Friday, February 3, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Energy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Energy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Canada’s paternalistic mindset toward supporting Indigenous communities just doesn’t work: Ken Coates in the Globe and Mail

A damning Parliamentary Budget Officer report revealed a gaping disconnect between the government’s aspirations and the amount of money spent on the one hand, and the actual consequences on the other.

August 9, 2022
in Columns, In the Media, Indigenous Affairs Program, Ken Coates, Latest News
Reading Time: 5 mins read
A A

This article originally appeared in The Globe and Mail.

By Ken Coates, August 9, 2022

Despite a decade of dramatic increases in federal funding for Indigenous affairs, a damning report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer released in May revealed a gaping disconnect between the government’s aspirations and the amount of money spent on the one hand, and the actual consequences on the other.

Put bluntly, Canada is not getting what it is paying for – and what’s worse, the massive spending is not improving lives in Indigenous communities.

The PBO’s report on Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) summarized the situation succinctly, in the passion-free language that defines Ottawa’s civil service: “The increased spending did not result in a commensurate improvement in the ability of these organizations to achieve the goals that they had set for themselves. Based on the qualitative review the ability to achieve the targets specified has declined.”

The government can and does change up targets and metrics, making it difficult to determine actual outcomes. But given the vast expenditures, such a conclusion is tragic.

Canadians have become numb to reading about public expenditures on Indigenous peoples, much as they have to federal spending generally. Routine announcements of millions or billions of dollars for Indigenous initiatives, court settlements, compensation payments and on-reserve infrastructure have dulled many Canadians’ sensitivities. Instead, many of us have grown to see the spending of public funds as evidence of affection: If Canada spends billions on Indigenous affairs, it must mean that we care deeply about First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.

But it does nothing of the sort. While headlines emphasize dollar amounts, the statistics that tell the actual story of Indigenous well-being – around employment, health, housing conditions, suicide rates, violence and imprisonment, language, cultural revitalization – are much more sombre. When spending vast sums fails to make a substantial difference in many communities, the federal response is too often to double down and spend even more, in the absence of understanding what actually works to improve the lives of Indigenous peoples.

In recent years, there has been a great deal of long-overdue attention focused on residential schools, but the schools were just a vehicle for a broader and more pernicious force: state paternalism. And Canadian governments have revealed that they have a problem with stepping away from it.

After the Second World War, in a surge of well-intended social engineering, successive governments concluded that more intervention was the solution to Indigenous living conditions. Forced relocations, reserve housing that was substandard from the start, intrusive education, bureaucratic oversight and targeted federal programs (among other initiatives) gave the state enormous authority over Indigenous lives.

Welfare dependency, one of the greatest curses inflicted on Indigenous peoples, was an almost-inevitable result. Government payments often displaced Indigenous work, disrupted families and social relations, encouraged migration to larger centres, and asserted bureaucratic domination over communities. In the early 1950s, the number of Indigenous peoples collecting welfare in its various and emerging forms was small; by the 1970s, thousands of Indigenous families were wedded to regular government support, while also facing marginalization and discrimination if they attempted to work in the mainstream economy.

Government funding comes with multiple strings attached, not the least of which is forced adherence to federal dictates. Securing government funding also requires a great deal of precious staff time, not just in applying for grants but around reporting expenditures and outcomes. Federal priorities take precedence over Indigenous preferences, distorting community initiatives and prompting the grovelling for funds to become part of Indigenous governments’ processes. Indeed, individual dependency has become Indigenous government dependency, though many communities are resisting that transition today through creative economic development strategies.

As the Auditor-General and Parliamentary Budget Office have frequently shown, far too little attention is paid to medium- and long-term outcomes. What often matters most to the federal government is whether the money was spent on time and according to budget, even if community needs and shifting priorities would have seen the funds better spent elsewhere. As Canada has shown repeatedly over the past 40 years, governments can spend a lot of money and achieve mediocre or even terrible results – typically sparking more spending to solve those new issues, rather than fundamentally re-examining whether state funding was really needed.

Moreover, Canada’s collective management of Indigenous affairs is marked by a consistent failure to monitor the effectiveness of major cash infusions. There has been little post-hoc investigation into whether multibillion-dollar compensation packages have positive financial and social effects, and major collaboration agreements with corporations too often go unexamined; the same is true for postsecondary funding, language revitalization supports, counselling interventions, land-claims agreements and the like.

Some federal expenditures do work – college and university funding, along with modern treaties and self-government agreements, appear to have solid outcomes. But others appear to do little more than paper over continuing Indigenous crises, and worse, we don’t really know, because we don’t research them enough.

Governments are not particularly good at dealing with truly wicked problems – that is, complex and multi-dimensional issues. Canada and the global community are discovering this on climate change, to our collective dismay. The crises in Indigenous communities reflect a vast array of processes – including occupation of lands and Indigenous dispossession, racism, colonialism, assertion of cultural superiority, technological transitions, religious dominance, political marginalization and economic transformation. It is unreasonable to believe that a set of government programs, however well-funded and well-meaning, will in a short period of time address all of those highly disruptive forces.

Given the failures of state programming toward Indigenous autonomy, the country – which apparently has learned little from the residential school revelations – must listen more intently to Indigenous peoples. The message from their political leaders is simple: They need and deserve greater autonomy. Government funding must continue, or even expand, but Ottawa’s strings must be cut. Indigenous governments are best suited to defining their most urgent needs and priorities, spending the money and reporting publicly to the audience that matters most: their members. Federal bureaucracies, including but not limited to CIRNAC and ISC, need to be dramatically reconceptualized and restructured.

The predictable pushback to such a strategy would be the hoary claims that Indigenous groups are less than forthcoming in terms of financial accountability. But the reality is that few Canadians appreciate that most First Nations are extremely open about their financial affairs, and candidly discuss small details of budgets, salaries and expense accounts with members. Still, since the funds are provided by the Canadian public, a legitimate measure of accountability is required by the federal government. This could be achieved through an Indigenous auditor-general providing annual reporting to Parliament.

In clinging to its traditional approach, Ottawa could triple its Indigenous affairs spending tomorrow, and still not see a miracle turnaround in Indigenous social, cultural and economic conditions. Or it could do something much more difficult and meaningful: admit the failure of the state-driven approach of the past 70 or even 150 years, trust Indigenous communities, and transfer real authority to First Nations, Métis and Inuit governments.

Changing the core fabric of this relationship will take years, if not decades, but it is clearly time for Canada to start. Chronic problems demand dramatic, transformative approaches. Indigenous peoples know what is best for them, and are the only ones who could oversee such a successful revitalization.

Ken Coates is a distinguished fellow and director of the Indigenous Affairs program at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a Canada Research Chair in Regional Innovation at the University of Saskatchewan.

Source: The Globe and Mail
Tags: indigenous affairsKen Coatesthe Globe and Mail
Previous Post

Corporate Canada should take UK tribunal decision on wokeness in the workplace as a warning: Jamil Jivani in the National Post

Next Post

Canada is a country without a centre, without a purpose: Ken Coates in the National Post

Related Posts

Stronger enforcement of the Competition Act is better than a dramatic overhaul
Commentary

Stronger enforcement of the Competition Act is better than a dramatic overhaul

February 2, 2023
Most Canadians think prisons should continue to house male and female prisoners separately
Releases

Most Canadians think prisons should continue to house male and female prisoners separately

February 2, 2023
Defending democracies from disinformation: A new imperative for Canada-Japan strategic cooperation
Past Events

Webinar panel video: Defending democracies from disinformation – A new imperative for Canada-Japan strategic cooperation

February 2, 2023
Next Post
Canada is a country without a centre, without a purpose: Ken Coates in the National Post

Canada is a country without a centre, without a purpose: Ken Coates in the National Post

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Follow us on

Newsletter Signup

First Name
Last Name
Email Address

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

Inside Policy Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Back Issues
  • Advertising
  • Inside Policy Blog
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Energy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

IDEAS CHANGE THE WORLD!Have the latest Canadian thought leadership delivered straight to your inbox.
First Name
Last Name
Email address

No thanks, I’m not interested.

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Privacy Preference Center

Consent Management

Necessary

Advertising

Analytics

Other