Reparations by Stealth

In the elegantly written and comprehensively documented essay on the other side of the paywall that first appeared in a prestigious American online and print magazine site, Tom Flanagan, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary and a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, clearly and intelligently demonstrates the way class action lawsuits by indigenous litigants have met no resistance from Canada’s federal government, resulting in tens of billions in payouts in recent years.

This phenomenon which he rightly terms “reparations by stealth” has involved negotiating indigenous claims via a “collusion between claimants and the executive branch of the federal government, negotiating early settlements while cutting Parliament out of any meaningful role. In the British tradition of representative democracy, Parliament is supposed to have the power of the purse.”

Under the current system of negotiation, traditional ways of dealing with disputes between the state and its citizens has been wilfully thrown under the bus whenever those citizens happen to be indigenous people, a process that will also destroy Canada if it continues much longer.