[QatzelOk]

You haven't addressed the fact that the definition of genocide doesn't go beyond physical destruction.

It's important to address facts about dictionary definitions and official norms of protocol. This is important because it allows one to avoid talking about reality by instead concentrating really hard on semantics and pedantry.

Rather than arguing about dictionary definitions, think about how cruel and aggressively murderous the states that have eliminated their First Nations are.

Should they ever be trusted by other nations? Shouldn't other nations be trying to invade us and restore justice?

[Pants-of-dog]

It's the commission which expands the scope in order to make its argument for a genocide (as did you earlier in our conversation). You haven't addressed the fact that the definition of genocide doesn't go beyond physical destruction. You have just expressed a wish that it should. I don't accept it and neither is it accepted under international law.

I asked you how the law was retroactively applied as you claim. Please answer the question.

And I have already addressed the semantics debate about the word genocide. It was in my very first post. Feel free to address it.

And I have consistently discussed how Canada enacted a deliberate policy of ignoring issues in order to allow indigenous people to die. If you wish to pretend I was quibbling about the word “genocide”, you are incorrect.

If you wish to use the word “genocide” to mean only a deliberate government action to exterminate an ethnic minority, then Canada has done that too to indigenous people, but that is outside the scope of this particular report.

It was an assimilation policy, not a genocidal one, but the policy was being phased out and then discontinued decades ago anyway and hence you can no longer use it as evidence that Canada today intends to "destroy indigenous communities". You've shifted the goalposts and now talk about the legacy that Canada has not addressed. I'm sure Canada could do more, but that it hasn't until now does not mean it wants to wipe out the indigenous population.

You did not show that I was wrong.

Since that is the case, it is clear that Canada is currently following a deliberate path of ignoring policy recommendations, knowing that said inaction is causing death to indigenous people.

If you think I am shifting goalposts, then you have misunderstood. I have consistently argued that Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services.

A five-fold increase over 4 decades is not meaningless with respect to your charge.

Without a number showing how much money is actually needed, this is a meaningless number.

Can you explain how it makes sense that the Canadian federal government is currently spending 10bn on a population it wants to eradicate and that it has substantially increased its spending on people it wants to wipe out? It's probably also worthwhile noting that this federal funding is for the indigenous population on reserves (a bit less than half of all indigenous people) whereas the other half who don't live on reserves gets the same funding as everybody else in Canada. This is not pledged money but what has been spent. I believe Trudeau has promised to spend at least another 4bn over the next few years but I didn't include that in the figures I mentioned.

Once again:

The government chronically underfunds indigenous communities.

These communities then have problems like moldy schools, no clean water, no access to health care, et cetera.

They then blame the parents in these communities for not providing schools, clean water, health care et cetera.

They then take away all the kids.

The community dies.

The government takes their land and does not need to recompense anyone, et cetera.

I can keep repeating this.

The many who argue it "still serves that role" presumably includes you, yet you seem to be unable or unwilling to explain how the Indian Act in its current form is used to oppress the indigenous population, never mind how it shows genocidal intent or a wish to destroy indigenous people which was your original claim.

I think that a set of laws that target an ethnic minority and that does stuff like not allow them to vote, strips women of their nationhood, bans cultural ceremonies, forces them to break up their families, and is imposed unilaterally by the government (instead of by consent of the governed, like in a democracy) is a cleat cut example of state oppression.

Canada provided welfare/social and health services to the indigenous population, both living on and off reserves, during that time. You seem to now claim that the welfare state does not contribute to the welfare of the people living in it.

Since you have no evidence, despite repeated requests for this evidence, I am dismissing this particular tangent as unsupported.

For a genocide charge (or any of the alternative phrasings you have offered so far) you have a much higher hurdle to clear than this. I know of no government which doesn't deliberately follow policies that lead to the death of people and it is very common for policies to disproportionately affect certain subgroups of the population because there are variations in the way people respond to these policies, including variations between ethnic groups, e.g. see alcohol, so making alcohol freely available invariably leads to different rates in health conditions and deaths in any population.

At this point, you are agreeing that the government of Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services.

You are now arguing that this type of deliberate disregard for human life is common, and it is okay for westerners to ignore it, even when it is deliberately targeting an already oppressed and marginalised ethnic minority.

I realise that there are disparities and that in some cases they are quite severe. This is not, however, evidence for a desire to eradicate a group of people.

How am I wrong?

[Kaiserschmarrn]

It's important to address facts about dictionary definitions and official norms of protocol.

This is about the legal definition and I wouldn't be having this debate if genocide hadn't been argued for by the commission. So people who complain about this being a semantic argument or similar should direct their ire against the commission.

I asked you how the law was retroactively applied as you claim. Please answer the question. And I have already addressed the semantics debate about the word genocide. It was in my very first post. Feel free to address it. And I have consistently discussed how Canada enacted a deliberate policy of ignoring issues in order to allow indigenous people to die. If you wish to pretend I was quibbling about the word “genocide”, you are incorrect. If you wish to use the word “genocide” to mean only a deliberate government action to exterminate an ethnic minority, then Canada has done that too to indigenous people, but that is outside the scope of this particular report.

I thought it would be obvious, but here we go. In international law genocide only exists as a crime since 1945. In order to make its legal argument the commission goes back much further and also to a time when Canada as a state didn't exist.

You could stop the "semantics debate" easily by acknowledging that the term genocide, whether in legal or colloquial terms, does not apply.

You did not show that I was wrong. Since that is the case, it is clear that Canada is currently following a deliberate path of ignoring policy recommendations, knowing that said inaction is causing death to indigenous people. If you think I am shifting goalposts, then you have misunderstood. I have consistently argued that Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services.

None of the policies you mentioned was or is designed to exterminate indigenous people. It's quite telling that you feel the need to reuse the same carefully constructed phrase over and over to make your point instead of just admitting that you are arguing in favour of the concept of "cultural genocide".

Without a number showing how much money is actually needed, this is a meaningless number.

It's difficult to reconcile with a desire to wipe people out.

Once again:

Just assume that I'm repeating my previous reply to you here.

I think that a set of laws that target an ethnic minority and that does stuff like not allow them to vote, strips women of their nationhood, bans cultural ceremonies, forces them to break up their families, and is imposed unilaterally by the government (instead of by consent of the governed, like in a democracy) is a cleat cut example of state oppression.

How is it genocidal or designed to exterminate in its current form? Remember, that was your claim.

Since you have no evidence, despite repeated requests for this evidence, I am dismissing this particular tangent as unsupported.

As long as we agree that Canada's welfare and health services contributed to the welfare and health of the indigenous people and everybody else in Canada.

At this point, you are agreeing that the government of Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services. You are now arguing that this type of deliberate disregard for human life is common, and it is okay for westerners to ignore it, even when it is deliberately targeting an already oppressed and marginalised ethnic minority.

I don't think we agree, but if you do agree with me, then you have acknowledged that there is no genocide ongoing in Canada and neither is there a targeted campaign to annihilate an ethnic group.

How am I wrong?

Disparities are not evidence for a deliberate attempt to exterminate people.

[Pants-of-dog]

This is about the legal definition and I wouldn't be having this debate if genocide hadn't been argued for by the commission. So people who complain about this being a semantic argument or similar should direct their ire against the commission.

You could stop the "semantics debate" easily by acknowledging that the term genocide, whether in legal or colloquial terms, does not apply.

It's quite telling that you feel the need to reuse the same carefully constructed phrase over and over to make your point instead of just admitting that you are arguing in favour of the concept of "cultural genocide".

I am not interested in your semantics debate about the meaning of a word.

As far as I can tell, you seem to think that if the actions do not fit your definition of a specific word, we should ignore what Canada has actually done.

I thought it would be obvious, but here we go. In international law genocide only exists as a crime since 1945. In order to make its legal argument the commission goes back much further and also to a time when Canada as a state didn't exist.

You misread the report.

This particular commission and report deal with MMIW, which has only been a problem since 1980 or so. Are you clear about what MMIW means and what the actual problem is?

None of the policies you mentioned was or is designed to exterminate indigenous people.

Yes, they were specifically designed to exterminate indigenous communities by taking away all the children so that the adults would be unable to teach them the culture, and it resulted in mass deaths. We are still unearthing mass graves.

This has already been described as genocide by several Canadian judges. I will take their evidence and their findings over your lack of evidence.

It's difficult to reconcile with a desire to wipe people out.

Only if you refuse to compare it to the number of dollars actually needed to provide decent support.

Just assume that I'm repeating my previous reply to you here.

Then you have no argument, and the fact remains that the government underfunds indigenous communities, and then uses this as an excuse to remove children from their parents.

How is it genocidal or designed to exterminate in its current form? Remember, that was your claim.

Let me know when you have read the Wiki article, thanks.

And you seem to have nu argument that this is an oppressive piece of legislation, and have no problem with a modern western government having such legislation and oppressing an ethnic minority.

As long as we agree that Canada's welfare and health services contributed to the welfare and health of the indigenous people and everybody else in Canada.

No, I do not since you have consistently failed to provide evidence that indigenous people have benefited from these programs.

I don't think we agree, but if you do agree with me, then you have acknowledged that there is no genocide ongoing in Canada and neither is there a targeted campaign to annihilate an ethnic group.

At this point, you are agreeing that the government of Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services. You are now arguing that this type of deliberate disregard for human life is common, and it is okay for westerners to ignore it, even when it is deliberately targeting an already oppressed and marginalised ethnic minority.

Disparities are not evidence for a deliberate attempt to exterminate people.

Yes, they are.

If a country was trying to exterminate an ethnic minority, these are exactly the types of disparities you would see.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

I am not interested in your semantics debate about the meaning of a word. As far as I can tell, you seem to think that if the actions do not fit your definition of a specific word, we should ignore what Canada has actually done. You misread the report. This particular commission and report deal with MMIW, which has only been a problem since 1980 or so. Are you clear about what MMIW means and what the actual problem is?

If you are not interested in semantics debates, you could drop the claim that Canada is committing genocide. I have no problem with no longer using the word after you explicitly state that it is not applicable in Canada's case. If you think the commission has gone beyond its remit by arguing that Canada is committing genocide, you need to take your disagreement up with it, not with me. It's the commission which has tried to make a legal case, after all.

Yes, they were specifically designed to exterminate indigenous communities by taking away all the children so that the adults would be unable to teach them the culture, and it resulted in mass deaths. We are still unearthing mass graves. This has already been described as genocide by several Canadian judges. I will take their evidence and their findings over your lack of evidence.

Only if you refuse to compare it to the number of dollars actually needed to provide decent support. Then you have no argument, and the fact remains that the government underfunds indigenous communities, and then uses this as an excuse to remove children from their parents.

Let me know when you have read the Wiki article, thanks.

I already mentioned that residential schools were part of an assimilation policy which was quite common up to the second half of the 20th century. Assimilation was the intent, so we already have a suitable word for this and it's actually those who want to call it genocide who are playing word games and having "semantics debates". Not providing "decent support" is not equivalent to wanting to exterminate people, especially if the spending goes up so dramatically, the population booms and indicators such as child mortality are sharply reduced. As for the wiki article, I already told you that it doesn't support your contention that the Indian Act in its current form is genocidal. I've given you an opportunity to make the case yourself, but you have refused so far and retreated to argue that it is oppressive.

And you seem to have nu argument that this is an oppressive piece of legislation, and have no problem with a modern western government having such legislation and oppressing an ethnic minority.

Once you have acknowledged that Canada is not committing genocide or equivalent, we can talk about this. Until then I'll take it for what it is: a diversion tactic and retreat from your original claim.

No, I do not since you have consistently failed to provide evidence that indigenous people have benefited from these programs.

So now you are back to arguing that the welfare state does not actually benefit the people receiving its services. It seems very unlikely that you really believe that.

At this point, you are agreeing that the government of Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services. You are now arguing that this type of deliberate disregard for human life is common, and it is okay for westerners to ignore it, even when it is deliberately targeting an already oppressed and marginalised ethnic minority.

I don't think we agree, but if you do agree with me, then you have acknowledged that there is no genocide ongoing in Canada and neither is there a targeted campaign to annihilate an ethnic group.

Yes, they are. If a country was trying to exterminate an ethnic minority, these are exactly the types of disparities you would see.

In that case every country is or has been trying to exterminate parts of its population, e.g. the poor. Or in other words, if everything is genocide, then nothing is, and we are back to my original contention that we need a new word for actual genocides or targeted campaigns to exterminate people.

[Pants-of-dog]

If you are not interested in semantics debates, you could drop the claim that Canada is committing genocide.

Again, I have specifically avoided using that word in connection with the MMIW report, specifically to avoid this irrelevant semantics debate.

I am arguing that the government of Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services. Do you disagree?

I have no problem with no longer using the word after you explicitly state that it is not applicable in Canada's case. If you think the commission has gone beyond its remit by arguing that Canada is committing genocide, you need to take your disagreement up with it, not with me. It's the commission which has tried to make a legal case, after all.

Again, I have no problem with the report’s use of the word, because I read their clarification about what exactly they mean.

They mean that the government of Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services.

I already mentioned that residential schools were part of an assimilation policy which was quite common up to the second half of the 20th century. Assimilation was the intent, .....

The intent was to kill the Indian in the child, and destroy indigenous cultures.

The executive summary of the TRC concluded that the assimilation amounted to cultural genocide.[4]:1 The ambiguity of the phrasing allowed for the interpretation that physical and biological genocide also occurred. The TRC was not authorized to conclude that physical and biological genocide occurred, as such a finding would imply a legal responsibility of the Canadian government that would be difficult to prove. As a result, the debate about whether the Canadian government also committed physical and biological genocide against Indigenous populations remains open.

It seems that the mass graves plus the intent to exterminate communities is still not enough to convince westerners that their leaders sometimes do bad things.

Not providing "decent support" is not equivalent to wanting to exterminate people, especially if the spending goes up so dramatically, the population booms and indicators such as child mortality are sharply reduced. As for the wiki article, I already told you that it doesn't support your contention that the Indian Act in its current form is genocidal. I've given you an opportunity to make the case yourself, but you have refused so far and retreated to argue that it is oppressive.

This is just a point form rehashing if your previous unsupported claims.

I will go through them:

1. If you know that withholding support will result in death, and you deliberately withhold support, then nor providing decent support is effectively the same as wanting to exterminate people. You have yet to show how one is different from the other.

2. It does not matter if the spending went up dramatically if the spending is still not enough to deliver basic services. And this is the case in Canada right now. Until you provide the amount of money it would require to adequately support indigenous communities, this number does not tell us anything.

3. You have not shown that people in indigenous communities are improving and that this improvement is due to Canadian policy and spending.

4. The Indian Act included, and still includes, criteria that allow the federal government to determine who is and is not indigenous instead of allowing the communities to do so, which then was, and is, used to reduce the number of people who can claim status. And this is just one of the many ways in which this legislation is and was used to reduce the number if indigenous people. Also, I never claimed it was “genocidal” since you have such a high standard for that word when it comes to western governments.

Once you have acknowledged that Canada is not committing genocide or equivalent, we can talk about this. Until then I'll take it for what it is: a diversion tactic and retreat from your original claim.

Canada is committing genocide, if we define genocide as of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves".

So now you are back to arguing that the welfare state does not actually benefit the people receiving its services. It seems very unlikely that you really believe that.

Considering what I know about lack of water treatment facilities, moldy schools, no hospitals, et cetera for indigenous communities, I understand the gulf between promising money and actually delivering services that have beneficial impacts.

I believe they promised money. They may even have spent some; some may even have have been spent on indigenous communities.

I don't think we agree, but if you do agree with me, then you have acknowledged that there is no genocide ongoing in Canada and neither is there a targeted campaign to annihilate an ethnic group.

Actually, you argued that people die all the time because of government neglect, and that governments also routinely ignore certain racial groups disproportionately, which is the equivalent of agreeing with me that Canada’s indigenous people are dying of neglect, and then going on to say that this is normal and acceptable.

And I am arguing that Canada is deliberately allowing indigenous people to die if neglect. So the only bit you ignored was the deliberate intent.

Do you agree or disagree that Canada acted with deliberate intent?

In that case every country is or has been trying to exterminate parts of its population, e.g. the poor. Or in other words, if everything is genocide, then nothing is, and we are back to my original contention that we need a new word for actual genocides or targeted campaigns to exterminate people.

If another country is also guilty of “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services, then we should also hold them accountable.

[QatzelOk]

If you are not interested in semantics debates, you could drop the claim that Canada is committing genocide. I have no problem with no longer using the word after you explicitly state that it is not applicable in Canada's case.
...
Once you have acknowledged that Canada is not committing genocide or equivalent, we can talk about this.

... if you do agree with me, then you have acknowledged that there is no genocide ongoing in Canada and neither is there a targeted campaign to annihilate an ethnic group.

It seems really important for you to deny that Canada is a genocide-positive entity. So explain what happened to the Acadians in 1755. Explain what happened to the Metis in the late 1800s. Explain why starvation, sterilization, and imprisonment on crappy reserves are part of Canada's historic strategies in "Nation building."

If you won't or can't, it's because your mission in life is to create some kind of "Canada" that would look good on TV, rather than being brutally frank about what happened to the First Nations and Inuit... up to the present.

Be honest, and you will realize that North Americans on both sides of the USA/Can border are living in post-holocaust states that continue to kill and impoverish other nations (in Africa and South America especially in my lifetime) using the same strategies and for the same purpose that the Canadian elite have always killed and impoverished other nations.

That's why it's so important to realize that Canada is a genocidal capitalist state: so it might stop being this eventually.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Again, I have specifically avoided using that word in connection with the MMIW report, specifically to avoid this irrelevant semantics debate. I am arguing that the government of Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services. Do you disagree? Again, I have no problem with the report’s use of the word, because I read their clarification about what exactly they mean. They mean that the government of Canada is guilty of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services.

You are contradicting yourself here. Either you want to play semantics by redefining words (what you call "clarification") or you don't.

Also note that you are wrong. The commission made the following claim:

Canada has displayed acontinuous policy, with shifting expressed motives but an ultimately steady intention, to destroy Indigenous peoples physically, biologically, and as social units, thereby fulfilling the required specific intent element.

The intent was to kill the Indian in the child, and destroy indigenous cultures. The executive summary of the TRC concluded that the assimilation amounted to cultural genocide.[4]:1 The ambiguity of the phrasing allowed for the interpretation that physical and biological genocide also occurred. The TRC was not authorized to conclude that physical and biological genocide occurred, as such a finding would imply a legal responsibility of the Canadian government that would be difficult to prove. As a result, the debate about whether the Canadian government also committed physical and biological genocide against Indigenous populations remains open. It seems that the mass graves plus the intent to exterminate communities is still not enough to convince westerners that their leaders sometimes do bad things.

You are quoting from an outdated report, see above for the current claim. The use of "cultural genocide" is just another instance of the semantics debate you apparently so dislike. It was quite obviously an assimilation policy and I'm not going to you let divert the discussion by wrongly accusing me that I don't acknowledge that westerners "do bad things".

This is just a point form rehashing if your previous unsupported claims. I will go through them:
1. If you know that withholding support will result in death, and you deliberately withhold support, then nor providing decent support is effectively the same as wanting to exterminate people. You have yet to show how one is different from the other.
2. It does not matter if the spending went up dramatically if the spending is still not enough to deliver basic services. And this is the case in Canada right now. Until you provide the amount of money it would require to adequately support indigenous communities, this number does not tell us anything.
3. You have not shown that people in indigenous communities are improving and that this improvement is due to Canadian policy and spending.
4. The Indian Act included, and still includes, criteria that allow the federal government to determine who is and is not indigenous instead of allowing the communities to do so, which then was, and is, used to reduce the number of people who can claim status. And this is just one of the many ways in which this legislation is and was used to reduce the number if indigenous people. Also, I never claimed it was “genocidal” since you have such a high standard for that word when it comes to western governments.

I'll rehash in response to your rehashing, but I'm not going to repeat everything I said previously as you do; you can refer back to my previous posts.

The only thing I'll note is that your denial that the indicators I mentioned have improved greatly for indigenous people starting in the second half of the 20th century and that the Canadian welfare state and the services it provides have substantially contributed to this is a testament for how dishonest this debate is conducted on your part.

Canada is committing genocide, if we define genocide as of "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves".

Again, you are playing semantics while complaining about it.

Considering what I know about lack of water treatment facilities, moldy schools, no hospitals, et cetera for indigenous communities, I understand the gulf between promising money and actually delivering services that have beneficial impacts. I believe they promised money. They may even have spent some; some may even have have been spent on indigenous communities.

The figures I mentioned were money spent by the federal government on indigenous people on reserves which I understand is around half of all indigenous people. The other half of the indigenous population is funded like everybody else in Canada.

Actually, you argued that people die all the time because of government neglect, and that governments also routinely ignore certain racial groups disproportionately, which is the equivalent of agreeing with me that Canada’s indigenous people are dying of neglect, and then going on to say that this is normal and acceptable. And I am arguing that Canada is deliberately allowing indigenous people to die if neglect. So the only bit you ignored was the deliberate intent. Do you agree or disagree that Canada acted with deliberate intent? If another country is also guilty of “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services, then we should also hold them accountable.

I'm not restricting my argument to protected groups. Since we are redefining genocide at our leisure, I'll include any group for which there are disparities in outcomes which governments know about and accept. For instance, in Britain there has been the claim that over 100,000 people have died as a result of "Tory austerity", but in general it's pretty obvious that the poor as a group have always been subject to genocide by governments if we just tweak the definition a little bit.

[Pants-of-dog]

You are contradicting yourself here. Either you want to play semantics by redefining words (what you call "clarification") or you don't.

If you want to discuss this, please see where I already dealt with this in my first post.

Also note that you are wrong. The commission made the following claim:

That corroborates my point that the government acted w8th intent. How does it contradict anything I have said?

You are quoting from an outdated report, see above for the current claim. The use of "cultural genocide" is just another instance of the semantics debate you apparently so dislike. It was quite obviously an assimilation policy and I'm not going to you let divert the discussion by wrongly accusing me that I don't acknowledge that westerners "do bad things".

The report I quoted there was the TRC report, which is not outdated. It is a separate report about a separate set of instances of intentional destruction of indigenous communities.

I'll rehash in response to your rehashing, but I'm not going to repeat everything I said previously as you do; you can refer back to my previous posts.

The only thing I'll note is that your denial that the indicators I mentioned have improved greatly for indigenous people starting in the second half of the 20th century and that the Canadian welfare state and the services it provides have substantially contributed to this is a testament for how dishonest this debate is conducted on your part.

Again, you ahve not provided evidence that indigenous people actually benefited fro any programs.

If it is “dishonest” of me to point out that you are bot supporting your claims, then it seems weird to be called dishonest for pointing out a fact.

Again, you are playing semantics while complaining about it.

No, I am repeating my argument, as well as clarifying that tge report never used genocide in 5e way that you claimed that tge report used the word.

The figures I mentioned were money spent by the federal government on indigenous people on reserves which I understand is around half of all indigenous people. The other half of the indigenous population is funded like everybody else in Canada.

Yes, i know.

And again, without comparing this number to the number of dollars actually needed to provide adequate support, this is a meaningless number.

I'm not restricting my argument to protected groups. Since we are redefining genocide at our leisure, I'll include any group for which there are disparities in outcomes which governments know about and accept. For instance, in Britain there has been the claim that over 100,000 people have died as a result of "Tory austerity", but in general it's pretty obvious that the poor as a group have always been subject to genocide by governments if we just tweak the definition a little bit.

If you wish to show that the tories have guilty of “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services, then we should look at the evidence and see if we should also hold them accountable.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

If you want to discuss this, please see where I already dealt with this in my first post. That corroborates my point that the government acted w8th intent. How does it contradict anything I have said? The report I quoted there was the TRC report, which is not outdated. It is a separate report about a separate set of instances of intentional destruction of indigenous communities.

You have not dealt with the fact that you are playing semantics while complaining about it. Your quote is just about recasting assimilation policies as "genocide", i.e. the semantics debate you don't like, and:

The TRC was not authorized to conclude that physical and biological genocide occurred, as such a finding would imply a legal responsibility of the Canadian government that would be difficult to prove.

The current claim, which I have quoted in my previous post, is about physical and biological genocide in addition to the above invention. Please do read your own quotes and my posts before responding.

Again, you ahve not provided evidence that indigenous people actually benefited fro any programs. If it is “dishonest” of me to point out that you are bot supporting your claims, then it seems weird to be called dishonest for pointing out a fact.

Again, you are claiming that the welfare state and the services provided by it do not benefit the people living in that welfare state.

No, I am repeating my argument, as well as clarifying that tge report never used genocide in 5e way that you claimed that tge report used the word.

I've just given you a link to the commission's legal argument and a relevant quote.

Yes, i know. And again, without comparing this number to the number of dollars actually needed to provide adequate support, this is a meaningless number.

Please refer to my previous responses.

If you wish to show that the tories have guilty of “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services, then we should look at the evidence and see if we should also hold them accountable.

The point is that every government on the planet wants to exterminate a variety of different groups by your logic.

[Pants-of-dog]

You have not dealt with the fact that you are playing semantics while complaining about it. Your quote is just about recasting assimilation policies as "genocide", i.e. the semantics debate you don't like, and:

The reason I do not want to get involved in a conversation about whether or not a specific word fits is because it lets Canada off the hook.

Canada created the residential school system in order to destroy indigenous cultures and communities. This was intentional and deliberate.

This was done by removing the child from the care of the parents and community, forbidding the children to speak their languages, dress in their way, practice their religion, et cetera.

Sexual abuse and deaths were widespread. Mass graves have been found. Medical testing without consent was performed. Malnutrition was common.

I do not think it is important to discuss whether or not Canada is not guilty of genocide because the mass graves were an unintended side effect of the malnutrition and forced medical experiments and an intent to destroy the communities. We should focus on the fact that they deliberately created conditions that led to mass graves and kept doing so until very recently, and hold them accountable.

The current claim, which I have quoted in my previous post, is about physical and biological genocide in addition to the above invention. Please do read your own quotes and my posts before responding.

Sure, but since this still does not contradict my original argument, I fail to see the problem.

Canada did and does intentionally seek to destroy indigenous communities. This includes actual deaths of people.

Again, you are claiming that the welfare state and the services provided by it do not benefit the people living in that welfare state.

Yes, that us the implied counterclaim. Since it is possible for a country’s resources to be distributed unequally because of things like class and racism and colonialism, it is perfectly logical for a welfare state to not benefit some of the people living in that welfare state.

I've just given you a link to the commission's legal argument and a relevant quote.

And the part you just quoted is consistent with the part I have consistently quoted about “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" primarily through omission of services.

If at any point I suggested that Canada was not guilty of actually causing the deaths of indigenous people by the thousands each year, let me clarify right now that I think they are guilty of exactly that.

Please refer to my previous responses.

Former PM Harper made roughly the same argument during the Attiwapiskat emergency, when he claimed (correctly) that they had given the community something like 98 million in the last few years.

MP Romeo Saganash replied by pulling out the numbers and showing that the 98 million, or whatever the amount was, was only about a third of the money needed in order to provide clean water, a school that was not a health hazard, housing that complied with health norms, and all the other necessary infrastructure.

The point is that every government on the planet wants to exterminate a variety of different groups by your logic.

Maybe they do. This is a whataboutism at best, so if all governments are doing stuff like this, then we should all do something about it and stop them.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

The reason I do not want to get involved in a conversation about whether or not a specific word fits is because it lets Canada off the hook. Canada created the residential school system in order to destroy indigenous cultures and communities. This was intentional and deliberate. This was done by removing the child from the care of the parents and community, forbidding the children to speak their languages, dress in their way, practice their religion, et cetera. Sexual abuse and deaths were widespread. Mass graves have been found. Medical testing without consent was performed. Malnutrition was common. I do not think it is important to discuss whether or not Canada is not guilty of genocide because the mass graves were an unintended side effect of the malnutrition and forced medical experiments and an intent to destroy the communities. We should focus on the fact that they deliberately created conditions that led to mass graves and kept doing so until very recently, and hold them accountable.

Again, the word has been put forward by the people tasked with the national inquiry and they've gone to a lot of trouble to make a legal claim as well. You have defended their usage of the word several times in our conversation, while also claiming that you are not interested in whether the word is used and complaining that my response to this is a "semantics debate". You need to get your own argument in order.

Sure, but since this still does not contradict my original argument, I fail to see the problem. Canada did and does intentionally seek to destroy indigenous communities. This includes actual deaths of people.

It is true that Canada tried to assimilate the indigenous population which clearly has led to suffering. It has also been unsuccessful in its objective and it has discontinued the policies. As long as you are not willing to acknowledge that an intent to assimilate is different to a wish to actually exterminate or destroy a group of people, we'll make no progress, because it's you who engages in playing semantics.

Yes, that us the implied counterclaim. Since it is possible for a country’s resources to be distributed unequally because of things like class and racism and colonialism, it is perfectly logical for a welfare state to not benefit some of the people living in that welfare state.

Depending on how you group people, there will always be disparities. There is no way the Canadian welfare state has not benefitted the indigenous population, especially since, as I have pointed out multiple times, the spending on people who live on reserves has increased quite dramatically over time and around half of the indigenous population is funded like any other Canadian since they live off reserves. The latter fact also begs the question why Canada allowed indigenous people to move to any place in Canada where they can live and access the same services like everybody else if it was so intent on exterminating them. If anything, the situation to me looks like Canada would prefer having fewer people on often remote and scarcely populated reserves, which are by their nature expensive per capita, and would quite happily provide the same type of funding to them that all Canadians receive.

Former PM Harper made roughly the same argument during the Attiwapiskat emergency, when he claimed (correctly) that they had given the community something like 98 million in the last few years. MP Romeo Saganash replied by pulling out the numbers and showing that the 98 million, or whatever the amount was, was only about a third of the money needed in order to provide clean water, a school that was not a health hazard, housing that complied with health norms, and all the other necessary infrastructure.

Please refer to my previous responses.

Maybe they do. This is a whataboutism at best, so if all governments are doing stuff like this, then we should all do something about it and stop them.

We could just not engage in histrionics and stop pretending these are attempts at extermination. Otherwise we need new words for actual extermination campaigns.

[Pants-of-dog]

It is true that Canada tried to assimilate the indigenous population which clearly has led to suffering. It has also been unsuccessful in its objective and it has discontinued the policies. As long as you are not willing to acknowledge that an intent to assimilate is different to a wish to actually exterminate or destroy a group of people, we'll make no progress, because it's you who engages in playing semantics.

The aim was to destroy indigenous communities by assimilation of the children.

And I wish to hold them accountable for that, and all the atrocities that happened during that time.

Depending on how you group people, there will always be disparities. There is no way the Canadian welfare state has not benefitted the indigenous population, especially since, as I have pointed out multiple times, the spending on people who live on reserves has increased quite dramatically over time and around half of the indigenous population is funded like any other Canadian since they live off reserves. The latter fact also begs the question why Canada allowed indigenous people to move to any place in Canada where they can live and access the same services like everybody else if it was so intent on exterminating them. If anything, the situation to me looks like Canada would prefer having fewer people on often remote and scarcely populated reserves, which are by their nature expensive per capita, and would quite happily provide the same type of funding to them that all Canadians receive.

Yes, they would like the communities to disband and be assimilated, and thereby lose their culture and rights.

This is yet another reason why they directly profit from their own underfunding of such communities.

And for a long time, Canada did not allow indigenous people to leave the reserve by means of a “pass” system where the Indian Agent in charge of the reserve could forbid someone from leaving if they did not have a pass. This ended in 1951. So, within living memory.

Please refer to my previous responses.

https://apihtawikosisan.com/2011/11/dea ... awapiskat/

We could just not engage in histrionics and stop pretending these are attempts at extermination. Otherwise we need new words for actual extermination campaigns.

Canada is engaged in actual attempts at extermination, and actual extermination campaigns.

We can use whatever wording you want. The point is that Canada is intentionally setting it up so that these women die.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

The aim was to destroy indigenous communities by assimilation of the children. And I wish to hold them accountable for that, and all the atrocities that happened during that time.

Yes, they would like the communities to disband and be assimilated, and thereby lose their culture and rights. This is yet another reason why they directly profit from their own underfunding of such communities. And for a long time, Canada did not allow indigenous people to leave the reserve by means of a “pass” system where the Indian Agent in charge of the reserve could forbid someone from leaving if they did not have a pass. This ended in 1951. So, within living memory.

Canada is engaged in actual attempts at extermination, and actual extermination campaigns. We can use whatever wording you want. The point is that Canada is intentionally setting it up so that these women die.

Assimilation means that the people involved become indistinguishable from the rest of the population in terms of culture, so had it been successful it would obviously have led to the end of indigenous cultures. A very common objective until fairly recently. Canada has discontinued this, so even the intent to assimilate no longer exists.

None of this is an attempt to exterminate indigenous people.

[Pants-of-dog]

Since you just said that assimilation would have resulted in the extermination of indigenous communities, you agree that assimilation was a process by which Canada tried, and is still trying, to destroy indigenous communities.

And again, Canada has not stopped almost all of the tactics and plans to destroy these nations.

For example, they have not done anything at all about MMIW except admit is an ongoing problem, despite being aware of the problem for decades. So this is a current example of Canada deliberately and intentionally putting forth and acting on a policy (of inaction) that led to, and leads to, death of indigenous people.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Since you just said that assimilation would have resulted in the extermination of indigenous communities, you agree that assimilation was a process by which Canada tried, and is still trying, to destroy indigenous communities.

It was in the past and in relation to culture, not people.

[Pants-of-dog]

It was in the past, and it is in the present. This is especially true for the MMIW issue, which started in the 1980s and is still happening.

The in5ent is to destroy cultures. The actual effect is the death of actual people, and the government knows this is happening and deliberately chooses this.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

It was in the past. There's no intent to assimilate the indigenous population now.

[ness31]

It’s a confronting proposition; that the same structures in place at the time when it was out and out colonialism, there for everyone to see, are still in place today, passed off as negligence and petty corruption. That is the essence of what the commission is saying, that is why it’s being labeled ‘genocide’ and why there is debate. And rightly so.

Who wants to accept that reality? Not me. Not your average Canadian who isn’t racist and cherishes their First People.

Is it a hangover of those old colonial days? Or is deliberate? The commission is denying any progress and saying nothing has changed. This is harsh, but maybe it is true. That’s why an investigation into the alleged targeted areas is important. Vested interests can never be too far away.

[Pants-of-dog]

It was in the past. There's no intent to assimilate the indigenous population now.

That is also incorrect.

While extermination policies like government inaction on MMIW are ongoing, so are policies designed to remove indigenous children from their communities and raise them as white.

There are currently more indigenous kids in white families through foster care than there were in residential schools.