If Canada's First Nations really wanted to play the racial purity tune, most of them would be evicted from their own reservations as well. Just look at their last names and facial features to see if they are even substantially aboriginal.

Reserves are a colonial relic: they need to be abolished once and for all throughout the country.

I am surprised that the Economist does not talk about the contraband activities going on in the Kahnawake reserve and the role that its undesirable elements played in the Oka crisis in the early 1990s.

The criminal components of the Mohawk band need to be uprooted. The rest, as we say, is just rhetoric.

Living 15 minutes away from that reserve, I would bet that none or very few of its inhabitants speak the Mohawk language on a daily basis. They also tote heavy artillery which they desperately needed in the 18th century, not now.

And shouldn't their chiefs be audited? I wonder how much money actually goes to the citizenry of that slum of a reserve. Does the chief have the biggest house and ski-doo? Just asking.

Whatever the First Nations decide to do with the non-Natives is nothing compared to what has been done to them. Smuggling cigarettes and alcohol, tax exemptions that benefit a small percentage of the Canadian population is a small price to pay for a whole hemisphere.

I think it's great that the Mohawk and other Canadian first nations communities want independence from the rest of Canada. Their first step should be to refuse the Canadian money they live on. few Canadians would feel badly about independent native reserves if they weren't dependent on Canada's largess.

It's too bad The First Nations band chiefs lost funding for their university in Saskatchewan. They run it as a another one of their pocket-lining, jobs-for-the-boys-and-gals feifdoms.

The natives have one set of rules IN CANADA, and the rest of us in Canada have a more rigid set of rules (thank goodness). They can block roads other Canadians use, prevent trains from running on CANADIAN railways, harass private citizens with no repercussions, smuggle and sell cigarettes, alcohol, and dear knows what else, and the list goes on. A lot, if not most of this goes on on non-native property, again with no repercussions. Meanwhile Canada shovels money to them.

Bouffon wrote: "Living 15 minutes away from that reserve, ...that slum of a reserve."

What a shame to live 15 minutes from Kahnawake and never having been there.

If you had you wouldn't call it a slum.

Many First Nations in Canada live in abject poverty with dirt roads and ram-shackle housing. Kahnawake has paved roads and respectable housing. It looks like any other prosperous community in Canada. (Their prosperity has its roots in high steel construction. Much of Manhattan was built by members of the community. There are also many professionals who live there.)

You say you live 15 minutes from there and apparently you don't even know that they have a radio station broadcasting in the Mohawk language. (If not many speak the language a radio station broadcasting in it wouldn't make sense, would it?)

I don't see what the problem is. If the precept of a welcoming society is to be, uh, welcoming, nations such as Canada still have no problem imposing immigration standards. They have their's, and the Mohawks have their own.

Moreover it might be pointed out that the some 33,000,000 residents of the land only showed up after the fact. Without particularly asking for permission. And now they want to be invited for dinner?

What a loaded subject.
What may be the root cause of the present issues is that The native population is expanding more rapidly than that of the rest of Canada.
Here in BC they are divided into "bands and conditions are different from band to band. Those with a strong chief seem to have much better living conditions.
In the world as a whole it does appear that those peoples who have gone through a few hundred years or more of settled agriculture, have less difficulty adapting to international middle class life. That's only statistical of course. There is also the characteristic that some, who thrive in education want to get as far away from reserve life as they can . I talk to them frequently , they are just as intelligent as anybody else , but there abilities are slanted in different ways, for which there are few opportunities in everyday Canadian life.
In general they do not seem to have commercial instincts , I have had a native come up to me on the street and offer a salmon. To offer money in return is often insulting.

How convenient that these Mohawks receive subsidies from the government while remaining exempt from paying it back, with the specter of racial discrimination at their disposal to politicize any attempt to make the system fairer.

Citizenship is a clearly defined concept, but ethnicity is not. I never even understood what the word "Caucasian" means. Are they people whose ancestors came from the Caucasian Mountains (Georgia etc.)?
Modern civilized countries should abandon the concept of "race". Hitler tried! How are we going to define it? By DNA? How far do we go back in human evolution? I am proud to be descended from amphibians!

This is load of BS. It's racist. If they want to play that game then Canada should remove all funding.

Mad Hatter wrote: Buffoon is an appropriate name for the commentator, since he is highly likely Québécois, another group who practice racial and cultural prejudice.

----

Are you racially profiling me? Yes, I'm a bilingual Quebecer of Irish, Scottish, British, Dutch, French, Ontarian and Aboriginal descent. I even took an Inuktitut course at Aurora College, Yellowknife. I guess that makes me bigoted, unlike the rest of Canadians.

The question is about Aboriginal values: it's about living conditions for all Aboriginals, how they treat each other, and how they are treated.

The reserves were created by white men who often had the chiefs sign with crosses. This has little or no relevance and is in itself a grave injustice.

I am in favour of abolishing the colonial reserve system or at the very least changing the way funds are delivered to its members. I am in favour of equity for all, not just a sub-group which we will call university-educated mafia chiefs.

If you think that Aboriginals cannot succeed without reserves, you should examine the Dene in the Northwest Territories and the Inuit in Nunavut. Their future is much brighter than their reserved peers in spite of the fact that they don't have ready access to universities and adequate trade schools in their respective jurisdictions.

We will pursue this discussion once you return from your anthropology class with the Amish. At least they have a choice to live the way they do.

I have no real value to add to this discussion/debate but would like to state that I always learn more from this type of an exchange medium. In the words of one Canadian comedian and I quote:

Russell Peters on Racism
Every group is racist. White folks will see a group of Indian people and they’re like, “Look at all those brown people, they’re probably all very happy together.” Then you get in that group and like, “Hey, you from India? I’m from India. What part? No, not that part. Go to hell you dirty bastard.”

I wonder if this eviction campaign will apply to the Hells Angels, Italian Mafia, and other (non-native) organized criminal elements which run most of the illicit gambling, tobacco, and drug activities which go on in the Kahnawake reserve. Make no mistake about it, the people who run the main rackets in the reserves are white, the natives are payed a small percentage for hosting these activities on their land which is conveniently exempt from Canadian law. The current policy of the Canadian government towards the "First Nations" would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. It is high time to change policy in a big way and integrate the reserves into Canadian society.

I'm Canadian, born and raised. But can someone tell me why I should care about the First Nations in the first place? My family immigrated to Ontario from Europe in 1952, well after all these "injustices" had already taken place (and think about the Asians who immigrated here since 1990). Doesn't anyone think that it's an injustice to hold people respsonsible for events that they're barely responsible for?

Hmmm. I don't know what to think. Maybe we should finally get off our high-horse and begin fair and equitable treaty negotiations (that negate our exploitative and broken treaties) and maybe include the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a part of that.

@Bouffon

I am somewhat surprised that someone of Irish, Scottish, British, Dutch, French, Ontarian and Aboriginal descent would so insensitive to the original peoples priorities.

Try looking at the world from their perspective.

I admit, I have always been given a hard time for entertaining the idea that there are two sides to the argument – I was spat on and called an “Arab Lover” simply because I once suggested to a Jewish guy that maybe the Palestinians might have a reason for being upset.

You appear, from earlier comments, to have a real bone to pick with anything that has to do with the histories of empires. It’s like the Architects of the mid twentieth century – lets reject automatically everything that has gone before, and create something new.

Well, rather a lot of 20th Century buildings were ugly, the roofs leaked and they fell apart. Believe it or not, one can learn from history.

Similarly, some things associated with empires were good, so should not be swept aside in a grand useless gesture.

I refuse to say one system is absolutely right and another absolutely wrong.

Other Original Peoples of Canada to the north were lucky, no one wanted their land, so they retained much of their culture.

Indians (like the Palestinians and other Arabs) are people whose priorities and culture are quite different from White European values, not better, not worse.

They are being asked to conform to our social and legal views, which may not be relevant or possible.

How anyone with original people ancestry can be so insensitive baffles me.

Or maybe this embarrasses you, except when convenient.

To Mad Hatter:

The problem with the reserve system is not that the First Nations have a unique culture and society. Rather, the problem lies in the fact that the reserves constitute little enclaves of lawlessness and substandard living conditions in an otherwise peaceful and prosperous country. I understand that the First Nations have legitimate historical grievances over the fact that Europeans colonized their land, and eventually turned it into Canada. However, endlessly complaining about perceived injustices which occurred hundreds of years ago will hardly solve the many problems faced by the first nations today. The truth is that the billions of dollars give to the First Nations' leaders by the Canadian government is largely squandered and stolen, not spent making regular people's lives better. It is time to put the past behind us and move forward together, as Canadian citizens. This does not mean the end of the rich cultural traditions of the First Nations, Canada is a tolerant, multicultural place. It only means the end of a system which encourages corruption and organized crime while keeping the majority of Canada's natives desperately poor and separate from mainstream society.

Native Americans have 'sovereign nations' within America. There is some sniping from time to time but Americans respect their rights and the material benefits accorded to them by the federal goverment.
Similarly, the mohawk chiefs and community are pretty much within their rights if they wish to evict certain people. Nobody would say anything if an apt. building tenant was evicted because they broke a contract?