They were the original settlers of the land, the indigenous peoples who migrated to North America from their origins in Asia, and who occupied North America for presumably thousands of years before the entrance of the "white man", European explorers in search of fabled India with its spice trade promising culinary and preserving-curing resources at a time when food was vulnerable to decay and people were ill-nourished.  Finding North America in the belief that India had been reached, the native inhabitants were named "Indians".



Now, they are known as First Nations Peoples, as aboriginals, as native peoples.

They hunted and foraged, became agrarian, some tribes were nomadic moving every season to take advantage of natural resources.  They lived off the land as best they could.  They were primitive to a degree.  Some tribes were warlike and others were not.  Tribal raids were common and some were dreaded by other tribes as fiercely aggressive and acquisitive of territory and resources.

When European explorers and then European settlers came to the land some wrote of their experiences with the native peoples.  There are many accounts of how desperately vulnerable native peoples were to stark winters in Canada when food availability became scarce and hunting compromised with the result that people starved to death.

Treaties were signed as nation-to-nation recognition of land ownership, between the British Crown and various native tribes which still have not been resolved to the present day between Canada, which remains an integral part of the British Commonwealth and those tribes' descendants.  And those treaties still unresolved remain a thorn in the side of Canadians, their government and First Nations peoples of Canada.

The reserve system which originated as a way to convince aboriginals that they could preserve their heritage and their traditional way of life without interference from governments at any level, and with the federal government paying out yearly compensation to the reserves has never been a successful solution to aboriginals' refusal to join mainstream society, preferring to live as their ancestors did.  They do not, and cannot live as their ancestors did; a constant struggle against nature and the elements.

But living separately and apart from mainstream society also means that they cannot fully take advantage of health, education and employment opportunities present in urban aggregations.  The funding handed to tribal-reserve councils meant to sustain and maintain the traditional way of life where native communities live in government-subsidized housing with no individual ownership, no pride, no wish to help themselves, no employment to keep themselves busy and fulfilled has led to generations of alcoholism and drug dependency where the needs of children are neglected, and aggression and sexual abuse is rampant.

People are fixated on watching television, on driving snowmobiles, neglecting the nutritional and nurturing needs of the young.  Glue-sniffing is rampant among young aboriginal children, and the suicide rate among children is appalling.  Their educational opportunities are constrained, and their family lives are miserable; children taken into the hands of child welfare are disproportionate by a wide margin between the aboriginal community and other Canadians.

Solutions are seemingly impossible to find.  The Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the First Nations leadership are continually at odds; the Assembly of First Nations has been incapable of producing positive solutions let alone working recommendations beyond the status quo and more funding,  and an adversarial situation has long been the norm between a puzzled government and an inept Assembly.  On reserves many chiefs and their band councils are corrupt mis-managers.

Which is precisely what Theresa Spence, Chief of the northern Ontario reserve of Attawapiskat represents; a failed leader incapable of meeting the needs of her people despite the geological treasures present on lands the tribe owns and for which they have garnered hundreds of millions of dollars in service contracts and millions in payment for allowing an international diamond mining company to operate there.

Each time gross mismanagement has led to a crisis on her reserve Chief Spence has declared an emergency and called upon the federal government to solve it.  No amount of money appears to be able to solve her reserve's problem of dysfunction.  She has latterly set herself up as a major figure in the long simmering battle between the federal government (the people of Canada) and the aboriginal community, threatening to die from a self-imposed hunger strike if the Prime Minister of Canada does not come to heel at her behest.

She, and the "Idle No More" social protest movement refuse to engage in serious introspection to determine what they can and should do to help themselves.  It is simply that much easier to blame government than to judge themselves and make an effort to improve themselves through the effort it would take to become responsible for themselves. 

Instead, threats and intimidation, illegal blockades, violent confrontations become the order of the day in confronting not their own limited sense of responsibility but their ever present grievance against history and fortune.