Edmonton a bleak place for reserve Natives

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Northern Native fleeing the desperate conditions of reserve life won't find life in Edmonton any more rewarding, says a report on the city's Native population.

The report prepared by the Edmonton Social Planning Council, said employment is the main reason Natives move to the city.

The income of most Native families living on reserves is well below the poverty line.

But Natives who come to Edmonton with hopes of prosperity are bitterly disappointed. Edmonton's Native unemployment rates are more than double those of the general population, said the report released March 15.

Only half the Native workforce worked full time for all of 1986 compared with two-thirds of the non-Native workforce.

Five per cent of Edmonton's population is Native, which gives the city, along with Winnipeg, the highest concentration of Native people in Canada in an urban area.

Because so many Natives are excluded from the labor force they are also excluded from many aspects of mainstream society resulting in various social problems, said the paper.

"In all societies, a combination of relative poverty and exclusion from mainstream society results in low self-esteem which in turn, manifests itself in self-destructive actions."

Natives make up 31 per cent of those "admitted to provincial correctional institutions, a proportion seven times greater than their share of the Alberta population." Natives make up four per cent of Alberta's population.

A similar trend is found in child welfare statistics. Of 8,000 files open in Alberta on Jan. 31, 1989, 31.5 per cent involved Native families.

The report also found a "clear racial correlation in the types of files open." Natives make up only 2.5 per cent of handicapped children services files but "as the type of intervention becomes more intrusive" the percentage of Native files increases. Over 45 per cent of guardianship cases involve Natives.

On a per capita basis, more Natives in Canada die from violence, accidents, suicides and alcohol abuse than non-Natives. The report assumes the same holds true in Edmonton.

The paper brings together information from various sources creating a profile of Edmonton's aboriginal people. "It is hoped it can be used by Natives and non-Natives alike in planning for change."