News release - Adrian Dix must fire NDP candidate

[Dawnland]

*removed/read the warning before posting again/Jo*

[LoneWolf_53]

hmmm....well Lonewolf...all's I know...is that when I daily go thru the McDonald's drivethru for my morning java & grits, since april 1st, I pay $0.93 LESS. YES. VICTORY is great. MY victory. Bye Bye HST. This may be a TINY victory but it's MINE.

Fair enough, but you may want to keep track of how much you save, and then how much you get back at the end of the year, or I suppose I should have said, don't get back.

We've already seen threads where people were complaining that their refunds were far less than they expected.

Politicians aren't above deceiving us with tiny victories, when they know full well that they will win the war.

[samsquench07]

I have never got back anything back from the government worth writing about. so i'll take the lower tax.

[butcher99]

I feel her comments reflect that of most okananites who are very isolated and back dated in thier world view.
I dont think her comments were brave but just `a normal okanagan point of view.
No one has denied her freedom of speech, just that she is not accepted with a political party in which her ideals are opposed to theirs.You'd get fired from any job if you were promoting the competitions values.
She is just an normal okanaganite who is not self aware of her archaic political views.Shes just a valley girl Fer sure.
It's not the only o2 cranium induced thing she said on that thread.

Or she is a normal Canadian who is fed up with the goings on continually going on. If you followed the Idle No More movement at all you would have noticed that similar comments came from across Canada about ongoing dealings with some native bands. Not all bands mind you. A lot of bands have managed to moved into the "I can do it myself, thank you" category. Some have not.
Her "archaic" views are becoming more prevalent not less. And about time. My families families families families family was kicked out of the Scotland. You don't see me going back there demanding that they now pay me for what was taken from our ancestors. Times change, attitudes change and time passes. It is time to move on.
As to the feelings about Quebecers around the world, go on vacation sometime and ask the people there what they think of the French from Quebec. You will see her remarks are right on the mark.

[butcher99]

Her comments were wrong. They will ultimately will catch up with her. Her comments are in nature of trying to bully a certain race...again

Think of it this way. The natives had a system, long before us whites came, that worked for them. Us whites came in, trying to roll over them, and make the natives like "us"..............all of which is recognized as very wrong.

Now people still today say that natives, should be "like us whites", they need to be on the same level. This is what Diane and several of you are saying. You are kinda of attempting to repeat history, without maybe knowing it?

What is wrong with meeting half way, and adapting to their ways?? (and I am not talking culturally). Why do natives have to always do what "WE" want? That's what caused this whole problem in the first place.

It might be recognized as wrong now, at the time it was the way of the world. All of the world. How long do we have to pay for the faults of our fathers fathers fathers fathers? How many generations will the madness continue?

[Gone_Fishin]

I have never got back anything back from the government worth writing about. so i'll take the lower tax.

Are you excited about paying even more income tax and more carbon tax, and more for your goods and services as businesses jack up their prices to cover PST expenses? Because that's the result of "saving" 70¢ on your haircut. We have $1.6 billion to pay back to the feds as well as make up for the lost HST revenue. Some victory!

[George+]

It was his coffee and more than 70 cents.

It was a victory against stupid Fiberals
Who said one thing and did the exact opposite.

Even the NDP and all political parties
Must have taken notice.

[samsquench07]

yeah, fisher dude, I guess its only a matter of a persons opinion. Didn't see no massive price drop in good when hst came in, and didn't see no over inflated pricing after it left, so not really sure what your talking about.

[CoconutBreath]

Fair enough, but you may want to keep track of how much you save, and then how much you get back at the end of the year, or I suppose I should have said, don't get back.

We've already seen threads where people were complaining that their refunds were far less than they expected.

Politicians aren't above deceiving us with tiny victories, when they know full well that they will win the war.

I'll take winning a BATTLE ANYday over winning a WAR...cuz..the latter is FUTILE.

[kibbs]

er "archaic" views are becoming more prevalent not less.

The media has glommed onto whatever backwards thinkers are left in Canada .Its is not growing but exposing to the rest of us how much are still left and how we must never allow racist narrow minded attitudes dominate or even exist within our ruling political parties.
It is not growing thankfully but she has made us appear very intolerant internationally.I hope she stays down with all her ignorance.I think the ndp truly dumped her because of her all around "miss piggy" image.

[grammafreddy]

How long do we have to pay for the faults of our fathers fathers fathers fathers? How many generations will the madness continue?

For as long as there are legally binding agreements in place that were supposed to provide certain things to the natives in exchange for the Europeans gaining peaceful access to their traditional hunting, gathering and fishing lands. The natives had to agree to certain conditions (which they did) and the white man's government has yet to fulfill some of their end of the "deal".

And its not our "fathers fathers fathers fathers" ... some of the atrocities against the native people happened in my generation - and some are STILL going on. The government deliberately created a group of people completely dependent upon the government in order to manipulate them to get what they wanted. They still do that because there is an empire built within government bureaucracy that refuses to let go of their control and remuneration (and dare I say graft, too?) and some of the chiefs and band councils have also learned to keep their people poor and dependent and cash in on the government take for themselves.

Left in the hands of government to sort this whole mess out, nothing will really change. It needs an independent but compassionate and understanding person to take a long, very serious look at all that has happened and all that is happening and where all the money is truly going. Each treaty has to be studied to see who it applies to and who are outside the bounds of treaties, what was promised, what was fulfilled, what wasn't, what they are paid for and how, where the money goes, and a whole lot more. And its not all about money, either. There's more in those treaties than money. There's schooling, housing, reservation size, reservation population, medical assistance - and more.

[steven lloyd]

And its not our "fathers fathers fathers fathers" ... some of the atrocities against the native people happened in my generation -

Indeed, the last residential school did not close its doors until 1986.

I've used this before elsewhere ...

First Nations people have long suffered a legacy of systemic discrimination through economic and social deprivation, substance abuse and a cycle of violence across generations. Residential schools systematically undermined Aboriginal culture across Canada and disrupted families for generations, severing the ties through which Aboriginal culture is taught and sustained, and contributing to a general loss of language and culture. Because they were removed from their families, many students grew up without experiencing a nurturing family life and without the knowledge and skills to raise their own families. The devastating effects of the residential schools are far-reaching and continue to have significant impact on Aboriginal communities. Because the government’s and the churches’ intent was to eradicate all aspects of Aboriginal culture in these young people and interrupt its transmission from one generation to the next, the residential school system is commonly considered a form of cultural genocide.

The term residential schools refers to an extensive school system set up by the Canadian government and administered by churches that had the nominal objective of educating Aboriginal children but also the more damaging and equally explicit objectives of indoctrinating them into Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living and assimilating them into mainstream Canadian society. The residential school system operated from the 1880s into the closing decades of the 20th century. The system forcibly separated children from their families for extended periods of time and forbade them to acknowledge their Aboriginal heritage and culture or to speak their own languages. Children were severely punished if these, among other, strict rules were broken. Former students of residential schools have spoken of horrendous abuse at the hands of residential school staff: physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological. Residential schools provided Aboriginal students with an inferior education, often only up to grade five, that focused on training students for manual labour in agriculture, light industry such as woodworking, and domestic work such as laundry work and sewing.

The purpose of the residential schools was to eliminate all aspects of Aboriginal culture. Students had their hair cut short, they were dressed in uniforms, and their days were strictly regimented by timetables. Boys and girls were kept separate, and even siblings rarely interacted, further weakening family ties. Chief Bobby Joseph of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society recalls that he had no idea how to interact with girls and never even got to know his own sister “beyond a mere wave in the dining room.” In addition, students were strictly forbidden to speak their languages—even though many children knew no other—or to practice Aboriginal customs or traditions. Violations of these rules were severely punished.

Abuse at the schools was widespread: emotional and psychological abuse was constant, physical abuse was meted out as punishment, and sexual abuse was also common. Survivors recall being beaten and strapped; some students were shackled to their beds; some had needles shoved in their tongues for speaking their native languages. These abuses, along with overcrowding, poor sanitation, and severely inadequate food and health care, resulted in a shockingly high death toll. In 1907, government medical inspector P.H. Bryce reported that 24 percent of previously healthy Aboriginal children across Canada were dying in residential schools. This figure does not include children who died at home, where they were frequently sent when critically ill. Bryce reported that anywhere from 47 percent (on the Peigan Reserve in Alberta) to 75 percent (from File Hills Boarding School in Saskatchewan) of students discharged from residential schools died shortly after returning home.

In addition to unhealthy conditions and corporal punishment, children were frequently assaulted, raped, or threatened by staff or other students. During the 2005 sentencing of Arthur Plint, a dorm supervisor at the Port Alberni Indian Residential School convicted of 16 counts of indecent assault, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Hogarth called Plint a “sexual terrorist.” Hogarth stated, “As far as the victims were concerned, the Indian residential school system was nothing more than institutionalized pedophilia.”

The extent to which Department of Indian Affairs and church officials knew of these abuses has been debated. However, the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples and Dr John Milloy, among others, concluded that church and state officials were fully aware of the abuses and tragedies at the schools. Some inspectors and officials at the time expressed alarm at the horrifying death rates, yet those who spoke out and called for reform were generally met with silence and lack of support. The Department of Indian Affairs would promise to improve the schools, but the deplorable conditions persisted.

Some former students have fond memories of their time at residential schools, and certainly some of the priests and nuns who ran the schools treated the students as best they could given the circumstances. But even these “good” experiences occurred within a system aimed at destroying Aboriginal cultures and assimilating Aboriginal students.

The residential school system is viewed by much of the Canadian public as part of a distant past, disassociated from today’s events. In many ways, this is a misconception. The last residential school did not close its doors until 1986. Many of the leaders, teachers, parents, and grandparents of today’s Aboriginal communities are residential school survivors. There is, in addition, an intergenerational effect: many descendents of residential school survivors share the same burdens as their ancestors even if they did not attend the schools themselves. These include transmitted personal trauma and compromised family systems, as well as the loss in Aboriginal communities of language, culture, and the teaching of tradition from one generation to another.

According to the Manitoba Justice Institute, residential schools laid the foundation for the epidemic we see today of domestic abuse and violence against Aboriginal women and children. Generations of children have grown up without a nurturing family life. As adults, many of them lack adequate parenting skills and, having only experienced abuse, in turn abuse their children and family members. The high incidence of domestic violence among Aboriginal families results in many broken homes, perpetuating the cycle of abuse and dysfunction over generations.

Many observers have argued that the sense of worthlessness that was instilled in students by the residential school system contributed to extremely low self-esteem. This has manifested itself in self-abuse, resulting in high rates of alcoholism, substance abuse, and suicide. Among First Nations people aged 10 to 44, suicide and self-inflicted injury is the number one cause of death, responsible for almost 40 percent of mortalities. First Nations women attempt suicide eight times more often than other Canadian women, and First Nations men attempt suicide five times more often than other Canadian men. Some communities experience what have been called suicide epidemics.

Many Aboriginal children have grown up feeling that they do not belong in “either world”: they are neither truly Aboriginal nor part of the dominant society. They struggle to fit in but face discrimination from both societies, which makes it difficult to obtain education and skills. The result is poverty for many Aboriginal people. In addition, the residential schools and other negative experiences with state-sponsored education have fostered mistrust of education in general, making it difficult for Aboriginal communities and individuals to break the cycle of poverty.

It is clear that the schools have been, arguably, the most damaging of the many elements of Canada’s colonization of this land’s original peoples and, as their consequences still affect the lives of Aboriginal people today, they remain so.

—John S. Milloy, A National Crime

• http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.c ... ystem.html

[samsquench07]

For sure. lets start there. Residential schools were still around up until 1986. That was not that long ago. So this talk about for fathers, fathers, fathers, is far from the truth

[Trigger69]

I have never got back anything back from the government worth writing about. so i'll take the lower tax.

Really?? You live in one of the most beautiful, safest and cleanest countries in the world and you say you never got anything back from the govt worth writing about? That's amusing to say the least.

[samsquench07]

Dear trigger69, I think your statement is getting a little carried away. I do agree, we live in the best country in the world. I don't recal saying otherwise.

That doesn't mean I should sit around and watch government blow our hard earned money. To much poverty etc that doesn't have to be that way. We can always do better.