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Indigenous

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

Published

2 years ago

11 minute read

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

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EXCLUSIVE: Canadian groups, First Nation police support stronger border security

Published on December 12, 2025

By

First Nation police chiefs join Texas Department of Public Safety marine units to patrol the Rio Grande River in Hidalgo County, Texas. L-R: Dwayne Zacharie, President of the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association, Ranatiiostha Swamp, Chief of Police of the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez, Jamie Tronnes, Center for North American Prosperity and Security, Goliad County Sheriff Roy Boyd. Photo: Bethany Blankley for The Center Square 

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

Despite Canadian officials arguing that the “Canada-U.S. border is the best-managed and most secure border in the world,” some Canadian groups and First Nation tribal police chiefs disagree.

This week, First Nation representatives traveled to Texas for the first time in U.S.-Canadian history to find ways to implement stronger border security measures at the U.S.-Canada border, including joining an Operation Lone Start Task Force, The Center Square exclusively reported.

Part of the problem is getting law enforcement, elected officials and the general public to understand the reality that Mexican cartels and transnational criminal organizations are operating in Canada; another stems from Trudeau administration visa policies, they argue.

When it comes to public perception, “If you tell Canadians we have a cartel problem, they’ll laugh at you. They don’t believe it. If you tell them we have a gang problem, they will absolutely agree with you 100%. They don’t think that gangs and cartels are the same thing. They don’t see the Hells Angels as equal to the Sinaloa Cartel because” the biker gang is visible, wearing vests out on the streets and cartel operatives aren’t, Jamie Tronnes, executive director of the Center of North American Prosperity and Security, told The Center Square in an exclusive interview.

The center is a US-based project of the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, the largest think tank in Canada. Tronnes previously served as a special assistant to the cabinet minister responsible for immigration and has a background in counterterrorism. She joined First Nation police chiefs to meet with Texas law enforcement and officials this week.

Another Canadian group, Future Borders Coalition, argues, “Canada has become a critical hub for transnational organized crime, with networks operating through its ports, banks, and border communities.” The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Mexican cartels control the fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine business in Canada, partnering with local gangs like the Hells Angels and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked actors, who launder profits through casinos, real estate, and shell companies in Vancouver and Toronto, Ammon Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and others said at a coalition event prior to First Nation police chiefs and Tronnes coming to Texas.

“The ’Ndrangheta (Italian Mafia) maintains powerful laundering and import operations in Ontario and Quebec, while MS-13 and similar Central American gangs facilitate human smuggling and enforcement. Financial networks tied to Hezbollah and other Middle Eastern groups support laundering and logistics for these criminal alliances,” the coalition reports.

“Together, they form interconnected, technology-driven enterprises that exploit global shipping, cryptocurrency, and AI-enabled communications to traffic whatever yields profit – narcotics, weapons, tobacco, or people. Taking advantage of Canada’s lenient disclosure laws, fragmented jurisdictions, and weak cross-border coordination, these groups have embedded themselves within legitimate sectors, turning Canada into both a transit corridor and safe haven for organized crime,” the coalition reports.

Some First Nation reservations impacted by transnational crime straddle the U.S.-Canada border. One is the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation, located in Ontario, Quebec, and in two upstate New York counties, where human smuggling and transnational crime is occurring, The Center Square reported. Another is the Tsawwassen First Nation (TWA) Reservation, located in a coastal region south of Vancouver in British Columbia stretching to Point Roberts in Washington state, which operates a ferry along a major smuggling corridor.

Some First Nation reservations like the TWA are suffering from CCP organized crime, Tronnes said. Coastal residents observe smugglers crossing their back yards, going through the reserve; along Canada’s western border, “a lot of fentanyl is being sent out to Asia but it’s also being made in Canada,” Tronnes said.

Transnational criminal activity went largely unchecked under the Trudeau government, during which “border security, national security and national defense were not primary concerns,” Tronnes told The Center Square. “It’s not to say they weren’t concerns, but they weren’t top of mind concerns. The Trudeau government preferred to focus on things like climate change, international human rights issues, a feminist foreign policy type of situation where they were looking more at virtue signaling rather than securing the country.”

Under the Trudeau administration, the greatest number of illegal border crossers, including Canadians, and the greatest number of known, suspected terrorists (KSTs) were reported at the U.S.-Canada border in U.S. history, The Center Square first reported. They include an Iranian with terrorist ties living in Canada and a Canadian woman who tried to poison President Donald Trump, The Center Square reported.

“Had it been a priority for the government to really crack down and provide resources for national security,” federal, provincial and First Nation law enforcement would be better equipped, funded and staffed, Tronnes said. “They would have better ways to understand what’s really happening at the border.”

In February, President Donald Trump for the first time in U.S. history declared a national emergency at the northern border and ordered U.S. military intervention. Months later, his administration acknowledged the majority of fentanyl and KSTs were coming from Canada, The Center Square reported.

Under a new government and in response to pressure from Trump, Canada proposed a $1.3 billion border plan. However, more is needed, the groups argue, including modernizing border technology and an analytics infrastructure, reforming disclosure and privacy rules to enable intelligence sharing, and recognizing and fully funding First Nation police, designating them as essential services and essential to border security.

“National security doesn’t exist without First Nation policing at the border,” Dwayne Zacharie, First Nations Chiefs of Police president, told The Center Square.

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Business

UNDRIP now guides all B.C. laws. BC Courts set off an avalanche of investment risk

Published on December 12, 2025

By

From Resource Works

Gitxaala has changed all the ground rules in British Columbia reshaping the risks around mills, mines and the North Coast transmission push.

The British Columbia Court of Appeal’s decision in Gitxaala v. British Columbia (Chief Gold Commissioner) is poised to reshape how the province approves and defends major resource projects, from mills and mines to new transmission lines.

In a split ruling on 5 December, the court held that British Columbia’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act makes consistency with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples a question courts can answer. The majority went further, saying UNDRIP now operates as a general interpretive aid across provincial law and declaring the Mineral Tenure Act’s automatic online staking regime inconsistent with article 32(2).

University of Saskatchewan law professor Dwight Newman, who has closely followed the case, says the majority has stretched what legislators thought they were doing when they passed the statute. He argues that section 2 of British Columbia’s UNDRIP law, drafted as a purpose clause, has been turned from guidance for reading that Act into a tool for reading all provincial laws, shifting decisions that were meant for cabinet and the legislature toward the courts.

The decision lands in a province already coping with legal volatility on land rights. In August, the Cowichan Tribes title ruling raised questions about the security of fee simple ownership in parts of Richmond, with critics warning that what used to be “indefeasible” private title may now be subject to senior Aboriginal claims. Newman has called the resulting mix of political pressure, investor hesitation and homeowner anxiety a “bubbling crisis” that governments have been slow to confront.

Gitxaala’s implications reach well beyond mining. Forestry communities are absorbing another wave of closures, including the looming shutdown of West Fraser’s 100 Mile House mill amid tight fibre and softwood duties. Industry leaders have urged Ottawa to treat lumber with the same urgency as steel and energy, warning that high duties are squeezing companies and towns, while new Forests Minister Ravi Parmar promises to restore prosperity in mill communities and honour British Columbia’s commitments on UNDRIP and biodiversity, as environmental groups press the government over pellet exports and protection of old growth.

At the same time, Premier David Eby is staking his “Look West” agenda on unlocking about two hundred billion dollars in new investment by 2035, including a shift of trade toward Asia. A centrepiece is the North Coast Transmission Line, a grid expansion from Prince George to Bob Quinn Lake that the government wants to fast track to power new mines, ports, liquefied natural gas facilities and data centres. Even as Eby dismisses a proposed Alberta to tidewater oil pipeline advanced under a new Alberta memorandum as a distraction, Gitxaala means major energy corridors will also be judged against UNDRIP in court.

Supporters of the ruling say that clarity is overdue. Indigenous nations and human rights advocates who backed the appeal have long argued that governments sold UNDRIP legislation as more than symbolism, and that giving it judicial teeth will front load consultation, encourage genuine consent based agreements and reduce the risk of late stage legal battles that can derail projects after years of planning.

Critics are more cautious. They worry that open ended declarations about inconsistency with UNDRIP will invite strategic litigation, create uncertainty around existing approvals and tempt courts into policy making by another name, potentially prompting legislatures to revisit UNDRIP statutes altogether. For now, the judgment leaves British Columbia with fewer excuses: the province has built its growth plans around big, nation building projects and reconciliation framed as partnership with Indigenous nations, and Gitxaala confirms that those partnerships now have a hard legal edge that will shape the next decade of policy and investment.

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