“It is clear that the Conservative government very quickly cancelled the proposed program because the social cost was simply too high.”
To the editor,
I would like to thank Nathan Hewitson for his contribution to this discussion. Being “shocked” and “appalled” is a very good thing, as that means that as a society we are paying attention to what is happening in our communities.
I’d also like to point out one important detail about petty theft that seems to have been glossed over in this entire discussion. There is one demographic in the world that commits more petty theft than any other. It’s not Indigenous people, it’s not white people, it’s not young people or immigrants either. It’s poor people.
Any policy that is specifically aimed at curbing theft will be a regressive policy that will inadvertently and disproportionately impact those members of our communities who have very little accumulated wealth.
In Canada, Indigenous people have very little accumulated wealth because European settlers removed from them the land and access to the natural resources from which they could generate and accumulate wealth. Even worse, the process of colonization also systematically eliminated the thousands of years of inter-generational wealth that is passed down through Indigenous teachings, traditions, language and culture.