One of the most distressing set of interviews you have ever broadcast was that around aboriginal child abuse.
The statistics on the incidence of child sexual abuse among aboriginal children were frightful (measured at over 50% with other evidence pointing to something closer to 100%), although for various reasons, they were not completely surprising.
I say this because it does appear that a disproportionate number of aboriginal women are involved in prostitution, especially in Western Canada, and we know to a certainty that in most cases, the careers of prostitutes start with sexual abuse in childhood. Almost every time we read of the horrible murders of prostitutes by psychopaths, a disproportionate number of victims are aboriginal.
Of course, the high incidence of young people on the reserves ruining their lives gulping drugs or glue or gasoline or other noxious substances likely reflects the same ugly fact. These are acts of slow self-destruction.
It was almost breathtaking when an aboriginal spokesman came on the same program and claimed the study results reflected residential schools. His explanation may be summed up as claiming the residential schools created an army of aboriginal zombies who returned to their reserves to inflict this pain.
This is an absurd claim. He not only had not a shred of evidence for his claim, but just the sheer numbers involved in these events tell us he is wrong.
Most children in residential schools were not sexually or otherwise abused. The people trying to help them join twentieth century society were mostly well-intentioned.
The program was a mistake, but it very much recognized something we have lost sight of today, something crucially important.
The reserves are debilitating and obsolete concepts. Maybe, just maybe, in the late 19th century, they had some relevance, but today for certain they do not.
How possibly can remote reserves, of say 2000 people, supply the needs of young people today? How possibly can any of the reserves even provide high schools which equip young people to go on with their educations to become qualified members of a globalized world. They cannot.
We saw in the big wave of news with bad water at some remote reserves how inadequate the reserve system is, even for so basic a need as decent water. In much of the cheap coverage, that without any investigation and just repeating the same generalities over and over (something in which CBC Radio sadly participated), of those events, the government was blamed either by direct claim or implication.
But to anyone digging a little deeper, it became pretty clear the reserves themselves were responsible. There are expensive training programs the government gives for learning how to run these water systems, but the aboriginals taking them often drop out or fail or barely qualify.
Their educational experience absolutely does not equip people to run even the safe supply of their own water, let alone be competitive to train for professions and well-paid trades.
The reserves are a complete dead-end. The actual number of aboriginals earning a living with hunting and trapping is relatively small. What then of all the young people growing up in an environment suitable for little else?
And the aboriginal birthrate is high. The reserves are becoming more crowded with young people with almost no prospects of any kind.
I think it time we started being honest about the reserve system, stopping sentimental broadcasting as though it were still relevant to learn only hunting seals and picking berries. Both education and opportunities for meaningful work demand that most young people leave this system behind. Perhaps we need a strong temporary incentive system.
There really is no other solution to the multiplicity of terrible events plaguing this obsolete institution.
