i see... so they are not allowed to live anywhere else ?
i should tell my neighbour to pack up and get the hell out, He's not allowed to live where he wants. He has to live on a reserve.
Attawaspiskat - $92.5 million transfered, poverty still reigns
- Thread starter JZ67
- Start date
i see... so they are not allowed to live anywhere else ?
i should tell my neighbour to pack up and get the hell out, He's not allowed to live where he wants. He has to live on a reserve.
Metastable
Well-known member
Well this one is an eye opener.... comparing costs of other small cities. I don't have much sympathy.
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http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...e-crunching-attawapiskats-numbers/#more-60372
By Mark Milke
Imagine two small Ontario towns. One is a reserve that blocks an outside investigation into its $31.2-million annual operating budget. That town, Attawapiskat First Nation, has 1,549 people on the reserve according to the last census.
Now imagine another town, a non-native one, where recent budget estimates peg its annual operating expenditures at $8.4-million. That’s the township of Atikokan, near Thunder Bay, with 3,293 people
Careful readers will notice that the larger town, Atikokan, has a much smaller operating budget than does Attawapiskat.
Where the money is spent is also curious. According to Attawapiskat’s latest budget documents, $11.2-million went to salaries, wages and employee benefits. That equates to $7,249 per reserve resident for compensation.
In contrast, according to the latest available estimates from Atikokan, that town spends just less than $3-million on salaries and benefits, or $904 per person.
That contrast might explain the resistance by some to a third-party investigation into the finances of Attawapiskat First Nation. After all, one might reasonably ask this question: given Atikokan spent $3-million on compensation for all city staff, why must Attawapiskat spend $11.2-million? That’s an $8.2-million difference, some of which could have paid for needed housing in the Attawapiskat reserve.
Here’s another contrast. In Atikokan, (for the fiscal year ending in December 2009), the mayor’s salary was $7,713 with travel expenses of $4,268. The total cost to taxpayers thus just less than $12,000. In fact, the total for salaries and expenses for Atikokan’s mayor and seven councillors was just $46,691.
On the Attawapiskat reserve (for the fiscal year ending in March 2010) the chief’s salary alone was $51,803. In total, salaries for Attawapiskat’s chief, deputy chief and 18 councillors that year amounted to $386,129. With $28,535 in expenses, the total cost to taxpayers was $414,664. In the next fiscal year, that cost jumped to $615,552 — a 48% increase.
The Attawapiskat-Atikokan comparison isn’t the only useful contrast. Consider other northern Canadian towns that are also not reserves. In 2010, the northern Alberta town of Athabasca, with a population of 2,575, had an operating budget of $5.5-million. It spent just over $1.6-million on wages and benefits for all city staff, council included, or $644 per Athabascan. The village of Valemount, B.C., with 1,018 people, has an annual operating budget of $3.2-million. It paid out $811,852 in compensation-related expenses, or $797 per capita.
If the City of Toronto spent as much on wages, salaries and benefits as Attawapiskat, Toronto’s remuneration bill would have been $20.1-billion in 2010, as opposed to $4.8-billion (and its curiously high $1,741 per capita figure).
Such comparisons should be recalled by everyone when Chief Shawn Atleo from the Assembly of First Nations, and Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence mount the rhetorical barricades and urge everyone to move on without “assigning blame,” which is a dodge. Or when they blame “colonialism.”
A lack of money isn’t the problem. Rather, it’s how that money is spent. With the exception of obvious short-term help for the people of Attawapiskat in winter — to make up for past monies that were spent on a large bureaucracy instead of housing — more money won’t solve anything.
Instead, a long-term strategy is needed with the following elements: accountability for money spent; eventual transfers directly to individual natives with money then taxed back for band services; and property rights for individual natives on reserves, which would help instill accountability, entrepreneurship and pride.
Lastly, realism is needed about the fact so many reserves are not economically viable. For the past two centuries, people around the world have moved from rural areas to the cities. Similarly, many people on reserves (mostly in rural areas) need to find their way close to educational, economic and social opportunities in proximity to major population centres, if not for themselves, then certainly for their kids. Such opportunities are why the majority of First Nations people, 57% of them, already choose to live off-reserve.
The challenge for politicians, native and non-native alike, is to remove existing incentives for people to stay on remote reserves, and to provide transitional help those same people move closer to opportunities.
National Post
Mark Milke is a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute and author of Life is Better in the Cities, which compares economic and social indicators on reserves with those of urban Canada.
Posted in: Full Comment, Policy, Social Issues Tags: Attawapiskat, First Nations, government spending, Mark Milke, private property
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http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...e-crunching-attawapiskats-numbers/#more-60372
By Mark Milke
Imagine two small Ontario towns. One is a reserve that blocks an outside investigation into its $31.2-million annual operating budget. That town, Attawapiskat First Nation, has 1,549 people on the reserve according to the last census.
Now imagine another town, a non-native one, where recent budget estimates peg its annual operating expenditures at $8.4-million. That’s the township of Atikokan, near Thunder Bay, with 3,293 people
Careful readers will notice that the larger town, Atikokan, has a much smaller operating budget than does Attawapiskat.
Where the money is spent is also curious. According to Attawapiskat’s latest budget documents, $11.2-million went to salaries, wages and employee benefits. That equates to $7,249 per reserve resident for compensation.
In contrast, according to the latest available estimates from Atikokan, that town spends just less than $3-million on salaries and benefits, or $904 per person.
That contrast might explain the resistance by some to a third-party investigation into the finances of Attawapiskat First Nation. After all, one might reasonably ask this question: given Atikokan spent $3-million on compensation for all city staff, why must Attawapiskat spend $11.2-million? That’s an $8.2-million difference, some of which could have paid for needed housing in the Attawapiskat reserve.
Here’s another contrast. In Atikokan, (for the fiscal year ending in December 2009), the mayor’s salary was $7,713 with travel expenses of $4,268. The total cost to taxpayers thus just less than $12,000. In fact, the total for salaries and expenses for Atikokan’s mayor and seven councillors was just $46,691.
On the Attawapiskat reserve (for the fiscal year ending in March 2010) the chief’s salary alone was $51,803. In total, salaries for Attawapiskat’s chief, deputy chief and 18 councillors that year amounted to $386,129. With $28,535 in expenses, the total cost to taxpayers was $414,664. In the next fiscal year, that cost jumped to $615,552 — a 48% increase.
The Attawapiskat-Atikokan comparison isn’t the only useful contrast. Consider other northern Canadian towns that are also not reserves. In 2010, the northern Alberta town of Athabasca, with a population of 2,575, had an operating budget of $5.5-million. It spent just over $1.6-million on wages and benefits for all city staff, council included, or $644 per Athabascan. The village of Valemount, B.C., with 1,018 people, has an annual operating budget of $3.2-million. It paid out $811,852 in compensation-related expenses, or $797 per capita.
If the City of Toronto spent as much on wages, salaries and benefits as Attawapiskat, Toronto’s remuneration bill would have been $20.1-billion in 2010, as opposed to $4.8-billion (and its curiously high $1,741 per capita figure).
Such comparisons should be recalled by everyone when Chief Shawn Atleo from the Assembly of First Nations, and Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence mount the rhetorical barricades and urge everyone to move on without “assigning blame,” which is a dodge. Or when they blame “colonialism.”
A lack of money isn’t the problem. Rather, it’s how that money is spent. With the exception of obvious short-term help for the people of Attawapiskat in winter — to make up for past monies that were spent on a large bureaucracy instead of housing — more money won’t solve anything.
Instead, a long-term strategy is needed with the following elements: accountability for money spent; eventual transfers directly to individual natives with money then taxed back for band services; and property rights for individual natives on reserves, which would help instill accountability, entrepreneurship and pride.
Lastly, realism is needed about the fact so many reserves are not economically viable. For the past two centuries, people around the world have moved from rural areas to the cities. Similarly, many people on reserves (mostly in rural areas) need to find their way close to educational, economic and social opportunities in proximity to major population centres, if not for themselves, then certainly for their kids. Such opportunities are why the majority of First Nations people, 57% of them, already choose to live off-reserve.
The challenge for politicians, native and non-native alike, is to remove existing incentives for people to stay on remote reserves, and to provide transitional help those same people move closer to opportunities.
National Post
Mark Milke is a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute and author of Life is Better in the Cities, which compares economic and social indicators on reserves with those of urban Canada.
Posted in: Full Comment, Policy, Social Issues Tags: Attawapiskat, First Nations, government spending, Mark Milke, private property
so where does our honouring their heritage start and end?
will we permit them free transit to be able to pursue migrating animals even if it means they cross people's property lines?
will their reserves be relocated to areas where they used to inhabit, here in the southern reaches of our country?
didn't think so.
some criticized my comments as being simplistic, well, one could write exactly the same thing about much of what has been posted in this thread. . .
free services? Where are those free services you speak off? I remember paying almost 40 percent of my salary in taxes, plus a couple of k when I do my taxes plus 13% every time I buy something, so I don't get anything free my friend.
the government (us the people) have the right to know where the 90 m went, before forking any more money. There is a reason they don't want an auditor.
when asked if the money was wasted, their representatives have never said no and keep dancing around the issue.
I don't want to honour their heritage any more than I want to honour mine. Whether they like it or not, whether my welsh relations like it not, we're all living in 2011 now. It's time to get on with life and stop trying to live in the past. They lost the war, I'm sorry they weren't treated like the victor's that they weren't, but such is life. They now have the opportunity to live better than ANY of their ancestors. They don't have to worry about starving to death, they don't have to worry about another tribe attacking and butchering them in the middle of the night.
i take it you don't write for a living. what does your neighbour have to do with this, unless he's status indian (a point that i did not find anywhere in your post)?
anyways, pretend for a second that you actually cared enough to put yourself into the shoes of someone else.
now put yourself into life on a remote reserve with the conditions that they endure, and what sort of socialization it imprints on you. it would be easy as pie as someone from the outside looking in to say "just leave". were conditions always this bad? probably not. are they now? yep. are we as human beings able to easily comprehend something that we just don't have a frame of reference for? difficult.
apparently to every living soul on this thread, it's child's play.
born, raised, and socialized in those conditions, with that remoteness. . .for generations.
pluck me out of toronto and drop me in there, sure, i'm going to object. start me there and remove a frame of reference by making life remote, where schooling is poor, housing conditions terrible, costs exorbitant. . .not so easy to reject the only world you've known.
the amazing thing is that they are not asking to be relocated to less remote areas (yet), they are okay with having been put in remote areas--they just want their 'home' to be improved to the point where it is habitable.
what's your point? we ALL live better than our ancestors.
bottom line, how many of 'us' would accept the living conditions that exist in attawapiskat? they ARE living in 2011, and should benefit from some of the same things we in the gta take for granted: clean drinking water, adequate schooling, etc. that would be a great start.
i would have went with Idiotic.
we dont owe these people anything that they havent already received tenfold.
i didnt steal their land
my parents didnt steal their land
my parents grand parents didnt steal their land
and then keep going another 5 generations of people that didnt steal their land
just for arguments sake, lets say we did steal it.
Get over it. so what if some indian got screwed out of their land 500 years ago. they've had plenty of time since then to deal with it
all present day aboriginals who ***** about getting screwed over by the white man are nothing but sponges trying to squeeze every little dollar out of the gov't becasue they feel they are owed it.
guess what. They arent owed anything.
if my great great great great great grandfather had something taken from him, do you think that I should deserve what was stolen from him ?
indian status cards, tax benefits, own rules.... what more do these friggin people want ?
the only way to stop a dog from begging at the table is to smack its nose when it does. lol
i should have known you wouldnt comprehend that one.
you are suggesting they dont have any option but to live on a reserve.
If thats the case, why arent all indians living on a reserve ?
was that clearer for you ?
wow, total reading comprehension fail.
try quoting my entire post next time, that way what you wrote looks as moronic as it is.
nowhere have i ever written that was their only option.
now go back and address what i wrote in the entire post. . .thanks.
p.s. you still haven't explained why your neighbour has any relation to this discussion. again, you must not require significant communication skills in your job, because your posts are incoherent as they stand.
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You wrote
i wrote
you replied with
and you still dont understand ????
you had to write
other people understood it, and yet you still dont ?
no-one has told these people that they MUST live there.
if they are unhappy with the situation, they should MOVE
i wrote
you replied with
and you still dont understand ????
you had to write
other people understood it, and yet you still dont ?
no-one has told these people that they MUST live there.
if they are unhappy with the situation, they should MOVE
They can get that, by moving. I say we at GTAM start a help caravan, we'll rent some Uhauls and take some donations and drive them right up there..... Oh crap, I forgot, there's no roads there.
A wall of useless text, in usual afong56 fashion...
These natives receive way more funding than they need. The money is clearly being squandered away with no accountability. Shut off the taps until they decide to open their books. Their problems are caused by their own leaders, and that's a cold hard fact.
"Free", because we don't pay out of pocket: bad name. But yeah, obviously they're not; that's why I wondered out loud about the costs associated with our services....
....Yes, obviously we as tax payers, have a right to know where our money goes. But dude, it's only %0.0003 (I looked it up) of Canada's total expenditures for 2011. The only reason this has become such a big deal is because it's being used as a political tool by the government. The Chiefs didn't want an auditor because they know this and I guess, by booting the bean-counter, was saying, they wouldn't have any part of it. The move had a political motive. And, At 1300$ per day, I can see why they wouldn't want an auditor. Especially, when there are people in that community without homes to live in.
Is there corruption here. Maybe. Is this crisis the fault of the Attawapiskat "government". Maybe. I would gladly for[FONT=arial, sans-serif]k $2.67[/FONT][FONT=arial, sans-serif] or my share of this expense to help make sure there's one less person on the street.[/FONT][FONT=arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
"Politics as u-su-al"
Both authors have obvious political ties. But, one digs further than the other though.
invictus43
Well-known member
I don't really think you have any clue what you're talking about. But rant away..
Some food for thought on their land being "stolen"... Long before Europeans arrived many of the tribes were at war with each other. In fact if you go back far enough we see that the tribe that was there when the Europeans arrived "stole" that land from someone else... How far back do we go?
What has been done wrong is the honouring of treaties, this needs to be improved on ALL sides.
What has been done wrong is the honouring of treaties, this needs to be improved on ALL sides.
my question was a simple one. would you trade all of the experiences that living on a remote reserve comes with, in order to get the benefits they 'enjoy'? would you take being born and raised in a remote community, living your entire life in poor conditions, with inadequate schooling and poor sanitation/food/drinking water, in order to get these benefits? it also comes with a damaging socialization and sense of hopelessness. . .is all of this worth it to receive those 'benefits'???
so easy for us to say, sitting in our comfortable homes, behind computers, most of us having enjoyed most of what canada has to offer. . .
A wall of useless text, in usual afong56 fashion...
These natives receive way more funding than they need. The money is clearly being squandered away with no accountability. Shut off the taps until they decide to open their books. Their problems are caused by their own leaders, and that's a cold hard fact.
they have not refused an audit. their chief has publicly stated that an audit will happen.
what they object to is the government bringing in an overpriced auditor (somewhere over $500k/salary) and then putting it on the dime of the band (when they are already claiming that money is being misspent).
pretty sure you could get a team of forensic accountants for that kind of money.
. . .and for the record, a post that asks people to think from someone else's perspective rather than selfish shortsightedness is entirely worthwhile, imho. the fact that you think it is meaningless passes a lot more judgement on you than me. . .
