Who says who is First Nations?

When you think of it, isn't it troubling that the definition of who is and isn't properly First Nation is determined by the Federal government and not by First Nations? I suppose you can argue it's merely an entitlement program and so it is a purely Federal government matter; that said, since residence on a reserve is a way of defining who is and isn't First Nation the issue is non-trivial. Of course, as the note on TB from yesterday made clear, the system doesn't work very well anyway so in a sense the definitional changes is a "moving the deck chairs on the Titanic" type of thing:





http://tiny.cc/A5beD



The changes suggested by the federal government Thursday would add about 45,000 people to the Indian Register and have native leaders fearing that Ottawa would not help reserves with the costs of a sudden influx of people.


There is disagreement within the native community over who should have status, and many bands have their own membership codes to determine who is entitled to live in their jurisdiction. The government also does not yet know what the actual cost would be, because there is no way of predicting how many people would apply and what benefits they would want.