Will Increasing Costs of Reconciliation Benefit Aboriginal Peoples?

Tom Flanagan is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Calgary and Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute. He is the author of one new study on the cost of reconciliation.

During the 2015 federal election campaign, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau proposed a "framework for reconciliation" to address Aboriginal issues. After becoming Prime Minister, he reaffirmed that "no relationship is more important to our government and to Canada than to Indigenous Peoples." Noble feelings, of course, but taxpayers have the right to know more. How much will it cost and will it achieve an essential goal: to raise the standard of living for First Nations?

The government has split the former Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development into two new departments: Crown-Aboriginal Relations, Northern Affairs Canada and Aboriginal Services Canada. This bureaucratic reorganization accompanied by the transfer and renaming of programs prevents the public from gaining a clear idea of ​​the growth of budgetary expenditures. However, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Perry Bellegarde, estimates that this increase will be of the order of 20%, or $ 16.5 billion over seven years, starting from the beginning of the year. fiscal year 2016-2017, the first liberal budget.

Many other important expenses will have to be added to these estimates. There are three costly elements: Bill S-3, which relaxes the Indian registration requirements, will cost $ 71 million in one-time administrative costs and $ 407 million a year, according to a study by the Office of the Budget. Parliament. The government began negotiating Métis land claims, which could easily result in spending of $ 1 billion or more, depending on the value of the land and the certificates distributed in the 19th century. In addition, the government, in collaboration with the Assembly of First Nations, is reviewing the specific claims process. The previous Conservative government set aside $ 250 million a year for 10 years to settle new specific claims, and it's hard to believe the Liberals will do less.

Then there are compensatory payments to individuals for historical injustices. Total Indian Residential School payments initiated by the previous government will reach nearly $ 6 billion when all claims are settled and administrative costs are accounted for. A new clbad action is also under way for the cultural loss suffered by survivors of Indian day schools. It is too early to predict the potential cost, but it is likely that the government will not oppose the claim very much. Reimbursement of the cultural harm resulting from the Sixties Scoop clbad action (adoption of Aboriginal children by non-Aboriginal parents), accepted by this government, will rise to $ 750 million plus administrative costs. There is also a clbad action in favor of survivors of Indian hospitals set up in the 1940s and 1950s, primarily to combat the scourge of tuberculosis that had killed so many natives at the time. Plaintiffs' lawyers are asking for $ 1.1 billion and the government has proposed to negotiate a settlement. Future clbad actions relating to unidentified grievances are also required to arise in light of the success of previous litigation.

Canadians would not regret these rising expenditures if they truly achieved the goal of bringing the standard of living of Aboriginal peoples closer to that of other Canadians, but that is unlikely. Extensive research on both sides of the 49th parallel shows that Native American tribes and Canadian First Nations who achieve a higher standard of living do so by engaging in the marketplace and generating income – "own income" the vocabulary of Native Affairs.

Unfortunately, "own-source revenue" plays little role in the government's reconciliation framework; the term does not even appear in the federal budget documents. However, true long-term prosperity for Aboriginal peoples will have to come from their own income as part of their self-determination.