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As the Post’s Jonathan Kay has observed, under the terms of the James Bay treaties, “the natives would continue hunting and fishing for sustenance and trade, and receive annual payments from the government … And here we get to the massive problem that has taken shape in communities such as Attawapiskat, which were not originally intended to become static settlements that survive entirely as government-funded welfare states (with the pathologies that attend all government-funded welfare states, including unemployment, anomie and substance abuse).”

In an ironic twist of fate, the very policies that are supposed to give aboriginals a leg up are responsible for the poor living conditions we see on many reserves: Depressed economies and poor infrastructure are exactly what we should expect when we deny people basic private-property rights (since reserve residents cannot own their own land) and force them into a life of economic dependency.

But changing these institutions is not easy. Many of the rules surrounding the federal government’s relationship with native people are enshrined in the Constitution, treaties and legislation. Even making changes to the Indian Act is a political minefield.

Nevertheless, the question of whether this country can sustain a growing group of people who receive more government benefits than everyone else, while paying fewer taxes, will need to be addressed as Canada’s demographics continue to shift. In 1995, the federal government spent $6.2-billion on programs directed toward aboriginal people, up from $1.65-billion in the early 1980s. The stark rise in spending was, according to a 1997 report in the Canadian Tax Journal, due to “a rapid increase in the number of registered Indians following changes to the Indian Act in 1985 (Bill C-31); the financial dependency on the federal government of many young Aboriginals entering their adult years; and the native agenda of the Mulroney government.”