An Avalanche of Money: The Federal Government’s Policies Toward First Nations finds that while federal spending on Indigenous affairs has almost tripled since 2015, the uptick in Indigenous living standards is due primarily to the Canada Child Benefit, an unrelated federal program for families with children.
The Next Generation: Innovating to Improve Indigenous Access to Finance in Canada is a new study that finds a well-functioning Indigenous financial system is essential to promoting investment and economic development and raising living standards in Indigenous communities.
From Reconciliation to Reparations: Exploiting a Noble Idea is a new study that documents how the current judicially driven approach of the federal justice department to negotiate financial compensation with First Nations to settle lawsuits—instead of litigation—means elected representatives have no meaningful oversight of the large sums of money being paid out. And contrary to Canadian legal tradition, individual claims of mistreatment are not merely leading to compensation, but are being used to overturn core government policies enacted by previous Parliaments.
Indigenous Spending in Budget 2022 finds that the federal government’s recent substantial increase of Indigenous spending—which will reach a projected $35.5 billion in 2026-27—is mainly due to judicial settlement payouts.
