What else do we need to do as a Nation before we can expect FN's people to take responsibility for themselves?

Well, isn't that convenient. Time for the natives take responsibility, but no responsibility for Canada for everything that's happened up until now because "that's long over."

It doesn't work that way, I'm afraid. A nation doesn't just get to give itself a pass to prior actions it took, any more than a person does. And the courts have been very clear on this issue--there are aboriginal rights and title, and those people do have rights and title to land in Canada. And the government has been very clear that the practice of forcibly removing children from their homes was wrong and caused great harm.

So, no, you don't just get to wash your hands of it all, sorry.

Well, isn't that convenient. Time for the natives take responsibility, but no responsibility for Canada for everything that's happened up until now because "that's long over."

It doesn't work that way, I'm afraid. A nation doesn't just get to give itself a pass to prior actions it took, any more than a person does. And the courts have been very clear on this issue--there are aboriginal rights and title, and those people do have rights and title to land in Canada. And the government has been very clear that the practice of forcibly removing children from their homes was wrong and caused great harm.

So, no, you don't just get to wash your hands of it all, sorry.

...Wow.

Have you ever even tried to see the Indigenous point of view, or seen what they've said and written? Let me give you the Cole's Notes version as I understand it from what I've seen and read:

You're living in a territory that's tied deeply into your identity. The land is your livelihood, sense of self, and religious faith all at once. Then, some new people come in. Nothing wrong with that-in most cases, you sign an agreement with them to share the land for mutual benefit. They promise you'll be able to continue those aspects of your life that are a key part of your identity-that define who you are-and that you'll get a good education to cope with the coming changes.

Then things start to change. The new arrivals start doing things that disrupt your ability to live with the land-which, again, is your religious faith and sense of self all at once, along with your livelihood. Sometimes you're attacked when you try to use parts of the land you thought you could. Sometimes you're attacked for your faith, even after you convert to the new arrivals' Christianity. The schools you are promised are undefunded shitholes where your kids do more gruntwork than actual studying, when they aren't shivering in unheated, overcrowded conditions or being physically and sexually abused. You're abused for decades, told that everything that makes you who you are is trash. You protest peacefully at this, and resort to violence only when you feel your back is against the wall. Then when violence breaks out, you're scapegoated for it, even though some rednecks south of the border can do the exact same thing and be hailed as heroes for it.

The communities where you're made to live are a small portion of what you're promised. You're forcibly relocated at bureaucrats' whims, you get little practical education, parts of your community can be arbitrarily removed, you can be forcibly dragged off to those hellhole schools, bureaucrats try to control your life in ways that Communists would envy, even to the point of trying to dictate who you marry. Then, when often you're so screwed up because of everything you had to go through, your kids get seized, taken away from their own identities and sense of who they are too.

Your communities are chronically underfunded, even as the new arrivals force you to draft all kinds of reports and continue to oversee your community's activities, putting you under 3rd party management, while your leaders have less power than municipal councils and often not a lot of capacity to build them. The new arrivals' own human rights commissions even show that you and your kin are being underfunded, but the new arrivals' government ignores this.

You're told that you're lazy and inefficient, and that you should go to the city to get a job. When you do, you're often stereotyped as a lazy drunk, followed in stores because you're suspected of being a thief, and subject to physical and sexual violence, sometimes even from the police who are supposed to protect you. You're constantly told that your identity and your heritage are trash, and that you should be ashamed of who you are.

Your small communities are an implicit recognition of your Treaty rights, rights that are integral to who you are. Asking you to abandon them is like asking you to peel off your own skin.

But apparently everything's your fault and you're the only one who needs to change.

Going by Shep's horror stories that is something that will never happen.

Let me get this straight...you're sick of Natives being tarred yet you've got no problem tarring everyone else saying they play the race card too?

What Natives have told us is that these young men were just out for a drive with friends and nobody, not his family or community, is taking responsibility for his actions. All of the blame lies with the man he and his friends tried to rob while armed, drunk and with 3 tires on their vehicle.

Oh, and the entire jury is racist.

There is not a single group in this Country that uses their race and culture to excuse their actions quite like our First Nations.

You expect them to take responsibility yet you take none yourself. That's all "long over" you say. "I already said I'm sorry" you say. That's not taking responsibility, that's being a petulant child.

You