i want to avoid falling into the right-wing narrative here, that you'd hear from ezra levant or something. that narrative is that the chiefs are paid too much money and are basically corrupt. the conclusion is that the solution to poverty is to clean up the corruption, not to provide for more money; there would be enough money if the chiefs weren't so corrupt.

the reason that narrative is toxic isn't because it assigns corruption to the chiefs. that part is true, although discussing it requires a more subtle discussion about colonialism. i'll be cursory about this in a moment. that narrative is toxic because it denies the underfunding.

the band system is a colonial system of state control. this is something i was completely ignorant of for years, and expect that most canadians are entirely ignorant of. when they see people from the assembly speak, or chiefs get together and have meetings, there's a really implicit assumption that they represent their people.

yet, do we think our mps really represent us? or do we know that they in truth represent the interests that keep them in their pockets? banks, corporations...

the bulk of the first nations governing process is actually under the control of the state. it relies entirely upon the state for it's funding. that gives the state absolute leverage. it also produces an entrenched hierarchy that is entirely willing to promote catastrophic policies if it means retaining that funding. further, it has an interest in working with the state's police forces to keep certain kinds of anti-establishment behaviour in check.

the chiefs realize that resistance movements are potentially a great threat to their own power - either through regular indigenous people revolting against the hierarchy or through the state withholding funding as a consequence of the chiefs not keeping "their people" in line.

that is, after all, the reason the state pays out so generously. within the colonial system of first nations governance, the purpose of the chief is not to represent it's people but to pacify them.

you could draw a comparison to the modern union movement. this kind of indigenous co-option, however, is very old. it goes right to the beginning of british control in north america.

....and it follows that an essential part of the process of reversing indigenous poverty is tearing down that hierarchy.

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4927