Beefing up Native Welfare in Canada

The spending contained in this budget may well eventually bankrupt the country. Less attention has been paid to its moral bankruptcy. Nowhere is this bankrupty more apparent than in the additional funds poured into the top of Canada’s white guilt machine:

Aboriginal Justice Strategy
* $14.5 million over two years to expand the Aboriginal Justice Strategy to significantly increase the number of Aboriginal Canadians that have access to community justice programs.

Housing in First Nations Communities
* $300 million to give First Nation members the opportunity to own their own homes when a new approach to on-reserve housing is developed.

Skills and Employment Partnership Program
* $105 million over five years to more than double the size of the Aboriginal Skills and Employment Partnership initiative.

Atlantic Commercial Fisheries
* $20 million over the next two years to support First Nations in the Maritimes and in the Gaspé region of Quebec in increasing their management and harvesting capabilities and in playing a greater role in fisheries management.

In other words, millions of dollars to give indians free lawyers and build indians free house. Millions for make-work projects for indians. And millions to give indians bigger fishing boats. This in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars already spent to enrich corrupt band officials and bureaucrats. All while continuing to perpetuate the poverty of reserve populations.

Dion’s Shadow Cabinet: Now, That’s Weird…

So I was scanning through a piece out of Winnipeg about the Shadow Cabinet, and how it is a big, unwieldy bureaucracy - kind of like every Liberal Government has ever been , so that was appropos, and unsurprising.

Then tucked away at the bottom of the piece was a discussion about how Dion set up a bunch of critical committees to oppose the government’s ccommittees.  It then dealt with how all these extra positions allowed him to reach out to not only the former Liberal leadership challengers, but also their supporters.

Then he pointed out two local MPs and the profiles they were given: Anita Neville with Indian Affairs and Tina Keeper with Heritage.

These two stuck out for me because I immediately remembered North of 60, the last CBC show that even moderately entertained me, mostly because of the fact that in its early seasons it featured as the RCMP guy new to town the star of an anti-drunk driving video I recall watching back when I was in High School.  It turned out to be a pretty good dramatic look at Canada’s north, in stark contrast to the silly version portrayed in Northern Exposure (which I know was supposed to take place in Alaska, and was actually filmed in Washington State, and even failed at portraying Alaska, let alone the REAL North, though it was darned funny, but I digress).

Anyway, said TV show also starred an aboriginal actress named Tina Keeper.  I recalled hearing that she was a candidate in the last Federal election, so it was good to see she got elected.  Too bad as a Liberal, but I digress (for about the 3rd time already).

Knowing that she is a native, and seeing as how she received the Heritage post from Dion, I thought it was plausible, someone involved in TV and having a native heritage would make sense in that post.  Canadiana and all that.  But who was this Anita Neville?

Turns out she’s been an MP for a while, in Heritage and Women’s issues!

So, not only is this shadow cabinet bloated and redundant, but on the surface, it looks like he drew names out of a hat for positions, given that at first glance, Keeper as an actual Indian would be qualified for Indian Affairs, and given Neville as having actually served as parliamentary secretary to the Canadian Heritage Ministry, she would be more qualified for that!

Or maybe Mr. Dion is just so much smarter than simple old me that there is a much better explanation.

Public Disembowelment

I can think of no other way to describe this opinion piece. Dalton, you are owned!

The most sensible excerpt on Dalton cynical attempt to wring money out of the federal government to subsidize their own cowardice on the Caledonia file:

When readers are deciding who is ultimately responsible for the Caledonia file, they should ask themselves the following question: Should Prime Minister Harper be expected to pay for things he had no say in approving, such as the cost of purchasing the occupied land, the cost of keeping the occupiers’ hydro and water running, the cost of the business compensation package and the $1,500 per day negotiating fee paid to Jane Stewart, a former federal Liberal cabinet minister?

h/t

Race-Based Sentencing in British Columbia

The community of Maple Ridge is currently re-living a particularly gruesome crime of a year-and-a-half ago:

Chett and Flo Crellin’s 24-year-old grandson - an energetic, thoughtful and conscientious young man - was dragged to his death by a drunk punk stealing gas in Maple Ridge on March 8, 2005.

By the time the driver stopped, Grant de Patie’s body was bounced, ground and scraped over seven kilometres of pavement, his body almost unrecognizable, his clothing shorn to shreds.

And, for what?

To steal $12.30 worth of gas.

The crime produced Grant’s Law, which requires gas stations in British Columbia to use pre-pay services after a certain hour. It also produced a nine-year sentence for the murderer, Darnell Pratt.

Unfortunately, Mr. Pratt will be appealing the sentence, arguing that it is too severe. The basis for the appeal? That the lower court judge did not take into account the fact that Pratt is an aboriginal when determining the sentence. The crown is arguing that Pratt’s aboriginal race was taken into account in the lower court.

By which we should infer that race should partially determine the length of sentences for murder convictions, and that aboriginal race should result in more lenient sentences.

There is such a thing as judicial discretion in sentencing, which is desirable or even essential, and such a thing as race-based sentencing and an effective legal apartheid. This is closer to the latter.

Caledonia and the OPP: We’ll decide what’s illegal around here

Well, it’s day 1,000,000 (or so) of the illegal native occupation of disputed land in Caledonia and the OPP has yet to enforce an injunction and remove those protesters. This despite being called before the judge and being re-ordered to enforce the injunction.

So what we know is that the OPP refuses to listen to the courts and has, if we are to believe the OPP commissioner, received no direction from the government on how to proceed.

Getting back to our political science foundations: What’s it called when the coercive arm of the state refuses to be directed by the judicial or executive branches and instead does whatever the hell it wants?

Anyone from Latin America care to hazard a guess?

Taking Bets

Who wants to bet that the residents of the zone that the OPP has now abandoned will, in the coming days, be subjected to acts of vandalism and (potentially violent) home invasions? And that the new “protectors of the peace” will be, umm, slow to respond? All the better to drive the settlers off disputed land, after all.

Too harsh on the native police? Perhaps you should ask yourself why those “police” have been unable to apprehend seven natives with outstanding warrants, one for attempted murder. Oh right, because the elders and “clan mothers” decided to remove the alleged criminals from the situation.

At least we know who the native police answer to. And the violence of the last three months has made it painfully clear what the agenda of the elders and “clan mothers” is.

It makes one wonder why the OPP have decided to abandon the residents of Caledonia. It is almost certainly as a result of the intervention of the relevant union. As everyone knows, Dalton McGuinty’s spine turns to jelly when dealing with a) natives and b) unions. Bad combination in this case, at least for the abandoned and hopeless residents of Caledonia.

Caledonia, Ontario: Monument to the Coward Province

The Gazette on Canada’s post-Caledonia legal apartheid:

If you ever find yourself charged with trying to kill a police officer, don’t worry about being arrested - your family will just hide you away, and nobody will do anything about it, although the premier of your province might make some plaintive bleating noises. There’s just one catch - you have to be a native…

And what of those seven protesters that will never be arrested (predicted by ThePolitic here)? What of the Six Nations involvement in their protection?:

The native leadership now says the seven have been “removed from the area.” Since the whole business is “political” this is not, of course, a conspiracy to obstruct justice…Tried to kill a cop? Hey, it was political! No problem!

And now we have the news that McGuinty has used public funds to buy out Henco’s developments. But of course. All the better to hand over the disputed land to natives, who have gained this reward through vandalism, attempted murder, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Ontario: The Coward Province

Update: Andrew Smith:

The Ontario government has decided to settle the Caledonia dispute by appeasement…The Indians have effectively gotten away with lawlessness and it is clear this will only cause more lawlessness in the future… fear it is going to be a long, hot summer of friction between the two communities because now the Indians know they have nothing to lose.

Exactly.

Update: More common sense from the right side of the Blogosphere:

…it sends two very damaging messages: 1) That violent protest is effective and 2) That the government will allow them to circumvent the laws of the land. The first is very problematic, since its not like Caledonia is the only part of the province which some native band somewhere claims.

And more here:

If there are no negative consequences for the natives, you can expect to see this kind of thing happen all over Ontario and beyond.

Dear Inuit and all Canadians living in economically-depressed regions…

If you dislike living in crowded housing conditions where there are few opportunities for employment, then move. It’s that simple.

People who work at Burger King in Calgary currently make $12 an hour. Employers can’t keep their employees. My tolerance for people who want the government to subsidize their remaining in economically moribund regions is currently at zero.

By the way: h/t goes to Stageleft.

Caledonia: Dealing with Moles

This seems to have slipped beneath the radar screen of the major media outlets. Remember the border patrol truck that was stolen by natives and subsequently used to attempt to run down a police officer? Turns out there was a treasure trove of information in that truck:

The OPP are trying to recover copies of classified documents containing the identities of undercover officers at an aboriginal protest in Caledonia.

The papers contain the names of officers involved in the standoff, home phone numbers and information from confidential informants.

Undercover officers. Yikes. I wonder what types of (bloody?) retribution await those officers at the hands of the “warrior” thugs that are involved in this conflict on the native side? Let’s hope that they can get out in time.

And then there was this:

They also include notes of investigations into human smuggling across the Canada-U-S border along the Niagara frontier.

It’s enough to make one wonder if the car-jacking of this vehicle was intentional, by which I mean that the vehicle was targetted. Someone, one of the criminal interests involved in this conflict, will benefit greatly from these documents.

Caledonia: Seven Disappearing Natives Redux

On the matter of those seven native protesters who were to be charged with assault and attempted murder…if they could be found:

ThePolitic (June 10): “Yeah. Who else is thinking that these seven natives will mysteriously never be found?”

The CBC (June 12): “Reading between the lines, there’s a pretty good possibility they’re on the reserve” and the Ontario Provincial Police are negotiating their surrender, Northcott said. The OPP have a protocol not to enter the reserve, he said.”

Of course, cops also have a protocol to vigorously pursue people who allegedly attempt to murder police officers. But that protocol doesn’t fit into McGuinty’s increasingly desperate overall strategy (check out the backflips) to escape Caledonia unscathed.

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