Hands Up, Anyone Who Didn’t See This One Coming
RightGirl at Girl on the Right on Apr 25 2008 at 6:10 am | Filed under: Feature Article
What do you think would happen if you gave a drug addict $10,000? How about $20,00 to a self-destructive alcoholic?
What about those people who have never had money in their lives, and suddenly win the lottery? We all know how quickly and destructively they blow through that cash (disclosure: It took me 18 months to run through the “blood money” I got when my dad died). They didn’t earn it, so it means nothing to them. Every day is a party, till the funds run out.
First Nations in the Yukon want to know how many deaths followed the arrival of compensation payments to former students of native residential schools.
Aboriginal leaders have noticed a higher than usual number of funerals in communities across the territory in recent months, even prompting one chief to organize a territory-wide prayer circle next week.
No one can say for sure how many of those deaths are attributable to the thousands of dollars in common experience payments going to former students and the social problems, from alcohol and drug abuse to suicide, that can arise from such payments, combined with their recollections of the residential school experience.
So the Council of Yukon First Nations says it will conduct its own count to get some firm numbers.
A prayer circle? Yup, that’ll do it. Beat a few drums and burn some sweetgrass, and surely there will never be another problem in the community again.
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