I have always wondered where the $9 billion to $12 billion goes that is spent/wasted on Indian Affairs' budget each year.
Is there no end to this?
There are not that many Indians and Inuit, so where is the money going and why are the people still living in slums on reserves with poor water, housing and no sewage systems? Who monitors the spending and audits the allocation of funds?
After many years, some results should have proven positive, but it does not seem so.
We owe the Indians and Inuit the right to be first-class Canadians, at least, and some respect - not welfare handouts for life.
Here we are, years into Afghanistan, killing and destroying using more Canadian tax dollars. We have spent more than $20 billion there with the same results as Indian Affairs here at home - zero.
All that waste and nothing to show for it. Taxpayers should revolt and not take this anymore.
Remember this at the next election; we need some type of change for the better.
Let's begin the new year with a commitment to stop the lying. They are not First Nations; they are Indians and Inuit. To call them anything else is not only disrespectful, it is incorrect.
As a Canadian, I am sick and tired of the travesty the media, courts and our politicians have been promoting for years.
As a taxpayer, I am broke, and I am sick and tired of reading, seeing and hearing about the billions of hard-earned tax dollars being poured into the pockets of chiefs and band councils, turning them into millionaires, while the rest of their people live in abject poverty.
The Indians and Inuit are still being denied their constitutional right of being treated as equal partners in citizenship, and in the sharing of the natural resources that belong to all of us.
They will never regain their self esteem while governments continue to deny them equal opportunities on equal terms with other Canadians.
Jorgen Hansen,
Kelowna