Before reading this first news article, I had no idea of the depth and severity of the problems facing Canadian aboriginals living off reserves. When you think of aboriginals on reserves, health problems do come to mind, such as diabetes, arthritis, and hypertension, but these reserves also have the majority of the federal governments funding, and the community of aboriginals to look to for support. Aboriginals living off reserves face terrible conditions, with less than half of the care and awareness. 60.1% of aboriginals living off reserves face at least one chronic health condition, and their status in health is listed as only being fair or poor. The majority of aboriginals off reserves smoke (51.4%), are obese (24.7%) and are heavy drinkers, 22.6%, although this number is going down. Off-reserve aboriginals are also lacking in the education department, having only 49.6% of all high school students graduating, and a poverty rate that is not getting any better. The chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples was "pleasantly surprised" by the statistics in 2001, because it was time that people started to recognize the issue. Aboriginals living off reserves are disregarded, not only by the public but by the federal government, who run the majority of studies on reserve aboriginals, and pay 58 million dollars for their diabetes plans, and 14.5 million for off reserve aboriginals.
Aboriginals living off reserves have to deal with the worst conditions by far, while the population on reserves deal with situations that do not fair much better. It is sad to see that the congress of aboriginals were so surprised by this survey, have we really disregarded their conditions to the point where they expect it to be the norm?
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