Part Two of Cash Back dismantles the myth of “free money” and looks at how Canada intentionally perpetuates a cycle of economic dependency through chronic underfunding.

We look at four specific ways that Canada maintains colonization through the “fiscal relationship,” i.e. you need to follow the money across these policies: 

1. Social welfare policy without economic development
2. Devolution (or passing the buck to First Nations, without actually giving the bucks)
3. Austerity policies that discipline First Nations by tightening the purse strings and denying Indigenous rights
4. Finger Pointing — when the federal and provincial governments avoid responsibility by blaming each other for First Nation problems

We spotlight education as a case study of Canada’s failure to provide the necessities of life, thus creating deeper cycles of poverty and predatory conditions, particularly for women, girls, 2SLGBTQQIA, and non-binary people. Finally, we ask where to look for recourse and what barriers must be brought down to make meaningful change.

First, we show how the welfare state was a support raft that First Nations were added to last and kicked off first. The early starvation policies of “relief” funds turned into a federal transfer program devoid from any assessment of material need, and ignored any political commitments made to First Nations. We trace this policy, described by bureaucrats as “enough to keep them alive,” from its origins to the “new” fiscal relationship today.

We argue that these bureaucratic processes must be understood as a strategy to ensure a state of permanent crisis in First Nations.

Systemic underfunding effectively disciplines First Nations to comply with federal policies and forces them along a path to self-government, as defined by Canada. Ultimately this strategy is about downloading the nation-to-nation relationship between the Crown and First Nations onto provincial governments.

Rather than acknowledge that poverty is created in Ottawa, and that dispossession, greed, and deep structural racism underpin the scarcity of resources provided to First Nations, the government feigns confusion and pushes the problem as solutions: greater participation in the resource economy that devastated Indigenous livelihoods across the country.