Tuesday, October 23, 2007

The Indian mess

Jonathan Kay speaks the blunt truth about Canadian aboriginal policy. His analysis and prescription for a ‘fix’ is based on "three well-observed empirical truths":

The modern global economy is driven by cities...

...collective land ownership is a recipe for economic disaster...

Welfare destroys societies....

Mr. Kay observes that implementing the necessary change is "a massive legal and political undertaking". He’s absolutely right and I’d add that the biggest obstacle to change is the Indian leadership. If they don’t own up to the need for it and to their own responsibility for the present mess - there’ll be no meaningful change - which pretty much sums up progress to date.

2 comments:

Zookeeper said...

It astounds me that no one in the Indian Industry is willing to consider that doing more of the same stuff that got Natives to their current sorry state is just a bad idea.

If we want different results, we have to do something different. Bravo to Mr. Kay.

Balbulican said...

"If we want different results, we have to do something different."

Exactly. Honouring the terms of Land Claims agreements might be a start. That'd be different.