Northern Ontario Case Study

Development of Northern Ontario

By:Parth

There are many problems that the federal government and the provincial government have to deal with. One of the most important problems is taking care of the aboriginals. There are many problems on the reserves.

There is no Indore water on the reserves. Some do have Indoor water but almost all of the water is dirty. According to CBC, ¼ of the aboriginals depend on unfiltered water systems. On some reserves, there is filtered water and it is Indore but, it will only come for 4-6 hours.

There are about 7-8 families living in one house. They only have 4-6 hours to do all the things in which water is required. That is not enough. Very often fights break out for the use of water. It’s not just the

problem of the water, there is also no privacy. This means if a person was working and they bought something just enough for one person they would have to give it outside.

The reserves are up north where it is very cold.

Even though the aboriginals are in houses, the houses are made out of metal which don’t help keeping warm and there is no reliable source of energy to heat the reserves up. When the food, drinkable water and reliable way of warming your house are scarce in winter, elderly people and young kids will die or get very ill.

The aboriginals depend on the provincial and Federal government for survival. The government can give aboriginals the skills to survive alone and get on their feet, or they can just keep feeding them forever. And the government has chosen to keep feeding the aboriginals forever.

We can clearly see the government is ignoring the aboriginals. The people who thought the aboriginals are savages, burnt down the schools they could go to, after knowing how quick they learn and how intelligent they

are.

Now the government has fixed a few schools and the rest are ignored. The government thinks we can’t see what they are doing but we can. Perhaps the government doesn’t care about aboriginals and still thinks they are savages.

Because of that the aboriginals are getting some or no education.

And because of little or no education, they are getting very bad jobs or no jobs. The government doesn’t want to help at all, they are not fixing schools. They are saying we don’t have enough money to fix these schools. Stephen Harper is not going to spend $11 billion on aboriginals’ education, housing or food anymore.

If the aboriginals are studying or going to work, they don’t have proper sidewalks or roads like us, they have ice roads in the winter and muddy and dirty roads in the summer.

The schools are not a 10 minute walk from the reserves either. It may take a few hours to get there. It usually takes 4-5 hours. In Mississauga, you get a bus if it takes 40-45 minutes to get to school. On the reserves you don’t get anything even if it takes 4-5 hours to get there. That’s hard, especially in the winter.

There are also many deadly diseases on the reserves and having bad food and water makes it harder to cure. Many kids can’t even make it to teen age. The lucky First Nations can live up to 28 years and the lucky Inuit can live up to 23 years.

For us the unlucky people only live up to 30 years.

Some aboriginal children are getting raped. Many aboriginal women are getting kidnapped, killed and raped because there are many people that think aboriginals are

savages.

Stephen Harper showed he doesn’t care, He went to give an award to one of his ministers instead of attending an important meeting about the missing aboriginals.

He also refuses to set up a program to find them. This has showed he doesn’t care. This is a present failure that the government has showed. The Harper government has done almost nothing to help aboriginals. He is saying that they don’t have money to do this. It probably is an excuse

There are also problems that the nature has created for the aboriginals to face on the reserves. They include lots of snowing and flooding.

There is lots of snow in the winter because the aboriginals are living up north. Over there it is winter for 8-10 months. The temperature of a normal winter can go up to -50 degrees Celsius. As the summer arrives, the weather starts getting warmer, then the temperature gets above 0, which is warm enough to melt the snow. During that time all the snow turns into water and it floods the houses.

Because of all these things, aboriginals suicide. According to huffingtonpost.ca, the reserves of Canada have the highest suicide rate in the world. Out of 100,000, about 170 aboriginals suicide.

According to the U.N. we are the 4th best country in taking good care of our immigrants and citizens but we are the 63rd best in taking care of our aboriginals.

What the Provincial Government Doing to Help

The provincial government is not doing much to help the aboriginals but they are still doing a little to help. They have not provided aboriginals with food or water. Instead they invested $50.1 million in the housing repairs.

What the federal Government is doing to Help

The federal government is ignoring most of the problems on the reserves. They know that the public knows what they are doing so they are helping a little bit.

The federal government has provided a bit of education on some reserves. People are objecting this because we are still assimilating the aboriginals. The people are asking why we can’t provide aboriginals with both their knowledge and our knowledge. But the government is ignoring us.

The federal government is also providing somewhat warm housing to the aboriginals. The energy used is not reliable at all. The heaters barely work. Even when they do, they don’t give a lot of heat.

They have spent $1.6 million on housing repairs. This is pretty helpful, but not enough.

One of the most surprising things is to that the government has signed treaties of giving the aboriginals some of their land back.

The last thing that the Federal government is giving is free food and water. The water is not very safe to drink but, it is better than get dehydrated. The food is usually not enough to properly feed a single person but it is better than starving to death.

History of laws, Bills, Success and failures involving solving problems on the reserves

There are many things that were done after we realized that we had made a mistake in kicking aboriginals off their own land and forcing them to live on the reserves. Not all things were success; it was either the public or the government that didn’t want to help.

One of the biggest successes was called “The Indian Act.” It was passed in 1982. It was one of the first acts that were on behalf of the aboriginals and not against them. Because of this act, many laws have been passed to help aboriginals.

The Indian act began the Constitution II. These were new laws to help the aboriginals.

A law called the Canadian Aboriginal Law was also made to help the aboriginals. It is in the section 91(24) of the constitution act II. It gave some rights that the aboriginals deserved over the lands and give them some of their land back.

Because of the Canadian Aboriginal law, Section 35 of the constitution II was made and passed. This law gives all the rights to the aboriginals to practice their own believes, cultures ect.

Another significant bill; C-31 was passed. It removed discrimination, restored the membership rights that aboriginals had, restored their status and increased control of the Band Council.

The giving of the Indian Status is racist. If a status “Indian” marries a non status “Indian”, the person who married the non status “Indian” will lose their status. They are given numbers, and sometimes checked how their skin looks to get the status.

In 1969 Pierre Trudeau made a thing called a just society. He eliminated the Indian Status. He said everyone is an equal citizen of Canada. This was a great idea which most people agreed to.

Our federal government right now doesn’t care about aboriginals. Stephen Harper, our current Prime Minister, ignored attending a meeting about missing aboriginals; instead he went to give an award to one of his ministers. That could have been done by someone else but he is needed to attend the meetings because the people wanted to ask for help regarding aboriginals.

Then the group of people asked the Harper government to set up a police to find the missing aboriginals. The Harper government refused to set it up.

What I would do to help the aboriginals if I was the P.M. of Canada

If I were the P.M. of Canada, I would help the aboriginals survive on
their own. Instead of feeding the aboriginals, I will just repair the schools. I will hire aboriginals that know their own culture and the Canadian languages and are very good at one subject. That way I am not assimilating the aboriginals but I am teaching them our ways.

Just by fixing the schools, the aboriginals won’t depend on the government and will be able to pay their own taxes and help the government.

I will send a few people to live with aboriginals on the reserves for 1 week and tell them to record how the life there is. This will tell people aboriginals are people like us and they are suffering a lot on the reserves.

Bibliography

 cbc.ca
 Huffingtonpost.ca
 N.A.H.O
 indenegeusfoundations.ca
 newsnationalpost.ca
 hc-sc.gc.ca
 thecandianencylopedia.ca
 heretohelp.bc.ca