“Where’s the money?” many keep asking of Canada’s First Nations peoples.

Rather, ask them how much money they’ve had to spend hiring tribal lawyers to take the federal government to court and win cases suing them for not honouring treaty obligations.

And how much more money have First Nations had to spend when the feds appeal decisions against them, keeping tribes mired in seemingly perpetual litigation and accompanying poverty?

Then ask the federal goverment how much of taxpayers’ dollars has it spent on government defence lawyers, who really have no defence in the end when the court repeatedly directs the government to honour its legal obligations to First Nations treaties?

Doesn’t it seem perverse for the feds to appoint “third-party economic managers” when bands’ federal allowances run short, when the government knows full well First Nations are having to spend money taking it to court?

It’s as perverse as perpetuating the notion that if First Nations are poverty-stricken, it’s because they can’t handle their finances, while at the same time making sure tribes are continually distracted and impoverished by litigation.

Litigation, ironically, to defend First Nations rights as set down in the UN Declaration of Aboriginal Rights, of which Canada is a signatory.

Yes, indeed! It’s not “Where’s the money?” so much as it’s “Why is all that money being wasted on unnecessary litigation?” instead of the federal government just doing what is right.

Liz Stonard

Port Alberni

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