The only sacred cow that terrifies politicians more than Canada’s vaunted healthcare system is the catastrophic indigenous affairs system. To try to address problems with indigenous peoples in Canada with any plan aside from throwing money at it and offering intergenerational apologies is to invite accusations of racism and garner political ostracization.If politicians can’t find the courage to state the obvious when it comes to the mess with indigenous citizens, media members need to start the ball rolling. The taboo with the issue must end if we are ever to dream of seeing improvements.I worked in energy exploration for more than twenty years. Much of my time was spent working on or near Indian reserves and working directly with the citizens of them. Watching the conditions on those reserves go from bad to worse every year was one of the most heart-wrenching and frustrating things I have lived through. There are fantastic people living in abject poverty and misery on Canadian reserves and no amount of money will ever change that. How stupid can we be? How can we possibly think we could separate a segment of the population based on race, constantly tell them every problem in their life is due to malignant actions of settlers of prior generations, shower them with money and expect them to become well-adjusted citizens in the modern world? The legal term for these racial enclaves is Indian Reserves. The proper term should be apartheid. It's racial segregation that’s no better than what we used to decry in South Africa and it won’t create racial unity or prosperity any more effectively than the South African model did. You can’t fix the ills created by race-based policies by implementing more race-based policies yet Canada keeps trying.We need to take a results-based approach with Canada’s reserves. Spending on indigenous affairs has been growing in leaps and bounds yet the situation on reserves continues to get worse by every measure. Isn’t it time to admit we can’t spend ourselves into a solution yet?The 2024 federal budget is a massive, free-spending endeavor. Despite this, activists immediately condemned it for underfunding indigenous people.Underfunding? Currently in just federal spending, more than $15,000 per year is dedicated for every man, woman and child of indigenous descent. Loan guarantees, grants and tax exemptions are applied on top of that. Then provinces spend billions along with municipalities with countless programs and grants. This is above and beyond every service granted to them as Canadian citizens. They still receive healthcare, education, use roads and get full access to all tax-funded services.In theory, this should make indigenous people the richest and most well-adjusted people in Canada. Instead, they suffer with poverty, lower life expectations, high crime, low education levels, high domestic abuse statistics, massive addiction issues and mental health challenges. They lag average Canadians in every measure of standard of living. Yet some folks think spending may still fix this.If every Canadian spent just one day on the average Indian reserve, the national attitude on this system would change in a hurry. How could somebody see the piles of trash, the dilapidated houses, the wild dogs and worst of all, the broken state of the residents and imagine for a second that this system could work?People need to ask themselves, what’s the long game here?Most reserves are in isolated areas with few economic opportunities. The populations are doomed to lifetimes of dependency which leads to depression and social breakdowns. The reserves won’t become hubs of technological advancement or educational institutions. They won’t become manufacturing centres or tourist destinations. They will just keep growing in population while disorder and misery spreads.The main employer on reserves is almost always the government. Whether federal or provincial jobs or band administration jobs. Nepotism is rampant among those jobs and many of them are high-paying, but token roles. I worked on one reserve in Northern Alberta where the person assigned to manage the band’s land affairs was the chief’s sister and she didn’t even know where the boundaries of the reserve were when I showed her a map of it. Band managers are usually non-indigenous members brought in at great expense to take care of the actual management of the reserve. The local members are usually too dysfunctional to take on that role.I am not shooting at indigenous people as a race though I doubtless will be accused of that. Any race kept on reserves as Canada’s indigenous people are would be just as messed up after a few generations. It’s not the race that’s the problem. It’s the system and the entrenched attitudes toward the issue.Look at the endless debate over clean water on indigenous reserves. Every government with every party gets hammered on that issue. Don’t you think one would invest in getting clean water by now? Actually, they did. It’s just that their efforts are failing.Bringing water and septic services to rural areas is no small task. In urban centres, plants for treating fresh water and disposing of sewage are constructed and pipes move all the water and effluent. This doesn’t work in areas where the houses are separated by hundreds of meters if not miles. In rural areas outside of reserves, people have their own water wells and septic systems. Homeowners must maintain these systems or they will fail. The problem on reserves is that the citizens don’t hold a sense of responsibility and are messed up for the most part. The systems aren’t maintained and the water becomes contaminated.Again, I don’t doubt somebody will accuse me of racism for saying it but too damn bad! I challenge them to prove me wrong. I am not saying the people are dysfunctional because of their race. I am saying they are dysfunctional because of the circumstances our broken system put them in. Until people are willing to point that out, it won’t be getting any better.If Canada’s indigenous people were living in luxury and happy, I might grumble about the expenditures of taxes but could accept it. When we spend this much on the issue and the recipients are living in misery, I have to call it out. I don’t hate indigenous people. If I did, I can’t think of something more cruel than supporting the current system.The reserve system is doomed to failure by its very nature. It won’t be easy to end this system and it will take time. But it must end eventually.The roadmap and plan to end the policies of racial apartheid in Canada need to be developed. To do that, we first need to accept that the reserve system is irreparably broken. To get there we need to start talking frankly on the issue and we aren’t even close to that yet. Enough with the policies of good intent. We need to pursue policies with good outcomes. The best outcome we could see is the end of the Indian reserve system in Canada.
