Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, who represents the Ottawa-area riding of Nepean-Carleton, appeared on a lunch-time program on CFRA News Talk Radio in the capital Wednesday.
It was just hours before Harper stood to atone on behalf of all Canadians for generations of abuse in once-mandatory native residential schools.
"Now along with this apology comes another $4 billion in compensation for those who partook in the residential schools over those years," says Poilievre, in a clip circulated by the Liberal opposition.
He was apparently unaware that students were once forced to attend schools meant to assimilate them, as his boss would later rise to say in Parliament.
Poilievre then questioned the wisdom of related compensation payments.
"Now, you know, some of us are starting to ask: 'Are we really getting value for all of this money, and is more money really going to solve the problem?'
"My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self reliance. That's the solution in the long run - more money will not solve it."
Poilievre was not immediately available for comment.
He made the remarks after suggesting that
Native leaders, however, trace grinding poverty on many reserves to the fact that federal funding has not kept pace with inflation, let alone higher than average population growth.
Anita Neville, Liberal aboriginal affairs critic, called Poilievre's comments "disgraceful" and "ignorant."
"I invite him to take a tour of many of the First Nations communities in this country and see how people are living.
"The irony of something like this on the day of the apology... . And I fear it reflects an attitude or a view that is prevalent among many members of that caucus."
Poilievre also told CFRA that aboriginal chiefs have too much control.
"That gets to the heart of the problem on these reserves where there is too much power concentrated in the hands of the leadership, and it makes you wonder where all of this money is going.
"We spend $10 billion dollars - $10 billion dollars - in annual spending this year alone now, that is an exceptional amount of money, and that is on top of all the resource revenue that goes to reserves that sit on petroleum products or sit on uranium mines, other things where companies have to pay them royalties.
"And that's on top of all that money that they earn on their own reserves. That is an incredible amount of money."