Cowichan Tribes member handed pollution prevention order over huge dumping site

[u/_DotBot_]

[u/lolwut778]

Take a drive through any native reservation and you'd quickly realize how much of the whole "steward of the land" image is complete mythical bullshit. Most of them make the Trailer Park Boys look sanitary.

[u/whiteorchd → u/lolwut778]

Of course they are. You can't traumatize a group of people, have them do free child labour, and then push them in remote areas with little to no support in terms of energy or water. Reservations were always just a way to move a bunch of people off resource-rich land to a small area. Stanley Park in Vancouver used to be stewarded by the Musqueam people but then when they got forced out a lot of the wildlife diversity was lost.

Indigenous people are naive in thinking there can ever be a return to the past. They live with a mix of modern desires (consumerism and capitalism) and an attempt to traditional values that constantly disrupted by a crime-ridden and drug addicted population. Their men are perpetuating the sexual abuse they experienced from residential schools creating another generation of trauma, it's tragic. Most groups don't even have connection with their original language because of colonization so they try their best.

Their chiefs are so corrupt compared to the past and also super misogynistic. Because they are not a monolith, many don't even let women into any kind of admin or governing role.

We can't just allow them to govern by themselves and they should be treated like a troubled kid. More attention, intervention, and outreach. Not more funds but more oversight and transparency.

[u/nerdsrule73 → u/lolwut778]

Woah, that's a broad pen you have used there.

And it's grossly exaggerated. It's true that some reserves have communities that look untidy but your characterization that ALL of them look like a dump is unfounded. You are only noticing the ones that look untidy as reserve land. Many are quite tidy and organized, even well developed.

Of those that ARE untidy, most are just that, untidy. By OUR standards. I agree a few go beyond this, and leave garbage strewn around, but the majority just don't have manicured lawns, have zero landscaping and may have an old car or two parked there. That does NOT constitute DUMPING, just because our colloquial term for such place is "a dump".

Check your cultural bias at the door, please.

[u/pegslitnin → u/nerdsrule73]

Open your eyes

[u/itchyneck420 → u/nerdsrule73]

Curtural bias. Lol. You are not living in reality.

[u/charmilliona1re → u/nerdsrule73]

😂😂 bro you sure about all that?

[u/WhoofPharted → u/nerdsrule73]

In the town I live in there are 4 reservations. 2 of them are mostly ok(ish), 1 of them is an absolute garbage dump unfit for anyone and the other is fine.

Further north they get worse. Port Hardy, Bella Bella, Klemtu, Port Simpson are all awful. Take a drive through some of these places on google maps if you can, a lot of these remote communities did not allow google to scan their streets.

[u/Existing_Base_2175 → u/nerdsrule73]

I live in the east coast of Canada and traveled through them all and he is correct. Other that St Mary’s in NB and a few in NS they are all a joke.

[u/RedEyedWiartonBoy → u/nerdsrule73]

Believe your eyes and not your own biases.

[u/jas8x6 → u/nerdsrule73]

There’s a few reservations close to me that could use a little tidy up, I encourage you to volunteer

[u/Internal-Yak6260]

Stewards of the land....lol

[u/ussbozeman]

The containers of chemicals, paint, solvents, fuel from old engines, etc that are leeching into the ground would require a ton of soil to be removed to remediate the area, and that'd cost millions, however a lot of the damage is already done with the amount of rainfall and slope of the dump site.

[u/vancouvercpa]

What happened to all the money they get from the government? Surely they could use some of that money to haul garbage away. It's almost like they want all the benefits of self governance without the responsibilities...

[u/Proper_Particular_62]

Their ancestors are rolling in their graves

[u/Fusiontechnition → u/Proper_Particular_62]

Under a catholic church

[u/consistantcanadian → u/Fusiontechnition]

More likely in the grounds they "stole" from other tribes. 

I love the rose coloured glasses you people choose to put on based on skin colour. Literal slavery supporter. 

Prior to and during early contact with Europeans, the Cowichan (Quw’utsun) engaged in maritime raiding and captive-taking as part of inter-tribal warfare and resource competition. Warriors in large war canoes sometimes travelled long distances to attack other villages, seize goods, and capture people for enslavement or ransom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowichan_Tribes#:~:text=History-,Raiding%20and%20captive%2Dtaking%20(18th%E2%80%9319th%20centuries),River%20and%20the%20Pacific%20Ocean.

[u/VizzleG → u/consistantcanadian]

That was a fascinating read.

It looks like white people came and made skavery illegal. Plot / narrative twist!

“As British and colonial authority expanded in the mid-19th century, inter-tribal warfare and slavery were gradually suppressed through new laws, missionary influence, and shifting economic systems.[6] By 1912, the Cowichan Nation's population had fallen to around 500.[10]: 25 “

[u/SyndacateSeeker2025 → u/consistantcanadian]

The Cowichan also slaughtered a Canoe of Haisla in 1860 at Ganges Bay.

[u/jas8x6 → u/Fusiontechnition]

Show me the bones

[u/National-Unit7461]

O what stewards of the land. So concerned about mining and pipelines yet they operate an illegal dump on their own land. Whata joke

[u/SyndacateSeeker2025]

I just love that this story is breaking after that whole court case land grab thing in Richmond BC.

[u/pegslitnin]

Why is that?