8 Special reportCanada The EconomistJuly 27th 2019
21scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary. In a country largely
free of the polarisation that blights America’s politics, the rights
and wrongs of oil extraction are the main wedge issue.
Nowhere is wedgier than Alberta, which, thanks to oil, is Cana-
da’s richest province. Ralph Klein, its premier from 1992 to 2006,
handed out C$400 cheques, known as “Ralph bucks”, to every Al-
bertan, a dividend from the oil sands. It is the only province with-
out a sales tax. It has also been an economic shock-absorber. Fish-
ermen beached by the collapse of Newfoundland’s cod industry in
the 1990s and workers displaced by Ontario’s manufacturing
slump in the 2000s found well-paid jobs in Alberta’s oil patch. In
the 2017-18 fiscal year, its taxpayers made a net contribution of
C$20.5bn to federal coffers, about 6.5% of revenue. But Alberta got
none of the C$18.2bn earmarked for poorer provinces.
Despite its wealth, it is not feeling rich. The plunge in global oilprices that began in 2014 turned boom to bust. By 2016 Alberta’s oil
industry had shed 100,000 jobs. The province is still hurting even
though prices have risen. Unemployment has dropped from a peak
of 9.1% in 2016 to 6.6% in June this year, but it is still a percentage
point above the national rate. Office vacancies in downtown Calga-
ry, Alberta’s business capital, have jumped from zero in 2007 to
over 25%. International oil companies such as Exxon, Total and
Royal Dutch Shell have either delayed projects or are pulling out.
The battle against the pipeline, waged in the name of wildlife,
indigenous peoples and the planet, feels to Albertans like charac-
ter assassination. Oil from the province’s oil sands requires more
energy to extract than does crude from more conventional
sources. Producers therefore emit more greenhouse gas per barrel
(see chart overleaf ). Barack Obama called it “extraordinarily dirty”.
“We’ve been generous and loyal Canadians and now every-Righting the wrongs
The country’s native populations are successfully claiming new rights and resources“E
ducation is theNew Buffalo”, a
sculpture formed from words in
indigenous languages, is a focal point of
Calgary’s new public library. Its message
is that, just as bison once sustained
indigenous people in North America, so
education will secure their cultural
survival. Such messages of support for
Canada’s “First Nations” are everywhere.
Public events often begin with an ac-
knowledgment of the people on whose
“traditional territory” it is taking place.
Under a revision of the citizenship oath
proposed by the government in May, new
Canadians would recognise “the aborigi-
nal and treaty rights of First Nations,
Inuit and Métis peoples”.
Indigenous groups have become
more assertive, courts more sympathetic
and the government more responsive.
This has benefited many. Used to think-
ing of the country as based on English-
and French-speaking nations, Canadians
are starting to say it has a “triangular
foundation”, says John Ralston Saul, an
author. But progress is patchy.
In the census of 2016, 1.7m Canadians,
or nearly 5%, described themselves as
indigenous. Their number is growing
faster than that of Canada’s population as
a whole. Their living conditions are, on
average, worse. Nearly 30% of First Na-
tions people are poor, meaning their
after-tax income is less than 50% of the
median income, adjusted for family size.
In 2016, 31% of First Nations people and
46% of Inuit did not have secondary-
school qualifications, compared with 8%
of the non-indigenous. The 52% of native
people who now live in cities are mostly
better off than those on reserves.The gaps come from centuries-long
discrimination. A pass system, in force
from 1885 to the 1930s, required members
of First Nations to get a permit to leave
their reserves. Residential schools re-
moved children from parents and dis-
couraged them from speaking their lan-
guage. Perhaps 150,000 children went
through the schools, and many were mis-
treated. The last one closed only in 1996.
As a candidate, Mr Trudeau said it
would be a “sacred responsibility” to im-
prove relations with indigenous groups.
Their position was already improving. In
1973 the Supreme Court acknowledged that
they had valid land claims that pre-dated
European settlement. This led to the first
“modern treaties”, which give them own-
ership of an area nearly the size of Manito-
ba, and a say over land use in 40% of Cana-da’s territory. Much of the rest is covered
by earlier treaties, still in force. These may
not override property rights but do give
indigenous people influence. This has led
to what Ken Coates of the University of
Saskatchewan calls “a full culture of con-
sultation” across the country.
Many have used it to improve their
fortunes. In Vancouver three groups
joined forces with a developer to purchase
14m square feet (1.3m square metres) of
public land at a discount to the market
price. They plan to put up housing and
commercial buildings.
Although indigenous groups make
headlines when they oppose projects like
the Trans Mountain pipeline, many are
keen on the revenue and jobs such projects
can bring. One group wants to buy a major-
ity stake in that pipeline and put the pro-
fits into a sovereign-wealth fund.
Plenty miss out. At the Rapid Lake
reserve, a settlement of Algonquins in
Quebec 270km north of Ottawa, almost the
only source of income for the 300-400
people who live there is social assistance.
Mr Harper apologised for the horrors of
the residential-school system. A truth and
reconciliation commission heard testimo-
ny from thousands of witnesses. The
Trudeau government is striving to raise
living standards. The number of indige-
nous reserves where drinking water was
deemed unsafe dropped from 105 in No-
vember 2015 to 58 by July of this year.
Indigenous leaders think progress has
been too slow. “You can’t talk about recon-
ciliation where basic human rights and
equity are not achieved,” says Tanya Ta-
laga, an indigenous journalist. The first
Discovering their roots Canadians are still too often the last.