Ready for some education...??? For many years, today has been irrelevant to many. Including myself. Today 137 years ago, the Canadian government and the tribes of Treaty 7 signed a treaty. This treaty stated that Siksika, and other tribes within the Blackfoot Confederacy, surrender and give up traditional territories and live on a selected piece of land, where health care, education, and housing be provided...as well as $5 per year. As longs as the grass grows and the river flows. Today the belief is that Natives get everything for free. Well my dear friends. Well my non-native friends, i am here to tell you that is not true. We do not get free smokes, free gas, thousands of dollars given to us. Allow me to briefly explain. While majority of the reserve population is unemployed, true they are receipiants of $200, but with recent cutbacks, and rightfully so, they are really cracking down on the intake process. I believe that if you are able to work, then get off your butt and find some work. But that is beside the point. The point is that the working folk do pay taxes, off the reserve. Our health care is minimal to one eye examination and one dental check up. Any additional activities, such as anesthesia, braces, new glasses we have to pay for. As well as ambulance services, depending on the situation. So we are also paying into additional health care plans through work benefits. Education tuition is covered in most cases. There are a lot of cases that we have to pay our own child`s tuition, if we do not to choose to abide to our education`s rules and guidelines. In post secondary education, a lot of us have to get student loans as the selection process to get funding for university and college is getting pretty tight. And the housing issue. This will always be an issue. The houses you see are built from loans from CMHC and are to paid by a ``rent to own`` agreement where the tenant is to pay rent each month. But we are finding that that system is not working so the band is stuck paying the loan year after year. There are very few that build their own homes out of their own loans and morgages taken with their own line of credit. Take in consideration that these $200,000-300,000 homes can not be used as equity because we live on Crown Land and hold no value. So my many non-native friends, I hope this general information is helpful as well as educational. A lot of us do already live and have adapted to the ``white world``. A lot of Natives live off the reserve and do not depend on the band. So the money you see that you feel is a ``hand out`` is just the moneys accumulated that the Treaty signed and that the government had promised each tribe back in the day to provide for us surrendering the land and sharing the land with the settlers. So dont gear ur anger at us. We did not do anything wrong. In fact we only welcomed the settlers and only wanted peace. Have a great day.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 14:47:57 +0000
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