I Wouldn't Call $9 Billion Crumbs

That seems to be the figure bandied about when it comes to the budget for Indian Affairs but I keep asking the same question over and over.....how much of this money actually gets to the indians themselves? How much goes to administration in Ottawa and on the reserves? How much disappears in the pockets of the chiefs and their supporters.

Reserve Reservations
By MINDELLE JACOBS

The Senate commmittee on Aboriginal Peoples thinks it's regrettable that the bulk of the $9 billion earmarked for natives annually goes to social spending, with economic development lagging behind.

"The promotion of economic development, both on and off reserve, should be the government's top priority," the committee declared in a report released yesterday.

In this case, the crucial first step is education. Until you have a critical mass of skilled aboriginals, Canada's native communities simply won't have the tools to advance their broader goals of economic achievement.

I suppose you could argue that I'm just a pampered white columnist pronouncing from on high. But plenty of natives agree with me that education is the key to self-suffciency.

The president of the Cree Regional Economic Enterprises Company testified at the Senate committee hearings that he had about 1,500 jobs to offer Quebec natives in the previous year.

More than half of them couldn't be filled by natives because they didn't have the skills to do the jobs, he said.

Chief Clarence Louie, of the Osoyoos band was blunt in his remarks to the committee. "I do not care if (natives) like it or not. I always tell them, once you get into business, it is not based on race," he said. "You do not put natives in charge of million-dollar ships when they do not have the qualifications or the skills."

Half of the band's businesses are run by aboriginals, and two of those top managers are Osoyoos band members, he added. But those two had to leave the community, get degrees in the U.S. and then work under non-natives for years before they were promoted, Louie said.

The president of Donna Cona Inc., an aboriginal-owned information technology company, said the biggest challenge is recruiting and retaining qualified natives. And no wonder. About half of natives drop out of high school and almost 60% of on-reserve aboriginals aged 20 to 24 haven't completed high school.

The Senate committee has recommended, among other things, that Ottawa make a substantial investment in aboriginal economic development. "Continued dependency on government transfers and economic marginalization is unacceptable to aboriginal people," the report says. "They want a hand up, we were told, not a handout."

That's quite true. But the committee has it backwards. Social spending - on education and health, specifically - must come first. Then you've got the human capital to drive economic development.

So I share the frustration of native leaders that there were only crumbs for aboriginals in this week's federal budget. Still, even if there was gobs more money for teachers, nurses, social workers and housing on reserves, I maintain that the reserve system is, on the whole, bad for natives.

As the committee's report notes, two-thirds of Canada's reserves have fewer than 500 people and many reserves are in remote areas. Some First Nations may never reach the standard of living of mainstream Canadians because they're so small and isolated, the report observes.

To illustrate, the committee points to the Tlowitsis band in B.C. which has only 350 members but no central community.

Instead, they live on 11 far-flung reserves. "Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that (the band) has been unable to enjoy the level of economic success to which it aspires," says the report.

Sadly, the committee believes that abolishing the communal reserve system would "invite tragedy."

On the contrary, by keeping all those isolated reserves, we're perpetuating it.