Reserve system was set up to fail

Re: “Reserve system doesn’t work,” May 18, 2016

Dear Editor,

In any discussion of public affairs, I think it is important to admit that there is much we do not know and, even more, we must agree that in expressing opinions, we have to agree to disagree.

In that light, I have to disagree with letter writer Russ Horner.

I am quite sure that most students of the matter are not aware that the problem facing the reserves is the lack of investment in their economy. That lack of investment can be laid at the door of our banking legislation, which prohibits banks from lending bank credit on the deposit of title to natural resources as collateral. The USA, in development after independence, was not so inhibited.

That is also the reason that foreign corporations, not so constrained, can develop Canada’s resources but Canadian companies cannot.

The long term strategy of our Indigenous Affairs Department can be assumed to be to have our native populations move off the reserves in order to have the government cancel them and appropriate the land, and resources, both above and below the ground.

The widely publicized institutionalizing of native children was but one facet of that strategy to cancel their culture, which is more than a “culture club hall.”

In short, the reserve system has been set up designed to fail, sooner or later.

Ed Goertzen