Study
| EST. READ TIME 1 MIN.Annual Indigenous spending expected to reach $35.5 billion in 2026, largely due to judicial settlements
Indigenous Spending in Budget 2022
Summary
- Overall spending increases announced in Budget 2022 were more moderate than federal spending increases during the pandemic years of 2019-2021.
- Federal Indigenous spending, however, continues to grow faster than overall spending.
- It is projected to rise from about $25 billion in fiscal 2021-22 to about $35.5 billion in 2026-27, an increase of 42 percent in nominal dollars.
- Indigenous spending continues to rise as a proportion of the federal budget, from 6.1 percent in 2019-20 to 7.7 percent in 2026-27—an increase of 26 percent in seven years.
- Indigenous spending is increasingly driven by the negotiated settlement of class actions, such as those for Indian residential schools, Indian day schools, Indian hospitals, and boil-water advisories on Indian reserves.
- The biggest of these settlements is the $40 billion child welfare settlement announced in December 2021.
- The impact of this settlement upon Indigenous spending is difficult to observe because, under the principles of accrual accounting, much of it is backdated to earlier years.
- The Trudeau government has missed all its previous budgetary targets for Indigenous spending, so the increases announced in Budget 2022 will probably prove to be underestimates, especially if class actions continue to put unpredictable pressures on Indigenous funding commitments.
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Tom Flanagan
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Distinguished Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of CalgaryTom Flanagan, Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Distinguished Fellow, at the School ofPublic Policy, University of Calgary, and Chair, Aboriginal Futures, at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He received his B.A. from Notre Dame and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University. He taught political science at the University of Calgary from 1968 until retirement in 2013. He is the author of many books and articles on topics such as Louis Riel and Metis history, aboriginal rights and land claims, Canadian political parties, political campaigning, and applications of game theory to politics. His books have won six prizes, including the Donner-Canadian Prize for best book of the year in Canadian public policy. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1996. Prof. Flanagan has also been a frequent expert witness in litigation over aboriginal and treaty land claims. In the political realm, he managed Stephen Harper's campaigns for leadership of the Canadian Alliance and the Conservative Party of Canada, the 2004 Conservative national campaign, and the 2012 Wildrose Alberta provincial campaign.… Read more Read Less…
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