Why is Six Nations funding Canadian taxpayers?
Well summer's almost over, school has started again, and the Brantford Expositor is still publishing Gary Horsnell's dumb questions that he could find answers to if he tried. Of course, finding answers is not what Horsnell's about as he's a truth twister ... as friend satori says ...
"trying to intellectualize bigotry".
Here are Horsnell's questions, and some answers ...
Brantford Expositor
Why are taxpayers funding Six Nations?
In a recent Expositor article, Bill Montour, the chief of the Six Nations of the Grand River elected band council, said the Six Nations spent about $70 million to run the reserve, which has about 17,000 people. That works out to about $4,117.64 per person.
The article also said that Brant County's budget was $110 million for 35,000 people. That works out to $3,142.85 per person.
The City of Brantford, on its website, shows the 2009 net municipal budget is $110.3 million for a population of about 90,000 people. That works out to about $1,226 per person.
How come the Six Nations spends so much more per person per year to run the reserve than Brant council to run the county or Brantford council to run the city?
Apples and oranges: Municipal budgets and Six Nations' budgets are not directly comparable. Six Nations budget includes funding for all services, whether federally, provincially or locally funded. Municipal budgets, for example, do not include EDUCATION and HEALTH CARE, major services funded directly by the province, while Six Nations' provides those services and others out of its budget.
In Ontario, $42.6b (43%) of the provincial budget goes to Health Care and $14.2 billion (14%) to Education. On that basis alone, one would expect that Six Nations budget, per capita, would be at least more than twice that of a municipality. The correct comparison would be municipal + provincial + federal funding per capita in Brant County and Brantford compared to Six Nations budget per capita.
I'll leave Mr. Horsnell to do the math on that, and at the same time figure out why Brant County's funding per capita is so much higher than Six Nations and Brantford!
Much of the money the Six Nations spends to run the reserve flows from taxpayers outside of the reserve through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) to the reserve.
But why does the Crown use money from taxpayers to fund the Six Nations?
The Crown bought the land along the Grand River from the Mississauga Indians on May 22, 1784. Later, on Oct. 25, 1784, Governor Haldimand issued a proclamation, which allowed Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and his Six Nations followers to settle on and use the Crown land along the Grand River. Then, in 1793, Governor Simcoe issued his letter patent to the Six Nations for land along the Grand River.
But the Haldimand Proclamation and the Simcoe Patent do not mention anything about the Crown funding the Six Nations. The people of the Six Nations of the Grand River were expected to sustain and support themselves on the land they were allowed to occupy along the Grand River.
Nevertheless, INAC and other government agencies have been sending money from taxpayers to the Six Nations of the Grand River for decades. INAC funds infrastructure and programs on the reserve and Canadian government agencies have provided money for water treatment, a dialysis clinic, other structures and programs and recently $1.99 million for the Kayanase ECO Centre.
So, why do INAC and other Canadian government agencies send money from taxpayers to the Six Nations of the Grand River to fund infrastructure and programs on the reserve, when the Six Nations was expected to sustain itself and there is no treaty or agreement I can find which calls for the Crown to use money from taxpayers to fund the reserve?
Garry Horsnell Brantford
Article ID# 1736187
Mr. Horsnell, not surprisingly for a truth twister, makes no mention of the fact that the Crown somehow subsequently 'assumed' for itself about 95% of the Haldimand Tract excluding only the current Six Nations reserve lands. Proceeds from the settlement of that land, leases or sales, were to be deposited in Six Nations trust fund maintained by the federal government, for them to draw on for the needs of their community. Somehow, the federal government cannot, or refuses to, account for the Six Nations trust fund. That is why Six Nations is currently pursuing 29 legal claims against the federal government.
It is known that Six Nations trust fund was embezzled by the Crown to build Osgoode Hall, the Welland Canal, and other infrastructure. It is also known that while Six Nations Band Council received $46m in federal and provincial funding this year, Six Nations people and businesses paid well over $140m to Canada/Ontario in taxes!
It is thus more accurate to ask:
WHY IS SIX NATIONS FUNDING CANADIAN TAXPAYERS?
The resources mined, fished, and cut from the land base is still ours too. That was the whole whampum treaty.
ReplyDeleteA sharing of the lands without interferance from, one from the other. We kept our side of the deal. Bigots are merely towing the Government line, and unfortunately reguritating what they have been taught by the Anglo- centric school system they attended.
Keep trying but don't be surprised if you never can change their minds.
Stop whining and start taking care of your families and your communities, like everybody else in this country has to do. Just an example: One of the reasons why Brantford budget is lower per capita than the budget of the reserves is that in Brantford, the town does not build houses for people. People have to pay for them from their own pockets. On the reserves, you get your houses built by the council with the tax money paid by our communities. Also, most people in white communities don't have miles of land to sustain themselves. They work or run businesses that realistically meet environmental limitations of our times. More examples could be easily found but I will stop here, as I recognize that demagogy cannot be corrected with true information - it is not based on facts but rather on greed and selfish attitude.
ReplyDeleteCanada, who owns the land? The following quote answers that question.
ReplyDelete"They were to make certain promises and we were to make certain promises, but our purpose and our reasons were alike unknowable. What could they grasp of the pronouncement on the Indian tenure which had been delivered by the law lords of the Crown, what of the elaborate negotiations between a dominion and a province which had made the treaty possible, what of the sense of traditional policy which brooded over the whole? Nothing. So there was no basis for argument. The simpler facts had to be stated, and the parental idea developed that the King is the great father of the Indians, watchful over their interests, and ever compassionate".
http://www.treaty9diaries.ca/materials-and-documents/discussion-paper/