Quote:
Originally Posted by Reesonov
Well, the Québécois had Montreal, Quebec City, a huge francophone province in which to find resources and areas with good access to markets, etc, etc.
Generally speaking, First Nations reserves reduced previously large-ranging territories to small, isolated pockets. The Indian Act (and various treaties) then incentivized reserve living.
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But you don't need a large amount of land to make a lot of money.
We tend to think of FN reserves as these destitute places up north, cut off from the rest of the world. That's certainly true of many places, unfortunately.
However, there are also a lot of FN reserves in more populated parts of Canada, where status Indians have access to the disposable incomes of millions of neighbouring Canadians.
Here in Metro Vancouver, the FN bands are collectively sitting on maybe a tens of billions of dollars of real estate. They have a very active economic development team and they rake in cash. They built a giant outlet mall, messing with years of regional planning, and clogging the main artery to Vancouver Island with traffic.
Elsewhere, FN reserves sell untaxed cigarettes, gasoline, and collect gaming revenue (handing over less to the province than a business with similar revenues would in corporate taxes).