June 2001
Constructive Options for Canada's Aboriginals
by Gordon Gibson
At a recent conference in Regina on aboriginal issues, I was one of a panel invited to present "Constructive Options for the Future." The conference was unusual, in that it focused on urban aboriginals, of whom there are some 300,000 in Canada. As John Richards of Simon Fraser University pointed out recently in the journal Inroads, in British Columbia there are about 2,000 Nisga'a on the Nass lands, and 50,000 aboriginals in Vancouver. For the past couple of years, we have heard an enormous amount about the former and virtually nothing about the latter.
What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong is that governments and the "Indian Industry" have preferred to deal almost exclusively with treaties and reserves. For governments, that is where the fashion is. For the Industry, that is where the money is.
I took the position that while all is not dark, the estate of aboriginals in Canada is sub-optimal, to put it mildly, notwithstanding an enormous amount of money spent over many years. The reason, I believe, lies in the relationship between the individual and the collective. Current government policy is to shore up the collective at the expense of the individual. We need a new paradigm.
It is only honest when giving policy advice to say where you are coming from. My foundation rests on the primacy of the individual, not the collective. As one of the other presenters, herself Metis and a teacher at a very successful local school with about 30 percent aboriginal students said, "First and foremost, I'm a human being."
But if the individual is the standard of value, that has powerful implications. One is that if collectives have value (and they certainly do—Canada is one such), that value is only to the extent they serve individuals. The same is true of culture. Yet governments and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) differ, finding value in cultures and collectives on a free-standing basis.
That is a fine debate, but surely one thing is clear—for any given individual, only that individual can decide which, for him or her, is the right way to go.
This is not an academic debate. In the 1996 Census, about 1.1 million people claimed aboriginal ancestry. Some 300,000 no longer self-identify as such. Their outcomes—income, health, family violence, suicide, unemployment, incarceration, and so on—are essentially the same as those of other Canadians. For these people, aboriginality is a matter of history, not current practice.
For the remaining 800,000 for whom aboriginality retains current meaning, roughly half are on-reserve and roughly half off.1 The measured on-reserve outcomes are Third World. The off-reserve people are in between. Strangely, out of these three outcome paths, the RCAP and government chose the Third World solution. They have plumped for an expanded and constitutionalized reserve system rather than either the integrated or urban (off-reserve) routes. Why?
It has explicitly to do with culture. To illustrate: why did Quebec separatism blossom after the Quiet Revolution which transformed a closed, conservative, religion-based society into an open, liberal, and secular society, vastly reducing differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada and North America? A need to retain the notably fewer differences that remained seemed to fuel the separatist fires. As differences shrink, clinging to what is left can intensify. So it is with many aboriginal groups.
While this is not necessarily an intelligent response, it is a very human one. This is obvious to the Quebeckers and aboriginals concerned, but a mystery to the rest of Canada.
In discussing these things, the very word "aboriginal" is misleading. There are no aboriginals left in Canada in the sense of "those here first," nor have there been for generations. All that are left are descendants of aboriginals, but that is a distinctly unsexy concept on which to build a public policy. It is unfortunately also an impracticably long phrase to use, but "descendants of aboriginals" is what we are really talking about and that should not be forgotten.
On the other hand, we do have many "distinct societies" and aboriginal societies qualify, as does Quebec—though of course these societies vary hugely in their economic, political, and cultural depth. But the cultural overlaps with the rest of Canadian society are large. Whether we like it or not, the impact of television, the automobile, low-cost communications and travel, the education system, the English language, fast food, and the free market system have culturally homogenized all North Americans. With minor exceptions, aboriginals tend to want the same things we all do. And so the crucial question: "Can the remaining differences justify the retention of failed policies?" (There have, of course, been many success stories. However, almost without exception, these stories build and are built upon our commonalities, not our differences.)
What we really have among the 800,000 or so self-identifying aboriginals are two things:
1. A large number (60+) of "distinct societies" whose elites at least, and sometimes members as well, have expectations of cash flow and governance powers at considerable variance with the views of most Canadians; and
2. Human beings caught in an unusual and mostly pernicious set of political, social, economic and financial services. Many perverse incentives come with this, including a culture with major expections of entitlement and attitudes of victimization and dependency.
In other words, we have the collectives and the individuals. We cannot ignore the first issue, but we must give more time to the second.
The answer to the "distinct societies" and reserves is probably distinguished political scientist Alan Cairns' concept of "Citizens Plus." The "plus" relates first to collective property and other rights now clearly established by the courts. Failing a constitutional amendment, that debate is over. That is the law, though the exact parameters are yet to be negotiated or otherwise settled.
The "plus" also includes some special governance arrangements2 but—in my view—with constraints. The arrangements should not be constitutionalized. I say that because I believe strongly that governance arrangements based on race should not receive such treatment.
The arrangements should solidly embed the principle that governance must rest on the consent of the governed, and that will require provisions for accountability and transparency far beyond the current Indian Act. The arrangements should also ensure that there are no non-market incentive patterns that would push an individual off (or onto) the reserve, such as denial of entitlement to the fruits of collective property, housing subsidy, social services, and so on.
More important for the purposes of this article is the response to the second item, the hundreds of thousands of individuals off-reserve in unusual or pernicious circumstances. Here the citizen should be ordinary and free. Here the proper response is just "citizen" like any other, no "plus." Yes, these are citizens with special needs, but so are we all. Yes, delivery systems for services should be culturally sensitive. But off-reserve, no "plus."
In effect, the urban/off-reserve scene would become a huge laboratory. The "churning" as people go back and forth between the city and the reserve would become not only a conveyor belt of information, but a means for people to experiment and make up their minds as to which world to live in. (Neither world need be rejected permanently.)
Why this system? It would provide genuine choice. We have learned over the centuries as Western, liberal societies that refusing to discriminate politically on the basis of race or religion or gender is a system that works. It is important that this choice be genuinely available to aboriginals as a viable option, not just a last resort.
All of the above has major implications for governments if they wish to make the urban/off-reserve option a viable alternative. Here are some of the policies required:
1. Off-reserve, roll back the mistakes of 1867. That was a racist, sexist, and bigoted time. Women, Jews, Indians, Asians, and Catholics were all considered inferior. Only Indians were singled out in the Constitution (S. 91(24)). One hundred and thirty-four years later, women, Jews, Asians and Catholics are just fine. Indians aren't. And only Indians rely exclusively on the exquisite attentions of the federal government.
The provinces are better deliverers of ordinary services to people than
the federal government. Section 91(24) should be "bought out" by tax point
transfers to the provinces (according to off-reserve population, naturally)
and in some part, by cash to aboriginal people. The provinces should thereafter
supply or arrange for the supply of their usual services to aboriginals
as they do to
everyone else, though not necessarily in the same way or via
the same channels.
2. For special service delivery, there is no reason why regular provincial institutions should not contract with private agencies—including aboriginally-controlled ones—to do their work.
3. Identical tax regimes should be applied everywhere, by repeal of Section 87 of the Indian Act. There are a three reasons for this:3
- the non-taxation of some Indians is extremely divisive. All should pay the same taxes, even if governments have to provide Indians the cash to do so.
- the current tax-free regimes provide dysfunctional avenues for wasteful tax arbitrage.
- just as it is a maxim that there should be "no taxation without representation," so it is true the there can be no real representation without taxation. Bands should be required to raise a significant quantum of their revenue from their electors. Otherwise, bands are nothing but a joint conspiracy against the general taxpayer.
The removal of tax exemptions has to do with incentives, not with reducing costs for the treasury. Indeed, BC-level settlements in cash and land (as a result of Delgamuukw) are likely to be very high. Historic Canadian arrangements will have to be equalized upwards. Nothing else will suit the Supreme Court of Canada's insistence on the "honour of the Crown." This will be very expensive. Less expensive (only a few billion per annum) but equally important is the need to end the "welfare trap" for the urban poor—including aboriginals—by modifying the system.
There is also a serious need to raise voices—governmental voices—to counterbalance
the self-interested voice of the Indian Industry. This amorphous grouping
of aboriginal elites, lawyers, consultants, and some bureaucrats and academics
is fundamentally motivated by the maintenance and expansion of alleged
differences between very similar groups of human beings. If the
perceived
differences become unimportant, their income and status is lost.
No one would mute this or any other voice, but it is not right that they alone define the issues of aboriginal policy. A whole new group of aboriginals, academics, politicians, and others are needed to weigh in on the other side. The public supports this "other side" but does not know how to articulate the principles.
Finally, we must use always as a guiding star with respect to the urban/off-reserve option the concepts of equality of opportunity (which can imply hugely unequal inputs for its achievement) and the maximization of individual choice. Following this "paradigm of the individual" will have consequences for collectivities and cultures, let there be no doubt. They will grow or shrink, according to their usefulness for individuals. That doesn't matter. It is the collection of individuals that matters, not collectives which are but public utilities.
The urban/off-reserve setting constitutes a golden opportunity to give aboriginals real choices that we have failed to provide in the past. It is time to seize that day.
Notes
1This is at any given time. There is a good deal of "churning" between locations.
2This is not easy. It is very hard to justify governments based on race, even in the short term. However, the essence of this argument is choice for individuals, and if traditional patterns are not maintained as a viable option, choice is meaningless. That was the moral and practical flaw in the famous 1969 Chretien/Trudeau "White Paper."
3The Crown in the early days was largely driven by practicality, not honour, but until we find some way of amending the constitution and rolling back 1982, the Supreme Court as a result of Section 35 is the final maker of Indian law, so there we are.
Gordon Gibson (gordong@fraserinstitute.ca) has an MBA from Harvard and is The Fraser Institute's Senior Fellow in Canadian Studies. He has served in the Prime Minister's Office under Pierre Trudeau and as both an MLA and as leader of the BC Liberal Party (1975-79).
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