| Summary: | A Compilation of Essays by Master's Students in the School of Policy Studies, Queen's University The Aboriginal peoples of Canada have had a long and checkered past with regard to their fiscal relations with the Government of Canada. The paternalism that has marked this relationship has existed since the 1800’s when church and state used residential schools to try to assimilate the Native people of Canada. The reserve system imposed a stationary lifestyle on Native peoples. The Government was to provide food and lodging on reserves rather than allow the Native people to live off the land. By removing the freedom to move about, Natives had to adjust to living a stationary life rather than following the game or moving the village every five years or so. The Territories of First Nations became far smaller than what they formerly enjoyed because the reserves created boundaries which were not there before contact. Instead the various Tribes had their own system of recognized Territory where a river or landmark might be the end of one Territory and the beginning of another. The elected system was forced onto the First Nations in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. This foreign system of governance, which received funding from the Federal Government, created a reliance on the outside government to provide services to the community. Because the Federal Government controlled the purse strings, the reserve had limited powers to do as they wished. Today, it is widely understood that there is never enough money for First Nations to do all that they wish to do and, in most cases, there are funding shortfalls for such things as building and road maintenance and staffing for local governance. Many of the funding formulas used by the Federal Government have not changed since the 1980’s and 1990’s while some areas within a First Nation community are not funded at all. The education formula, as an example, had been capped since the 1990’s resulting in on-reserve children getting funded at $7,000 per year compared to over $10,000 ...
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