Scared of the Urban Reserve? Why?
by Niigonwedom

What is Winnipeg so scared about? With all of the “hype” out there for Mayor Glen Murray’s idea to examine the issue of first nation Urban Reserves, here are a sort of collected “facts and fictions” to help you out when determining your position on the issue.
Fiction: Urban Reserves will bring more Aboriginal people into our cities.
Fact: Aboriginal people are already here, in huge numbers.
The reality is that Aboriginal people are in Winnipeg, and are here to stay. According to the 1996 Census, 27% of Manitoba’s Aboriginal (status Indian) people live in Winnipeg, comprising 7.1% of the total population in the city. It is projected, that in 2023, one in five people in Winnipeg will be Aboriginal.
Fiction: Indians receive “enough” free money, both from their reserves and from the system of welfare.
Fact: Aboriginal people do not like the system of welfare and want to be “productive” citizens in their societies.
The 1996 Census states that 72% of Aboriginal people live in “low-income” households in Winnipeg, and that 25.3% of Aboriginal people remain unemployed, compared to the national average of around 7 percent. If you ask any Aboriginal person, they do not want to live on a system of welfare that encourages these trends to continue.
Fiction: Urban Reserves are a “new” idea to solve the economic ills of Aboriginal people.
Fact: Urban Reserves are utilized in other places, and have been for many years.
In Saskatoon, the Urban Reserve idea with the Muskeg Lake First Nation, has been in effect for twenty years, and has resulted in the increase of the land ownership, employment for urban Indians and as a result, a new economic self-sufficiency away from the dependency on federal transfer payments.
Fiction: Urban Reserves are doomed to fail, and will spread already existing Aboriginal poverty.
Fact: Urban Reserves have done nothing but increase property value and infrastructure in cities.
Urban Reserves have not been based on residential units, but this is not to say that they cannot become that. Of the land purchased in Saskatoon in 1984 for $750,000, the current business and infrastructure on the land (built by the Indian Band) has raised the property value to over $18 million, with that figure rising as new partnerships are formed.
Fiction: Urban Reserves are “tax-free” havens for Aboriginal business.
Fact: Aboriginal taxation is expanding, as Bands learn how to tax themselves.
The most contentious issue is how Aboriginal people will “pay their fair share” of taxes—this is to create a “level playing field” for non-Native businesses, as “presumably,” Native business will not charge any tax on the goods they sell. This is completely false. As per any treaty agreement, existing infrastructure to be utilized as reserve lands must enter into agreements with the surrounding municipalities to utilize services already existent on those properties. With this thinking then, cities do reserve the right to charge Aboriginal people for their use of gas, electricity, garbage pick-up and other city-provided services. In all cases where an Urban Reserve has been established, these agreements have provided that the Indian Band running the Reserve pays the EXACT same amount as would any “normal” business. The existing agreement which governs Aboriginal Treaty Land Entitlement Claims in Manitoba (TLE), has this exact provision in its wording. As we also see, Indian Bands are not entities that can survive on federal transfer payments from Indian Affairs in Ottawa. They have devised ways to utilize taxation for their own needs, including charging the businesses on reserve the same taxes they would receive if they were outside the reserve in the city in order to reside there. These moneys are then placed back into the reserves to spur economic and capital growth, as well as social and educational programming. This has meant that there is less dependence on federal transfer payments, and a step toward cessation of those payments. In many ways, urban reserves have been touted as a form of “self-sufficient government.” In other words, Aboriginal businesses on Urban Reserves end up paying the EXACT same amount of taxes as any non-Native business. The only difference is, that Aboriginal businesses, if they choose to live on reserve, pay the portion they would normally pay to the federal government, to their governing Indian Band to pay for that self-governing body. The municipal city government receives the same amount as they normally would.
Fiction: Urban Reserves are “tax-free” havens for Aboriginal people.
Fact: Urban Reserve bodies find that individual taxation is the “wave of the future.”
More and more, urban reserve bodies are finding that if they take charge of their own finances, they can better pay for the services they offer to their population. There is no reason, and clear evidence, that as urban reserves stretch into residential and commercial areas on these Crown-appointed lands, that this trend should not continue. Bands are finding that to pay for the services they offer (usually provided in cooperation with the City they are in partnership with) they must charge their population to utilize them. So, they have often maintained rates comparable with the GST and the PST for their populations, receiving that money back from the Indian Act provisions, and then paying the cities for their services. The remaining moneys are used to run the Urban Reserve government, in the hopes that they will eventually (and in all cases probably) leave their dependence on Indian Affairs for their self-sufficiency. Believe it or not, Aboriginal people see the current system as oppressive and systemic to the problems facing their people, and would like nothing better than a new system put into its place, one based on Aboriginal business working for Aboriginal people.
Fiction: Urban Reserves are avoidable, if we don’t want them.
Fact: Urban Reserves, and in fact, more Reserves for Aboriginal people, are an inevitability as per the Manitoba Treaty Entitlement Agreement.
Aboriginal people currently have claims to 800,000 acres of land in Manitoba, with many more on the way as more and more Bands seek to settle their outstanding claims from the “numbered” treaties signed on upon between 1891-1910. As stated in the Resource and Land Transfer Act of 1930 in Canada, this relationship was then transferred to the provinces to settle these outstanding claims with First Nations people. As the reality of settlement set in for these Bands, and the years passed by, Indian Bands have found that there is no Crown Land left to claim, and the Manitoba Treaty Land Entitlement Agreement signed with the province has allowed certain Bands to claim lands which they traditionally inhabited. Guess what? Much of these lands are now in the area we would call Winnipeg, a legal entitlement which cannot be ignored. Peguis First Nation has this same entitlement to the City of Selkirk. More land settlements are coming. With the current shortage of Crown Lands to claim, settlements are going to go where Aboriginal people are living.
Fiction: Urban Reserves are going to bring inappropriate business to cities, such as casinos.
Fact: Cities have a say, as do Aboriginal people, on the business done on Urban Reserves.
The Manitoba Treaty Entitlement Agreement has in it a provision which states that any use of land must be utilized in cooperation with the surrounding municipality. Therefore, there must be a decision making body which assists in times of conflict and disagreement. The provisions are there to settle disagreements on zoning bylaws, traffic presence, and business inclusions (for instance a nuclear power plant). The TLE, however, states that if municipalities do not take it upon themselves to seek out these agreements, the First Nation does not have to seek them out, so it is in the best interests of these cities to settle these issues beforehand. It is also in their best interests that people who will eventually become “good neighbours,” sit down and talk about what their “house” is going to look like, and choose how to decorate it together. One would hope that it is also in the best interests of all concerned in the Urban Reserve issue to get as well-informed as possible, especially to stop these “fictions” from becoming ideological myths, such as they are becoming now.
Urban Reserves are only one attempt at solving the economic woes of Aboriginal people in our city, though, and an opportunity to give Aboriginal people a chance at self-sufficiency. And as with all ideas in the public eye, one needs an objective and informed opinion to be a “good” neighbour.
Niigonwedom is an English Honours student and a freelance political writer.