Re: [Futurework] Re: Native People in Canada (Was: It's sex-security actually (wasRe: Sex, of course!))

[Ed Weick]

> Keith, when you refer to "hunters and gatherers" are you not usually
> commenting on ancient tribal survival behavior?
> Ed seems to be commenting on current behavior in the present tense.
> Are today's population of First Nation peoples concerned about dwindling
> numbers?  Anxiety about mixed breeding?  Is there a baby boom?
> Anyone know?
> - KWC

Karen, I can only comment on the situation in Canada, where First Nations people are among the most rapidly growing segments of the Canadian population as a whole, with a large proportion of the population falling into the younger (less than 25) age cohorts.  However, for several groups, there may be a problem of continuing identity because of a growing number of people who have moved off reserve and into cities such as Winnipeg and Edmonton.

 

The people I'm most familiar with live in the far north, the Mackenzie Valley and the Yukon.  I served as an advisor on land claims to the Council for Yukon Indians (CYI) for some four years in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  The situation there at the time was mixed.  Many people still lived a traditional lifestyle in small communities out in bush, but many people were also urbanized residents of Whitehorse and other larger Yukon Communities.  Nevertheless, there were still very strong familial and cultural links between the two groups, and there were some people who could not really decide whether they were part of town life or bush life.  Even the more urbanized people would try to spend some time "on the land". 

 

Socially, and by ancient tradition, the First Nations people of the Yukon were extremely egalitarian.  There was no class system, and people were followed and respected because they were genuinely able to do things and not because of who they were.  Also by ancient tradition, women played a very strong role in society and in political affairs.  My boss in the CYI was a very bright and very politically adept woman.  The head of the CYI at the time was a woman who subsequently became Commissioner of the Yukon, a largely honorary post, but one that got a lot of respect.

 

The overall Yukon land claim and self-government ("umbrella") agreements were finalized in the early 1990s.  I last visited the Yukon some three years ago, and rather sadly, found that the harmony that had prevailed among the fourteen tribal groups while the claims were being negotiated had begun to break down.  Historic animosities based on the roles various groups played in early trade relationships with Europeans had begun to reappear.  Some groups who chose not to be present at the negotiations had begun to accuse those who were present of selling them out.  Under the general terms of the umbrella agreement, each of the fourteen First Nations had to negotiate its own specific agreement, a process which was funded out of payments which a First Nation was to receive in compensation for giving up certain rights to lands and resources.  Some of these negotiations were taking so long that the compensatory funding was close to exhaustion.  As one Native leader put it: "We're paying the government to take away our land!" 

 

On the whole, however, I would argue that the results of the claims process were positive.  It defined and entrenched in law the rights of Native people to lands and resources.  It established self government, including the right to educate children as Native people saw fit.  Overall, given defined and entrenched rights, it put the onus on the Government of the Yukon and of Canada to work out suitable arrangements for coexistence with the First Nations.  For example, an overall health service for the Yukon probably makes more sense than having one for each First Nation, plus one for the rest of the population.  How then should the overall health service be structured?

 

Who should benefit from the claim was a matter for the First Nations themselves to define.  Many Yukon Indian people are of mixed Native and non-Native ancestry.  For example, the chief negotiator for the CYI had Swedish ancestry as well as Han Indian ancestry.  Nevertheless, he was included in claim because he had grown up as a Han and, despite being a resident of Whitehorse, had an intimate knowledge of Han culture and life on the land.

 

Ed

 

PS, for a more general, historic discussion of the treaties and claims process in Canada, you might look at http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636/native_claims.htm , which is something I worked on a few years ago.

 

PPS, I just remembered a study I did for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples on the general economic situation of Native people in Canada some ten years ago.  The Executive Summary follow:

Executive Summary

Social opportunity costs, expressed in this study as the value of forgone output, accrue to society as a whole for a variety of reasons. We examine costs which arise because Aboriginal people do not participate in the economy as fully as they might, and because they are unemployed, undereducated, often in poor health, incarcerated at far higher rates than other Canadians, and lack economic opportunities.

We have used data from a number of sources to derive reasonable estimates of forgone output for 1991. These have been projected over a 25 year period to 2016 as Base Case, Best Case and Worst Case Scenarios. Net Present Values were derived from the 25 year stream of costs using a discount rate of 10%.

The estimation of forgone output raises the question of the extent to which Aboriginal people should participate in the economy, how fully they should be employed, what level of education they should have attained, how healthy they should be, and what life-spans they should have attained. We address this by assuming that they should have attained average Canadian standards. What we then measure, and apply dollar values to, is the gap between the standards they have in fact attained and what they would have attained had average Canadian standards been met. In doing this, we are not saying that Aboriginal people should be like other Canadians, but merely that they should be as well educated and as healthy as other Canadians. The extent to which they are not is a measure of the ineffectiveness of the policies and programs which have been applied to them.

In our analysis, we first estimate forgone output, all causes, which is the overall productivity gap between Aboriginal and other Canadians. We then try to account for this gap by examining two sets of factors which we describe as general and specific. General factors consist of participation in the economy, unemployment, and differences in earnings. Specific factors include education, health, justice and economic development. The general factors are, essentially, measurements of economic performance, while the specific factors account for why performance is at the measured levels, not higher or lower.

Forgone output, all causes, for 1991 is estimated at about $ 3.2 billion, exclusive of the costs of premature mortality. Base Case estimated net present value of forgone output, all causes, for the whole of the forecast period, is in the order of $ 37 billion.

The tables which follow summarize forgone output for 1991 and net present values for the stream of costs projected for the 1991-2016 period. It will be seen that all three general factors, under-participation, unemployment, and lower wages are important in accounting for the overall output gap between the Aboriginal and all-Canadian populations. In total these factors account for 79% of the output gap. The remaining 21% occurs because the participation and employment gaps were evaluated using Aboriginal wage levels, and the wage gap was estimated using Aboriginal participation and employment levels. If Aboriginal people were to move to national rates of participation, employment and earnings, the additional employed persons would have employment earnings at national rates rather than Aboriginal rates.

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----- Original Message -----

From: "Karen Watters Cole" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 10:15 AM

Subject: RE: [Futurework] Re: It's sex-security actually (wasRe: Sex, of course!)

> Keith, when you refer to "hunters and gatherers" are you not usually
> commenting on ancient tribal survival behavior?
> Ed seems to be commenting on current behavior in the present tense.
> Are today's population of First Nation peoples concerned about dwindling
> numbers?  Anxiety about mixed breeding?  Is there a baby boom?
> Anyone know?
> - KWC
>
> I didn't say that males actually got away with having as much sex as they
> wanted. What I'm saying is that a high ranking male has more choice. Or,
> rather, that he is likely to be selected by the best females. I'm not
> suggsting a free-for-all. Just as boys soon settle down into a rank order
> after their adoloescence, so will adults settle down into something very
> close to monogamy.
>
> >I've worked with hunters-gatherers in northern Canada, and it really isn't
> >like that.  The ones I know are really quite monogamous, and by their own
> >ancient traditions.  There would have been hell to pay if, in there small
> >communities, every guy was trying to have sex with every girl.  There
> >undoubtedly was experimentation, as in our societies, and there may even
> >have been wife exchanges, but the overall objective was to keep the peace
> >for the sake of group cohesiveness.  Testostrone had to be kept firmly in
> line.
>
>