Many First Nations communities lack infrastructural security – a term for whether governments and communities have the necessary assets to promote and maintain the economic and social well-being of their members.

This problem on reserves is a “tale as old as time,” steeped in the ongoing legacies of colonialism when the Crown relocated Indigenous communities to reserves to facilitate assimilation and the economic development of their former lands.

According to the Assembly of First Nations, the federal government would have to spend at least $349 billion by 2030 to reduce the infrastructural security gap between First Nations and non-Indigenous communities.

Why does this gap persist? Part of the answer lies in the logic and practice of Canadian federalism. Daniel Elazar once argued that all federal systems are organized around one of two competing principles – self-rule or shared rule.

In self-rule, subnational units in a federation, such as Indigenous communities, should have autonomy over a range of powers that cannot be interfered with by other governments.

By contrast, shared rule is a little more complicated. It refers to instances when subnational units are willing to share some of their powers with each other through horizontal co-ordination or with the federal government through centralization. It can also mean subnational units having the ability to co-determine national policies.

The current federal approach has been self-rule but this has caused problems – for example, when it funds the building of infrastructure projects but not their ongoing operations and maintenance. It’s time for Ottawa to try innovative shared-rule approaches to change this narrative.

The federal government’s approach to reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples has been to promote self-rule through modern treaties and self-government agreements that lead to the creation of autonomous Indigenous communities nested within provincial or territorial units, or the devolution of programs and services to band councils.

On the one hand, this strategy seems like the correct one, given longstanding demands from Indigenous communities that the Crown recognize and respect Indigenous self-determination and self-government.

On the other hand, it also allows the federal government to claim that it is fulfilling its fiduciary duty to Indigenous communities, while at the same time providing limited or no financial or organizational support to help them administer and maintain the new programs, services and infrastructure.

The case of Indigenous water

A good example is Indigenous water security. In 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to end all boil-water advisories on reserves by 2020.

The government’s solution was to provide funding to First Nations communities to build new on-reserve water treatment plants as needed. Once that plant was built, however, federal involvement ended. There were no additional funds for operations and maintenance.

Two men unload boxes of bottled water from a small cargo plane onto a pickup truck.
An air delivery of bottled water is unloaded for the Neskantaga First Nation in Neskantaga, Ont., on Friday August 18, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

That usually isn’t a problem in other municipalities where the population is larger and economic activity is healthier. However, for isolated reserves with small populations and weak economies, upkeep is impossible and so the water treatment plant degrades quickly, resulting in new boil-water advisories.

One way to avoid this infrastructural gap spiral is to move away from self-rule (e.g., the transferring of non-financial assets from the federal to Indigenous governments) to embrace new models of shared rule

When policymakers and academics think about shared rule, they think about institutions and processes that require governments and sometimes civil society actors to come together permanently to co-determine public policy and spending decisions. The practical business of governing requires two parties with independent powers to co-operate – to join their distinct capabilities together – to deliver some good or service.

The Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee and the Intergovernmental Council of the Northwest Territories are two examples of this. However, addressing the infrastructural security gap may require novel and perhaps radical solutions.

Maintaining investment through co-ownership

One idea is for the federal government to truly embrace a reconciliatory ethic by not only funding the construction of new infrastructure for water, housing or digital connectivity, but also offering to co-own the assets with the First Nation.

Co-ownership forces the federal government to remain invested legally, financially and politically in the upkeep of the infrastructure, which in turn will extend its life in ways that significantly improve the well-being of the community.

It also happens to nicely embody the tenets of mutual respect that are at the core of what some argue is a more just relationship between the Crown and Indigenous communities. It should measurably improve the governance capacity of Indigenous communities as they develop infrastructural expertise – the capacity to build, operate, maintain and replace critical infrastructure.

This model is not limited to Indigenous communities. It can also address the infrastructural problems that plague some municipalities.

In 2019, Ontario Premier Doug Ford floated the possibility of “uploading” the City of Toronto’s transit system to the province as a way of renewing the city’s aging transportation infrastructure. An alternative strategy is for the province to co-own the TTC assets with the City, bringing the two governments into a formal partnership.

Infrastructural security is a difficult problem for First Nations and municipalities across Canada. For too long, the default solution has been self-rule. It’s time to dust off the shared-rule toolbox and root around for novel and innovative ways of addressing the infrastructural security gap in Canada.

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Christopher Alcantara
Christopher Alcantara is a professor of political science at Western University and co-author of Winning and Keeping Power in Canadian Politics.
Veldon Coburn
Veldon Coburn is associate professor and faculty chair of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill University.  
Anthony M. Sayers
Anthony M. Sayers is a professor of political science in the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary.

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