Editor:
Re: First Nation members ‘still in the dark,’ March 30.
The article on Semiahmoo First Nation highlights a couple of issues.
First, the Indian Act directs chief and council to be answerable only to Indian Affairs.
In no way do they have to listen to band members; moreover, chief and council are free to award any salary they want to themselves.
Second, underfunding of reserves is the norm.
For example, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal recently ruled the federal government racially discriminates against aboriginals on reserves, resourcing significantly less money to indigenous children health services than to non-aboriginals living off-reserve.
Third, since 1830, colonial and Canadian policy has been to individuate reserves.
To attain this goal, strategy has included installing as chiefs aboriginals willing to implement government goals of assimilation and the breaking up of reserves into privately owned plots. Reserves were never meant to be long-lasting; they are deliberately underfunded to encourage First Nations to leave.
And last, in dealing with chief and council who are irresponsible and self-serving, band members are left to their own devices. One hopes that potlatch ethics will return, when the social standing of indigenous leaders was based on the amount of wealth they distributed to the people, when equity not inequality was the goal.
Bob Burgel, Surrey
