Many parents saw residential schools as the best option available for their children.
aboriginal spending
It’s human nature to spend windfalls on current desires rather than long-term investments.
Recent class actions demand payment not just for individuals but also for family members and entire communities.
Most of the money goes to civil servants and consultants, not Indigenous people themselves.
A recent op-ed cited the “myth of underfunding” of First Nations communities in Canada. Whatever your opinion on the issue, the facts are clear. Consider the four streams of revenue that flow to First Nations across the country.
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC)
Canada's federal government alone spends more than $10 billion annually on aboriginal issues.
Thinking hard about history can be a useful exercise if incorrect assumptions are reformed. This was one goal of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s report on residential schools, which, in early June, published a 388-page summary of its forthcoming final report.
If Canadians wonder why little progress has been made in bringing prosperity to First Nations communities, they just received another reminder from an Ottawa-based think tank that reinforces the status quo approach to Aboriginal policy: spend more tax dollars.
In a recent column published in PostMedia papers ('Catching up on Aboriginal services is not cheap,') Brian Lee Crowley of the Macdonald Laurier Institute took issue with and was highly critical of our recent study, which documented a portion of the tax dollars spent on Aboriginal matters.