Indigneous programs and payouts help drive federal deficits

The intelligent but worrying piece posted on the other side of the paywall was written by Tom Flanagan, Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Distinguished Fellow at the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, and Chair, Aboriginal Futures, at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

He is the author of many books and articles on topics such as Louis Riel and Métis history, and aboriginal rights and land claims. His books have won six prizes, including the Donner-Canadian Prize for best book of the year in Canadian public policy. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1996. Professor Flanagan has also been a frequent expert witness in litigation over aboriginal and treaty land claims. 

In this piece, Flanagan persuasively argues that:

The meteoric rise of the indigenous spending envelope is bound to continue because of commitments the government is making to pay reparations for alleged historical grievances. It started in 2007 with a $5 billion-plus settlement for Indian Residential Schools, followed by several other negotiated settlements for different forms of Indian education, piling up an additional $7 billion in payouts. But those settlements have been dwarfed by three others in different fields, adding up to almost $50 billion—child adoption (the so-called Sixties Scoop), drinkable water, and foster care (for an unbelievable $40 billion).

His reasonable conclusion is that:

Indigenous spending will continue to spiral out of control until the federal government develops a backbone and starts saying no to alleged historical grievances. We can’t afford to keep raking over the past, borrowing tens of billions of dollars to pay for claims of what allegedly happened decades ago when social mores were different.