ON THE LEVEL — Carrying aboriginals costly

For a government teetering on bankruptcy, Ottawa keeps right on spending like a drunken sailor. And I’m not referring to that asinine squandering of $4.3 billion for 50 of the world’s most sophisticated military helicopters.

Now it’s the heavy cost being incurred in settling native land claims. The latest and largest is creating Nunavut, splitting the Northwest Territories. A vast Inuit-controlled area with a population of only 18,000, Nunavut is in the Eastern Arctic.

The Great White Father in Ottawa will hand the Inuit there $1.15 billion ($63,888 each) over 14 years. Does this not set the pattern for countless aboriginal claims yet to be settled? Will any accept less?

And there is more — much more — in Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Tom Siddon’s gift bag, including title to 350,000 sq. km of land, with mineral rights to 36,000 sq. km. The latter embraces some of the most favorable geological areas in that territory. Indeed it is the development of these, hopefully in partnership with mining companies, that is seen as one of the most lucrative parts of the entire settlement.

Furthermore, the Inuit will now be collecting the resource royalties that have been going to Ottawa from these areas. Even on lands that remain controlled by the federal government, the Inuit will now share in all future royalties — including oil and gas.

And all this is but a starter, for a new separate government is to be set up that will cost Ottawa and Canadian taxpayers an arm and a leg. It will have an elected legislature with almost the same powers as the provinces, but with virtually no tax base.

Ottawa already underwrites more than 80% of the current territorial governments’ $1-billion annual operating budgets — a dependency that will in all likelihood continue for a long time to come.

What will it cost just to set up this new Inuit self-government? Does Siddon know or even care? An independent Edmonton-based agency estimates this at $632 million, with a continuing annual cost of something like $185 million. Ottawa has already made a commitment to train Inuit for civil servants and other jobs.

As to what this new development will mean to the mining industry, already hobbled by too much government red tape and myriad regulations, the jury is still out.

But I certainly have qualms, for any company wanting to work on ground on which the Inuit now hold mineral or surface rights will have to negotiate an impact and benefit agreement with their regional associations. These will almost certainly be demanding economic and social benefits, as well as substantial royalties.

Ottawa recently established a Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples which is holding a series of national round table conferences. This in itself is costing the federal treasury millions of dollars if the recent one in Ottawa on aboriginal justice is a criterion. Lawyers there had a field day as did the many participants brought down from the far north.

While aboriginal peoples account for only 4% of Canada’s population, it is shocking that 12% of the country’s penitentiary population is aboriginal. But surely this does not justify setting up a whole new justice system consistent with their individual needs and cultures, as suggested at the round table. Whatever happened to the dream of our Fathers of Confederation — one great united country extending from sea to sea with all Canadians equal? With upwards of a million aboriginals, the majority of whom are living well below the poverty line, we are building up a vast welfare state in the north. Unemployment there is and will continue way above the country’s average. A resident of Baker Lake, a small community 640 km north of Churchill, Man., told the Royal Commission that many of its people go hungry in the days before their next welfare or pension cheques arrive from Ottawa. “We need a food bank as we can’t even afford to hunt for caribou,” says the resident. “It costs money to operate a skidoo and buy gas and bullets.” As Canadians are already scandalously over-governed and over-taxed, Ottawa can ill afford to be setting up more governments almost totally dependent on federal largess.

Carrying a million people who don’t pay taxes is a heavy burden on those who do.