How are the systems we have in place--education, health care, social programs--failing these people and their families so that many people are falling through the cracks and ending up there?
As far as our aboriginal, indigenous, first nations folks, it's obviously a great start in the land claims process. There seems to be a huge focus now on the north being the new frontier again. We're going to develop it this time by putting the army there to protect it from encroaching superpowers who might want to steal our resources. But we haven't done a very good job of sharing the resources we have in the first place, which we've already harvested to a big degree.
The demographics tell us that the fastest growing sector of our population is our aboriginal people. That's where our future is. That's our potential. They're our workers of tomorrow, our geniuses, researchers, and health care workers, yet we're missing a whole ton of them.
We talk about income security, housing, and social inclusion. They're all nice words and concepts, but when the rubber hits the road, where do we start?