Canada

Except, of course, the province of Québec

Aw, come on — it's not just Québec. Every province has its own unique legal rights and obligations for its citizens.

Special status seems to be an excuse to exclude first Nations from the rest of society, and get a good conscience about it.

As a full blooded First Nation person ... I fully agree with him .... but in the future and not in this given generation or time.

The reason why we have special status is that we were promised a few things in order to live equally with our new neighbours. We gave up tons of land and freedom to use that land in exchange for a few goods and services.

The idea from the start was that we would take that bit of help and get up to speed with the rest of Canada and live as equals with everyone. Once we became equals, the idea of having any kind of special status would evaporate over time because realistically think about it ... once all First Nation people live, act, think, and function in the same world as everyone else on an equal footing, eventually, special status won't matter because we will have equal opportunity to everything just like everyone else.

That was one of the driving forces behind the white paper in the 60s .... that we should be equal to everyone else in the country. Unfortunately, white government Canada always has this lofty idea but never follows through it .... they dream of equality but never have the willingness, motivation or good will to carry out those ideas. They talk about equality but they would rather just put things into law and let people go on their own while they open the door to big business and corporations to have free reign to do whatever they want.

Government will always see special First Nation status and rights to land as a stumbling block for big business and development that want to just go freebasing over the land to do whatever they want. Honestly, if it weren't for First Nations, the entire country would be dotted with huge mining developments that would create, dump and abandon waste sites all over the country that people would eventually deal with when it was all too late and the country would have to pay for the clean up of industry's wasteful ways. If it weren't for First Nations, entire forests, ecosystems and protected areas would disappear or be disrupted from unregulated deforestation or forestry activities. If it weren't for First Nations, just about every major river in the far north would be dammed shut for hydro power and completely change the landscape, wildlife and watersway of the north causing irreparable damage and destruction that no one would care about until it was all too late. All that destruction and damage would be paid for eventually by Canadians .... because company's would do their absolute best to avoid having to take responsibility.

I do believe that eventually all First Nation people will just live as equals with the rest of Canada without any special status .... but not any time soon.

As long as First Nations live in third world conditions, we'll never be equals or have equality. As long as we live on our lands and we have absolutely no ability, freedom or way to govern our own lives and try to achieve any kind of equality, things will just stay the same for the foreseeable future.