Protest against Native poverty, but without the guns, please. We're Canadian, eh?

Canadian Native groups are protesting to "Make First Nations Poverty History". I'm not certain whether protests will actually make employers across the coutnry want to hire more Natives or give existing employees raises, or whether it will inspire Natives to start more of their own businesses to meet their objective.

It certainly isn't likely to cause the feds to actually consider the Liberals' scheme to just funnel $5.1 billion to Native communities without any method of accountability.

Still, it certainly is a laudable goal and the protests will raise visibility on an issue that is far too easy for most of the country to ignore. Canada is booming, government coffers are still overflowing and Natives certainly should be able to remedy some of their historic economic inequities. Best of luck.

But to the idiots led by Shawn Brant holding up Highway 2 in Ontario, remember: you don't bring guns, masks, camouflage gear to a protest, at least not in this country. Put away the guns and play nice.

Our Home and Native Land

Kudos to the Conservatives for putting Native land claims back on the fast track. New legislation to be co-written with Aboriginals will hopefully clear up a backlog of 800 land claims over the next decade or so and clear out some of the rot in our national fabric.

Will the news head off a planned national day of protest by First Nations people on June 29? Phil Fountaine, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, was evidently impressed enough to call today a historic day and added that he prefers negotiation to confrontation. Sounds promising.

We're in a unique period in history. A small minority can extract financial concessions from the national government of a multicultural population that no longer really represents the invading cultures - cultures that alternately conquered or demographically swamped germ-emptied territories of the decimated minority centuries ago.

This sort of legal action is not without precedent, but the opposite situation is far more common even in present day. The Han never bothered to financially compensate nations within China that their own ethnic group swallowed up. The Ainu people of Hokkaido also got nada from the ethnic Japanese. Same goes for Russia's far eastern native groups. Ditto for the pygmies and other groups that got wiped out by the Bantu in Africa before the European colonization really got going.

But just because everyone else is doing something (or not doing it) doesn't really make it right.

Land claims treaties on their own won't be a panacea for the poverty, illiteracy and lack of opportunity that are epidemic for First Nations people living on reserves and to a lesser extent in our big cities - but Natives and non-natives need to get along in this country. The government is right in its new rush to put the land claims behind us so we can focus on the future together.

(The video above shows a traditional Ainu dance outside of a replica of an Ainu home. Interesting parallels to some aspects of North American native culture).

Seals are cute AND delicious.

Canada's seal hunt is once again generating some bad press for our otherwise inspiring nation. Animal activists and environmentalists will go head to head with Inuit hunters demanding their traditional hunting rights and residents of a depressed province trying to earn an honest buck.

If seals weren't so darn cute, this wouldn't be such an issue. We cull about 300,000 of the critters a year. Newfoundland's fisheries minister notes that Germany hunts 1.2 million deer and over 500,000 wild boars a year, without any international condemnation. Hundreds of millions of fish are harvested from our oceans every year.

PETA's protestations notwithstanding, much of the human species depends on readily available animal protein and products to live. Besides, we have international laws to protect endangered species.

The seal isn't actually designated as endangered. Until such a time as that designation is given, seals are fair game.

Canada: rogue nation?

The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination "remains concerned at the extent of the dramatic inequality in living standards still experienced by aboriginal peoples" in Canada.

Rightly so. The status quo, in which native people have the worst outcomes in virtually every index of quality of life in our country, is just not acceptable.

Of course, it's not like Canadian governments haven't tried different solutions. Self-government, tax benefits, multi-million dollar settlements, affirmative action... it's all been tried.

Which is not to say that Canadians should just give up. On the contrary, for everyone's benefit, solutions must be found.

Whether that means little steps like allowing private ownership of housing on native land or more drastic action like doing away with the entire system of reserves, who knows? But for all our sakes, change better come soon.