Tom Flanagan:
Leaders of the Assembly of First Nations
are urging their people to defeat the Conservatives on Oct. 19. Vote
Liberal or NDP, is the message, but not Conservative. “We can mitigate
the damages by voting for a different government in this upcoming
election,” Manitoba Chief Derek Nepinak said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s
Conservative government has often been offside with the AFN, starting
with the 2006 decision to cancel Paul Martin’s Kelowna Accord.
But
it is also true, perhaps counterintuitively in the eyes of many, that
this government has reached new heights in dispensing money to First
Nations.
Mr. Harper’s dramatic 2008
apology for residential schools was accompanied by large cash outlays. As a Common Experience Payment, the Indian Residential Schools Agreement
set aside $1.9-billion for compensation to all those who attended a
residential school – $10,000 for the first year and $3,000 for each year
thereafter. By 2012, about 80,000 people had received payments without
being required to provide evidence that they had suffered any form of
abuse. They were compensated simply because they had been there.
As
well, the agreement’s Independent Assessment Process provided for
additional payments on grounds of sexual, physical or psychological
abuse. By 2012, $1.7-billion had been paid out, and the assessment
process is expected to continue until 2017.
Another
large revenue stream for First Nations was created by the Conservative
government’s 2007 changes to the Specific Claims process; Specific
Claims are allegations that the federal government has not properly
fulfilled treaty agreements or has ignored provisions of the Indian Act.
After the process was rejigged in 2007, the rate and generosity of
settlements has accelerated.
In fiscal
2013-14, to take one example, the Crown settled 15 claims with a total
payout of more than $350-million. That was just for one year, and more
than 300 claims remain to be settled. More claims can, and probably
will, arise, as the government did not impose any statute of
limitations. The total payout will eventually dwarf the roughly
$4-billion paid in residential schools compensation...
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