Poverty in Aboriginal Communities

Aboriginal poverty is a serious problem in Canada, to name a few issues, over forty percent of all Native Canadians living off of their reserves live in poverty, and many communities lack safe drinking water. The highest rates of impoverished conditions are in British Colombia with 23.5 percent and Newfoundland and Labrador with a percentage of 23.1.http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2006/11/24/child-poverty.html How can a wealthy nation such as Canada which is regarded as a multi cultural country have such high poverty rates among a particular group of people? I personally feel that this group of marginalised communities are kept in poverty because it is a way of colonialism. In class we talked present day colonialism within the Oka and the Kanesatake communities where the military had to control these communities in order to stop protests that were occurring because these people wanted access to land that they believed was initially theirs. These people are tired of their culture being taken away from them as well as their land. The government feels it is doing their part in giving native peoples on reserves to pay no taxes as well as hunting and fishing in the off season but these policies are not helping the overall communities because what they are giving is not enough for the community to live off, as well as better the lives of individuals within the community.
  One video on Youtube tries to address several issues within impoverished Aboriginal communities, the woman in the video talks about how Canada is rated 4th in the world on the UN Human Development index but if we took into account the national average of Aboriginal poverty Canada would be rated 78th.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=221aodFXomw That is a significant jump. Canada is hiding the fact that is has a racial issue within its own country and acts like it is working on policies that are helping Native Canadians but the money ends up in the wrong hands and does very little for the people who are in need of these funds. This video also talks about the high rates of child poverty and that half of aboriginal families are led by single parent mothers who live in poverty. If a person grows up in poverty and is forced to get a job in order to support his or her family then it can be hard to receive education.  Canada and Aboriginal leaders must get together and work on these issues as a group because the government’s strategy in dealing with poverty is clearly not working. Perhaps it is because Canada does not give much voice to Native Canadian communities.