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A GOVERNMENT FAiLURE: POVERTY AMONGFiRST NATiONS iN CANADA
Introduction:
The Indian Act, the first policy dictating Canadian-indigenous relations, continues to be a policy failure because it established and perpetuates the disruption of indigenous development geo-physically, socially, and politically in Canada. Furthermore, this conception produced a dependency relationship between Canadians and Indigenous people as, best exemplified by the 1974 MacKenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, the Dene and Inuit people had to push against modernization beliefs that justified Canada's progress at their expense. Thus, true reconciliation of Canada's historic abuse requires revoking the Indian Act, the core of the Canadian-indigenous developmental disparity.
Context：
This essay aims to answer the question: why do most First Nations across Canada live in poverty? And what strategies can be deployed to rectify this issue? Due to failed government policies underpinned by settler-colonial attitudes, there is socio-economic disparity wherein aboriginal people are disproportionately impoverished compared to non- aboriginal people in Canada. Thus, this paper recommends that Canada remove the Indian Act, the fundamental legal structure that dictates indigenous people, to enable aboriginal autonomy to develop according to themselves rather than Canada. Investigating this gap between provinces versus First Nations is significant. Despite Canada’s declaration to reconcile its historical abuse of aboriginal people, it has yet to amend its current relationship with indigenous people...
Author: Julia Parado Gavieta