I personally believe it is a cultural problem.

I'm asian and I've grew up in poverty. I lived on Main Street, beside a shitty hotel/bar that constantly had problems, in a shitty little one bedroom apartment that my family of five shared. My parents were immigrants who barely spoke english and chose to move to Canada for a better life. My parents would literally work all day without complaint because they knew if they were smart about their money, were patient, and worked hard enough, they could get out of the slums. And they did. As did our other asian family friends who were in a similar situation as us. They never lost faith in their hard work ethic because even if in this lifetime they could not succeed, they could give us, their children, a better life than theirs.

Compare that to the culture of Native people who commonly blame their short comings on others. They're stuck at where they are unless they change their attitude. I am very sympathetic to them though. I mean, just imagine growing up as your average native kid. They don't really stand a chance.

You grow up learning about your history. Learning about the terrible things that Canadians have done in the past. Your family is struggling and your parents blame their short comings on race, as do your grandparents. You are quickly taught that people treat you differently because you look a certain way. Even your surroundings and the media tell you this. After all, how many successful native people do you know? You start to notice that it's mostly other races that live a better lifestyle than you do. What your parents say, and what your culture says, logically, makes sense. What motivation does that give a young person? Why bother pursuing education at all if you're convinced you're going to fail based off the colour of your skin? But maybe you're ambitious! And decided to work your butt off because you want a better life. But success doesn't come easy for anyone of any race. So what happens when you try your best and you're still not good enough? It just confirms what the people you grew up with were saying all along. Using race as a scapegoat becomes so easy. It's a vicious cycle.

But we can only try and help them help themselves. So we can give out a ton of scholarships and benefits to native people as much as we want. But it doesn't amount to anything if nobody is taking them.