The federal government has signed a five-year funding agreement worth more than $187 million to help more First Nations assume governance of reserve lands and their natural resources.
By Joy SpearChief-MorrisOttawa Bureau
The Toronto Star: OTTAWA — The federal government has signed a five-year funding agreement worth more than $187 million to help more First Nations assume governance of reserve lands and their natural resources.
The memorandum of understanding signed Wednesday by Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu and Chief Robert Louie, chair of the Lands Advisory Board and Austin Bear, chair of the First Nations Land Management Resource Centre, will provide additional funding for First Nations land management across the country.
The Lands Advisory Board and First Nations Land Management Resource Centre work together to support First Nations communities that want to take control of their reserve lands by creating their own community land codes.
Wednesday’s agreement extends the organizations’ funding for five years as they assist First Nations seeking self-governance outside of the Indian Act’s restrictions on land.
“The operational developmental funding directed here and over these five years will greatly assist our peoples, our First Nations communities across Canada to exercise land governance and protection of their reserve lands,” said Louie, who is chief of Westbank First Nation in British Columbia, at a news conference in Ottawa on Wednesday.
“First Nations have proven very clearly that good things can happen when we make our own decisions for the benefit of our members, our neighbours — the whole country benefits.”
Hajdu said First Nations can improve the health and livelihood of their communities by re-establishing control over reserve lands, and increase their ability to attract investments to help close the existing infrastructure gap.
“We’re talking about regaining control over land that was not just dispossessed, but often, controlled deeply by an Indian Act and a Canadian colonial government,” she said.
“I’m very excited about this piece of work that I believe helps the government of Canada to shed colonial habits and leave the Indian Act behind and avoid a one-size-fits-all solution.”
In 1996, Canada signed the Framework Agreement for First Nations Land Management with 13 First Nations to recognize self-government rights over their reserve lands, environments and natural resources.
The framework was implemented through the First Nations Land Management Act in 1999. It allowed those First Nations to opt-out of 44 sections of the Indian Act that restrict land use and prohibit land ownership by First Nations by developing their own community land codes.
In 2022, the First Nations Land Management Act was replaced by the Framework Agreement on First Nation Land Management Act, which removed inconsistencies between the original act and the framework agreement.
There are currently more than 211 First Nations as signatories. The 118 land codes they have in place account for more than 1.2 million acres of reserve lands that are now in the control of First Nations governments.
“We cannot be wards of the state. We cannot be dependent upon decision-making that rests with others. We have to take charge,” Louie said.
Wednesday’s agreement will provide $187 million in funding over five years, and more than $34 million committed in last year’s federal budget, to the Land Advisory Board and First Nations Land Management Resource Centre.
The funding is expected to support as many as 50 more First Nations becoming signatories to the framework agreement in the next five years, and will also provide 21 per cent more funding for First Nations that already have land codes.
Joy SpearChief-Morris is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics and Indigenous issues for the Star. Reach her via email: jspearchiefmorris@thestar.ca