National Chief Shawn Atleo from British Columbia (R) watches a dance ceremony at the Canadian Assembly of First Nations meeting in Calgary, July, 2009.TODD KOROL/Reuters
The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs is doing what it ought to do by studying why some reserves are doing well economically. The special project being led by the Deputy Minister, Michael Wernick, is a specifically focused version of what should be part of the continuing work of the department, not a sinister attempt to undermine aboriginal institutions.
The project is looking at 65 reserves that are prospering, to try to pinpoint the causes of their success, and to look for ways to facilitate more usage of reserve lands by private businesses, by revising regulations under the Indian Act.
Openness to the normal range of commercial enterprises in broader Canadian society appears to be a common factor in these cases of prosperity.
This is certainly not a panacea, because most of the 65 reserves are near urban areas, with which they have convenient economic relationships. Remote aboriginal communities, surrounded by boreal forest, would have enormous difficulties adapting models from southern Canada.
One example is a casino-supply business that has moved into an industrial park on the territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation in south-central Ontario - upon selling a 70-per-cent interest in the company to the aforesaid first nation. A commercial lease, where the underlying property is still Crown land held in trust for the first nation, is not a departure in principle from the existing regime.
Eventually, severance of some reserve land into private lots for band members' individual use, either for home ownership or business enterprise, is desirable, but this is ultimately up to the particular first nation. The Constitution Act, 1982, says that it recognizes and affirms "the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada," and no amendment of the Indian Act or its regulations can change that - the desire for change must come from individual aboriginal communities themselves.
The federal government's interest in economic development of native lands and communities is not an underhanded attempt to privatize or assimilate, but a moderate, salutary move toward the greater well-being of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.