Canada has spent decades on apologies, commissions and new programs in the name of reconciliation. The law at the centre of the relationship is still the Indian Act, passed in 1876 and amended many times since without ever losing its basic premise that Ottawa manages First Nations affairs. David Leis of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy argues that no amount of further amendment will fix that, and that the Act has to go. He is not the only one saying so. Last week Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who is himself First Nations, publicly challenged Prime Minister Mark Carney to move beyond it.
The clearest example Leis gives is the one most Canadians take for granted: owning a home. Reserve land is generally held by the Crown for a First Nation’s benefit, and the Act limits a lender’s ability to seize property on reserve if a borrower defaults. That protection sounds good on paper. In practice, it means banks are reluctant to write ordinary mortgages, and a family that could otherwise buy a house and build equity has to rely on special programs or go without. Home equity is how most Canadian families build wealth, secure a business loan and leave something to their children. The Act cuts many First Nations families off from all three.
The same paternalism runs through land management and local governance, where federal approval sits over decisions that any municipality would make on its own. Some First Nations have opted out of parts of the Act through alternative arrangements, such as the federal land management framework. The fact that the most successful communities are often the ones that have escaped its rules says a good deal. Leis is careful not to blame the Act for every problem on reserves, and he is right to say that any replacement has to be built with First Nations rather than handed down to them. The last time Ottawa proposed scrapping the Act on its own, in the 1969 White Paper, First Nations leaders rejected it outright, and for good reason.
The test Leis proposes is the right one. Reconciliation should be measured by whether First Nations people actually have more control over their own lives, including their homes, their land and their businesses, not by how many reports are tabled or how much money is spent. A framework that strengthens self-government while also expanding individual freedom for people living on reserve would be a real change. Another round of amendments to a 150-year-old colonial statute would not.
