Return "Their" Land?

One of the biggest topics in the news this week has been the native occupation of a consturction site in Caladonia, near the City of Hamilton. The land is intended to be used as a new housing development. They claim the land belongs to them.

This is another one of those topics that is difficult to discuss without sounding racisit but I can ensure my readers that that is not the goal here. The goal is to argue whether or not they deserve the land and criticise their actions and the actions of the government.

Do the native protesters in Caladonia believe the land belongs to them? Yes they do. Does it belong to them? No it does not. The land is not on the near by reserve and therefore they have no right to it. They have not purchased the land either. One can make all sorts of arguments about how we stole their land but things like that cannot apply anymore as that happened some 200-300 years ago when Canada was not even a country. Most of the people set to live in these new houses probably didn't even arrive into Canada until the 20th century so they cannot be blamed for the downfall of native society.

The problem here is that the Native communities seem to be involved in some ficticious war to protect something that is not theirs. They often turn violent as what happened yesterday. So how do we solve this problem. I have several proposals that I'm sure will not sit well with natives or Liberals.

First off, we need to eliminate the reserve system. I'm not saying that we should kick them off that land as they do own it. However, their time as wards of the state must end. It is a huge burden on the rest of Canada. It may not have been fair to them to have their land expropriated but it is not fair to me either. My parents are immigrants who came in the 1950s. No one in my family lived in Canada before them. Therefore why should I be punished for something that I and nobody in the entire history of my family took part in.

The natives even being declared wards of the state has also been extremely harmful to them, more harmful in fact that any land expropriation could have caused. They dislike the way the Department of Indian Affairs runs things but they have become addicted to the special funding and treatment they receive. Their culture and society lacks the encouragement that other cultures have received. Therefore my next proposal is to eliminate the Dapartment of Indian Affiars. Natives should not get special treatment but rather be included under multicultural policy. This cosntitutionally entrenched policy would allow them to practice, maintain, and expand their cultural traditions while allowing them to become active in the rest of Canadian society, as opposed to being outsiders in their own country.
If saying they lack they encouragement of other cultures and my demands to take away special treatments appears as racist, what about the current system. It treats them as being incapable of living like the rest of us, and therefore they must be babysat by the government. Canada's current system under the DIA basically treats natives as an inferior people who need to be protected from the big, bad world. At least the elimination of special treatments would make them equal members of society. In my opinion, to treat natives in the way they are currently being dealt with is un-Canadian. They should be treated no different as someone who is White, Black, Indian, Arab, Chinese, etc.

These proposals would not solve all native problems, but would certainly go a long way.