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| MY BUSKING BUDDY AND GIG-MATE, ALBERT STRANGEMAN |
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| GIG BUDDY, ALBERT, WAS BUSKING AT THE SAME MARKET WHERE I WAS DRAWING PORTRAITS |
An (unnamed) Indigenous
leader just yesterday stated on our local news station that job protection is
the main reason for the high numbers of Indigenous children in corrections and
social services. “We (Indigenous
peoples) are an industry,” he said.
Hmmm. Is this agitprop helpful to his/our cause?
INDUSTRY can be defined as economic activity concerned with the process
of raw materials and the manufacture of goods.
MANUFACTURING can be defined as the making of articles and products on a
large scale using machinery and industrial production.
By definition,
an industry needs a manufactured product. In this case it is explicit that the
product mentioned is a human commodity, and an Indigenous one at that. And to manufacture such product prompts
certain questions: Is this particular
product of Indigenous youth manufactured in custody or social services or
corrections? Or is this product sexually manufactured to satisfy the universe with evolutionary procreation? Or is this product a socially manufactured construct being
the remnant of racism? Or is this product simply the systemic
product of colonization? Or is this product all of the
above?
Factoid: 4.9% of the entire Canadian population and 7.7% of the
population under the age of 14 years is of Aboriginal descent.
Factoid: Indigenous people
account for only 4.9% of the Canadian population and yet make up 27% of the
prison population. Indigenous youth
(7.7% of the total population) account for 46% of those incarcerated and
including the 43% of Indigenous women incarcerated.
Factoid: The cost to
incarcerate one woman for one year is $343,810.
The cost to incarcerate on man for one year is $223, 687.
Factoid: The cost of a
community placement option is $85,653 per person per year. The parole cost per person per year is
$39,084.
These
factoids, based upon the belief of most Canadians, are the effects of the
forced Residential Schools and the 60’s scoop.
The 60’s Scoop had taken its toll shortly after the event. By 1977 Aboriginal children accounted for 44% of the children in care in
Alberta, Canada, accounted for 51% of the children in care in Saskatchewan,
Canada, and accounted for 60% of the children in care in Manitoba, Canada. (I am referring to these provinces mainly
because they make up what is geographically known as the Canadian Prairies and
because this is where I reside.)
On the stained
surface, the 60’s scoop seems not much different than the millennium scoop. In 2016, First Nations, Metis, and Inuit
youth made up 52% of the foster children under the age of 14 in Canada, despite
representing only 8% of youth in that entire age group. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, nearly 90% of
children in foster care are Indigenous.
(This is an accounting of for those children assigned to private homes;
this is not an accounting of those assigned to group homes and other
shelters.) Mathematically in Manitoba,
according to Indigenous Services Minister, Jane
Philpott, of the 11,000 children in care, 10,000 are Indigenous.
In a line, historically
it has seemed quicker and simpler to put these children into care rather than confront
the social and economic problems that have plagued Indigenous families since
the residential school years.
I shall now
indulge in some more authoritative name dropping.
According to Doug Cuthand, of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix,
the colonial industrial schools morphed into the residential boarding schools,
then morphed into the 60’s scoop, and now all current First Nation Canadian
denizens are collateral victims of the British colonialism.
Factoid: I quit reading Doug
Cuthand’s column years ago. I did so
because he always seemed to be blaming baby-boomer, white, and middle-class me for
the plight of the First Nations people.
From the
Indigenous and now Federal Government view, the solution seems to be a simple
one - loosening the colonial (devil’s) grip being the necessary signature
handshake toward reconciliation betwixt First Nations and the rest of Canada.
Perry Bellegarde, National Chief in the Assembly of First Nations, has
long sought control of First Nations education for those on reserve. On April 1st of this year he helped
make it happen. This is now signed into
agreement. This action is promising.
Factoid: Long ago I served on
a Saskatchewan Sports service for
youth committee with Perry Bellegarde.
He is a very good guy.
Clive Weighill, President of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police,
has stated that “People are products of their environment. You don’t just want
to get tough on crime, you have to get tough on the issues of poverty, poor
housing, disadvantage.” Not many of my
colleagues would debate against this notion.
Factoid: Clive Weighill used
to be a member of the Regina City Police.
Clive used to organize the Regina Police Service Valestuk Run, of which I was a frequent participant. Clive is a very good guy.
American
Housing Secretary, Ben Carson, stated
that “Poverty is a state of mind.” Go
figure.
Factoid: Ben Carson, a former
presidential candidate for the Republican Party, is now the Housing Secretary
in the Donald Trump administration. In
Ben Caron’s autobiography he stated that his life was spared because a knife
thrust at his belly was deflected by his belt buckle. Being the public eye now for a couple years
now, I know Ben Carson is an idiot, as well as a liar.
As previously stated,
schools on reserves now have monetary autonomy as of April 1st of
this year. Perhaps not to offer similar
controls to other systems such as social services, police, and corrections, would
be harshly politically criticized. Pragmatically,
I think it would be fitting to offer monetary and other power incentives to
anyone (and especially to those who are Indigenous) to study and become the
best-practice professionals in these particular systems.
I say this
because in spite of the efforts or non-efforts to date, save for the latest in
on-reserve educational practices and finance, and in spite of even Perry
Bellegarde and his ilk, the high school graduation rates for Indigenous
students are rising in all provinces throughout Canada. And, therefore as a direct result of these
rising high school graduation rates, the university graduation rates for
Indigenous, too, across Canada, are rising.
Currently
there are millions and millions of dollars being spent in searching solutions
for these Indigenous issues. Legal firms
are making millions of dollars masterminding residential school
settlements. Millions of dollars are
directed into Anthropology grants to determine and distribute the traditional
knowledge necessary for all of us to cope with one another.
Saying all of
this (again) offers examples of those supposedly involved in the solving of
these issues, having little incentive to actually find solutions. Some of these persons and agencies supposedly
involved actually seem to thrive on Indigenous dependency and social
dysfunction.
Even in my own
agency of employ, good-intervention workshops on the First Nations Circle of
Courage philosophies are mandatory.
(Note that I write “good-intervention” rather than “well-intention” – well-intention connotes failure, whereas good-intervention suggests good intentions
with success.) Such mandatory workshops
are just one song on the cultural concert playlist being sung continuously by
my employer.
Seriously, I
strongly doubt that many of us believe that modern problems can be
solved solely by reverting to the customs and ways of the past; though I am not expressing that we
should ever be prevented from pursuing and appreciating any cultural past
accomplishments and significance.
However,
preserving a culture for the sake of present problem solving poses the
question: Though the Aboriginal
hunting-and-fishing-and-trapping-and-gathering-berries culture continues
purportedly to preserve that spiritual relationship to the living humans and
beasts to the land, does this hunting-and-gathering preservation help in the
bigger scheme of racial diversity and global economics, never mind the scheme
of getting along with all the other Canadian citizens, whose cultural diversity
is continuing growing to represent more and other global cultures?
I am certainly
not abdicating the efforts to date; I am abdicating some of the methods and
some of the content. (My Indigenous buddy and colleague, Keenan, who will for sure be reading this, will for sure not agree.)
I do agree
that preserving language is significant.
On March 24th, 2019 the very first National Hockey Game
between the Montreal Canadiens and the Carolina Hurricanes was broadcast in
Cree through Rogers Hometown Hockey on APTN.
Clarence Iron, of Pinehouse, Saskatchewan, did the play-by-play. Clarence works at CFNK 89.9 FM radio as a
program host. Clarence is fluent in both
English and Plains Cree. WOOT!
The diktats of
the past have no place in the present. No
product means no industry. An industry
needs a marketable product, and if the social and police and correctional
industry have no product, there will be no need for such an industry, job
protection or not.
Those posing in my CHAUCERIAN
PARADE this week:
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| MY BUSHWAKKER BREW PUB GIG-MATES LAST WEEK |
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| MY BUSKING THESE DAYS IS MORE DRAWING THAN STRUMMING AND HARPING |
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| MY GIFT FOR MY BUDDY, BRENT, ON HIS 50TH BIRTHDAY |
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| MICHAEL, THE SON OF ONE OF MY FORMER STUDENTS |
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| GEORGE, THE SON OF MY GIG-MATE, TOMMY |
