"Equal Rights"

[Lady tehMa]

There are many who believe that those you described have had the very same chances in life that they have had. While there are always stories of those who against all adversity managed to overcome, the reality is that the marginalized usually remain that way.
The history and experiences of aboriginal peoples are not all the same. There are wealthy bands and very poor bands. Some had ancestors that went to residential school, some did not.
They are as diverse as the "white" Canadians are.
Racism remains pretty consistent and constant for all.
You couldn't pay me enough to have been born an aboriginal female.

So does band leadership play a part in it? I've heard really good things about that Osoyoos Band and their leader.

[rustled]

A bit more information about land ownership:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.2355794

The Nisga'a Nation in northwestern British Columbia has become the only First Nation in Canada to let its people own tribal land privately.

The First Nation's land registrar says it has now signed off on the first three transfers of property to individuals in the Greenville area of the remote First Nation's land.

The community's leaders say that by allowing their people to own private property on tribal land, something most aboriginal people living on reserves can't do, they'll be able to get a loan, using land as collateral.

And they believe with those loans and opportunities will come new businesses and the prospect of prosperity.

This will be something to watch. Critics (in the same link):

"Once you put it into the hands of individuals, it's gone, especially for impoverished individuals," she says.

The Nisga'a acknowledge that once citizens own their land they can transfer it, sell it or will it to anyone including non-Nisga'a. It could even be seized by a bank if a landowner failed to repay a loan or mortgage, but they say the risk is worth it.

As I understand it, some bands have locatee "ownership" (tied to historic use of a specific piece of land by an individual family) while others don't have that, perhaps because they were more nomadic and didn't homestead to raise cattle as they did here in the Okanagan, in the early days of European settlement in BC. I've been told that's part of the reason for the differences between the progress made by the Osoyoos Indian Band (they have more common land for the band to develop) and the slower progress of the Penticton Indian Band (where there is more individual "ownership"), but I'm not sure how accurate this is (since leadership styles would have been a huge factor, Clarence Louis being business oriented in his beliefs about what will bring prosperity to his band, and Stewart Phillip being more confrontational in his beliefs about what will bring prosperity to his).

Perhaps someone with a better understanding of the locatee system can chime in.