The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has missed a golden opportunity.

And it’s unfortunate they have. Because until Canada gets to the root causes of the economic hopelessness, the family breakdowns, the addictions and the disenfranchisement plaguing hundreds of aboriginal communities, nothing will improve for First Nations in this country.

The TRC and its commissioner Justice Murray Sinclair released a summary of its final report Tuesday into Canada’s residential schools. Its six-year investigation has produced corroborating evidence of physical and sexual abuse, institutionalized child neglect, higher than normal mortality rates in schools, and horrific government-directed assimilation tactics.

The report confirms much of what we already knew or suspected about the federal government’s apartheid-like assimilation policies and how they were driven by a European sense of racial superiority. The TRC’s work was critically important to ensure Canadians have a full understanding of their history.

But among the commission’s 94 recommendations — some of which were good and some of which were not so good — there was one glaring omission. It was a deliberate omission because the commission obviously didn’t want to open that can of worms. It’s a can of worms not all leaders in the aboriginal community have found consensus on. But it’s one this country will eventually have to deal with if it ever wants to see meaningful improvements in the lives of affected aboriginal people.

Not once in the commission’s recommendations did they mention the federal Indian Act, the central obstacle that prevents First Nation communities from taking charge of their own lives and getting out from under the thumb of government. The Indian Act is a paternalistic piece of legislation that presumes aboriginal people aren’t fit to make their own decisions, can’t handle owning their own property, and are incapable of deciding among themselves who is and who is not a real “Indian.”

Until it’s repealed, or at least phased out over time, there’s almost no chance of fixing the social and economic ills the commission identifies, including high rates of poverty, incarceration, victimization, poor health, and chronic joblessness.

The argument against repealing the Indian Act is no one knows what to replace it with. Other than constitutionally-protected treaties, there is no other legislative framework that provides First Nations with predictable funding, some form of political system, and a definition of a status Indian, no matter how arbitrary that definition may be.

But there are alternatives. The problem is neither the politicians, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the federal bureaucrats, nor many First Nations chiefs want to do the heavy lifting required to explore those alternatives. It’s easier to stick with the status quo than to take risks that could lead to meaningful change. Besides, many First Nations chiefs and councils, as well as federal bureaucrats, benefit from the status quo, including good salaries and financial security. Some don’t want to give that up, even if it means perpetuating the squalor and misery the Indian Act inflicts on so many rank-and-file First Nations people.

The alternatives can be found in places like the Nisga’a Nation in northern British Columbia. The Nisga’a negotiated their own treaty with government in the late 1990s and freed themselves from the shackles of the federal government in 2000. They no longer operate under the Indian Act, they make their own decisions under a municipal-like governance model, pay taxes, and can now even own their own homes and plots of land. It’s revolutionary. They have emancipated themselves from the colonial rule that has kept their people down for so many generations.

“We are no longer beggars in our own land,” Nisga’a president Joe Gosnell announced to a cheering crowd in Gitwinksihlkw, B.C., in 2000. “We are free to make our own mistakes, savour our own victories, and stand on our own feet.”

This is an alternative to the Indian Act. It’s not perfect and the Nisga’a have their problems, too. But it’s a vast improvement over the Indian Act’s reprehensible reserve system.

It’s a shame and a lost opportunity that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission didn’t recommend this course of action. Because in the long run, the entrenched problems that plague First Nations communities can only be solved through freedom and self-determination.