Ethnic relations, Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Government relations, Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Social conditions, Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Economic conditions, Indigenous Peoples -- Canada -- Ethnic Identity, Canada -- Ethnic relations -- History, Colonialism, Poverty 

"Dances with Dependency offers effective strategies to eliminate welfare dependency and help eradicate poverty among North America's indigenous populations. Beginning with an impassioned and insightful portrait of today's native communities, it traces the prevailing impoverishment and despair directly to a "dependency mindset" forged by welfare economics. To reframe this debilitating mindset, it advocates policy reform in conjunction with a return to native peoples' 10,000-year tradition of self-reliance based on personal responsibility and cultural awareness.

Author Calvin Helin, untethered to agendas of political correctness, describes the mounting crisis as an impending demographic tsunami threatening both the United States and Canada. In the United States, where government entitlement programs for diverse ethnic minorities coexist with an already huge national debt, prosperity, he proposes, is more obviously at stake. This looming tidal wave viewed constructively, however, can become an opportunity for reform—among not only indigenous peoples of North America but any impoverished population struggling with dependency in inner cities, developing nations, and post-totalitarian countries."--Book jacket. 

313 pages : color illustrations ; 24 cm. 

Contents:
I had a dream ..
The looming crisis no one knows about
Implications of demographic trends
The first wave: Indigenous development prior to contact
The second wave: at sea in the colonial storm
Social impacts of the welfare trap
External expressions of internalized dependency
Economic impacts of the welfare trap
The welfare trap and political pathologies
From grievance to development mode: an agenda for action
The opportunity
Barriers to aboriginal economic development ... and the way forward
The role of education in building sustainable economies
Economic models to build on
The way forward for urban Aboriginals
The way forward for urban Aboriginals cont'd
Making up for lost time.

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (p. 295-308) and index.