Indigenous
Putting government mismanagement of Indigenous affairs in the rear-view mirror

From the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI)
By Ken Coates for Inside Policy
The failures of governance on Indigenous affairs represents an unhappy situation where the problem is, simultaneously, too much government and too little governance
In an era of a mounting number of interconnected complex and difficult problems, one feels sorry for the politicians and civil servants attempting to produce policies, programs, and funding that will make real and sustained progress. We are often confronted with the frightening realization that government, as it is currently structured and directed, is simply not up to the challenges of the 21st century. This is certainly the case with Indigenous affairs in Canada, where the federal government struggles to find the right path forward.
The socio-economic data is clear. Indigenous peoples lag well behind the non-Indigenous population on almost all measures: personal income, access to clean water, educational outcomes, rates of incarceration, health outcomes, opioid deaths, tuberculosis cases, overcrowded homes, and many others. Language loss is endemic, many communities struggle with intergenerational conflict, too many cultural traditions are at risk, and long-term systemic poverty continues to take its toll.
Most Canadians think that the government of Canada is doing a great deal – some people think too much – to address Indigenous challenges and opportunities. They point, as the government often does, to billions of dollars in annual expenditures, formal and public apologies, major court judgments in favour of Indigenous defendants, a seat at a growing number of political tables, and concessions on language, values, and priorities.
The juxtaposition of these two realities is troubling – despite the massive expenditures on Indigenous affairs there are continued and major shortcomings in First Nations, Métis, and Inuit outcomes and achievements. Frustration burns deep in many Indigenous communities, as it does among the general population. Canadians at large have heard the many apologies, hundreds of program announcements, billions in spending, and the near-constant uncertainty of legal processes, and they too are deeply concerned about the failure of decades of concerted government efforts to make things better.
Of course, there have been major achievements. While media coverage focuses on conflict and despair, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities have made substantial improvements, even with the current difficulties in mind. Post-secondary attendance remains strong, with continuing challenges with the high school to PSE transition. Indigenous entrepreneurship is a bright spot in the Canadian economy. Modern treaties and self-government agreements are changing how the government manages Indigenous policies, funding, and decision-making. And impact and benefit agreements have secured Indigenous communities an important place in resource and infrastructure development.
But frustrations with the government of Canada’s management of Indigenous affairs continues. Communities complain of long-delayed negotiations, difficulties with payments, the omnipresent influence of the Indian Act, files lingering on the desk of the Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, the inability to get promised money out the door quickly and efficiently, the imposition of complicated accountability provisions, and many other problems. Even major settlements, like the $40 billion allocated to address shortcomings in child and family services, has been bogged down in unrewarding negotiations.
The failures of governance on Indigenous affairs represents an unhappy situation where the problem is, simultaneously, too much government and too little governance. Starting well before Confederation, paternalism became the hallmark of federal policy towards Indigenous peoples. Government officials believed that they knew best and managed Indigenous affairs with scant consideration of Indigenous ideas and goals – and often with a firm, manipulative hand. To the degree that Indigenous peoples escaped the dominance of Ottawa, it was largely due to the shortage of government workers and money, which meant that most northern peoples were left largely alone until the 1950s.
In the 1950s and 1960s, in a massive wave of self-justified paternalism, government intervention expanded rapidly. Indigenous peoples were required to live in government-established and run settlements, typically in government-built houses and under the control of a growing cadre of paternalistic Indian Agents. Residential and day school education became standard fare – as did acute language loss and the disruption of harvesting activity and traditional cultures. Welfare dependency, extremely rare before the mid-1950s, replaced harvesting and the mixed economy as the economic foundations of Indigenous life, with all of the controls and intrusions that attend any reliance on government cheques.
Well-meaning state officials inherited the paternalism of their predecessors, believing that government-designed and -run programs would provide Indigenous communities with pathways to the mainstream economy and the benefits of the dominant society. A few achievements stand out, but generally the effort did not work. Indigenous communities were transformed into frustrated supplicants, relying on a steady stream of applications and approval processes to provide what were typically short-term grants that would fund core community operations.
The arrangements prioritized federal budget-making and administration over Indigenous decision-making and community priority-setting. The budgets grew dramatically. Federal officials made countless announcements. The number of federal civil servants grew dramatically. And individual Indigenous people continued to suffer. Through decades in which state funding and programming continued to expand, the gap between Indigenous well-being and non-Indigenous social and economic conditions scarcely narrowed at all. What did grow dramatically was social dysfunction, self-harm, and family disarray.
It turned out that too much government “help” could be as bad as neglect and inattention to Indigenous needs. Ottawa continued to supply earnest and well-meant programs, but they were built with diminishing enthusiasm from Indigenous peoples. First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities understood what the government of Canada did not: that community control was much more important and effective than Ottawa-centred policy-making. Much of the Indigenous effort since the 1970s has focused on righting the imbalance, establishing more self-government processes, expanding own-source revenues, and returning to Indigenous peoples the autonomy that had sustained them for centuries.
Indigenous peoples have their own agendas – and they have largely succeeded in changing the core foundations of Indigenous governance in Canada. Modern treaties have, for some people, eliminated some of the more pernicious aspects of the Indian Act and its associated bureaucracies. Self-governing First Nations are become more common and increasingly successful. The Inuit secured their own territory – Nunavut – and acquired considerable autonomy in Labrador and northern Quebec. Impact and benefit agreements and resource revenue sharing have given communities the funding they require to establish their own spending priorities. Duty-to-consult and accommodate provisions have given Indigenous communities a major role in determining the shape and nature of resource development. Major Supreme Court of Canada decisions continue to extend Indigenous authority.
This story of Indigenous re-empowerment has not yet fully unfolded, although the returns to date have been more than promising. Self-governing First Nations in the Canadian North and elsewhere have used their autonomy to very good effect. Communities near the oil sands in Alberta have used their involvement in resource extraction to create substantial autonomy for themselves. Near-urban and urban First Nations are supporting metropolitan redevelopment. Joint ventures and economic cooperation have become the norm rather than the exception. Struggles continue; generations of paternalism and government oversight are not overcome in a flash.
But the primary lesson is simple. State paternalism has been a force for disruption and manipulation of Indigenous communities. Re-empowerment, autonomy, and economic independence have demonstrated the potential to rebuild, enhance, and strengthen First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities. Decades of government mismanagement of Indigenous affairs must be put in the rear-view mirror. It is time for the re-empowerment of Indigenous communities to become the new normal.
Indigenous realities have changed dramatically, particularly related to Indigenous rights, expectations, capacity, financial settlements and community expectations. Government administration and policy-making, as current constituted, is not sufficiently community-centric, properly funded, appropriately responsive or driven by Indigenous imperatives. Despite generations of large-scale spending and many programs and announcements, basic conditions are far too often seriously substandard and real progress slow and unimpressive. With Indigenous people and their governments in the forefront, Indigenous governance and support requires a dramatic rethinking and Indigenous empowerment in order to respond properly to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
Ken Coates is a Distinguished Fellow and Director of Indigenous Affairs at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a Professor of Indigenous Governance at Yukon University
Canadian Energy Centre
Saskatchewan Indigenous leaders urging need for access to natural gas

Piapot First Nation near Regina, Saskatchewan. Photo courtesy Piapot First Nation/Facebook
From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Cody Ciona and Deborah Jaremko
“Come to my nation and see how my people are living, and the struggles that they have day to day out here because of the high cost of energy, of electric heat and propane.”
Indigenous communities across Canada need access to natural gas to reduce energy poverty, says a new report by Energy for a Secure Future (ESF).
It’s a serious issue that needs to be addressed, say Indigenous community and business leaders in Saskatchewan.
“We’re here today to implore upon the federal government that we need the installation of natural gas and access to natural gas so that we can have safe and reliable service,” said Guy Lonechild, CEO of the Regina-based First Nations Power Authority, on a March 11 ESF webinar.
Last year, 20 Saskatchewan communities moved a resolution at the Assembly of First Nations’ annual general assembly calling on the federal government to “immediately enhance” First Nations financial supports for “more desirable energy security measures such as natural gas for home heating.”
“We’ve been calling it heat poverty because that’s what it really is…our families are finding that they have to either choose between buying groceries or heating their home,” Chief Christine Longjohn of Sturgeon Lake First Nation said in the ESF report.
“We should be able to live comfortably within our homes. We want to be just like every other homeowner that has that choice to be able to use natural gas.”
At least 333 First Nations communities across Canada are not connected to natural gas utilities, according to the Canada Energy Regulator (CER).
ESF says that while there are many federal programs that help cover the upfront costs of accessing electricity, primarily from renewable sources, there are no comparable ones to support natural gas access.
“Most Canadian and Indigenous communities support actions to address climate change. However, the policy priority of reducing fossil fuel use has had unintended consequences,” the ESF report said.
“Recent funding support has been directed not at improving reliability or affordability of the energy, but rather at sustainability.”
Natural gas costs less than half — or even a quarter — of electricity prices in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, according to CER data.
“Natural gas is something NRCan [Natural Resources Canada] will not fund. It’s not considered a renewable for them,” said Chief Mark Fox of the Piapot First Nation, located about 50 kilometres northeast of Regina.
“Come to my nation and see how my people are living, and the struggles that they have day to day out here because of the high cost of energy, of electric heat and propane.”
According to ESF, some Indigenous communities compare the challenge of natural gas access to the multiyear effort to raise awareness and, ultimately funding, to address poor water quality and access on reserve.
“Natural gas is the new water,” Lonechild said.
Frontier Centre for Public Policy
John Rustad’s Residential School Claim Is False And Dangerous

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
When politicians misrepresent facts or historical events, whether out of ignorance or political expediency, they do a disservice to the truth and public trust. On Feb. 24, 2025, B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad reportedly told Global News that “more than 4,000 children did not return home” from residential schools because “those children died in residential schools.” As researcher Nina Green points out, this statement is demonstrably false and contradicts the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final report.
Sadly, Rustad is not the only one making such claims. Similar statements, portrayed as facts, are repeated by politicians who should know better.
The truth, according to the TRC, is that 423 named children died on the premises of residential schools between 1867 and 2000. That is a tragedy, and we must expand our understanding of how and why these deaths occurred. To learn from tragedies, we must acknowledge and reflect on them. But to truly understand, we must accept what is true rather than bending or distorting it. Repeating the claim that “more than 4,000” children died in residential schools, as Rustad and others have uncritically reported, misrepresents reality.
The vastly inflated number, according to Green, originates from the University of Manitoba’s National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), which has misrepresented the data by including children who died after leaving school—in hospitals, in accidents at home, and even well into adulthood. This distortion has led to widespread misrepresentation, misleading policymakers and the public.
Why does this matter?
Canada’s history with Indigenous residential schools is deeply painful. Abuses, neglect and forced assimilation were real in many instances. However, distorting the facts about residential school deaths promotes a false narrative of genocide that does not serve justice—in fact, this false narrative undermines it. If reconciliation means anything, it must be built on truth, not contrived political narratives.
By repeating the claim that more than 4,000 children died at residential schools, Rustad is spreading falsehoods and stoking division. This figure has been used to justify claims of mass graves, leading to international headlines and widespread outrage that harm present generations of Indigenous people. Yet, nearly four years after the first claims of unmarked graves, no remains have been excavated or verified.
Rustad is not a private citizen—he is a public figure whose words carry weight. As such, he is responsible for ensuring that the information he disseminates is accurate. Rustad is failing in his duty to the public. Depending on his motivation, he contributes to a culture in which historical accuracy is sacrificed for political expediency.
Some may argue that the exact number of students who died at residential schools is not important. But truth is not negotiable. If we accept exaggerated claims in one instance, we set a dangerous pattern for historical distortions. The truth should not be ideological or political.
If Rustad is serious about Indigenous issues, he should demand transparency from the University of Manitoba and its NCTR. Instead of accepting misleading figures, he should call for the full release of the TRC records, as was promised in 2013.
Leaders like Rustad must be held accountable. Falsehoods, no matter how well-intentioned, do not advance reconciliation. They erode trust, divide Canadians, and ultimately undermine the cause they claim to support. All Canadians deserve much better.
Marco Navarro-Genie is the vice president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. With Barry Cooper, he is coauthor of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).
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