Self-government for indigenous people would help stop the drain on the federal treasury and help stop welfare dependence, according to a visiting Canadian expert.
Professor Thomas Courchene, who has spent a lot of time in the past two years helping the 14 First Nations of Canada’s Yukon draw up self-government agreements, said yesterday that neither Canada nor Australia could be proud of its treatment of their first peoples.
In Canada per capita spending on Indians resident on reserves was roughly $10,000 per person.
“”Something must be very wrong at the policy level when spending of this magnitude does not achieve meaningful results,” he said. The policy failure was a major reason why Canadians were sympathetic to First Nations self-government.
“”While self-government will likely be expensive, most of the needed funds are already being spent _ they just have to be re-channelled,” he said.
Professor Courchene was speaking in the Australian Senate occasional lecture series. Professor Courchene, of Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, is visiting research fellow at the Federalism Research Centre at ANU.
He said, “”If our approach is always to provide a safety net, there is little incentive to get rid of welfare dependency. Under self-government it is up to them to make it work and be responsible to their own citizens.”
When they did it their own way, they would be more successful, he said. Most First Nation people were very collectivist; they would have to do something to get welfare. The would not get it for doing nothing; they would have to contribute in those communities.
Professor Courchene did not want to draw comparisons between Australia and Canada because though there were similarities, there were many differences. He proposed a model for self-government, however, against which proposals could be measured.
Canada has 2300 Indian reserves, nearly all below the 60th parallel. North of that were huge areas of Inuit land. Canada has about 500,000 registered Indians, 300,000 of them on reserves, and about 33,000 Inuit, most of them in the North-West Territories.
Professor Courchene suggested the granting of a “”First Nations Province” which would have full provincial status and powers, like those of an Australian state. It would be a land-based province, even though its lands would not be contiguous. He thought that would not be too daunting with modern communications.
The province would receive Federal grants, like any other province, along the lines of the Australian Grants Commission. This would equalise revenue so services could be provided by the First Nation Provincial Government to the same standard as other provinces, but it would require taxation and charges in the First Nation province at levels comparable to other provinces.
It could apply some sort of native justice system, just as Quebec applied civil law rather than the common law. The province would be open; whites could live there, too. The province would have representation in the Federal Parliament. The internal design of the province would be up to the Indians.
The proposal was not radical. At present the 600 First Nations on the 2300 reserves were administered like one big province by the federal Indian Affairs bureaucracy.
Professor Courchene asked why not put all this under Indian control, given the present method was not working well.
Some law, such as tax raising, could apply according to “”who you are, rather than where you are”. For example, Canadians could pay into the Catholic education system or the state one, according to who they were, rather than which province they happened to live in. Similar arrangements could be made for Indians living off reserves in urban areas.
Professor Courchene said aspects of his model were being used in three-party agreements between Indians in Yukon, the Yukon Territory Government and the Federal Government.
As to internal democracy, he pointed out that some nations elected their chiefs, other were hereditary. Many chiefs were women. The Mohawks, however, could only have a male chief, but he was elected by females. And the females could impeach him.
He did not think that Indians would seek full independence (other than those whose territory already crossed national borders).
“”Their nation is the First Nation and their country is Canada and they won’t give up either,” he said.