What We Miss When Reconciliation Is ‘Economic’

Just over a week into his election campaign, Liberal Leader Mark Carney was asked about reconciliation during a speaking event in Winnipeg.

Then he quickly pivoted to economics.

“Within the first week, we announced as a government the doubling and the broadening of the Indigenous loan program,” Carney said, adding that the process of reconciliation is “fundamental to our country.”

“We’ve taken those initial steps to move forward,” he said.

The Liberal leader’s response was typical of an election focused on surviving the emerging trade war with the United States. As the federal government prepares to weather tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, Indigenous rights and reconciliation have taken a back seat to discussing the expansion of resource development, fuelling the domestic economy and diversifying Canada’s trade partners.

Indigenous leaders The Tyee spoke with said the parties’ focus on economics doesn’t fully capture the many issues important to Indigenous communities. They called on the next government to fully implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which was passed into law several years ago, one of several issues being left out or glossed over in the current election campaign.

“I don’t think that many Indigenous groups singularly focus on the economics of how any major natural resource project is affecting them. They’ll place equal, if not greater, weight on their continuing application of their own legal orders on the land [and] their own sense of stewardship,” said Merle Alexander, a Hereditary Chief of the Kitasoo Xai’xais First Nation and a lawyer practising Indigenous resource law.

Alexander said the parties’ recently released platforms brought few surprises, instead recycling tools “already being used to some extent,” such as revenue sharing and expanding the First Nations tax base.

“None of those are really original ideas,” Merle said. “If it was that easy, reconciliation would have been more straightforward.”

The Liberals

The Liberal platform, which was released Saturday, touches on Indigenous issues like self-determination, treaty implementation and moving ahead with UNDRIP.

It promises to support Indigenous communities searching for unmarked graves at former residential school sites and to implement the calls for justice emerging from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

But while it does offer a broader approach to reconciliation than the Conservative platform, the Liberal party continues to focus on the economics of reconciliation.

“Building at the scale and scope needed to build the strongest economy in the G7 will not happen without First Nation, Inuit and Métis participation,” the platform says. “To advance prosperity for all, we must work in true partnership to protect essential services and advance towards substantive equality.”

The party’s platform promises economic development through a new Indigenous education and skills training fund and post-secondary education funding for First Nations, Inuit and Métis students.

It reiterates expanding the Indigenous loan guarantee program to $10 billion from $5 billion, something announced two days prior to Carney’s election call, and promises to also expand the program’s “sectoral scope.”

The Liberals also say they will accelerate the development of “critical” infrastructure by expanding the types of projects the Canada Infrastructure Bank funds and exploring options for an Indigenous infrastructure bank. The Canada Infrastructure Bank currently funds transportation networks, regional transit, electricity grid connections and green infrastructure.

The Liberal party didn’t immediately respond to The Tyee’s questions about the types of projects that would become eligible for funding under an expanded Indigenous loan guarantee program or Canada Infrastructure Bank.

The Liberal platform’s reconciliation section wraps up with a list of promises that includes expanding reserve lands, declaring First Nations’ access to clean drinking water a human right, language revitalization and investing in Indigenous health programs and food security. It pledges to continue work on existing programs such as Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care, Jordan’s Principle, the Inuit Child First Initiative and child welfare reform.

In total, the Liberal platform dedicates three pages to “reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples,” mentioning reconciliation seven times.

The Conservatives

The Conservative platform, released Tuesday, dedicates less than one page in a section titled “Stand with Indigenous Peoples.”

It mentions “economic reconciliation” three times but does not include “reconciliation” as a stand-alone term.

The Conservative platform describes Ottawa’s current approach to Indigenous issues as “top-down, bureaucratic, paternalistic and slow.”

It suggests creating a “Canadian Indigenous Opportunities Corporation” to “advance economic reconciliation by allowing Indigenous Peoples to access equity ownership in major resource projects,” a promise that echoes the recently announced Indigenous loan guarantee program.

It suggests a refundable tax credit of “payments made by businesses to First Nations for resource wealth and commercial housing,” infrastructure funding “directly to communities” through the First Nations Fiscal Management Act, and an “Indigenous Outcomes Fund to support measurable, community-led solutions.”

Housing and infrastructure in Indigenous communities, it says, would be supported by simplifying federal funding programs, supporting Indigenous-designed housing programs and including Indigenous communities in national housing targets and infrastructure planning.

The NDP

A section titled “Putting Reconciliation into Action” in the NDP’s campaign commitments begins with putting UNDRIP promises into action through commitments like access to drinking water, education, health care and housing.

The party says it would work with Indigenous nations to ensure informed consent on energy projects and to implement all recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

But as New Democrats flag in the polls, which currently put the party a distant third, it’s unlikely to hold much sway in Canada’s next government.

Getting ‘rid of all those bureaucrats that manage the Indian Act’?

At a recent campaign stop in Smithers, in the northwest B.C. riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley, Conservative candidate Ellis Ross said, “Pierre Poilievre wants to get rid of all those bureaucrats that manage the Indian Act.”

“There’s no reason why, for a small Native community, you need 10 or 15 bureaucrats looking after us and going through our budgets and going through our projects and questioning us,” said Ross, who is former chief councillor of the Haisla Nation. “That day and age is over.”

Ross said he had been advising Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on how to support independence for Indigenous communities without amending the Indian Act.

The Tyee was unable to reach Ross for further comment and did not get a response from the Conservative party about whether the suggestions are reflected in the party’s platform. But they do align with the party’s broader promises to “trim bloated bureaucracy” by reducing the public service.

Experts The Tyee spoke with said that while a move towards greater autonomy would be welcomed by First Nations, it remains unclear what it could mean for existing services and treaty negotiations.

“It’s great to say you’re going to get rid of a whole bunch of bureaucrats, but does that mean that it’s going be more difficult to get in contact with somebody from Crown-Indigenous Relations when you need to?” questioned Gabriel Maracle, an assistant professor in Carleton University’s department of political science who focuses on Indigenous governance.

But Maracle added that Ross’s comments don’t come out of left field.

He said the current Liberal government has been moving towards something similar by transferring responsibility for some programs, such as health-care services, to First Nations over the past several years.

“In theory, this process of shrinking down the Department of Indian Affairs is already underway,” Maracle said. “There is less of a difference between the Liberals’ approach to reconciliation and the Conservatives’ approach to reconciliation in this iteration.”

In 2017, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada was dissolved and replaced by two new departments: Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada is the federal body responsible for negotiating with First Nations and administering the Indian Act, while Indigenous Services Canada administers services. Combined, the departments employ nearly 9,000 full-time staff and spend about $27 billion annually, according to Jennifer Robson, an associate professor of political management at Carleton University’s Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs.

Most spending stems from the federal government’s legal obligations or payments for services such as child welfare, community infrastructure, health-care services, education and emergency services, Robson said.

“The legal obligations that flow from treaty rights, which are only partly recognized in the Indian Act, extend to nearly all public servants,” she said, adding that firing bureaucrats would affect the delivery of basic services for Indigenous communities.

One common factor in both party platforms is a promise offering a one-window approach that would expedite major projects.

Working with other levels of government, including Indigenous nations, the Liberal party promises to develop economic corridors such as “ports, railways, airports, highways and other trade-enabling infrastructure,” it says.

The Conservative platform similarly promises to “unleash Canadian energy and resources” and “get big projects built” by creating a national energy corridor that would pre-approve infrastructure projects like transmission lines, railways and pipelines.

The Conservatives have also promised to repeal legislation implemented under the Liberals, including some that saw broad support from First Nations — the west coast tanker ban, for example — in order to greenlight major projects like pipelines.

Details about how the parties would fast-track approvals for projects that could cross dozens of First Nations’ territories remain unclear, Alexander said.

“I don’t think either of the parties have figured out how their fast-tracking is going to work, alongside them supposedly standing by their generally vague commitments to honouring the Indigenous-Crown relationship,” Alexander said.

“They’d have to change a lot of laws for that to be the case.”

Instead, Alexander, who was involved in creating an action plan for moving ahead with UNDRIP, said the federal government should focus on implementing the measures so that First Nations can be part of the decision-making process in addition to being beneficiaries to economic development in their territories.

But he said there has been nothing concrete about how the parties would assist First Nations to assert their own sovereignty and self-determination.

“You can’t have UNDRIP implementation and not have consent and how to achieve it on the table,” he said. “Making it only about the money is very reductionist.”

BC Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Terry Teegee echoed the importance of implementing UNDRIP.

“Certainly, economic development is important to First Nations,” Teegee said. “But I think at the same time one of the biggest pieces to it is a complete implementation of the Declaration Act.”

Both agreed that moving towards greater autonomy for Indigenous communities would require a bigger investment of federal resources — not a reduction.

“Things like UNDRIP implementation, for instance, is missing a significant investment in resources,” Alexander said, adding that it doesn’t seem likely that investment will materialize, given the current economic climate.

With the Liberal party currently projected to win a fourth term, he said the election outcome will likely result in the status quo for Indigenous communities.

[Top photo: Liberal party leader Mark Carney responds to questions about reconciliation at a campaign stop in Winnipeg earlier this year. After acknowledging the importance of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, the prime minister shifted to economic development. Screenshot via YouTube.]