Description

Looking at the recent census and the more recent release of City of Prince Albert Expenditures it makes sense to assume that many Treaty natives from surrounding communities are choosing to live in Prince Albert. Does it make fiscal sense for governments to try to maintain quality dual services i.e. schools, health centres, centres of governance, ostensibly servicing the same individuals both on reserve and in established nearby cities? It is obvious that bands cannot retain their youth on reserves. It is a new and exciting world for these young people and they have no intention of being held back from their dreams of urban life and the amenities and opportunities it affords them. It is time for governments; federal, provincial, native to come to terms with the new world that Treaty youth intend to inhabit, and bring the budgets, disbursements and future planning decisions in line with that reality. No more duplication of services, it is too expensive. If a family moves to an urban center the portion of grant given to the band for those individuals should be diverted to the urban government that now has to provide the infrastructure.
There has to be an end game to the current practice of trying to prop up an archaic and inefficient way of providing service and infrastructure for the burgeoning aboriginal youth population many of whom are choosing to live off-reserve to pursue opportunities, and most likely will never return to the reserve life for any significant length of time.