If you are like me, you probably keep somewhat up to date with news reports, research etc. Specifically, I am going to talk about Indigenous socio-economic status.
In many ways, our peoples are standing at the brink, pushed for hundreds of years to very edge of the cliff. Aside from some pockets of success, we have so many of our communities struggling with everyday life: lack of access to clean water, shoddy housing, mould & mildew, encroaching corporations draining the land's resources and leaving behind toxic waste, Federal Government policies that do not respect the treaties nor the right to be consulted, completely inadequate and unequal funding for virtually every social program that general Canadians enjoy and take for granted, etc.
Even in urban centres, our people are facing a persistent income gap as this report clearly demonstrates.
Despite all of these challenges, our people are growing in number and we survive yet. I have posted the report in a previous blog that calculated over th next 10 years 1 in every 3 new entrant to the Manitoba labour force will be Aboriginal. I have also shared that there will be a net gain of a half trillion dollars in GDP and social program savings if Aboriginal people were to reach a higher education and employment level.
The possibilities and the hope is there. At least abstractly. On the ground, in the communities, how do we move from survival to success? From success to significance?
To echo our national chief, we need education. That's one part of it. We need to gain experience and knowledge from those who have skills we need. We need to build greater connections and partnerships.
We must also not lose our connection to the community - both in the figural sense and in the literal sense. In the past we would leave the community to hunt, then return with provisions for the community. Today, we must do the same thing, but the game we hunt now is education, experience, connections with sincere and willing partners (for projects, business, etc.).
This is a short post today, but it echos what I have been really feeling in my heart. Somehow, we need to begin diverting resources back to the communities, be they financial, knowledge, or skills.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Aboriginal Education Investment
As we look at the current recession and to the future, it is apparant that the economy in Canada is in peril unless some wisdom is adhered to. The status quo of the labour force and business world will no longer suffice.
Currently, one quarter of Manitoba’s youth under 20 is Aboriginal and projections predict that 1 in 3 new additions to the workforce over the next 10 years will be Aboriginal – even with the assumption of high immigration[1].
The Centre for the Study of Living Standards[2] calculated that the 2026 GDP would increase by 36.5 billion if Aboriginal Canadians achieved the same 2001 level of education and employment as non-Aboriginal Canadians.
Cumulatively, over the next 25 years, this would add a staggering $401 billion to the Canadian economy. Of that $179 billion would be a direct result of increased educational attainment. In addition, there would be a cumulative $77 billion in savings on social programs.
These impacts do not factor in the difficult to measure positive multi-generational impacts of increased socio-economic status on families.
Considering the economic advantage this represents (half a trillion dollars), it astounds me that very little is being done to address this. As we speak First Nations schools are receiving as little as half that of non-Aboriginal schools. As we speak First Nations daycares and family programs receive only a fracion of non-Aboriginal funding support. As we speak, INAC blocks every effort by First Nations schools to partner with provinces and offer vocational programs in secondary school.
I may be slightly pessimistic in saying this, but it seems to me our government is either ignorant beyond words or they are intentionally oppressing First Nations people. How else can we explain the illogical nature of the approach to the potenial mega benefit that can be realized with some sincere attention paid to the well-being of Aboriginal people?
There are so many statistics about lower graduation rates of Aboriginal people and we often wonder why. Nationally, the graduation rate is less than 40% for First Nations on-reserve (article). High school graduation is critical to gaining higher levels of income and breaking free of a dismal socio-economic status. The Government refuses to properly fund education for First Nations people so that the quality is too poor to be able to offer all of the extra amenities and educational offerings that make school fun and exciting.
The Government refuses to even pay for adequate infrastructure to house students and many communities do not even have a high school. What do they do? They are forced to send their teenage children to the city, without parental supervision, where they undergo culture shock, separation from family and friends in order to attend high school. All of this with the fact that due to under funding on-reserve, most kids enter high school several grade levels behind, being set-up for failure. This makes them excellent targets for gangs, sexual predators, drug pushers, etc.
How many non-Aboriginal sub-urban families would be comfortable sending their teenage children to a big city like Toronto - ALONE - for high school education? Yet this is what thousands upon thousands of First Nation families go through every year.
The Government knows about this and has for a long time, yet nothing is done to change it. Even after they have recently endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, they have repeatedly said nothing new will be done in their approach.
That`s a half trillion dollar statement!
Considering the economic advantage this represents (half a trillion dollars), it astounds me that very little is being done to address this. As we speak First Nations schools are receiving as little as half that of non-Aboriginal schools. As we speak First Nations daycares and family programs receive only a fracion of non-Aboriginal funding support. As we speak, INAC blocks every effort by First Nations schools to partner with provinces and offer vocational programs in secondary school.
I may be slightly pessimistic in saying this, but it seems to me our government is either ignorant beyond words or they are intentionally oppressing First Nations people. How else can we explain the illogical nature of the approach to the potenial mega benefit that can be realized with some sincere attention paid to the well-being of Aboriginal people?
There are so many statistics about lower graduation rates of Aboriginal people and we often wonder why. Nationally, the graduation rate is less than 40% for First Nations on-reserve (article). High school graduation is critical to gaining higher levels of income and breaking free of a dismal socio-economic status. The Government refuses to properly fund education for First Nations people so that the quality is too poor to be able to offer all of the extra amenities and educational offerings that make school fun and exciting.
The Government refuses to even pay for adequate infrastructure to house students and many communities do not even have a high school. What do they do? They are forced to send their teenage children to the city, without parental supervision, where they undergo culture shock, separation from family and friends in order to attend high school. All of this with the fact that due to under funding on-reserve, most kids enter high school several grade levels behind, being set-up for failure. This makes them excellent targets for gangs, sexual predators, drug pushers, etc.
How many non-Aboriginal sub-urban families would be comfortable sending their teenage children to a big city like Toronto - ALONE - for high school education? Yet this is what thousands upon thousands of First Nation families go through every year.
The Government knows about this and has for a long time, yet nothing is done to change it. Even after they have recently endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, they have repeatedly said nothing new will be done in their approach.
That`s a half trillion dollar statement!
Monday, November 1, 2010
Economic meaning
Many people have been drawing up conclusions that economic development is the path to empowerment and autonomy for communities - specifically First Nation communities. To some degree, I agree with this.
However, one must ask, what does economic development even mean? What does progress look like?
For starters, here in North America, we live under an economic system that is dominated by "new classical" economic philosophy and the culture of consumerism, materialism, and mass production. As Indigenous nations begins to build their own economies and strive to break free of the shackles of opression and poverty, it is important to ask the questions above and answer to what type of economic system is desired?
The prevelence of new classical and the predessors, "free market" and neo-classical, greatly concerns me because it is essentially based, at least partly, on the following principles:
While there have been some definite positives that have come out, we often forget to ask "at what price?" and "to who's benefit?"
With the first principle listed above, currency has meaning, we have lost the very meaning of work and life. Currency, was never inteded to have value in and of itself. It was, in its original use, intended to facilitate efficiency in trade between people and groups.
What I mean by this is that suppose you were skilled in making clothing. I might require some clothing and since, for example, I have a garden of vegetables, I come to you to offer a trade with the excess of the vegetables I have for some clothing. If you were in need of vegetables, great, we have a deal. But if you were not, then I would need to inquire what you are looking to trade for and find someone to trade vegetables with in order to get the trade items I need to meet your needs. Obviously that could lead to a long chain of trades. This is where currency simplifies things. Dollars represent, not value in and of themselves, but a representation of either a service rendered or a good produced. Hence, trade is simplified between us and we have no need for a long complicated chain of intermediate trades.
Thinking of things like this, work done in one country will carry an equal value in any other country - exactly as one would fairly expect. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. I can do the same amount of work here in Canada as someone in Congo, let's say, and my work will carry many times the value. What is the reason for this?!?
We have allowed banks and the financial sector to change their roles from safe storehouses of our representative symbols of goods and services (currency/money) into regulators and definers of what the symbols mean and what are their value. It is precisely this issue that gave rise to the current recession and near global economic collapse. It is precisely this enormous power we have allowed the financial sector to take that enabled them to manipulate the value of our goods and services - our very skills.
Placing an artificial value on an otherwise meaningless item (a dollar), gives rise to the pursuit of infinite profit. With the goal of infinite profit, little or no thought is given to environmental sustainability, future generations, ecological impact, fair benefits for local people, fair wages for workers, etc. So many examples of this could be given - oil spills, strip mining operations and toxic deposits left behind, mercury piosoning of Grassy Narrows, nuclear waste poisoning by nuclear projects, clear cutting of forests, pollution of water ways and lakes, sweat shops, human trafficking, slave labour and/or incredibly unfair wage rates, etc.
While profit is not a 'dirty' word in and of itself, when it becomes the driving principle, it loses its purpose. Progress should not be measured by the accumulation of endless profit. There is no reason why a business or corporation needs to strive for infinite profit. Yet in our current system, this is what shareholders demand so that they in turn can receive maximum gains for their investments. In our current system, our stock traders and financiers all demand infinite profit that they may siphon off their cut.
As a mini case study, why does Wal-Mart need to be a global empire with more buying power than nearly every country in the world? Why does CEO of this empire get to profit 587 of times more than the average worker [Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Definitive Proxy Statement (Form DEF-14A) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 20, 2009, p. 36]? Does he do thousands of times more work? Not likely.
In a recent article (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-08/wal-mart-to-end-employee-profit-sharing-in-february.html), Wal-Mart anounced that they plan to end their employee profit sharing program by February 2011. Why? Why is it that this empire needs to pocket even more of the share of the pie? This is precisely the problem with the pursuit of infinite profit to the exclusion of all else. Virtually every ranking system we have counts profit and growth as the supreme indicators of success. Even leaders, CEOs, Managers are all judged in their resumes with these very false indicators.
To draw an analogy, this is like slaughtering an entire herd of bison to trade its fur or horns, rather than hunting the one or two individual bison required to feed your family. It is like clear cutting an entire forest (gone forever) to become rich trading all the wood, rather than cutting only the few trees you need to build a home.
Obviously, as my third listed principle states, this is prioritizing immediate gain at the ignorance of future loss. Who cares that our processes are polluting the world with plastic? Who cares if I am creating a nation of poverty among workers? Who cares if I am crushing the livelihoods of local businesses? As long as I get immediate gains and profits, my resume and accomplishments will look good.
The fourth principle I have listed, that of supply and demand being the best indicators of the will of the people, is rather deceptive. On the one hand, people may reason, "if people didn't like it, they wouldn't buy it. Hence they support the product and its practices." Although, what is often forgotten is the fact that supply and demand are manipulated by media/marketing and by the selective exclusion/inclusion of choices in communities. Will my quality of life truly be lower if I do not buy the latest 70" flatscreen 3D HD LCD television? Suppose you have an appliance that runs perfectly fine except for one single part that you need. Good luck finding it. It is in th best interests of companies to stop supplying such a product so that you will have to throw away the appliance and buy a new one.
Companies have purposefully stopped making high quality items (like the cars or tv's of 40 years ago that are still running in near perfect condition), because they cannot pursue infinite profit if a customer has no need for another product for 40 or 50 years. So items are now produced with a much shorter lifespan. Who cares what damage that will have to our environment with burgeoning garbage dumps?
Supply and demand? Supply mixed with skillful propaganda (marketing) is the driver and demand is the dependent in reality.
Finally, we come to the role of Government. What is government? The representation of the will of the people (ideally... but politics is another topic entirely). Naturally, it is in the best interests of a company pursuing infinite profit to have little or no regulation. This way, they operate however they wish to maximize their profits without those pesky human rights and corporate responsibility concepts. If government has no power or influence or control over the parameters by which business operates, what voice or hope do the people have?
Who is there to stop a business from bumping toxic waste into the fishing lake? Or leaving toxic deposits behind on the land where run-off guides the toxins into the playgrounds and school yards of children?
All of these thoughts are simply that, my thoughts. I do not claim to be some infallible authority on the subject by any means. However, I will offer some closing thoughts.
Whether or not the economic system, nationally (or even globally) as a whole can be fixed, changed or altered, I am not sure. However, I do believe that local economies within communities can strive to be different and build a system that is more balanced and conducive to the human element. This can only happen if people begin to question what "economy" truly means and what is it they wish to see in their communities. Who should benefit from their work and by how much? Should the manager of a local IT shop make 10 times the amount of the technician who actually does the work? Is that the system desired? Who determines the value of specific occupations? Is sheer profit the goal? Or is it that a business is built to supply the needs of the community, not only in what it produces, but in what and how it compensates those involved?
However, one must ask, what does economic development even mean? What does progress look like?
For starters, here in North America, we live under an economic system that is dominated by "new classical" economic philosophy and the culture of consumerism, materialism, and mass production. As Indigenous nations begins to build their own economies and strive to break free of the shackles of opression and poverty, it is important to ask the questions above and answer to what type of economic system is desired?
The prevelence of new classical and the predessors, "free market" and neo-classical, greatly concerns me because it is essentially based, at least partly, on the following principles:
- That currency has actual meaning
- Infinite accumulation of profit is the highest goal to be pursued at any cost
- Immediate profit gains equate to progress and success
- Supply and Demand are the greatest drivers of what society needs and wants
- Government has no place in regulating or interferring with the economy
While there have been some definite positives that have come out, we often forget to ask "at what price?" and "to who's benefit?"
With the first principle listed above, currency has meaning, we have lost the very meaning of work and life. Currency, was never inteded to have value in and of itself. It was, in its original use, intended to facilitate efficiency in trade between people and groups.
What I mean by this is that suppose you were skilled in making clothing. I might require some clothing and since, for example, I have a garden of vegetables, I come to you to offer a trade with the excess of the vegetables I have for some clothing. If you were in need of vegetables, great, we have a deal. But if you were not, then I would need to inquire what you are looking to trade for and find someone to trade vegetables with in order to get the trade items I need to meet your needs. Obviously that could lead to a long chain of trades. This is where currency simplifies things. Dollars represent, not value in and of themselves, but a representation of either a service rendered or a good produced. Hence, trade is simplified between us and we have no need for a long complicated chain of intermediate trades.
Thinking of things like this, work done in one country will carry an equal value in any other country - exactly as one would fairly expect. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. I can do the same amount of work here in Canada as someone in Congo, let's say, and my work will carry many times the value. What is the reason for this?!?
We have allowed banks and the financial sector to change their roles from safe storehouses of our representative symbols of goods and services (currency/money) into regulators and definers of what the symbols mean and what are their value. It is precisely this issue that gave rise to the current recession and near global economic collapse. It is precisely this enormous power we have allowed the financial sector to take that enabled them to manipulate the value of our goods and services - our very skills.
Placing an artificial value on an otherwise meaningless item (a dollar), gives rise to the pursuit of infinite profit. With the goal of infinite profit, little or no thought is given to environmental sustainability, future generations, ecological impact, fair benefits for local people, fair wages for workers, etc. So many examples of this could be given - oil spills, strip mining operations and toxic deposits left behind, mercury piosoning of Grassy Narrows, nuclear waste poisoning by nuclear projects, clear cutting of forests, pollution of water ways and lakes, sweat shops, human trafficking, slave labour and/or incredibly unfair wage rates, etc.
While profit is not a 'dirty' word in and of itself, when it becomes the driving principle, it loses its purpose. Progress should not be measured by the accumulation of endless profit. There is no reason why a business or corporation needs to strive for infinite profit. Yet in our current system, this is what shareholders demand so that they in turn can receive maximum gains for their investments. In our current system, our stock traders and financiers all demand infinite profit that they may siphon off their cut.
As a mini case study, why does Wal-Mart need to be a global empire with more buying power than nearly every country in the world? Why does CEO of this empire get to profit 587 of times more than the average worker [Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Definitive Proxy Statement (Form DEF-14A) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 20, 2009, p. 36]? Does he do thousands of times more work? Not likely.
In a recent article (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-08/wal-mart-to-end-employee-profit-sharing-in-february.html), Wal-Mart anounced that they plan to end their employee profit sharing program by February 2011. Why? Why is it that this empire needs to pocket even more of the share of the pie? This is precisely the problem with the pursuit of infinite profit to the exclusion of all else. Virtually every ranking system we have counts profit and growth as the supreme indicators of success. Even leaders, CEOs, Managers are all judged in their resumes with these very false indicators.
To draw an analogy, this is like slaughtering an entire herd of bison to trade its fur or horns, rather than hunting the one or two individual bison required to feed your family. It is like clear cutting an entire forest (gone forever) to become rich trading all the wood, rather than cutting only the few trees you need to build a home.
Obviously, as my third listed principle states, this is prioritizing immediate gain at the ignorance of future loss. Who cares that our processes are polluting the world with plastic? Who cares if I am creating a nation of poverty among workers? Who cares if I am crushing the livelihoods of local businesses? As long as I get immediate gains and profits, my resume and accomplishments will look good.
The fourth principle I have listed, that of supply and demand being the best indicators of the will of the people, is rather deceptive. On the one hand, people may reason, "if people didn't like it, they wouldn't buy it. Hence they support the product and its practices." Although, what is often forgotten is the fact that supply and demand are manipulated by media/marketing and by the selective exclusion/inclusion of choices in communities. Will my quality of life truly be lower if I do not buy the latest 70" flatscreen 3D HD LCD television? Suppose you have an appliance that runs perfectly fine except for one single part that you need. Good luck finding it. It is in th best interests of companies to stop supplying such a product so that you will have to throw away the appliance and buy a new one.
Companies have purposefully stopped making high quality items (like the cars or tv's of 40 years ago that are still running in near perfect condition), because they cannot pursue infinite profit if a customer has no need for another product for 40 or 50 years. So items are now produced with a much shorter lifespan. Who cares what damage that will have to our environment with burgeoning garbage dumps?
Supply and demand? Supply mixed with skillful propaganda (marketing) is the driver and demand is the dependent in reality.
Finally, we come to the role of Government. What is government? The representation of the will of the people (ideally... but politics is another topic entirely). Naturally, it is in the best interests of a company pursuing infinite profit to have little or no regulation. This way, they operate however they wish to maximize their profits without those pesky human rights and corporate responsibility concepts. If government has no power or influence or control over the parameters by which business operates, what voice or hope do the people have?
Who is there to stop a business from bumping toxic waste into the fishing lake? Or leaving toxic deposits behind on the land where run-off guides the toxins into the playgrounds and school yards of children?
All of these thoughts are simply that, my thoughts. I do not claim to be some infallible authority on the subject by any means. However, I will offer some closing thoughts.
Whether or not the economic system, nationally (or even globally) as a whole can be fixed, changed or altered, I am not sure. However, I do believe that local economies within communities can strive to be different and build a system that is more balanced and conducive to the human element. This can only happen if people begin to question what "economy" truly means and what is it they wish to see in their communities. Who should benefit from their work and by how much? Should the manager of a local IT shop make 10 times the amount of the technician who actually does the work? Is that the system desired? Who determines the value of specific occupations? Is sheer profit the goal? Or is it that a business is built to supply the needs of the community, not only in what it produces, but in what and how it compensates those involved?
Friday, October 29, 2010
Welcome to my blog - an intro and overview
As this is the first post, I feel it is important to introduce the theme under which I intend to blog.
I wish to discuss two keys aspects to communities. The first of these is employment and the second is economic development.
With that being said, I thank you for following me on this journey and hope that my ramblings will provide some value for you.
Ken
I wish to discuss two keys aspects to communities. The first of these is employment and the second is economic development.
- Employment, when looked at holistically, covers the spectrum from early education all the way to long term career development on the one hand and employment within Indigenous communities to Indigenous inclusion in mainstream workplaces on the other hand.
- Economic development is a very large topic that requires discussion on the very meaning of economy and economic theory, elements critical to enabling economic activity, supports required, etc.
With that being said, I thank you for following me on this journey and hope that my ramblings will provide some value for you.
Ken
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