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Give First Nations property rights, book urges

Posted on March 25 2010 under Poverty in the Media

Give First Nations property rights, book urges

Private ownership of land called vital in helping to lift Canada's aboriginal peoples out of poverty


Joanna Smith Ottawa Bureau
Toronto Star
March 24, 2010


OTTAWA–Lift aboriginal peoples out of poverty by giving them ownership rights and control over their land, says a new book calling for an overhaul of the way the federal government handles native affairs.

"We believe that Indians should own their own lands and are capable of managing them, and that those First Nations who wish to take over that responsibility should be able to acquire the title to their reserves from the Crown," says Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights, which calls for the creation of a First Nations Property Ownership Act.

The legislation would give the more than 630 First Nations across the country the right to choose to own the underlying title to their land and then it would be up to them whether they wanted to further grant individual property rights so that their populations could purchase their own homes and otherwise build equity.

Co-author Tom Flanagan, a political scientist from the University of Calgary best known as having mentored Prime Minister Stephen Harper, argues that government ownership of the land is hamstringing First Nations communities because the government must approve many of their economic transactions involving land use.

"It's slow, cumbersome and adds a lot of uncertainty," Flanagan said in an interview, adding the uncertainty and prospect of delays scares investors away from native entrepreneurial projects. "Time is money."

Flanagan stressed this would not amount to loss of land – a sensitive issue he expects will be the biggest controversy surrounding the book – as First Nations governments would exercise control over things like zoning, property taxes, bylaws and infrastructure.

"If I want to buy a lot in Toronto, (the city) doesn't lose the land," Flanagan said, who penned the book with Christopher Alcantara and André Le Dressay.

"It still has governmental control over the land and I as a private owner have to take my chances with David Miller and his band of merry men on city council."

This is where his thinking diverges from his highly provocative earlier book First Nations? Second Thoughts (2000), harshly criticized for suggesting aboriginal peoples achieve economic prosperity through assimilation.

Flanagan acknowledged an evolution in his thoughts and recognizes that in order for property rights to work, First Nations must hold the underlying title to their lands and some form of collective ownership is necessary in the way other Canadians depend on public services.

"You can have a system of pure private ownership, but then private owners would somehow have to provide for themselves all the things that governments now do," said Flanagan, adding it took him a long time to understand that point.

Still, Flanagan argued that while some First Nations may engage with the outside world only in collective ownership – such as allowing businesses to operate on their land, but not selling homes to non-native peoples – going the route of individual property rights would lead to a higher standard of living.

"It is sort of the universal experience of modern civilization and collectivist schemes have been abandoned or transformed with the collapse of communism, so I don't see why things would be any different for First Nations," Flanagan said. "But there are perfectly valid reasons why some groups may want to go down a different path and as long as that is voluntary, they should have that right."

While the proposal involves a radical change to the principle of the Indian Act, Flanagan believes Indian and Northern Affairs Canada would keep its role of providing health care and education.

"It won't work if First Nations are told 'Okay, you can go down the path of private property, but we're going to take away from you everything that you have got up until now,' " Flanagan said. "Human nature would intervene at that point."

He said it has long been a fantasy of the right that Ottawa could eliminate the Indian affairs department budget, but he said most of it goes to basic services and the provinces would have to pick up the cost.

 

POVERTY IN THE MEDIA