What's Up in the Rez?

Canada's failed residential schools system for aboriginal peoples is back in the news with a bullet. Just in time to kick start lagging truck sales, it has just been announced that, along with abusing native kids and committing cultural genocide, dooming hundreds of thousands of them and their 'rellies' to lives blighted by abuse and failures to thrive, the University of Guelph has just discovered the government of Canada was using some of them to perform diet experiments.

Right there along with the story was a photo of Elsa the Beast of Belsen, newly immigrated to Canada no doubt, drawing blood from some poor native lad.

Needless to say, there are the beginnings of the sallying forth of the abused, " I never did get enough of that gruel, Ollie."

Being starved is something that you might think was a topic for the 'truth and reconciliation' panel, eh? Like how can you have truth and reconciliation if the government is hiding the results of medical experiments using Indians as guinea pigs. Frank Fontaine and other native leaders weren't long off the mark with cries of genocide. One ex-inmate claimed, "They never did treat me like a human being."

I thought the cash settlement, official government apology and more money splashed into 'programs' to help people come to terms with this stuff, was supposed to have put the matter to rest. Obviously not.

Not if there's a chance to reopen the hearings and work out another deal. Those trucks from last time will be ancient by now. And the dealers have to have been thirsty after that long-ago banquet of gratuitous sales. "Drive 'er away to-day and we'll settle-up when the cheque gets cut. Better still why wait, I'll give ya three quarters of the value if you sign your cheque over to me to-day."

Why would Canada's Indians ever want the government to "give the place" back to them? The government keeps on buying and re-buying it. It's a gift that keeps on giving, a bottomless bank account that's done nobody much good.

Watch this issue being fought out between the 'new wave' and the 'old guard'  of  the aboriginal people. With a bit of luck, Harpo the Magnificent can split the difference and stay the course.

The Inmates are the Asylum and the Meds have been Stoled

Canadians being fair, open and honest, have always stood up for the little guy unless it's Friday night at the bar and we're standing on the little guy. But generally we like to make others happy and so, in the past couple of weeks, we tried, or at least some of courts tried, to do that.

First it was a ruling that a dependency on street drugs was an illness, the same as a dependency on alcohol. No longer should spending one's time stoned be viewed as any kind of choice. No! Finding yourself stoned is something bad that happens to people. And finding yourself so stoned, so long, that you have to live on the street and beg money to get stoned is not only degrading, it's a symptom of disease. Working on the principal that nobody in their right mind would deliberately do things like that, the judge might have a point. Except that crazy people don't need  drugs to get a different perspective and often seek treatment to ameliorate the one they have. Drug problems don't originate in disordered mind, drug problems cause disordered minds. So, in order to help, the courts are ruling that individuals with drug and alcohol addiction should be covered by the 'disablity' provisions of  the Canadian Pension Plan. This boon will come as a relief to those trapped and under cardboard and cheap wine in the streets and, as a challenge, to that segment of society that would prefer to make do with 'less' so they can do nothing but smoke, eat and watch TV all day. Get yourself FUBARed and never have to work a day in your life, what a bright prospect for the young!

This is in a province that started off giving 'free' dope to 600 addicts and parlayed that into tens of thousands of methadone dependents in the medical system.

Another nail in the coffin of social sanity is a second judicial ruling that struck down Canada's laws regarding prostitution. Until the ruling itself is overruled in a higher court, or until new legislation is drafted, it's going to be a 'happy time' for those who make money off the Sex Trade. That may not necessarily be true for those who make a living off the sex trade, the ones who actually have to put-out for strangers. But for now the bordello can make a come-back, and what happens in massage parlours won't necessarily merit police raids any more. The world's oldest 'victimless' crime can get hi-balling! No longer will hookers be restricted from travel - all those gals from Moldova and Bulgaria, the Philippines and Hong Kong looking for a new start in Canada won't have to lie about being 'dancers' or 'domestics'. We're going to make 'nudes of all nations' a reality at last! As they say in French quarters, 'laissez les bon temps roulez!'

All that's necessary now is for that disability clause of the CPP to be applied to the sex trade. That would enable no one to have to screw for a living.  But I'd bet it would be as successful as giving alcoholics some free drinks or allowing druggies to risk blowing their rent money on dope.