a mining project on native lands, that’s just a consensual business deal and it’s positive.

But sometimes the situation is taken advantage of and the appeasement goes too far. Like instead of cutting firewood for the wood stove, you just throw all your furniture and cabinetry and doors in there. Then you just ask for new ones from a big company who just wants to quietly put this problem away without stirring up a fuss and risking their project or bigger costs later. That actually happened lol.

It’s not a race issue or a cultural issue. Natives are competent people. We may have different ancestral traditions, but we share exactly the same culture today. Where do you think the Canadian accent comes from? That’s a native accent. Our cultures mixed together.

If a business and a land owning band want to cut a deal, by all means. If the government and the bands want to settle land compensation, then settle it once and for all. It really just never ends as it stands. Like what does free post secondary have to do with land claims? It really looks like systemic racism.

And if the government was serious about any of this they’d give them autonomy in their lands. Statehood. That hasn’t happened. Why not? I get that you can’t sign over Vancouver because it’s been developed, but a lot of these places are in the bush.

It’s really a shit show. We’re not the rich country we once were. We can’t afford to pay billions forever on repeat just to make it go away for a little while. Settle it all immediately and make all races equal.

[lm411]

"Instead of cutting firewood for the wood stove, you just throw all your furniture and cabinetry and doors in there. Then you just ask for new ones..."

Having spent quite a bit of time on various reservations in Western Canada, I've literally seen this happen with my own eyes.

[philistine]

To do that you need to break international law by declaring the treaties signed in the past null and void. You also need to break international law by refusing to negotiate with nations who never signed treaties, and want deals at least as good as nations who signed treaties.

There’s a very good reason why what you’re proposing is not what’s happening: it’s because you’re dealing with nation to nation negotiations, and the other nations want nothing of fairness and equality. They want their full rights, and denying them that is turning back the clock decades.

[travisb]

How would it be breaking international law? Who would enforce it? Would the US stop trading with Canada because Canada nullified some treaties with a third party (ie. not the USA)? Would Germany invade Canada?

Treaties are just agreements and are broken all the time; for an obvious example look at trade treaties or weapons treaties. In the Canadian context the constitution states that Canada must maintain those existing treaties with Aboriginal tribes, but constitutions are changeable. Every other treaty is a mere act of Government away from nullification.

[philistine]

The whole current recounciliation is based on the premise that we will respect the treaties we didn’t in the past. Courts literally limited what was written in them in the past, in blatant disregard of common law.

You want to go in the direction of breaking them again, and making Canada look like a fool on the international stage.