Gravelle and Wynne better strike while the peacepipe is hot as the lovefest may not continue forever. Get those roads in now and get the ROF moving. The north needs jobs and our economy needs more than oil.

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com//news/canada/canadian-politics/john-ivison-trudeaus-embrace-of-first-nations-laudable-but-throwing-money-at-their-problems-isnt-the-answer

Trudeau’s embrace of First Nations laudable, but throwing money at their problems isn’t the answer

“The right thing to do.” Justin Trudeau is using that line from last week’s throne speech to justify a raft of measures he hopes will improve the lives of indigenous people.

But there are few signs the policy and spending implications of the commitments the prime minister made Tuesday to chiefs of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) have been thought through. In a speech, he promised he would be their “partner.”

The chiefs — foremost among them the clearly delighted National Chief, Perry Bellegarde, already quite cozy with Trudeau — gave him repeated standing ovations. And no wonder: the new prime minister has already agreed to give them pretty much everything they want.

The commitment to launch an inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women is a reasonable gesture of reconciliation, charged with symbolism, even if it should probably look at the whole question of violence committed by and against aboriginals.

But the public airing of problems may yield some benefits and lead to a wider acceptance that we must do better. “It will give families an opportunity to heal and be heard,” the prime minister told AFN delegates, to loud applause.

More troubling from a fiscal and policy point of view are Trudeau’s commitments on First Nations education and his promise to implement all of the Truth and Reconciliation’s 94 recommendations — a pledge made before the TRC report was even tabled.

On native education, an increase in funding is long overdue. Trudeau was correct to say that the 20-year-old, two per cent cap on funding increases has been outstripped by need and demographics. The money promised by the Conservatives is still in the fiscal framework. It was rejected by the AFN because it was accompanied by legislation that created school boards aimed at making native education more professional and improving results.

Trudeau promised to end the two per cent cap and increase funding. “Every child deserves a chance,” he said. So far, so good.

But then he essentially abrogated the federal government’s responsibility to try to improve the system. “We will never impose a solution from the top down — we know it doesn’t work,” he said.

Structural reforms must accompany the cash, in the form of legislation that at least ring-fences the money to ensure it is used for education. The chiefs are resistant to the idea they will lose power and funding that would result from native school boards. As the auditor-general has noted in the past, the evidence suggests bands raid the education funding envelope if they are short in other areas.

The Kelowna Accord, so dear to Paul Martin and still held in reverence by Liberals, was a no-strings-attached funding increase that would have simply seen many more billions wasted, producing the same abysmal graduation rates we have seen for decades.

There is no mention of new legislation from the Liberals — it seems they will just add money and hope for the best. As one seasoned observer put it, the impact would be like “pouring water on hot coals,” with no lasting effect.

On the Truth & Reconciliation Commission recommendations, Trudeau has taken a huge leap into the dark. Many of those in the report are based on acceptance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While the Conservatives signed the declaration, they emphasized that its adoption did not change Canadian laws.

That proviso appears to have been abandoned. Now any mining or resource company looking to develop a project will require the free, prior and informed consent of First Nations — giving them a veto over government regulatory decisions.

The TRC had the admirable goals of improving native health, education and culture. But one doubts if even the authors of the report anticipated all their suggestions would be embraced quite so enthusiastically: that lawyers, journalists and teachers would all be obliged to learn about aboriginal history; that schools would be required to provide lessons on aboriginal spiritual beliefs; that there would be a new statutory holiday for a National Day of Truth and Reconciliation; that the Canada Council for the Arts would fund a new indigenous strategy; that there would be an increase of aboriginal programming on CBC; that funding would be forthcoming for aboriginal athletic development; that the oath of citizenship would be tailored to acknowledge treaties and on, and on.

No one has any idea what this wish list of ideas might cost, but a prime minister whose fledgling government is already flirting with fiscal disaster has committed to paying for them all, sight unseen.

There is a world of difference between trying to solve problems and throwing money at them. Are Trudeau’s efforts really likely to transform the relationship or are they just setting up First Nations for yet another expensive failure?

National Post

I hope the taxes from ROF will pay for all these promises.