For decades, Canadian political leaders have been wrestling with the question of how to help Canadian native reserves, many of which resemble Third World countries in their rates of substance abuse, communicable disease, unemployment, domestic violence and general misery. For the most part, these solutions have failed because they have concentrated on expanding — not shrinking — the welfare state being run out of the Indian Affairs Department and band councils.
But this month, a new book — excerpted on the pages following — proposes a different way. In Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights, three authors, including conservative Canadian scholar Tom Flanagan, argue that the best way to empower First Nations is to give them the same basic property rights the rest of us enjoy: namely, the right to own their homes outright, buy and sell land, take our mortgage financing and profit from the real estate market. In doing so, the authors cut through the myth that the collective land-control model used by reserves is somehow mandated by natives’ (mythically inveterate) attachment to economic collectivism.
Many credit Mr. Flanagan as one of the brains behind Stephen Harper’s rise to power. We only hope that he has the Prime Minister’s ear on this issue, for it is hard to think of a better plan for finally addressing the appalling condition of Canada’s native reserves.