The same underlying ideology exists and is implemented today in a present day context, funny that as far as I know the term genocide was not coined over a hundred years ago...we blur the lines between today and yesterdays standards. Life isn't fair and hindsight is 20/20, we can 'deem' many outcomes as bad, but 'deeming' my children and grandchildren as financially responsible, and being forced to 'use' their own honestly earned money to equal, repay, or somehow repair 'deemed', 'genocide' is an affront. Perhaps I just should have said "YES" my bad...
I agree about hindsight and comparing past events with today's standards. How many families scraped on by while saving enough to send their eldest to go to school and benefit the family? The powers that be were not inventing the wheel, a lot of well off families sent their kids away to school way back when and I am pretty sure some kids felt bad, that some of the older kids bullied others. Heck, when I was debating going to university I said there is no way I will let other student haze me. Stuff that went on that forty years later we frown on.
But even with the different social norms compared to now the government was responsible for the kids while under government's care. Two sayings that apply, "You break it you bought it. You pay me now or you pay me later." You do not like paying for the past sins of the government and feel since you did not live at the time then your hands are clean, that is not how things work. Some government builds a bridge and borrows the money, they have to pay it back (some projects take 50 years to pay back). The governments are the will of the people and the people own what the government does, even 100 years on.
The governments of the day did not do their job of risk management, they decided to cheap out on the care and schooling of the kids. After all, the worth of a native kid is worth less than white kids. Mind you, this is also the opinion that was had toward the Irish, stinking people coming off the boat. Then there is the stinking Polish, Ukrainian, German... ... all the peoples that came from other countries were looked down on by the English rulers. In a couple of generations these people were accepted, in part because different nationalities came knocking at the door wanting to come here for a better future and they were looked down upon. But these peoples worked hard to get their place in society, many suffered to give their children a better future. Rather than have these immigrants come to town filling jobs, what if Natives left their reserves looking for a better future?
We had big fights when I was growing up. My dad complaining of the dirty Indians, my brother and I defending them, saying my dad did not really know what they were like. I did agree with them coming down and blend into society, I thought of other people as being equal to each other, that we should all be Canadians rather than a XXXXX Canadian. But something my mother said changed that a little. She said that if the Natives do not have a home of their own and blend into society their culture may have no anchoring point (she never used these words but the best I can explain briefly). This did give me a shift in thinking, sure the Germans, the poles, the peoples that come here, at least their culture has a place it came from and the immigrants could look at for an identity. If the Natives all left the reserves could their culture last? My parents wanted me to retain their culture and have feelings for a country I have never been to when all I thought of myself was a Canadian. But that was how the world worked back then, you take care of your clan as no one else will. Peoples also changed countries and retained their ethnicity even after generations (so you are Jewish, are you?). Could it have worked for the Natives if given a chance? Sounds like the politicians of the day just wanted them to fold into society and wanted them to disappear into the Canadian fabric.
So they grabbed the kids and gave them an education. Was it money well spent offloading it onto the churches? Were the churches on the same page or were they more concerned with saving the kids souls and learning useful skills were second place? Did they want to try but were underfunded for the task and the kids paid for it? Remember you pay me now or pay me later? Every politician that wants to survive will push the costs down the line in order to not look bad. And we are reaping what was sown. I do not agree with the settlement, I am not sure it will do anything for the damage done to the kids, to the societies that they returned to. But to do some real good would cost the government more, a one time payment washes their hands. But the problems have not gone away.
For example, the missing and murdered women. They were preyed upon by Native and non-natives alike. They were usually picked off because they were seen as being invisible. A lot comes out due to poverty, the reports have said that if the reserves were a thriving entity that there would be less women in dire straights and they would end up having a normal life (distilling down 10,000 pages). But for the reserves to have the same opportunities of the rest of Canada would take a lot of money. The remoteness of some kills any economic activity that would help sustain the communities. We had a big debate about a power line from a northern dam going down along the east or west side of Lake Winnipeg. One of the concerns was that the east side is pristine land and putting a power line through it may end up damaging it. Some bands wanted it to go down the east side, some did not. If the line went down the east, a road to connect these bands to the rest of society would come next. That worried some and not all signed up to have it cross their territories. Because of it the line was run down the west side and cost an extra billion. And the reserves still have only airplane and winter roads to get back and forth. This helps keep them in poverty, the price of foods and goods being higher than down south. The road might be built in the next hundred years, it may not be. The problem was what was good for one band was not good for the next and it scuttled an opportunity. Some think it was a win and the area will be on the World Heritage Site list with future tourists paddling canoes through the untouched wilderness. Good luck with that as a moneymaker for the bands in the area.
A lot of rambling to say it is not a one size fits all solution to the problems Natives faced. What might have looked good on paper with the schools did not work out as planned in practice. If they spent the money and did things right back then we might not have the problems we have. The money may have helped some that received it, not sure if it will fix any of the structural problems we have. But it is the cheap way to brush the school problem under the carpet.
Happy Monday
