This article originally appeared in the National Newswatch.
By Ken Coates , November 14, 2024
Indigenous governments must manage that shockingly long list of responsibilities with so few resources. Most Indigenous communities are small — under 1,000 people — with at best a few dozen employees and a daunting set of administrative, legal and political files.
Outside governments, the general public and even Indigenous community members are often upset about delays in responses from Indigenous councils. But no political leaders in Canada face a barrage of issues that vary from deciding the allocation of new homes to community members to constitutional negotiations with federal and provincial governments.
It is vital that Canadians appreciate the pressures under which chiefs and councils work, the demands on the Assembly of First Nations, the Metis National Council, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and a variety of regional and tribal councils. Indigenous groups have small bureaucracies and limited access to lawyers and consultants, with the caveat that money spent on outside experts could also be used on housing, education, cultural programming, social assistance and other such expenses.
On the other side, Indigenous authorities face off against a federal government that has hundreds of thousands of employees, many hundreds of consultants and lawyers and nearly inexhaustible financial resources, as well as well-funded provincial and territorial officials, and the experts and managers of major resource companies. To describe the situation as unequal and unfair is to seriously understate the situation.
To better understand the complexity of demands, it helps to appreciate the major political and administrative issues that must be managed.
Among all Indigenous groups, the struggle for legal affirmation and the extension of rights continues. The legal situation varies dramatically, from historic treaties to modern treaties, to Indigenous peoples without treaty arrangements, and involves numerous Supreme Court, lower courts and ongoing legal issues. These are often incredibly difficult, costly and uncertain matters. Put simply, government leaders have to decide which fights to join.
But first, all Indigenous leaders must focus on community and personal health and well-being. Past injustices, from the poverty created by racism and economic marginalization to the lingering effects of residential schools and the shortcomings of Indigenous education have only added to the pressure.
In recent years, the scourges of opioids, alcohol abuse, violence directed at Indigenous women, diabetes and others create demands that few, if any, non-Indigenous governments must address at the same level of intensity.
Indigenous groups are uniformly contemptuous of dependency on government, either through individual transfer payments or the reliance on federal funding.
Across the country, Indigenous leaders are committed to building financial autonomy through own-source revenues, which requires economic development corporations, the management of community-owned assets, and impressive collaborative investments in major infrastructure and resource projects. This takes a lot of work, involves considerable risk and the promotion of an entrepreneurial culture.
Forty years ago, the administration of Indigenous programs and services was handled by the Department of Indian Affairs and other government agencies. There are now dozens of self-governing First Nations with many other accords being negotiated, managing most of the local programs.
Ottawa is committed to devolving administrative responsibility to Indigenous governments, with the current negotiations about child and family services headlining this much broader transition. This requires more employers, larger budgets and additional responsibilities for already over-taxed governments.
In recent years, the federal government has settled a series of major compensation agreements with First Nations, Metis and Inuit people, several involving billions of dollars, relating to residential and day schools, the ‘60s Scoop of Indigenous children, child and family services, the failure to honour treaty agreements, misappropriation of Indigenous lands, and other acts of government malfeasance.
Indigenous governments must negotiate on behalf of members, co-ordinate the allocation of funds with government officials, and, in some instances, manage the trust funds (often in the tens of millions of dollars) supplied to the communities.
One of the most promising developments in recent decades has been the creation of Indigenous protected and conserved zones. Indigenous people are now assuming the lead responsibility for the ecological management of vast tracts of land and water.
These initiatives value traditional Indigenous knowledge, rely on local land guardians and wardens, and give Indigenous governments direct authority over substantial portions of their traditional territories. The new work requires additional skills, training programs, project oversight and many other duties.
In pursuit of economic independence and sustainability, Indigenous groups work with resource and infrastructure developers. This often requires extensive negotiations with governments and resource companies, full participation in regulatory and review processes, and commercial involvement with many different projects.
Indigenous governments and their economic development corporations are heavily involved with commercial partnerships, employment and training programs, environmental oversight, project planning and remediation. In many communities, these are the fastest moving and most promising activities, requiring a great deal of government attention.
Demographic change affects all Indigenous communities, with many people moving from imposed government reserves to nearby towns or larger centres. This diaspora, often connected to the pursuit of educational and employment opportunities, has forced political leaders and government officials to develop innovative approaches to supporting widely dispersed off-reserve populations.
With more than half of all First Nations living off reserve and with the comparable dispersal of Metis and Inuit people, governments are tasked with including all citizens in political and decision-making processes, consultations and planning. Service provision, co-ordinated with provincial, territorial and municipal governments and occasionally undertaken with regional Indigenous organizations and tribal councils, is an expensive and complicated process and requires extensive negotiations and implementation efforts.
Perhaps the greatest and most important challenge, certainly to community members, involves language and culture. Decades of government intervention, paternalism and national education undermined Indigenous languages and damaged First Nations, Metis and Inuit cultures. Rebuilding languages in severe decline and restoring cultures harmed by the complex intrusions of government policy, dominant societies and popular culture is a formidable enterprise.
Communities place a high priority on cultural revitalization, but most Indigenous communities have only a small number of elders with full language skills, and the resources to develop language and cultural programs are limited, sporadic and unpredictable.
This is far from a complete list. There are homes to build, local services to provide, police and fire arrangements to conclude, legal and rehabilitation programs to organize, sporting and cultural activities to host, and hundreds of reports and accounting documents to prepare.
Ottawa has been trying. Federal spending on Indigenous programs has skyrocketed in recent years. But the new money brings added burdens and costs, with grant applications to write and reports to complete. Almost every Indigenous organization has many unfilled positions and considerable staff turnover. The work is critical, but it is also exceptionally tough and stressful.
There are reasons for optimism. First Nations like Membertu, Osoyoos, Squamish and Fort McKay have impressive own-source revenues that free them from reliance on government and Ottawa’s interminable approval and review processes. Groups with modern treaties, particularly across the North, have much-desired freedom from Ottawa and the financial resources to build proper service systems.
The emergence of modern and effective governments across northern Quebec, the Nisga’a in northern B.C., First Nations and Inuit communities in the Northwest Territories and with the Vunta Gwichin, Teslin, Kwanlin Dun, Champagne-Aishihik in the Yukon, among others, shows what can and must be done.
Indigenous governments must cope with historical baggage, struggle with current administrative and financial complexities, and adapt to constantly changing government faces across the negotiating table.
Through all of this, and despite the odds, Indigenous political leaders and governments are collectively doing a remarkable job of preparing their people and nations for an uncertain future. The country owes these leaders and governments our gratitude and, equally, the resources needed to do their many vital jobs.
Ken Coates is a distinguished fellow and director of Indigenous affairs at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
