Time for change, time for decisions. Leave the reserve and live like the rest of us, no tax breaks, no special accommodations, or stay on the reserve, and live in the traditional manner (we'll have to expand some of the reserves to ensure a proper amount of flora and fauna). We'll fence it in and you'll need to apply to Canada to come out to visit. Their insistence on continuing on in this in-between hell in which they live (poverty, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment) has to stop. Are they going to continue like this for another 100 years?
Why should the guy in the next office over get the same pay I get, but have so much less taxes, and be able to hunt anywhere, anytime? We were born in the same country, at the same time, and both of our families have roots in Canada going back 300 years. That his family goes back farther than that should be as irrelevant as it is to the new Canadian who just became a full citizen last week.
We just love to feel shame, and pity, and regret, and apologize for things we had nothing to do with. If the aboriginals want a special deal, they should dig up their ancestors from the 1600-1800s and sit them around a table with my relatives dug up from the 1600-1800s, because this trouble is between them, not between the living, and certainly shouldn't be something their and my great grand-kids will still be arguing about.
Edit: I'm not racist, if I was racist, I wouldn't care if they continued to live in substandard housing, with no schools. An endless supply of money will NOT fix this - only a fundamental, earth-shattering change in their lives will. Sadly, this means a look at the Math: If the land cannot provide, and they need to buy modern items like groceries, clothes etc (and that would make more sense than getting it from the land), PLUS if having it costs big bucks to fly these supplies into areas, PLUS if there is no revenue being generated in their communities, then that EQUALS destitute living, trying to manage how to allocate handouts. It can't be continued.
Sounds like an off-topic rant, but the should-I-stay-or-should-I-go decision is exactly the fix for this hunting/poaching problem. If they're on reserves, they can hunt that reserve dry, but no trespassing off it. If they want to hunt the whole area, then they have to drop their special accommodations, and join the lottery like the rest of us. Hunting (and fishing, in BC) the whole countryside dry doesn't work for the rest of us, or for Nature.
