In Praise of Taxes: The Link Between Taxation and Good Governance in a First Nations Context (2010), John Graham & Jodi Bruhn

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In Praise of Taxes: The Link between
Taxation and Good Governance for

First Nations Communities

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Policy Brief No. 32
– February 2009

by
John Graham

and Jodi Bruhn

The Institute On Governance (IOG) is a Canadian, non-profit think tank that provides an
independent source of knowledge, research and advice on governance issues, both in Canada and
internationally.

Governance is concerned with how decisions important to a society or an organization are taken. It
helps define who should have power and why, who should have voice in decision-making, and how
account should be rendered.

Using core principles of sound governance – legitimacy and voice, direction, performance,
accountability, and fairness – the IOG explores what good governance means in different contexts.

We analyze questions of public policy and organizational leadership, and publish articles and papers
related to the principles and practices of governance. We form partnerships and knowledge networks
to explore high priority issues.

Linking the conceptual and theoretical principles of governance to the world of everyday practice,
we provide advice to governments, communities, business and public organizations on how to
assess the quality of their governance, and how to develop programs for improvement.

You will find additional information on our activities on the IOG website at
www.iog.ca

For further information,

contact John Graham at the Institute On Governance.
tel.: (1 613) 562 0092 ext. 231; e-mail: jgraham@iog.ca

Most IOG publications and all our policy briefs are available on our website. Sample titles:

Improving Health Governance in First Nations Communities: Model Governance Policies and
Tools by John Graham and Jodi Bruhn (January 2009)

Policy Brief No. 31: How to Improve First Nation Housing by John Graham and Gail Motsi (October
2008)

In Praise of Taxes: the Relationship of Taxation to Good Governance in A First Nations Context, by
John Graham and Jodi Bruhn (March 2008)

Policy Brief No. 29: Rethinking Self-Government: Developing A More Balanced, Evolutionary
Approach, by John Graham (September 2007)

The contents of this paper are the responsibility of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect a position of the IOG or its Board of Directors.

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In Praise of Taxes for First Nations Communities
Policy Brief No.32: Institute On Governance, Ottawa, Canada

Introduction

The word ‘taxes’ evokes a shudder among
most Canadians, but especially among many
First Nations people. The Indian tax
exemption has become a key symbol of the
unique relationship of First Nations with
Canada, whether its source is seen as the
treaties, an inherent Aboriginal right, or
Section 87 of the Indian Act. A survey by
the Indian Taxation Advisory Board
suggests that First Nations people object to
taxation not only by provincial and federal
governments but by their own First Nations
governments too.1 But what if taxation by
their governments were to improve
governance in their communities?
That question is the theme of this policy
brief.

Based on a much longer paper,2 the policy
brief outlines the linkages between taxation
and good governance as described in public
finance theory and the literature on
international development. It begins by
presenting the link between taxation and
good governance, then indicates what effects
the lack of a tax relationship between a
government and citizens might have. It then
applies the lessons to First Nations
communities, indicating some of the positive
effects of introducing broad-based taxation
on reserve. The policy brief concludes by
outlining options First Nations now have in
occupying tax jurisdiction and by providing
some advice on how political leaders might
gradually introduce taxation into their
communities.

1 Results of ITAB First Nation Taxation
Questionnaire, cited in Fiscal Realities, “First
Nation Taxation and New Fiscal Relationships,”
paper presented to the ITAB and Department of
Indian Affairs and Northern Development
(August 1997).
2 John Graham and Jodi Bruhn, “In Praise of
Taxes: the Link between Taxation and Good
Governance in a First Nation Context” Institute
On Governance (March 2008).

The Tax Relationship

We first turn to the link between taxation
and good governance in general terms. The
decision to impose taxes is not based simply
on sober fiscal analysis, but is rather an
intensely political decision. In a democracy,
government tax decisions are the outcomes
of a critical relationship underlying taxing
and spending: the relationship between
citizens and their elected government. In
order to gain and retain power, political
officials must persuade a substantial number
of their citizens that they can tax and spend
public funds wisely.

This theory has been upheld by recent
practice in American and Canadian election
campaigns during a world-wide economic
crisis. Citizens scrutinize the taxing and
spending decisions of their governments.
Such scrutiny establishes a survival rule
whereby governments attempt to win
elections (generated in part through
spending) and avoid defeat (by the many
disgruntled voters whose revenue source is
being taxed). Thus, the citizen-government
relationship that lies at the heart of taxing
and spending activities helps define,
constrain and steer those activities.3

The objection could be raised that the tax
relationship pertains only to Western
democracies. Yet there is also evidence of
such a relationship in developing countries
abroad. In fact, a burgeoning literature
presenting so-called fiscal theories of
governance indicates that struggles over
taxes and services tend to produce greater
deference of governments to citizens in
developing countries as well.4

3 W. Irving Gillespie, Tax, Borrow and Spend:
Financing Federal Spending in Canada, 1867–
1990 (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1991),
2, 16–18.
4 See, for example, Mick Moore, “How Does
Taxation Affect the Quality of Governance?”
Working Paper 280, Institute of Development
Studies (April 2007); Barak D. Hoffman and
Clark C. Gibson, “Political Accountability and

In Praise of Taxes for First Nations Communities
Policy Brief No. 32: Institute On Governance, Ottawa, Canada

Notably, such a tie also appears to have
existed in traditional First Nations practice.
The First Nations Real Property Taxation
Guide published by the First Nations Tax
Commission reminds that First Nations
prior to contact practiced a form of taxation
in customs such as paying tribute for
occupying or using territory, and
distributing wealth through ceremonies like
the potlatch or giveaway dances. Cree
storyteller Joy Asham describes how the
leader of the buffalo hunt, the Poundmaker,
was always the last to receive the meat
from the hunt, awaiting the portion the
warriors gave him as their expression of
gratitude and respect.5

First Nations people on reserve might not
be accustomed to taxation now, but it
appears that this had not always been the
case. Traditionally, Aboriginal people both
shared resources within the community and
ensured the accountability of leaders
through mechanisms that can be compared
to taxation.

Taxation and Good Governance

How precisely does taxation enhance good
governance? In its publications, the IOG
has argued that there are five universally
applicable principles of good governance.
Dependence on broad-based taxation, if
fairly and effectively administered, should
lead to some beneficial governance
outcomes affecting all five, including:

• More responsiveness to the service
preferences of citizens (performance
and voice)

• Increased government emphasis on
prosperity of citizens (direction,
performance)

Fiscal Governance in Africa,” unpublished
manuscript (March 2006), 5, 23.
5 Joy Asham, “The Buffalo Hunt of the Plains
Cree, as told by Plains Cree Elders of Echo
Valley, Saskatchewan,” reprinted in the Métis
Voyageur, December 2007, 19.

• More political engagement of citizens,
who monitor how revenues are spent
(accountability, legitimacy and voice)

• Over time, citizens comply with the tax
regime in exchange for influence over
taxation levels and the form and uses of
tax revenues (voice, accountability,
legitimacy)

As a cumulative effect of the positive effects
of taxation on governance, political scientist
Mick Moore predicts an improved quality of
life for citizens of regimes applying broad-
based taxation, if it is fairly administered.

Of course, many other factors affect the
quality of governance: sound institutions
and a supportive political culture, for
example. Beyond this, there can be simple
mistakes in the political calculations of
citizens and governments, rendering the
‘survival rule’ only a general rule of thumb.
Yet further evidence of the positive effects
of taxation arises not only where the
taxation relationship is present, but perhaps
even more forcefully where it is absent.

There are two common, albeit very different,
situations where governments can afford not
to tax their citizens: where they enjoy large
non-tax revenues, or where they receive aid
or transfers from other governments. To
explore the link between governance and
taxation further, we now turn to the negative
case: the effects of the absence of a need to
tax as presented in the comparative and
development literature.

The “Curse” of Non-Tax Revenue

Canadians are broadly familiar with the
‘curse of oil,’ the thesis that oil wealth
impedes democratic governance. Some of
the international literature suggests that
sudden oil wealth inflicts even greater
damage on democratic practices in poor
states than in wealthy ones. Economist Paul

6 Moore, “How Does Taxation Affect the Quality
of Governance?” 17–18.

In Praise of Taxes for First Nations Communities
Policy Brief No.32: Institute On Governance, Ottawa, Canada

Collier cites dependence on natural resource
exports as one of three characteristics that
make a country prone to civil war (the other
two being low income and slow economic
growth). Two major difficulties face
developing countries that are rich in natural
resources. First, their main revenue source
is volatile, which contributes to poor
planning. Second, their abundance of public
money makes it more effective for
incumbants simply to buy votes to stay in
power. Where patronage politics is not only
feasible but more cost-effective, those
attracted to public life tend to be crooks
seeking a share in the spoils.7

Extending the curse of oil logic to provincial
or state governments receiving large fiscal
transfers, political scientist Carlos Gervasoni
suggests that the ‘curse’ stems less from the
revenues arising from natural resources than
from their not arising from taxation. Yet
funds from outside can also flow from
central governments to sub-national ones in
any country practicing fiscal federalism.
Based on his study of sub-national
governments receiving large fiscal transfers
in Argentina, Gervasoni observed effects
similar to those of the natural resource curse.
Among the symptoms: a disproportionately
large public sector, bloated public payroll,
widespread patronage politics and a notable
lack of competition for incumbents.8

Applying the Research to First Nations

How might the public finance theory and the
international research outlined above apply
here in Canada? Questions surrounding
natural resource revenues and the effects of
fiscal transfers have long bedevilled

7 Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the
Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be
Done about It (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007), 32, 40–41, 44–46.
8 Carlos Gervasoni, “A Rentier Theory of
Subnational Authoritarian Enclaves,” paper
delivered at the VIII Congreso Nacional de
Ciencia Politica de la Sociedad Argentina de
Analisis Politico (Buenos Aires: November
2007).

commentators. Some, for example, question
the effects of Alberta’s sudden oil wealth on
the governance of that province. Others ask
whether heavy fiscal transfers to have-not
provinces only depress their economies
further. First Nations in Alberta have
experienced the mixed blessings of natural
resource wealth firsthand. The patronage
and cronyism combined with appalling
social conditions that plagued the Stoneys
outside Calgary or the Samson Cree Nation
in the late 1990s amply attest to the effects
sudden resource wealth can have on pre-
existing social and governance issues in a
First Nation community.9

Less pronounced, but still palpable, are the
effects felt by First Nations depending
almost solely on federal fiscal transfers for
their revenues. In 2001, Fiscal Realities
estimated that fiscal transfers comprise an
average of 90 or even 95 percent of the
revenues of First Nations governments.
Manifesting a situation of “extreme fiscal
imbalance,” this level was more than double
that of the poorest province in the country.10

Public finance theory would predict serious
accountability issues here. With little
correspondence between the source of
revenues and the recipients of services, one
would expect lower levels of satisfaction
among First Nations recipients and a poor
upkeep of services on the part of the funding
government, whose political survival does
not depend on responding to the service
demands of First Nations citizens. One
would also expect First Nation community
members—who are not paying for
services—to demand more than they are
willing to pay for.

9 For a description, see Jean Allard, “Big Bear’s
Treaty: The Road to Freedom,” Inroads 11, 145–
49.
10 Fiscal Realities, “Getting First Nations
Government Right—Tax and Related
Expenditure,” paper presented to Indian and
Northern Affairs Canada and the Indian Taxation
Advisory Board (June 2001).

In Praise of Taxes for First Nations Communities
Policy Brief No. 32: Institute On Governance, Ottawa, Canada

In terms of governance, the adverse effects
may well resemble those described in the
Argentinian study. First Nations, for
example, tend to have a very large public
sector.11 Certainly, this is due in part to the
broad scope of services First Nations
governments must deliver to their citizens.
But it may also follow from how the
revenues spent are raised. Politics can also
be highly factional and patronage-based in
First Nations and the media and other
organizations have reported cases of election
fraud and vote buying.12

Of course it would be false to depict all
First Nations governments as corrupt or
elitist—just as it would be wrong to say that
the revenue source is the sole determinant
of governance quality. Indeed, some First
Nations are very well governed despite the
absence of tax regimes. In general, though,
both governance and service quality can be
expected to suffer in a governance system
that lacks the crucial tie of a direct fiscal
reliance upon its citizens for survival.
Further, the international literature suggests
that First Nations advocacy organizations
should expand their focus beyond an
emphasis on sharing natural resource
royalties as the means to reduce the
dependency of First Nations on the federal
government. Notably, the Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and
Harvard Project on American Indian
Economic Development both recommend
that First Nations and American Indian
tribes tax their citizens.

Current Tax Options for First Nations

Having indicated that taxation by First
Nations governments would help improve
the governance of First Nation communities

11 See here John Graham, “Rethinking Self-
Government: Developing a More Balanced,
Evolutionary Approach,” Institute On
Governance, Policy Brief 29 (September 2007).
12 See especially the work of the Frontier Centre
for Public Policy, which has also created an
“Aboriginal Governance Index,” available at
www.fcpp.org.

in principle, we turn to the thorny issue of
how it would work in practice. Here a
crucial caveat is in order. Despite the present
fiscal imbalance, we do not recommend a
reduction of federal fiscal transfers—at least
not for the foreseeable future. At their
present levels, the fiscal transfers do not
adequately support services in any case.
Beyond this, no taxes collected in small First
Nations communities could ever be expected
to fund such big-ticket items as education,
health care, and social welfare. The goal,
therefore, should not be to reduce or
eliminate the transfers but to boost First
Nations’ overall revenues by introducing
taxes alongside user fees and other own-
source revenues (ranging from royalties and
resource rents to revenues from First
Nations-owned businesses).

There are a few legal instruments First
Nations alreay have to introduce taxes on
reserve. Briefly, they are:

1. Property tax: Subject to approval of
property tax bylaws passed by band
councils, First Nations communities
under the Indian Act can now collect
property taxes on all real property on
reserve—either under Section 83 of the
Indian Act or under the 2005 First
Nations Fiscal and Statistical
Management Act. Affecting mainly non-
Aboriginal lessess and businesses on
reserve, most First Nations now exempt
member property interests from taxation.
Some 113 First Nations now collect
property taxes.

2. Sales tax: Since 1997, First Nations have

been able to opt into legislation enabling
them to pass bylaws imposing a sales
tax—at first only on on-reserve sales of
alcohol, fuel, and tobacco and later on all
taxable goods and services consumed on
First Nations land. The 2003 First
Nations Goods and Services Tax Act
(FNGST) enables First Nations under the
Indian Act to impose a consumption tax
at a rate identical to the federal GST, but
only through special sharing

In Praise of Taxes for First Nations Communities
Policy Brief No.32: Institute On Governance, Ottawa, Canada
6

arrangements with Canada. Unlike the
property tax power, the FNGST must
apply to both members and non-
Aboriginal consumers. Only 29 First
Nations now apply a sales tax—12 of
them are self-governing First Nations.

3. Personal income tax: There is no

national framework legislation allowing
First Nations to opt into collecting
income tax. Tax jurisdiction is available
only to First Nations that have concluded
self-government agreements. Self-
governing First Nations have a strong
motivation to occupy this tax room, as
the Indian Act tax exemption no longer
applies to First Nations citizens under a
self-government agreement.

Assuming that First Nations governments
will one day be multi-tiered, careful thought
should be given to how each tier finances
itself. Property taxes and user fees would be
appropriate to lower tier governments
delivering services and making expenditures
that relate directly to those revenue sources.
Sales tax might be more appropriate revenue
sources for upper-tier governments. And
First Nations under the Indian Act may wish
to press for introduction of legislation
allowing them to tax the income of their
members. The federal government, for its
part, will wish to develop a more effective
approach to communicating the benefits of
taxation to First Nations. It should also fix
an existing tax anomaly that allows all First
Nations individuals who are exempt from
personal income tax to receive the same tax
program benefits—regardless of income.

The Decision to Tax

There are undeniable barriers to introducing
tax regimes on First Nations. The Indian tax
exemption has long served as a powerful
symbol of the unique position of First
Nations people within Canada. One obvious
hurdle is the political sensitivity of the issue.
Another is that those who would implement
tax regimes as a public good—Council and
administration—would be the most likely to

pay taxes privately. A third difficulty is the
relatively time-consuming process of
negotiating a tax agreement with Canada.

Despite the substantial political hurdles of
occupying tax room, though, a handful of
First Nations have succeeded in raising taxes
from their own citizens. The results have
included new funds for projects of priority
to the First Nation, a fresh emphasis on
service quality, as well as a premium on
economic development and increased citizen
participation. The benefits are most obvious
to First Nations with a large number of non-
members living or travelling through the
community. Yet even smaller, more remote
First Nations gained significant revenue (on
average, about 8 percent of total revenues).

Our interviews with taxing First Nations
yielded the following advice to others:
• Link the introduction of a new tax to

identifiable community projects (for
example, a new community cultural
centre).

• Add to the attractiveness of taxing by
including non-members in the First
Nations tax-base—recalling that the
beneficial effects arise from taxing the
membership.

• Ensure non-member taxpayers fair
treament, effective service provision and
adequate representation on decisions
affecting them.

• Canvas first the experiences, both
positive and negative, of other First
Nations that have instituted tax regimes.

• Add taxes incrementally. A First Nation
might begin by introducing property tax,
then proceed to the FNGST sales tax.

CONCLUSION: There are significant
hurdles to introducing new taxes in First
Nations. Once established, however, tax
regimes promise to yield First Nations both
lasting sources of revenue and substantial
governance improvements—and this in a
matter of years rather than decades or half-
centuries.

In Praise of Taxes: The Link between Taxation and Good Governance for First Nations Communities

Introduction

CONCLUSION: There are significant hurdles to introducing new taxes in First Nations. Once established, however, tax regimes promise to yield First Nations both lasting sources of revenue and substantial governance improvements—and this in a matter of years rather than decades or half-centuries.

First Nations University of Canada

School of Business and Public Administration

ADMIN 228 Web-Based Course – Winter 2020
Introduction to Self-Government

Dorothy Myo – Instructor

Article Analysis and Critique Essay – Assignment Guidelines

INTRODUCTION:

You will be required to write a critique of an academic article focused on a current topic

related to First Nations governance. The article will be provided to you by the Instructor

and may include any number of sub-themes but not limited to, such as citizenship,

legislation, finance, public accountability, public policy, constitutions, Indigenous laws

and leadership.

ASSIGNMENT REQUIREMENTS:

In writing up your critical essay, you will need to include the following:

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the main points of the article. Provide a brief overview of what the Author’s position

is within the article, that is, what he or she is trying to say. This can be accomplished

by distinguishing between the following:

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Citizenship; and,

b. The Argument – The argument is similar to a thesis statement – the central
claim, or main point, or main argument that the author is trying to make. For

example: “First Nations’ citizenship criteria, i.e., Indian Status as defined by

the Indian Act legislation, does not align with traditional First Nation

systems of citizenship”.

2. Problem –Often research papers and articles are an organized investigation of a
problem where the investigator/author attempts to gain a solution to a problem. For

example, using the above argument the problem or issue might be: “Under the

Section 6 of the Indian Act, the total number of individuals eligible for Indian Status

decreases significantly with high rates of out-marriage”. In this example, what

problem has the author identified in the article?

For your assignment, you must provide a brief problem or issue statement.

3. Evaluation – for your critical evaluation of the article you will address the article’s
problem, methods, and arguments, offering specific support from the text itself (using

paraphrase or a direct quotation) for your observations.

Below are the analytical questions that you will discuss in your essay:

a) Clarifying – What contributions does the article make in clarifying the
argument? Provide three examples/points where the author attempts to

clarify the subject, that is, improve the reader’s understanding of the topic.

Provide separate heading for each point.

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d) Evidence – What evidence does the Author use in supporting his or her
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separate sub-headings for each supporting argument

4. Reflection – for your critical evaluation

a) Issues? – Often there are a number of issues surrounding the topic or
argument (thesis statement) made within an article. Issues are important

considerations surrounding a particular topic or argument. For example,

important issues surrounding First Nation Citizenship might be sovereignty,

citizen obligations, rights & responsibilities, entitlement, or foreign

interference or recognition etc.

Identify and briefly describe three important issues that must be considered

when discussing the topic and argument of the article. Use sub-headings for

each important issue.

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of the Author? Please provide three reasons to support your agreement or

disagreement with the Author’s position. Use separate sub-headings for each

reason.

c) Improvement? – What suggestions or recommendations would you make to

the Author in order to improve the article? Provide two recommendations for

improvement.

d) Reflection? – your reflection statement indicates your understanding of the

topic, argument and information related to the article. Provide a concise

paragraph explaining why the topic and argument made by the Author is

important to First Nations governance.

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Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

2010

In Praise of Taxes: The Link Between Taxation and
Good Governance in a First Nations Context
John Graham

Jodi Bruhn

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Part of the Economic Policy Commons, and the Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public
Administration Commons

Citation of this paper:
Graham, John and Bruhn, Jodi, “

In Praise of Taxes: The Link Between Taxation and Good Governance in a First Nations Context

”
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— 45 —

3
In Praise of Taxes: The Link

Between Taxation and Good

Governance in a First Nations
Context1

John Graham and Jodi Bruhn

Introduction
Death and taxes, the popular aphorism goes, are two aspects of life we can all
count on. The statement has a fetching morbidity—but does it really give taxation
its due? Perhaps taxes are more like our grandmother’s cold remedies: bitter at
first, but a boon to our health if correctly administered.

This paper makes a positive case for taxation. It does so for a particular
context—that of First Nation governments now considering taxing their commu-
nities. Further, it does so from a governance standpoint, arguing that taxation
regimes on-reserve—analogous to our grandmother’s cold remedies—would
ultimately promote the health of First Nation governance systems. In making
this argument, the paper draws on fiscal theories of governance in the interna-
tional literature and public finance theory. It also draws on accounts of traditional
Aboriginal resource-sharing practices, which suggest the prior existence of strong
webs of accountability and sharing relationships that would have been akin to
modern taxation.

In Section I, the paper outlines the current legislative and attitudinal terrain
surrounding First Nations taxation. Section II defines the central terms it seeks
to relate: the “tax relationship” and five principles of good governance. Section
III turns to international and comparative literature to provide evidence of a link
between taxation, service provision, and governance practices from countries as
varied as Tanzania, Zambia, and Argentina. Section IV returns to the context of
First Nations by drawing relevant parallels to the international literature. It also
outlines the experience of certain First Nations in the Yukon, British Columbia,
and Saskatchewan that are now practising taxation of their members. A final
goal of the paper is to present the policy and research options for First Nations
governments on the one hand and the federal government on the other. Section
V, therefore, outlines both what a First Nations taxation regime might look like
and the facilitating role the federal government could play in helping more First
Nations realize the benefits of taxation on-reserve.

APR_Vol10.indb 45 18/10/10 2:21 PM

This is an excerpt from “Volume 10: Voting, Governance, and Research Methodology” in the Aboriginal Policy Research Series, © Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc., 2013

To order copies of this volume, visit www.thompsonbooks.com or call 1-877-366-2763.

46 / Part One: Voting and Governanc

A reminder of our purpose and scope: this paper discusses taxation possibili-
ties for First Nations communities with a territorial base. Except in providing
background information, it does not take up taxation of First Nations people by
other governments, nor does it discuss taxation possibilities for large Métis orga-
nizations or other Aboriginal governments. While the insights into the linkage
between taxation and good governance and taxation would also apply to other
Aboriginal governments, the focus of this paper is on options for First Nations
communities—either reserves under the Indian Act or settlements under self-
government agreements and modern-day treaty and land claims.

I. The Present Situation
The discussion begins with an orientation on the current state of affairs surround-
ing First Nations taxation. Following a brief discussion of the present taxation
situation for Indians and their governments, we present two countervailing
attitudes among First Nations people. We take each theme up in turn—beginning
with current legislation.

A. The Tax Exemption and Existing Legislation

Misconceptions abound in the hotly disputed area of Indian taxation. Beyond this,
the legislative landscape has changed substantially since 1988, when the so-called
“Kamloops amendment” to the Indian Act was passed. For these reasons, some
background to the discussion that follows would be useful. We first describe the
tax treatment of Indians and bands and the current possibilities for taxation by
First Nation governments in this rapidly evolving area, specifically:

• The tax exemption under the Indian Act, Section 87
• The real property taxation powers under the Indian Act, Section 83
• The First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, 2005
• The First Nation Goods and Services Tax Act, 2003
• The personal income tax (PIT) powers of self-governing First Nations
• Federal government objectives concerning Indian taxation

These descriptions will establish the legislative and policy context of the
arguments that follow in subsequent sections.

The Section 87 Tax Exemption

Perhaps the best-known element of the tax treatment of Indians is the Indian tax
exemption. Some First Nations people argue that this exemption arose from the
treaties as an exchange for the land the treaties granted to Canada. This very
question was at issue in Benoit v. Canada (2002), a case in which Federal Court
Justice Campbell relied heavily on oral history to establish that the Cree and Dene
signatories of Treaty 8 believed that the treaty included a tax exemption. In his
view, because of this original belief—combined with the same belief of many

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This is an excerpt from “Volume 10: Voting, Governance, and Research Methodology” in the Aboriginal Policy Research Series, © Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc., 2013
To order copies of this volume, visit www.thompsonbooks.com or call 1-877-366-2763.

3 / The Link Between Taxation and Good Governance in a First Nations Context / 47

contemporary Treaty 8 people—Canada was required to recognize and fulfill
the tax assurance as a means to preserve the honour of the Crown.2 In 2003, the
Federal Court of Appeal reversed the earlier decision, stating that the oral history
Justice Campbell relied on had been selective and sparse.3 The Supreme Court of
Canada later declined to hear the case on appeal.

Pending further court decisions on the Indian tax exemption as a treaty or
even an Aboriginal right, the only recognized source of the exemption remains
Section 87 of the Indian Act. This section exempts Indian property on reserves
from taxation. Specifically, it exempts “(a) the interest of an Indian or a band in
reserve or surrendered lands; and (b) the personal property of an Indian or band
situated on a reserve.” The section further establishes that “no Indian or band is
subject to taxation in respect of the ownership, occupation, possession or use of
any property mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b).” Section 87 also ensures that
“no succession duty, inheritance tax or estate duty is payable on the death of any
Indian in respect of any such property or the succession thereto if the property
passes to an Indian”(Imai and Hawley 1994, 84).

The Section 87 exemption was originally intended to protect Indians from those
who might attempt to seize their lands for repayment of debts, thereby eroding
the reserve land base.4 It has since been interpreted to include not only tangible
personal property but also income and other intangible property and rights. At
present, income earned by an Indian individual working on his or her reserve
generally will be exempt from the federal personal income tax.5 The exemption
also applies to sales taxes, such as the federal goods and services tax or provincial
sales tax on Indian property and services on reserves. In general, the exemption
applies where an Indian purchases goods on a reserve or has the vendor deliver
goods to a reserve (Department of Finance 1993, 17–18).

Real Property Taxation Powers

Since 1952, the Indian Act has provided for real property taxation by Indian bands.
Section 87 provides that the tax exemption is subject to Section 83—a provision
that arose from another legislative intention entirely. The section was drawn from
the Indian Advancement Act of 1884, which had sought to encourage Indian
governments to tax themselves in order to raise revenues to improve reserve lands
(Kesselman 2000, 1532–33). Parts of the 1884 Act were incorporated into the
1951 revised version of the Indian Act, underscoring the long-standing federal
understanding that Indians living on-reserve are not immune to taxation by their
own governments.

Section 83 was amended in 1988. This occurred largely as a result of the efforts
of Chief Clarence T. “Manny” Jules of the Kamloops Indian Band, who pressed
government for the so-called “Kamloops amendment” of 1988. As amended,
Section 83 defined the taxing powers of First Nations to include interests in
conditionally surrendered or designated (in laymen’s terms, leased) lands located
on-reserve. The section clarified that band councils can impose property taxes

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on all leaseholders on their reserves, including property held by non-members.
Affecting mainly non-Aboriginal lessees and businesses on the reserve and
expressly exempting Aboriginal and member property interests, the Section 83
power is subject to the following conditions: (1) Expenditures made from property
tax revenues must occur through a bylaw of the band council, and (2) An addi-
tional bylaw must provide for an appeals procedure on the property assessments
that serve as the basis of the tax levied. Bylaws for “taxation for local purposes of
land, or interests in land, in the reserve, including rights to occupy, possess or use
land in the reserve” (Imai and Hawley 1994, 81–82) would be subject to approval
by the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada at the advice of the First
Nation-led Indian Taxation Advisory Board (ITAB), which was created to support
the Kamloops amendment in 1989.

It should be noted that the rationale behind the Kamloops amendment was
to correct a situation that had been unfair to First Nations. Municipalities in the
province of British Columbia were taxing the property interests of non-Indians
on-reserve without necessarily providing any services. Thus, the Kamloops
amendment allowed First Nations to occupy a property tax field that up to that
point had been under the domain of the municipalities in the province.

Subject to the approval of their property tax bylaws, First Nations communities
under the Indian Act can now collect property taxes on all real property on-reserve,
either under Section 83 of the Indian Act or under the new First Nations Fiscal
and Statistical Management Act passed in 2005. The latter act also established
the First Nations Tax Commission (FNTC), the successor to the Indian Taxation
Advisory Board. At present, the FNTC is the regulatory body overseeing the
implementation and administration of property tax jurisdiction on-reserve.

Federal Sales Tax and Income Tax Agreements

The 1990s have seen much change in the area of federal sales tax and personal
income tax policy. In 1990, the Department of Finance announced a comprehen-
sive review of its policy. In 1993, it produced a draft discussion paper envisaging
the possibility of First Nations opting into assuming tax jurisdiction for sales,
personal, and corporate income tax (Department of Finance 1993). In 1996, the
Royal Commission on Aboriginal People (RCAP) came out strongly in favour of
First Nations governments taxing their members. The commission recommended
a comprehensive taxation system for First Nations established through a legisla-
tive enabling framework. The system would be multi-tiered and have multiple
taxation sources; in addition to the fiscal transfers (which would now occur under
a uniform equalization formula), the RCAP recommended a combination of
personal income tax, corporate income tax, sales tax, property taxes, and user fees
that would serve as a crucial source of funding for viable First Nations govern-
ments (1996, 288–94).

Sales Tax. For First Nations under the Indian Act, current federal policy has
not adopted the RCAP’s recommendation for comprehensive taxation systems,

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yet it has made progress in the area of consumption tax. Beginning in 1997, First
Nations were able to opt into legislation enabling them to pass bylaws imposing a
tax on sales of alcohol, fuel, and tobacco on-reserve. Establishing a tax equivalent
to the federal goods and services tax (GST), about a dozen such First Nations
sales tax (FNST) agreements were implemented up to 2007.

The FNST has now been supplanted by the First Nations goods and services tax
(FNGST), which applies to all taxable goods and services consumed on participat-
ing First Nations reserves or settlement land. The 2003 First Nations Goods and
Services Tax Act enables First Nations under the Indian Act to impose a consump-
tion tax at a rate identical to that of the GST. To opt into this taxing jurisdiction,
special agreements with Canada are required. As a condition of arrangements, the
FNGST applies to both First Nations and non-Aboriginal consumers on-reserve.
Like the First Nations Sales Tax that preceded it, the FNGST is administered and
enforced by the Canada Revenue Agency on behalf of the taxing First Nation.
Funds collected are remitted to the First Nation government, subject in some
cases to a revenue-sharing mechanism.6

Personal Income Tax. We turn finally to the present situation concerning
personal income tax. In contrast to the FNGST, there is no national framework
legislation for income tax. Taxation jurisdiction in this area is available only to
those First Nations that have concluded comprehensive self-government agree-
ments with Canada.

For self-governing First Nations,7 the federal government recognizes a general
concurrent tax authority over their own members or citizens within their settle-
ment lands. Special side agreements may be negotiated by the Department of
Finance to extend that tax authority to “other persons” (for example, non-member
residents) within the First Nation’s lands. Beginning with the self-governing
Yukon First Nations in 1999, tax-sharing agreements have enabled First Nations
to obtain personal income tax revenues from all residents of their settlement
lands. Similar agreements have been implemented with the Tlicho (Dog Rib) in
the Northwest Territories and the Labrador Inuit.

The agreements, although individualized to each taxing First Nation, have a
common structure. The First Nation will impose a tax that is fully harmonized with
the relevant federal tax. The federal government will then vacate a corresponding
portion of its tax room. In agreements to date, Canada has vacated 75%–95% of
federal personal income tax so that the First Nation can impose its own income
tax. Arrangements are also subject to a negotiated revenue-sharing mechanism
that is conceptually similar to the one that applies to the FNGST arrangements.8
As with the FNGST, the Canada Revenue agency will administer and enforce the
tax on behalf of the taxing government. Where a tax agreement is in place, the
personal income tax of the First Nations government is payable by both Aborigi-
nal and non-Aboriginal residents.

Notably, First Nations that negotiate comprehensive treaty and self-government
agreements will have a strong motivation to implement taxation agreements in

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sales and personal income tax. Due to the new treaty, the Indian Act tax exemption
ceases to apply to a land base that no longer has the status of an Indian reserve. The
Indian Act in its entirety—including the Section 87 tax exemption—is replaced by
the new, negotiated self-government agreement.9 In the absence of a tax agreement
with Canada, income and property that was formerly exempt under the Indian Act
would otherwise be subject to federal taxation. The tax agreements with Canada
mean that the First Nations government itself can retain a significant portion of the
taxes that may apply as a result of the treaty.

Federal Government Objectives

To avoid getting lost in the subtleties of the current legislation, it will be useful to
outline the overarching federal objectives in the area of sales and personal income
tax. According to senior officials in the Department of Finance, the federal govern-
ment seeks to promote self-reliance and accountability of First Nation govern-
ments through expanded taxing powers for interested First Nations. In doing so,
however, it seeks to advance several other central objectives:

• To protect the interests of non-First Nations taxpayers on-reserve, via the
following measures:

• Full harmonization and coordination with federal taxes
• Application to non-Aboriginals only through negotiated

agreements
• Limiting First Nation taxation to direct taxes (no indirect taxes)
• Disallowing discriminatory taxation practices for GST/PI

• To maintain the integrity of the Canadian tax system, via the following
measures:

• Restricting application of First Nations taxation to First Nations
land

• Vacation of tax room but not of the underlying federal tax authority
• Requiring full harmonization with the federal system

(Fiscal Realities 2001, 38)

The 2003 FNGST legislation was the first major initiative to draw First Nations
governments into non-property-based taxation. If interest were to exist, a parallel
enabling legislation for personal income tax for First Nations governments might
follow. At present, it is unclear whether that interest actually exists.

Interest of First Nations in Assuming Taxation Jurisdiction

We let the numbers begin the story. As of June 2007, the most popular tax by far
with First Nations has been the real property tax introduced under Section 83 and
overseen by ITAB, now the FNTC. Some 113 First Nations now collect property
tax under either Section 83 of the Indian Act or the Fiscal and Statistical Manage-
ment Act introduced in 2005. The vast majority of First Nations exercising that
taxing power (82) are located in British Columbia, presumably due to the ability

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of municipalities to tax non-Aboriginal property interests on reserves, as noted
earlier in this section.

Consumption taxes are far less popular than the property tax, with only twenty-
nine First Nations applying them. Ten First Nations (one in Manitoba, one in
Saskatchewan, and eight in British Columbia) have introduced the First Nations
sales tax on alcohol, fuels, and tobacco. As of April 2008, nineteen First Nations
have introduced the FNGST, which they levy on all taxable supplies of goods and
services that occur on the reserves or settlement lands of the taxing First Nations.
Thirteen of these First Nations are located in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories,
and Newfoundland and Labrador. They have implemented taxes through agree-
ments pursuant to their comprehensive self-government agreements. The other
six groups that have implemented the FNGST are bands in British Columbia
that continue to operate primarily under the Indian Act. The Nisga’a First Nation
implemented the FNGST in 2008, following the end of the transition exemption
for sales tax that was provided in their 2000 treaty.

Recalling that self-government entails relinquishing the Section 87 tax
exemption along with the Indian Act as a whole, twelve self-governing First
Nations have negotiated personal income tax agreements with Canada (ten
in the Yukon, one in the Northwest Territories, and one in Newfoundland and
Labrador).10 These twelve will likely be joined by the Nisga’a, whose citizens will
be liable for paying personal income tax as of 2013. Other British Columbia First
Nations that conclude comprehensive treaties are expected to follow suit once
their Indian Act tax exemptions come to an end.

Officials in the Department of Finance assured us that the interest of First
Nations in occupying sales tax jurisdiction is growing. Despite that assurance,
it is striking how few First Nations have adopted it. Likewise, our interviews
with taxing First Nations revealed little to no clamour to occupy jurisdiction for
personal income tax. On the contrary, there was a consensus that introducing
personal income tax would be premature at this point—if not damaging to efforts
to introduce other taxes. Why the general resistance to introducing taxation? The
following subsection discusses some reasons for this resistance.

B. A Prevailing Wind of Resistance

Why are First Nations governments willing to forego the revenues that would
flow to them if they imposed a sales tax? Present First Nations attitudes could be
summed up as countervailing winds moving over and, to some extent, shaping
the legislative landscape. The prevailing wind is a strong antipathy for and even
a fear of taxation within the general First Nations population—one reinforced by
a potential majority non-Aboriginal sentiment that First Nations people should
be subject to tax. The countervailing one, gradually growing in strength, regards
taxation as one component of a new chapter in the relationship between Canada
and First Nations. This attitude is one for which self-sufficiency is prized and

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52 / Part One: Voting and Governance

fiscal transfers become part of a mere business relationship. We discuss each in
turn.

When considering why First Nations governments would not want to tax their
members, an obvious reason immediately comes to mind—new taxes are generally
unwelcome. Indeed, in the words of a former Canadian Minister of Customs and
Excise, “taxes are repulsive to most people” (Honourable Jacques Bureau, cited in
Gillespie 1991, 42). For this reason alone, we could presume that any government
seeking re-election would be reluctant to introduce a new tax on its population.

Yet a tax questionnaire survey of members of the Indian Taxation Advisory
Board suggests a resistance more fundamental than the general revulsion to new
taxes shared by all citizens. The ITAB survey found that opposition to or appre-
hension of taxation is “especially pronounced when the tax under consideration is
on previously exempt First Nation citizens or enterprises” (Fiscal Realities 1997,
26). Many respondents indicated a fear that taxation by band governments would
erode the federal government’s fiduciary responsibility towards Indians. Concerns
were most pronounced among members of remote communities, where it was
thought that a tax system would never allow them to finance even a small propor-
tion of their service costs. Notably, respondents also feared the acceptance and
implementation of taxation by other First Nations, seeing its potential to erode
both the portability of their own exemption and solidarity among First Nations on
the taxation issue.11

The ITAB survey is illuminating in terms of the nature of the concerns that it
both does and does not bring to light. One issue that does not arise in the survey
is an argument often offered against taxation of First Nations people: “You can’t
tax poverty.” Because so many First Nations people are living in impoverished
circumstances, the argument goes, there is little to be gained by attempting to
tax them. We address this objection later in this essay—yet the ITAB survey
suggests it is peripheral in any case. A more fundamental concern surrounds
the federal fiduciary relationship and the perception that taxation, if introduced,
would provide an occasion for the federal government to scale back its fiscal
transfers.12 What appears to lie at the heart of First Nations people’s opposition to
being taxed, however, is the tax exemption itself—and the perceived threat to the
fiduciary relationship with Canada it symbolizes.

The 2002 Benoit case crystallized this position. The oral history that Justice
Campbell admitted as evidence attested, in his view, to a widespread and long-
standing belief that Treaty 8 had established immunity to taxation for treaty
adherents—in the words of one elder, for “as long as the sun shines, as long as the
mountains can be seen, as long as there is grass … as long as there is a world.”13
By granting their land through the treaty, the Aboriginal signatories had bought
the right to be exempt from tax for future generations and in perpetuity. In the
Benoit case, the plaintiff argued that this right arose through the oral promises
made when Treaty 8 was signed. Other Aboriginal commentators have argued that
the exemption stems not from a particular treaty, but from the Aboriginal rights set

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3 / The Link Between Taxation and Good Governance in a First Nations Context / 53

out in Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982—or more fundamentally still, from
the special relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Crown that underlies
all constitutional provisions (Pratt 1989, 49–50).

It could be countered that the position outlined above justifies a resistance
to taxation by the federal or provincial governments, but not by First Nations’
own governments. Yet First Nations people’s concern about the tax exemption
indicates a strong resistance to taxation as such, regardless of which government
does the taxing. For example, some First Nations people regarded the Kamloops
Indian Band sales tax (the first sales tax applied to tobacco, alcohol, and fuel)
as “the beginning of the end of the Section 87 tax exemption” (Fiscal Realities
2001, 40). As a further argument against it, some respondents to the ITAB survey
also believed taxation is contrary to traditional Aboriginal ways of life (Fiscal
Realities 2001, 26).

A 1995 resolution on taxation by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) sought
to accommodate in its constituency both those First Nations seeking to tax and
those resisting taxation. In support of First Nations seeking to tax, the resolu-
tion stated that “First Nations have full tax jurisdiction over all their territory.”
It further affirmed that “First Nation citizens will never pay taxes to the Crown
no matter where they reside” (Fiscal Realities 2001, 7–8). The AFN made these
statements despite the fact, as Fiscal Realities pointed out, that most First Nations
citizens do pay taxes to the Crown and that most taxes collected from non-Indians
on reserve lands do not go to First Nations governments. Whatever the reality, the
rhetoric is clear: immunity from taxation is and should remain a permanent state
of affairs for Aboriginal people living on-reserve. And First Nations taxation, if
implemented, should be regarded as purely an internal affair.

Before turning to the Aboriginal voices speaking on behalf of taxation, we note
one further detail of significance: namely, the attitude of non-Aboriginal people
to the tax exemption. Long a source of general grumbling among non-Aboriginal
taxpayers, the Indian tax exemption was called directly into question by a 2002
British Columbia referendum. The provincial government asked whether “the
existing tax exemptions for Aboriginal people should be phased out.” Aboriginal
organizations urged supporters to boycott the vote, while the majority of British
Columbia residents voted “yes” to the proposition (Richards 2006, 114ff).

If First Nations people imagine that their tax exemption is under siege,
therefore, they do so with good cause. This consideration, together with the
perceived symbolic association of the tax exemption with treaty and Aboriginal
rights, must factor into any understanding of First Nations people’s aversion to
being taxed, regardless of which government is doing the taxing.

C. A Countering Wind of Acceptance

Despite the symbolic significance of the tax exemption and such dangers as the
one posed by the 2002 British Columbia referendum, more First Nations people
now realize the advantages of First Nations governments taxing their member-

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54 / Part One: Voting and Governance

ship. The main consideration here is the enhanced self-reliance that own-source
revenues would provide, although considerations of equity and sharing with
needier members also play a role.

The issue of taxation is intimately linked with that of federal fiscal transfers
and the rationale underlying them. Some Aboriginal spokesmen regard a near-
exclusive reliance on federal transfers to follow from the federal government’s
fiduciary duty to First Nations. Yet John Beaucage, grand council chief of the
Anishinabek Nation, protests this attitude:

We talk about our Nation-to-Nation, Government-to-Govern-
ment relationship with federal and provincial governments. Yet
despite all of this momentum and political awareness, we still
cling to the sacred fiduciary relationship, a failed concept that
has done us great disservice. By its very nature a fiduciary duty
must end at some point. A parent-child relationship changes,
and at some point it reverses itself in terms of duty of care.
(Beaucage 2007, 9)

Beaucage upholds the continued need for fiscal transfers, but justifies them as
contractual relationships stemming from fiscal federalism, not as the obliga-
tory products of an eternal fiduciary duty to First Nations people. He also calls
for greater self-sufficiency and self-reliance of First Nations governments. This
point is underscored by Calvin Helin, the controversial author of Dances with
Dependency. In his plea for a return to Aboriginal traditional self-reliance, Helin
observes that self-generated wealth is critical both to Aboriginal aspirations of
self-government and to their liberation from the poverty and dependence that now
plague them (2006, 141).

A handful of Aboriginal authors justify taxation in keeping with Indian tradi-
tions. The FNTC’s First Nations Real Property Taxation Guide reminds us that
First Nations traditionally practised a form of taxation in such actions as paying
tribute for occupying or using territory or redistributing wealth through ceremo-
nies like the potlatch or giveaway dances (2007, 9). Emphasizing the equity
element of taxation, Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos First Nation posted the
following slogan on one of his now-famous community billboards: “Taxation:
we have always had it—it’s called sharing” (MacGregor 2006). A more detailed
account of a tax-like practice is recorded by Cree storyteller Joy Asham, recalling
how the Plains Cree conducted their buffalo hunt in the 1800s:

The most prestigious and dangerous position in the settlement
was held by the Poundmaker. He was the head of the Hunt
and was responsible for its success or failure. He was techni-
cian, teacher, leader, and was full of Courage. Once a herd’s
location was identified his work began in earnest. He observed

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the weather, the wind and determined how much and how fast
the Buffalo needed to be turned to bring them to the Pound …

The entry would then be closed and the Buffalo fell captive.
They would not be killed as yet, as the Warriors had more work
to do. They counted the animals and accounted for their size,
figuring out their overall resources. Around the fire that night
they would determine the distribution of the beasts: who was
sick and old and needed the extra richness of organ meats? Who
had to feed the most people? Who needed Buffalo robes for
clothes or for their lodge? They determined all these things so
that the Hunt would take care of all needs and that the meat
distribution would be fair. There was only one person who was
not considered in the division of the beasts. That was the Pound-
maker. It was Honour enough for him to have led a successful
hunt …

What of the Poundmaker? He has led an Honourable and
successful hunt but how will he live? And then they come from
their lodges, all of them. They bring him the steaks and the
roasts and the cuts of meat that they know he loves and needs.
They express their Gratitude and Respect for him in this way,
knowing that in the greatest Humility he would never ask.

I somehow think that this must have been a very good system:
the workers determining the boss’s salary. (Asham 2007, 19)

Clearly, many First Nations people are not accustomed to the tax “touch” that
other Canadians, including a large number of Aboriginal ones, feel in the modern
context. Yet recollections like those Asham recorded remind us that things were
not always that way. Practices surrounding the buffalo hunt evinced a traditional
means to both share resources within the community and to manifest and ensure
the leader’s dependence on and accountability to his community.

Notably, First Nations voices on behalf of taxation are joined by a burgeoning
literature that advocates taxation for First Nations governments. Authors with such
varied backgrounds and agendas as Andre LeDressay of Fiscal Realities, Tom
Flanagan of the University of Calgary, Métis political leader and former Manitoba
MLA Jean Allard, and Stephen Cornell of the Harvard Project on American Indian
Economic Development argue on behalf of First Nations governments taxing their
members. From a governance standpoint, we join our voices to theirs—arguing
that broad-based taxation, if introduced gradually and administered fairly, would

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mark a significant advance in the quality of governance for First Nations commu-
nities. The next three sections present our reasons for taking this position.

II. Defining Terms: Tax Relationship, Governance
Principles
The next three sections present our reasons to support local taxation by First
Nations from a good governance standpoint. Yet first we must present the reason
why taxation—at first blush, solely a fiscal matter—enters into the sphere of
governance at all. This requires a brief explanation of the basic political relation-
ship taxation creates, followed by a presentation of some fundamental principles
of good governance.

A. The Tax Relationship

In his study of 120 years of tax reform by the Canadian federal government,
economist W. Irwin Gillespie noted that the choices governments actually make
in establishing taxes and tax rates do not flow from normative theories of taxation.
Although they may be informed by these theories, the tax decisions governments
make do not translate economic norms such as equity, equivalence, economic
efficiency, or administrative ease into practice. Instead, they are the outcomes of a
critical relationship that underlies taxing and spending decisions in a democracy:
the relationship between citizens and their elected government.

No relationship between two parties, with the possible exception
of that between client and psychiatrist, is more fraught with
love and hate than that between citizen and elected government.
We love the government spending that benefits us directly; we
hate the taxes that we are called upon to pay. We love the taxes
that someone else is called upon to pay; we hate the government
spending that provides benefits for others but does not seem to
benefit us directly. We know that in order to persuade govern-
ment to launch the desirable projects, beneficial programs, and
great public works that we value highly (and are prepared to
pay for), we may have to accept and help pay for the misguided
projects, wasteful programs and extravagant public works
that others value much more highly than we do. We accept
this but we grumble, we apply pressure, we try to persuade
others and we threaten “to vote the scoundrels out of office.”
(Gillespie 1991, 2)

In order to retain and exercise power, political officials must remain in office.
To do this, they must persuade a substantial number of citizens of their ability
to tax and spend public funds wisely. If collecting taxes and spending revenues
collected are among the fundamental activities a government does, they are also

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the most contentious. In theory, citizens continually scrutinize the taxing and
spending decisions of their governments. Such scrutiny establishes a “survival
rule” whereby governments try to achieve electoral victory (generated in part
through spending) and avoid defeat (caused by too many disgruntled voters whose
revenue source is being taxed). Thus, the citizen-government relationship that
lies at the heart of the government’s taxing and spending activities helps define,
constrain, and steer those activities (Gillespie 1991, 16–18).

B. Five Governance Principles

The taxation relationship is inherently political. But this realization lands us
directly among the central concerns of governance, which we understand broadly
as the ordering and steering of a community such that peace, prosperity, and
common direction prevail.14 Drawing heavily on the work of United Nations
Development Program, the Institute On Governance (IOG) has identified five
principles of good governance.15 They are:

1. Legitimacy/Voice: requiring that both internal and external actors perceive
the governance system as possessing the power, means, and recognition
that it governs by right. In addition, all men and women have some voice
in decision making.

2. Direction: establishing a strategic perspective on collective development,
along with a sense of what is needed to achieve it. Such direction should
also be based in a clear sense of the community’s historical, cultural, and
social complexities.

3. Performance: requiring that collective institutions should serve their
stakeholders effectively. Also, the quality of the services rendered and
their responsiveness to the needs of the governed should be considered.

4. Accountability: demanding that decisions-makers can account for resources
expended and exercise of the responsibilities they are entrusted with. Such
issues as proper documentation, transparency, access to information, results,
as well as checks and balances come into consideration here.

5. Fairness: striving for equal opportunity and impartial application of the
rule of law. It is manifested in sound legal and regulatory frameworks,
independence of the judiciary functions from political leaders, due process,
and adequate dispute resolution mechanisms.

In prior publications, the Institute On Governance has made the case that its
governance principles apply equally to First Nations governments, with the caveat
that Aboriginal history and culture will modify their application in practice. Our
claim rests to a large degree on the basis of the principles in international human
rights law, which First Nations governments generally accept. Within Canada,
the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the leading national body representing
Canada’s First Nations people on-reserve, has also officially endorsed recognition
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by First Nations governments.16

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As the precursor to our case for introducing taxation on reserves, our grounds
for supporting one fiscal practice over another is simple: we favour any practice
that demonstrably enhances a government’s ability to manifest the five principles
of good governance the IOG has identified. It is important to note that no govern-
ment achieves this perfectly. Complete attainment of these principles is an ideal
that no society has fully realized. It is the goal of a long journey, “a promise rather
than a list” (UNDP 2002, 61). Moreover, there can be disagreements on the proper
path to take to reach this goal. That said, one can generally distinguish progress
from regress and keep one’s eye firmly on the goal.

Having presented both the taxation relationship and a basic outline of the
IOG’s five governance principles, we now discuss the systematic link between
the two. Most work on so-called fiscal theories of governance has occurred in the
international and development contexts. Accordingly, the next section turns to the
historical and international evidence, presenting both positive and negative cases
for the beneficial effects of taxation on governance practices.

III. The Link between Taxes and Governance:
International Evidence

A. Fiscal Theories of Governance

Gillespie’s taxation relationship model—one he uses to explain over one hundred
years of tax reform in Canadian fiscal history—did not appear out of thin air.
The sense that an intensely political relationship underlies government taxing
and spending activities also stems from the self-interpretation of Anglo-Saxon
political regimes. The British narrative, for example, traces a story of Parliament’s
progressive domination over the monarchy through a succession of stands. In a
long historical process, Parliament gained control of public finance and restricted
funding of bureaucracy, military, and monarchy to monies that had been raised
through taxation and authorized by Parliament (Moore 2007). In the United States,
the American colonists themselves perceived a tie between taxation and represen-
tation when they censured the British government for having imposed three new
taxes—the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the New Townshend levies—on the
colonies to help repay debts incurred by the Seven Years War (Ross 2004, 231).
Indeed, the complaint of “imposing Taxes on us without our Consent” was one
of the grievances of the 1776 Declaration of Independence and was cited as one
cause for dissolving ties with the British Crown (Frohnen 2002, 190).

The question thus inevitably arises: Are we heirs of Anglo-Saxon political
thought simply historically predisposed to linking taxes to good governance? More
fundamentally, does the link occur beyond the historical confines of European and
American nation-states? Expanding the base further, a persistent link between
taxation and socio-political form was also identified on the European continent.
In the early years of the twentieth century, for example, Austrian pioneers in fiscal

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sociology described the mutual evolution of society on the one hand and the
state’s public revenue sources on the other (Goldscheid 1962). Beyond this, there
is a burgeoning literature in comparative government—presenting so-called fiscal
theories of governance—that suggests that the link manifests itself in the interna-
tional context too.17 Struggles between citizens and governments over taxes and
government services tend to produce greater deference, thereby enhancing both
performance and accountability in an international context as well.18

How precisely does taxation enhance good governance? Political scientist
Mick Moore suggests that dependence on broad taxation, if fairly and effec-
tively administered, should lead to some predictable governance outcomes. These
outcomes (together with their extrapolated effects on the IOG’s five governance
principles added in italics) are the following:

• More responsiveness and bureaucratic capacity with the focus on
systematically taxing citizens (enhancing performance and voice)

• Increased state emphasis on prosperity of citizens, where rulers now have
a direct stake in encouraging it (enhancing direction, performance)

• More political engagement of citizens, as they experience taxation and
mobilize to either resist or monitor the way revenues are collected and
spent (enhancing accountability, legitimacy and voice)

• As an outcome of the first three, what Moore calls “revenue bargaining.”
Taxation becomes more acceptable and predictable to taxpayers as
the collection process becomes more efficient and routine (enhancing
performance, fairness). Taxpayers begin to exchange compliance for
institutionalized influence over level and form of taxation and use of
revenues (enhancing voice, accountability and legitimacy).

As for the long-term effects of revenue bargaining, Moore predicts a consider-
able improvement in the quality of life (2007, 17–18).

This model, Moore cautions, does not translate “directly, fully and unambigu-
ously” into reality. Indeed, no single-cause explanation of a complex transition
toward better governance could. Taxation is only one factor influencing gover-
nance quality; others—institutions and political culture, for example—are also
implicated. Beyond this, the direct link between individual citizens and govern-
ments is obscured by the vagaries of interest-group politics, so that it is not self-
evident to governments how (or even whether) individual citizens will vote or
campaign in a given election (Moore 2007, 16, 19). And as the frequent election
losses of incumbent governments attest, mistakes abound in the political cost/
benefit calculations of incumbent governments.

The model is encouraging, therefore, but a rough guide at best; it is perhaps
not compelling enough to establish a definitive linkage between taxation and
governance quality. Further evidence arises not where the taxation relation-
ship is present, but more forcefully where it is absent. There are two relatively
common situations where governments can afford not to tax—where they enjoy

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large revenues from natural resource exports and where they receive aid from
other governments (Moore 2007, 14). In exploring further the connection between
governance and taxation, therefore, we turn to the negative case: the effects of
the absence of a need to tax as discussed in the comparative and international
literature.

B. The “Curse” of Non-Tax Revenue

The “Curse of Oil”

Since the 1970s, revenues from natural resource extraction or export have become
a significant source of wealth for some governments. Canadians are broadly
familiar with the notion of the “curse of oil,” the thesis that oil wealth impedes
democratic governance. Much international development literature suggests that
sudden oil wealth inflicts greater damage on democratic development in poor
states than it does in rich ones, just as “a given rise in oil exports will do more
harm in oil-poor states than in oil-rich ones” (Ross 2001, 356). Economist Paul
Collier cites dependence on natural resource exports as one of three economic
characteristics that make a country prone to civil war (the other two being low
income and slow economic growth). In Collier’s analysis, a newly independent
nation bearing these three characteristics is literally playing Russian roulette—its
statistical chance of derailing into civil war is one in six (2007, 32).

A major governance difficulty of sudden resource wealth for a developing
nation is the volatility of its revenue source. Such volatility contributes to poor
planning. In the price boom phase, governments tend to raise budgets and expand
programs, forgetting the survival rule of efficient public investment. During
the bust phase, it becomes difficult to reduce budgets to stay in line with actual
revenues. Cuts are often made to basic investments rather than to the “splurges”
that were introduced during the boom (Collier 2007, 40, 41). Collier uses the
example of Nigeria to demonstrate how difficult it is for citizens to sort causes
from effects. The country’s boom-and-bust cycle caused the standard of living for
Nigerians to fall by one-half within a decade, yet left Nigerians with no idea of
what actually caused the fall.

Potentially, a more damning governance issue posed by large natural resource
revenues is that they tend to undermine democracy where it already exists. The
first casualty here is electoral competition. Higher rates of voter apathy have
been found in many resource-rich democracies. A potentially deeper symptom of
democratic decay, however, would be manifest if resource-rich political systems
were to invite undemocratic practices even before the voter reached the polls.
Rentier theories of democracy suggest that this is the case in Middle Eastern and
African oil- or mineral-rich countries, that is, that a resource-rich state quickly
overawes civil society through its easy access to a source of wealth indepen-
dent from domestic taxes (Gervasoni 2007, 4–6). Rather than encouraging
incumbent political parties to attract votes by delivering cost-effective services,

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over-abundant public monies encourage leaders to buy votes instead. This is espe-
cially pronounced in communities with strong ethnic or familial loyalties, where
“buying” the vote of one community leader will also purchase those of most of his
ethnicity or family. Thus does patronage politics become the more cost-effective
option for politicians presiding over resource-rich states. Thus too does service
quality plummet and the character of public life change. Where patronage politics
is not only feasible, but the most cost-effective approach, those attracted to public
life tend—in Collier’s analysis—to be crooks seeking a share in the spoils (2007,
44–45).

Note the central source of the shift in this new cost/benefit scenario: large
resource revenues weaken the restraints on, and increase incentives to engage
in, patronage, and above all they radically reduce the need to tax. In absence of a
need to tax, resource-rich political systems fail, according to Collier, to “provoke
citizens into supplying the public good of scrutiny over how their taxes are being
spent” (2007, 46). Other commentators have noted that this observation could
apply equally to countries that do not need to tax for other reasons, for example,
countries that rely on foreign aid as their chief revenue source. Notably for First
Nations, there have been similar observations of subnational governments that
rely largely on fiscal transfers from their central governments.

The “Curse of Non-Tax Fiscal Rents”

Extension of the “curse-of-oil” logic to an analysis of subnational governments
is a relatively new development within fiscal theories of governance. That said,
it would seem to be the next logical step. Argentinian political scientist Carlos
Gervasoni reminds us that the curse arises less from the fact that the revenues
come from natural resources than from the fact that they do not come from
taxation. Above all, then, the curse arises from external money flowing in from
outside, so to speak, in the form of non-tax fiscal rents. Yet such funds can also
flow from central governments to subnational ones, as they do in Argentina, and
indeed in any country practicing fiscal federalism. This consideration motivated
Gervasoni’s study of the influence of fiscal transfers on levels of electoral compe-
tition among Argentinian provinces.

Through extensive quantitative analysis, Gervasoni found that provinces
that depended more on taxation revenue from citizens were essentially more
democratic than those relying heavily on fiscal transfers. Fiscal federalism had
provided incumbents in the latter group of provinces with incentive to engage in
the same rentier conduct that other analysts saw as characterizing natural-resource
rich and tax-poor regimes elsewhere. Among the signs of rentierism identified
were a disproportionately large public sector, a bloated public payroll, widespread
patronage politics, and a notable lack of political competition for incumbents
(Gervasoni 2007, 4–6).

Gervasoni stressed that democratic suppression is by no means total in Argentina,
which enjoys a national-level democracy. Because the semi-authoritarian provinces

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are embedded in a national democracy, their political leaders are severely
constrained in terms of the extent to which they can restrict political rights in their
provinces (Gervasoni 2007, 11–12). Another limiting factor is the ease of exit for
citizens, who are free to migrate to other provinces. Yet incumbents can still resort
to subtle means of restricting democratic choice: pumping public finances into their
own campaigns, bribing local media, firing dissidents or rival candidates, or hiring
their family members for public sector jobs. With less pressure from taxpayers to
spend public monies effectively, the ratio of public sector employees to private ones
further depresses electoral competition. A larger number of people who are anxious
about the possibility of losing their jobs in public service means fewer people who
are willing to publicly criticize the incumbent, join opposition parties, or denounce
corruption (Gervasoni 2007, 10).

Gervasoni concludes that “High levels of federal transfers go hand in hand with
less democratic or hybrid provincial regimes. Governors in command of plentiful
fiscal federalism rents appear to use their financially privileged position to restrict
democratic contestation and weaken institutional constraints on their power.”
“These findings,” he adds, “may well apply beyond Argentina” (Gervasoni 2007,
23, 24). The next section explores possible applications in the First Nations
context.

IV. Enhancing First Nations Governance through
Taxation
The following section will attempt to draw relevant connections from the inter-
national evidence to First Nations governments, beginning by indicating certain
parallels between the “rentier conduct” identified internationally and the political
situation on many reserves in Canada. It will then indicate in more detail how
broad-based taxation would work to improve governance in First Nations commu-
nities. Finally, it will outline the experience with taxation of First Nations whose
staff or professional service providers agreed to speak with us for this paper.

A. Identifying the Curse

Both the question surrounding natural resource rents and the one surrounding the
effects of fiscal transfers have long bedevilled Canadian commentators. Some
question the effects of Alberta’s sudden oil wealth on the governance of that
province, for example (Nikiforuk 2007). Others ask whether heavy subsidies to
certain provinces and territories through the federal equalization formula serve
only to depress their economies further.

Turning first to resource rents, First Nations in Alberta have experienced the
mixed blessings of oil wealth first-hand. The patronage and corruption combined
with appalling social conditions that plagued such bands as the Stoney First
Nation outside of Calgary or the Samson Cree Nation in the late 1990s amply
attest to the magnifying effects sudden natural resource wealth can have on pre-

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existing social and governance issues in a First Nation community (Allard 2002,
145–49; Flanagan 2000, 89–92, 104–05). The Community Well-Being (CWB)
index developed by researchers at Indian and Northern Affairs tells a similar story
about Alberta First Nations. Combining data related to educational attainment,
income levels, housing, and labour-force participation, the CWB rated only three
Alberta First Nations with above-average CWB scores. None of them was an
oil-rich First Nation (McHardy and O’Sullivan, 2004).

Less pronounced, but still palpable, are the effects felt by First Nations
depending almost solely on federal fiscal transfers for their revenue. On this
count, few comparisons with Canadian provinces can be made, where even
those provinces that depend most on equalization payments derive most of their
revenues from taxation (Richards 2006, 126). This is not the case for the average
First Nations government. In 2001, employing “the most generous assumptions
regarding First Nation own-source revenues,” Fiscal Realities estimated that, on
average, First Nations governments depend on fiscal transfers for 90% or even
95% of their revenues. Manifesting “extreme fiscal imbalance,” this level was
more than double that of the poorest province in the country (Fiscal Realities
1997, 17).

As Fiscal Realities also notes, public finance theory would predict serious
accountability issues here. With monies flowing to governments almost solely
through the fiscal transfer rather than from members, there would be little corre-
spondence between revenues collected and services delivered. This situation
would produce such symptoms as those that First Nations communities witness
in reality. In summary:

• Within First Nations, there will be lower satisfaction levels with services
delivered. This is to be expected where the funding government is
far removed from the recipient citizen and the political advantages of
government responsiveness are lost.

• Within First Nations, community members will tend to demand more
services than they would be willing to pay for, because they do not fund
them themselves.

• Outside First Nations, there will be a growing intransigence from
taxpayers to continue supporting transfers from which they themselves
realize no benefit and also believe they see limited results.

• Within the federal government, there will be a relatively high incentive to
underfund the services it supports. (Fiscal Realities 1997, 17)

These are the adverse effects of extreme fiscal imbalance on the quality of
services delivered on-reserve. Yet there are also closely related adverse effects on
governance, which mirror those described in the Argentinian study. Commenta-
tors on First Nation governments note the tremendous size of the public sector
on-reserve compared to municipal governments (Graham 2007b, 5–6; Flanagan
2000, 101–02). In part, that size can be explained by the broad scope of services

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First Nations governments deliver to their citizens, ranging from provision of
potable water to delivery of housing, social assistance, and education, yet this
explains only part of the story if the rentier effect also comes into play in First
Nations communities.

There is good reason to think it has. As noted previously, the rentier theory of
democracy assumes that democratic governance survives when there is a rough
balance of power between the state on the one hand and society and the less-
privileged on the other. In rentier situations, that balance is upset in favour of the
state. Due to the structural distortions of the reserve governance system, it has
also proven to be absent on many reserves.

Jean Allard cites sociologist Menno Boldt when he asserts that reserves are
typically “one-dimensional systems” that possess few of the checks and balances
on government power issuing from such organizations as unions, businesses, non-
governmental organizations, and media. With a few notable exceptions, reserves
often have no middle class, only a small, insulated elite, and a much larger group
of impoverished and dependent members (Allard 2002, 130, 131). In many First
Nations communities, the government is far and away the main source of income
in the community. Jobs with the band government or administration are often
the highest paying jobs on the reserve—in some cases, the only ones. Politics in
many Aboriginal communities are known to be highly factional and patronage-
based, and the media and other organizations have reported cases of election fraud
and vote buying.19 According to Calvin Helin, blogs posted by Aboriginal youth
lament rampant “elitism,” “corruption,” and “cronyism” in government (2006,
149).

It would be false to depict all First Nations governments as corrupt and elitist.
On the contrary, some are very well governed despite the absence of taxation
regimes and all incentives to the contrary. In general, however, both the gover-
nance and the quality of services suffer within a governance system that lacks the
crucial tie of a direct reliance upon its citizens for survival.

In Dances with Dependency, Helin identifies what he sees to be to one primary
source of the ills now plaguing Aboriginal communities:

In Aboriginal communities, transfer payment monies are simply
provided, not self-generated. While the same observation and
criticism can be made about any government, many grassroots
community members charge that a similar lack of gravitas
sometimes applies to band council decision making in relation to
such transfer payment monies … [T]ransfer payments are “play
money” to some if they did nothing personally or collectively to
acquire the money in the first place. This circumstance has led
to equally “obscene” wastage of federal monies. The situation
is one without a normal baseline since it operates outside the
parameters of a market system and the normal institutional rules

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of accountability that might otherwise impose some level of
reality on decision making. (Helin 2006, 140)

The Canadian commentary and the international literature surveyed converge on
this point. Of Argentina, Gervasoni states that the country’s fiscal federalism “has
the perverse consequence of financing the political survival of less-than-demo-
cratic regimes.” On the basis of cross-national quantitative comparisons, British
political scientist Michael Ross reaches a similar conclusion: “programmes
that extend subsidized loans to authoritarian governments should tend to retard
democracy, by dropping the cost of government and reducing the democratic
pressures the regime would otherwise face” (2004, 247; Gervasoni 2007, 26).
Even though most First Nations governments fall well short of being authoritar-
ian, Ross’s central point remains.

What to do with this situation? The answer is not substantial reductions of federal
transfers. Many argue—justifiably, in our view—that these do not adequately
support services in any case. Nor could one ever expect taxes collected in small
First Nations communities to fund such big-ticket items as education, health care,
and social welfare. The goal should not be to reduce federal transfers then (or at
least not in the foreseeable future), but to boost overall revenues. We make the
following recommendations:

• In light of the demonstrated connection between natural resource wealth
and poor governance practices, First Nations that have limited their
aspirations for own-source revenue to securing such external sources as
land rents and resource revenues might reconsider their strategy.

• In calculating the benefits and costs of federal fiscal transfers, both First
Nations and other governments should consider the damaging effects
of a near-exclusive reliance on federal fiscal transfers on First Nations
communities—both on the quality of services received and on internal
governance practices.

The latter consideration would call into question any strategy of relying exclu-
sively on fiscal transfers as rents owed for historical indignities and losses wrought
by the colonizing federal government. The indignities and losses did in fact occur,
but the evidence suggests that these are only compounded by a perpetual reliance
on funds that are in fact not free money but come at considerable cost to both
Aboriginal communities and their governments. With present revenue sources
and their attendant accountability structures intact, we can expect the quality of
both governance and service delivery on most reserves to remain roughly at their
present levels.

The next subsection presents our argument, grounded in the IOG’s five gover-
nance principles, for First Nations collecting taxes as a significant supplement to
their fiscal transfers. Combined with revenues from band-owned businesses and
a modest reliance on land or resource rents, where applicable, this practice would

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go far to begin relieving the situation of extreme fiscal imbalance that prevails on
many reserves.

B. Reversing It: A Return to Governance Principles

Broad-based taxation by First Nations governments, together with broader
economic strategies and community plans, would enhance all five of the prin-
ciples of good governance identified earlier in this paper. The following points
elaborate more fully how and why this is the case.

1. Legitimacy and Voice: When First Nations governments are no longer
totally beholden to the Canadian government for their survival, it enhances
their legitimacy in the eyes of both their citizens and other governments.
As for voice, the adage, “he who pays the piper calls the tune” works
both ways. For First Nations governments relying heavily on federal
transfers, the federal government calls the tune by attaching its conditions
to revenues it provides.20 In a taxation scenario, the caller of the tune is the
community itself, which is now enmeshed in a tensional, but ultimately
healthy, fiscal relationship with its own government.

2. Direction: An array of taxation sources yields a relatively stable, reliable
revenue source that allows for long-term government planning. First Nations
would be able to fund their own projects and set their own priorities regard-
less of the priorities of other governments. Our interviews revealed one
striking example in practice: the tax revenues collected by the Westbank
First Nation allowed the First Nation to fund its self-government nego-
tiations in a period where the federal government had frozen all funding
for that purpose. Taxation also lends direction to economic development
by providing not only services (in the case of property taxation), but also
much-needed clarity and jurisdictional certainty to potential investors.

3. Performance: The performance-enhancing effect of taxation of citizens has
already been well-established. The same effect could be expected for First
Nations—a virtuous cycle whereby taxing governments would enhance
their provision of cost-effective services to members who are paying for
them. First Nations governments would also gain a fresh incentive to
increase the prosperity of their citizens, who now are not merely consumers
of services, but potential sources of revenue as well. Better services lead to
higher levels of private investment in the local economy.

4. Accountability: As with performance, taxation’s enhancement of account-
ability has been well-established. The proviso here is that expenditures
and services should be linked as far as possible, so that taxpayers can
clearly identify what their revenues should be paying for. A larger propor-
tion of revenues from taxation would shift the accountability focus from
the funding federal government—including, on average, its requirement
of 168 reports per year—to the community. The actions of community

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members, the other partner in the tax relationship, would likely change as
well; as taxpayers, community members would be more likely to demand
that their governments address such long-abiding issues of concern as poor
water and housing quality.

5. Fairness: At present, there are great discrepancies in income on most
reserves, where a small number of members possess most of the jobs and
income. One aim of a well-designed tax regime—and notably, of a number
of sharing practices within First Nations traditions—would be to redistri-
bute wealth among citizens according to need, thereby enhancing internal
equity within First Nations communities.

These would be the governance advantages of a well-designed taxation regime
on First Nations. As for barriers to implementation, one obvious hurdle is that
those who would implement taxation regimes as a public good—council and band
administration—would likely stand to lose the most privately. Here, as elsewhere
in public life, self-interest might prove a hurdle to implementing taxation regimes
in many First Nations. A second hurdle in many cases would be the membership
itself. Taxation is a hard sell at all times everywhere, but particularly among First
Nations people who are justifiably wary of any talk of taxes at all.

Despite the barriers to doing so, we recall that some First Nations have already
implemented taxation in their communities. Before turning to specific recommen-
dations in the final section, we briefly outline the experiences of those taxing First
Nations we were able to speak with.

C. The Experience of Taxing First Nations

As the opening section indicated, very few First Nations now tax their member-
ship. Those that do have been doing so for only a few years, so the evidence we
can draw from is limited. Further, what evidence we have is strictly anecdotal,
derived from interviews with staff members who have had long experience with
the First Nations in question.

With these caveats in mind, we were able to gain a sense of the experiences of
the following First Nations: Westbank in British Columbia, the Whitecap Dakota
in Saskatchewan, and various First Nations in the Yukon. The First Nations in
question have varying legal statuses: Westbank has a self-government agreement
with Canada; Whitecap Dakota is largely under the Indian Act; some of the Yukon
First Nations are self-governing, whereas others are under the Indian Act. The two
First Nations south of 60 have implemented property and sales taxes. The self-
governing Yukon First Nations began implementing their personal income taxes
in 1999 and their sales taxes in 2004.

We asked interviewees whether taxation had benefitted the community. All of
them informed us that it had formed a critical component of the First Nations
comprehensive community and economic development plans. In conjunction with
those plans, taxation provided the following benefits:

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• Funds for projects of priority to the First Nation: Whitecap Dakota
used its sales tax revenues to fund elders, youth, and cultural projects.
Westbank invested its property taxes both in services and in the
governance infrastructure required. Its sales tax provided community
facilities and community workers to help members in need.

• A priority on service provision, promoting economic development:
Property taxes allowed the First Nations canvassed to improve their
reserve property interests and services, thereby increasing the value of
leases for reserve land and generally improving property values on the
First Nation.

• Increased citizen participation: Most interviewees noted that there
was a different attitude among members after the taxes were introduced.
Members were intensely interested to see what kind of projects their
tax revenues would fund. The Yukon First Nations provided a basis for
comparison on this count: one interviewee who provides accounting
services for two different First Nations (one self-governing and one
not) suggested that the members of the taxing First Nation showed
significantly more interest in spending decisions than those of the one
that did not.

• A premium on transparency, accountability, and performance: This
emphasis was due both to a desire to assure members that tax dollars had
been well-spent and to encourage economic development and reassure
outside investors. Two First Nations interviewees also noted that the need
to administer property tax both fairly and efficiently had required them to
invest in their governments’ bureaucratic and governance capacity.

Notably, a key benefit in the view of the First Nations south of 60 was that at
least a portion of the taxation revenue—whether from property or sales tax—
came from non-members. A good portion of the sales tax came from members,
however. And in the case of the Yukon First Nations, the personal income tax
arose almost entirely from the membership.

The experience of the Yukon First Nations suggested three further important
points. Firstly, for even the small First Nations located in generally remote places,
governments gained a significant source of revenue (on average about 8% of total
revenues) by taxing principally their members through sales and personal income
tax. Secondly, the principal source of income tax arose from members working
for the First Nations. This meant that the First Nations had to adjust the salaries of
those First Nations employees who were subject to personal income tax. Thirdly,
one Yukon interviewee noted that introduction of personal income tax had resulted
in a new source of pride among First Nation members, who no longer felt the need
to rationalize their non-taxpaying status to non-member Yukoners. The fact that
the tax dollars flowed to the First Nation governments augmented this pride.

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As a critical note on causation: One Yukon interviewee stated that the
catalyst for change was self-government itself and that taxation was only as a
component of this. He suggested that Yukon self-governing First Nations do not
distinguish between tax dollars and funds received through the self-government
fiscal transfer. For them, the central thing is that both allow the First Nations to
determine their own priorities and develop accountability mechanisms directed
at citizens in a way that had not been possible before self-government. Our other
interviews reinforced the perception that taxation is successful when undertaken
as one component of a larger community or strategic plan to enhance the overall
direction of the First Nation.

In a self-government context, one interviewee spoke of a “complete transfor-
mation” of a First Nation that had been mired in debt and partisan politics twenty
years earlier. Taxation had contributed to the changed attitudes of citizens, and
better governing institutions, services, and relationships with other governments
and non-Aboriginal parties within a reasonably short period.

In summary, the connection between taxation and good governance in First
Nations communities is both sparse and anecdotal but nonetheless encouraging.
In accordance with the belief that such results should be attainable for many First
Nations—ideally sooner rather than later—the next section presents some policy
and research options that would serve as next steps for First Nations and other
governments in realizing broad-based taxation of First Nations people on reserve.

V. Policy and Research Options
This final section proposes a number of options that First Nations and other
governments may wish to consider. In our view, it is important to broaden the
discussion in at least two dimensions. Firstly, any discussion of taxation that
fails to consider the impact on and nature of fiscal transfers from other levels of
government is not fruitful. This requires us to introduce some basic principles
underlying fiscal federalism and connect these to the discussion of future options.

Secondly, following the RCAP, we share the view that the structure of First
Nation governance should be factored into the consideration of tax. The RCAP
presented convincing arguments to support a tiered system of First Nation gover-
nance. This would occur above all for capacity reasons: individual First Nations are
simply too small to exercise all the jurisdictions that are involved in self-govern-
ment regimes. Family reasons also come into play: the small size of individual
First Nations makes managing competition among families difficult (RCAP 1996,
245–65). We concur with these arguments and would add another: it makes no
sense to combine conflicting governance functions in a single government. Taking
an example from the contested area of potable water, a single government should
not simultaneously operate a water plant and regulate its own operation. For regu-
latory functions to work well in a First Nation context—and these functions occur

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in a wide variety of public services, ranging from environmental protection to
building codes—multi-tiered governance is a must (Graham 2000).

With these two considerations in mind, we first present a continuum for
financing First Nation governments (A). The two subsequent subsections (B and
C) discuss policy and research implications for both First Nations and other levels
of government. In the final subsection (D), we discuss a set of proposals by former
Manitoba political leader, Jean Allard.

A. Continuum for Financing First Nations Governments

When attempting to put some of the ideas presented above into practice, it is
helpful to think of financing options for First Nations as organized along a
continuum. Nearing one end of the continuum would be self-governing First
Nations that rely on some combination of the following revenue sources:

• An array of tax revenue derived from property taxes (individual
households and businesses), personal income tax, and sales taxes applied
to all residents of First Nation lands in a non-discriminatory manner

• An array of user fees charged for such local services as water, sewage
treatment, and garbage collection

• Other own-source revenue (OSR), ranging from royalties and other
rents charged for natural resource extraction to income from First Nation-
owned businesses

• A single fiscal transfer from the federal government and possibly from
the province or territory. Among other things, the size of this transfer
would take into account the First Nation’s capacity to generate OSR.

First Nations starting from the other end of the continuum could begin
combining some of these options. A stepwise approach to adding taxes would
make the transition to self-government gradual rather than a traumatic “leap.”
Each of these revenue sources deserves further elaboration.

An Array of Tax Revenues

Property tax is the principal tax source for Canadian municipalities, and accounts
for 53% of their overall revenues. Among public finance experts, there is a general
consensus that property tax is the suitable tax for fulfilling local purposes, espe-
cially for funding municipal services benefitting the entire population, such as
police and fire services, roads, and other infrastructure. It is less effective for
funding social programs, in part because of its pattern of slow growth. Further,
property tax is often difficult to administer. Finally, the tax is regressive as it tends
to take a significantly higher portion of the income of the poor versus that of the
wealthy.

For these and other reasons, many argue that Canada’s local governments
should have a more diversified tax base. The Conference Board of Canada (2007)
for example, advocates that municipalities should have access to such “growth

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taxes” as income tax and consumption taxes. It points to precedents abroad: in
the United States, for example, roughly 3,800 local governments levy income tax,
and in Scandinavian countries, local governments do not have property taxes but
instead rely on personal income tax as their principal tax source.

There are therefore considerable grounds to support First Nations—given the
breadth of their responsibilities, many of which are province-like—having access
to property and sales tax as well as personal income taxes. Another argument
on behalf of First Nations possessing a range of tax powers is that tax revenue,
combined with user fees, should make up a substantial portion of their revenue.
The reasons for this have been addressed in earlier sections of this paper.

Corporate income tax would not be an appropriate one for a local government
to impose where businesses can easily relocate to lower tax jurisdictions. That
said, there are situations where sharing in an existing corporate income tax would
be appropriate: our Yukon First Nations interviewees, for example, suggested
that the self-governing First Nations there should gain access to a share of the
corporate tax now collected by the federal government in the territory.

Assuming that First Nation governments will one day be multi-tiered, careful
thought should be given to how each tier will finance itself. For example, property
taxes and user fees might be most appropriate for lower-tier governments because
those governments deliver services and make expenditures that relate directly
to these revenue sources. Conversely, personal and sales taxes might be more
appropriate revenue sources for an upper-tier government. Finally, the design and
administration of these tax regimes should follow generally accepted tax prin-
ciples as outlined in the box below:

Tax Principles
The following principles that should form the basis of a good taxation regime are
compiled from two sources: Fiscal Realities, “Getting First Nations Government
Right—Tax and Related Expenditures” and the 1993 “Working Draft: Indian
Government Taxation” prepared by the Department of Finance.

• A clear link between taxes paid and services provided to the
taxpayer. This ensures accountability for revenues collected.

• Harmonization and coordination with taxes imposed by other
governments. This avoids double taxation and the inadvertent creation of
tax havens; further, it reduces the burden of complying with different tax
regimes and administrative costs.

• Efficient collection of taxes. This might mean that, for some taxes
(sales and personal income tax, for example) federal and provincial
governments may be in the best position to collect them.

• Territorially based taxation. Taxation power in Canada tends to be tied
to governments with a specific land base.

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• Non-discriminatory taxation. Taxes should apply equally to all
residents of the land base.

• No taxation without representation. Those taxed are entitled to some
say in how they are taxed and what services they should receive from
their taxes.

• Neutrality. Tax systems should not distort where businesses decide to
locate through differing tax treatment.

The tax principles outlined above entail a rejection of several recommendations
that are often presented for First Nation taxation. For example, the argument that
non-resident First Nation members should be able to redirect part of their federal
and provincial taxes to First Nation governments would not be an easy approach
to administer. More fundamentally, it breaks the direct link between those being
taxed and those receiving the services.

An Array of User Fees

User fees (which public finance experts do not consider to be taxes) constitute
a larger and larger portion of revenues for local governments in Canada. For
Canadian municipalities, user fees make up almost a quarter of all revenues. User
fees are an appropriate revenue source under the following conditions:

• There is a clear link of a citizen to the service received.
• The service can be easily costed.
• The administrative costs of collecting user fees are reasonable.
• There are strong arguments for conservation of the service being

provided (i.e., conserving water, minimizing garbage).

• There is little likelihood of unintended consequences—for example, a
fee on garbage collection might induce citizens to dump their garbage in
roadside ditches.

In a First Nation context, the best user-fee candidates are likely drinking water
provided through some communal system, and possibly sewage treatment and
garbage removal. Akwesasne in Ontario and Whitecap Dakota in Saskatchewan
are two examples of First Nations that employ user fees, and there are others.

User fees are perhaps the best example of connecting a revenue source to a
specific service received. For this reason, they are popular among public finance
experts. The strike against them is that they are regressive: where the services tend
to be essential, they are consumed as much or more by the poor as by the rich.

Other Significant Revenue Sources

Three other common sources of own-source revenue are open to at least some
First Nations. The first rely on profitable, community-owned businesses, perhaps
following the Osoyoos model championed by Chief Clarence Louie. Indeed,
many First Nations leaders emphasize band-owned businesses as part of their

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larger economic development schemes, as a means to create jobs and enhance
the self-sufficiency of their communities. With few exceptions, however (some
American tribes and First Nations with immense casino revenues come to mind),
band-owned businesses are unlikely as stable and growing sources for funding
public services. There are a few central reasons for this. Firstly, business revenues
are cyclical and hence ill-suited to providing a stable revenue source. Secondly,
businesses need working capital to grow and must rely on the profits they realize
to obtain it. And finally, long experience has shown that governments, whether
on- or off-reserve, tend not to be well-suited to directing business enterprises.

A second, more promising source of revenue for First Nations is to share in the
resource rents collected by other levels of government. There are solid reasons
why other levels of government should support revenue-sharing with local govern-
ments—especially First Nations (Graham 2007a). These include the following:

• Revenue-sharing agreements can be critical elements in achieving
reconciliation with Aboriginal peoples on how Aboriginal and treaty
rights will find modern expression.

• There are strong equity arguments for supporting revenue-sharing with
local governments, since they bear a disproportionate share of the costs
of resource extraction and tend not to receive a corresponding share of
the benefits.

• Resources are the heritage of a region and its people. If these resources
are going to be exhausted or substantially reduced, then the region
deserves an opportunity to build a sustainable economy based on other
forms of economic activity.

• Resource-sharing sustains stability and certainty for governments, local
interests, and industry.

Despite the possible benefits of sharing resource rents, three cautionary notes
concerning this source of revenue need to be sounded. The first is that sustainabil-
ity should be an important feature for revenue-sharing agreements: First Nations,
as with other governments, should avoid the temptation to spend these revenues—
especially those derived from non-renewable resources such as minerals, oil, and
gas—on non-self-sustaining assets or initiatives. Rather, the emphasis should be
on the establishment of trust fund-type vehicles where the objective is to create
sustainable economies once the resource extraction has run its course. A second
cautionary note involves the so-called curse of natural resources that was canvassed
earlier in this paper. In many situations, excessive reliance on this revenue source
has been an impetus for poor rather than good governance. Finally, because tax
revenues from resource commodities tend to vary significantly over time as world
markets change, these revenues should not be the principal means for funding
government programs.

A final source of revenue could arise from the settlement of claims. Where this
source, particularly the capital component, should also be handled as a trust-like

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vehicle, it is also not a viable source for financing the operations of large, ongoing
government programs.

Fiscal Transfers from Other Levels of Government

Our discussion now turns to the difficult matter of the fiscal transfer. The fiscal rela-
tionship between governments in a federation is inevitably contentious. Although
the principles behind sound fiscal federalism are easy to enunciate, many princi-
ples conflict with one another and—as always—the “devil is in the detail.” The list
below outlines some of the key ideas animating fiscal federalism regimes. Is it any
wonder, given its array of contending ideas, that a recent Canadian study on the
issue was entitled “Reconciling the Irreconcilable?” (Council of The Federation).

Fiscal Federalism
• As far as possible, the revenue capacity of each level of government

should match its expenditure responsibilities. This maintains the basic
bargain with citizens: governments should be accountable for the taxes
they raise.

• Subnational governments should be able to provide relatively the
same level of services at comparable rates of taxation.21 This provides
a strong argument for national governments of any federation having
revenue-generating powers that exceed its expenditure needs—in
contradiction to the first principle above.

• Fiscal transfers should contain as few conditions as possible to
allow subnational governments to determine their own priorities. Where
achieving important national goals is an exception to this rule, it is an
exception that could encompass a wide range of initiatives and can be
very contentious.

• Transfers should not offer disincentives for subnational governments to
collect their own revenue. This is another area of possible contention.

• The fiscal transfer regime should be easy for citizens to understand.
This principle would argue against complexity, where equity arguments
might pull toward it.

• To be fair, the regime has to recognize the unique conditions of
each subnational government. This principle is at direct odds with the
simplicity doctrine. (Graham 1998)

The tensions surrounding principles of fiscal federalism have a direct bearing
on First Nations governments. At present, the federal government takes own-
source revenue (OSR) into consideration in funding a number of programs for
First Nations. For example, First Nations are expected to pay for a portion of their
operation and maintenance in providing potable water through OSR (presum-
ably through user fees charged to consumers). Similarly, band support funding
assumes that First Nations will contribute to some of their costs in this area.

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Self-government agreements take OSR requirements further by reducing the
fiscal transfer through a formula that takes into account a First Nation’s own-
source revenue. The recent self-government agreement with the Tsawwassen First
Nation illustrates how this can occur, while still providing the First Nation with
incentives to generate OSR.22 It provides this incentive in three ways:

• By providing a minimum floor for OSR below which no “clawback”
occurs

• By having a twenty-year, phase-in period
• By capping the rate of inclusion of OSR in the formula at 50%

In its recommendation for appropriate fiscal transfers for Aboriginal govern-
ments, the RCAP suggested that the parties involved pattern a new approach. This
would occur according to the same logic as the federal government’s transfers to
the three territories (Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act). Incorporating
revenue capacity and expenditure needs, this approach (laid out in legislation)
appears a sensible longer term goal. That said, this route makes sense only for
First Nations—ideally, a small number of aggregated ones—with proven financial
management records. The final two subsections turn to the policy implications for
First Nations and the federal government.

B. Policy and Research Implications for First Nations

This paper has raised four issues that First Nations might consider addressing:

• Consider instituting taxation regimes—sooner, rather than later
• Ensure fairness to non-member taxpayers
• Undertake additional research, especially to document the experience of

First Nations that have instituted tax regimes

• Reassess long-term strategies that rely primarily on revenues from natural
resources to reduce dependency on transfers from other governments

We examine each in turn below.

Begin Instituting Taxation Regimes

The First Nations interviewed for this paper indicated that their experience with
tax regimes had been positive. This finding, coupled with the international expe-
rience, offers a strong rationale for First Nations to begin instituting taxation
regimes in their communities. For reasons the preceding sections have suggested,
the politics of doing so are by no means easy where many First Nations people
are strongly attached to exemption from taxation by any government. However,
our research has revealed some ways political leaders might handle the taxation
issue in their communities:

• Link the introduction of a new tax to a broad, community
development strategy. Such a strategy aims at enhancing economic and
community development and improving overall community well-being.
Together with strong and consistent leadership, this comprehensive

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approach produced remarkable results for the Westbank and Whitecap
Dakota First Nations over a two-decade span.

• Link the introduction of a new tax to a specific community project.
Within the broader strategy, concrete projects offer an important avenue
through which to introduce a new tax. For example, the Kamloops
First Nation linked introduction of a sales tax to payment of legal fees
surrounding its claim to Douglas reserve land at Scheidam Flats (Fiscal
Realities 1999, 40).

• Add to the attractiveness of the proposition by including non-
members in the First Nation tax base. Recalling that the beneficial
effects to governance practices arise from taxation of a First Nation’s
own membership, there are still advantages to including non-members in
the tax base. Tax revenue generated from non-members, whether GST,
property tax, or income tax, can add significantly to the overall revenue
stream. This makes it a major selling point of a proposed initiative for
members.

• Canvass and cite the positive experiences of other First Nations. A
few First Nations have gained clear, demonstrable benefits from their
introduction of tax regimes in their communities. Their experiences could
help inform a community considering whether and how to begin taxing.

• Cite the benefits for those in the community with low incomes. This
is particularly the case for personal income tax. To provide just one
example, a family of four with an income of $20,000 would be eligible
for refundable for federal and provincial benefits of just over $11,000.23
This fact turns the argument “you can’t tax poverty” on its head.

• Build on positive experience by adding taxes incrementally.
Implementing one tax at a time would gradually introduce the
membership to taxation and its benefits. A First Nation might wish to
begin by introducing property tax and establishing jurisdiction, then
proceed to FNGST, and—once available—to personal income tax.
Introducing a property tax regime has the added benefit of building a
competent bureaucratic infrastructure to administer this tax.

Ensure Fair Treatment of Non-Member Taxpayers

Taxing non-members can reap significant benefits for First Nations but, as the
experience of some British Columbia First Nations demonstrates, it can also be
the cause of controversy, negative media coverage, and legitimate complaints of
discrimination. This concern applies particularly to property tax, where in many
cases non-members pay the tax and members do not. Long-term lessees of reserve
property have made charges of discriminatory taxation, “taxation without repre-
sentation,” and—in the case of non-taxpaying members receiving services and
voting—“representation without taxation” (Kesselman 2000). As a means to
ensure some representation of non-member taxpayers, First Nations may wish

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to consider permanent advisory councils comprised of non-members about tax
assessments and rates. They might also want to consider developing appeals and
arbitration mechanisms that are neutral from the perspective of non-members—in
other words, that are not simply appointees of chief and council. Finally, First
Nations will wish to examine the fundamental fairness of introducing a property
tax that is aimed exclusively at non-members and exempts members.

Undertake Additional Research

There is a dearth of good case studies of First Nations that have had tax regimes
for long periods of time. One striking example is the Yukon, where First Nations
under self-government agreements have had experience with personal income
tax since 1999. To this point, no studies of the Yukon First Nations experiences
exist. In our view, these experiences should be documented and analyzed in order
to inform other First Nations considering self-government and its attendant tax
agreements.

Another area that requires significant attention is the structure of First Nation
governance: specifically, whether and how multi-tiered governments should be
established. Some multi-tiered Aboriginal governments do exist: the Nisga’a
in British Columbia, the Métis Settlements of Alberta, and the James Bay Cree
of northern Quebec come to mind. Several new agreements (Nunatsiavut, for
example) also establish two-tiered systems. The structures of these governments
also need to be studied, especially from the perspective of how they are and should
be financed. We are unaware of any serious research since the RCAP that has been
done on multi-tiered governments.24

Reassess Strategies Relying Heavily on Natural Resource Revenues

Given the difficult politics involved in introducing tax regimes in First Nation
communities, it is understandable that some First Nation leaders look elsewhere
for revenue to reduce or eliminate dependence on federal transfers. The most
obvious candidate here is to share natural resource revenues collected by other
levels of government, yet both international and Canadian experiences would
suggest using caution when pursuing such a strategy, exclusive of taxing members.
All governments—including First Nation governments—need to tax their citizens
for the reasons we have outlined in this paper.

C. Policy and Research Implications for the Federal Government

Our research suggests that the overall federal policy framework for First Nation
taxation is sound—with two important exceptions on which we elaborate later in
this section. It is based on clearly articulated principles, proceeds on a voluntary
basis, and offers significant incentives for First Nations to introduce tax regimes.
Progress has not been galloping since 1990, but much has been accomplished over
the past two decades. Further progress has been made with personal income tax in
the Yukon—a significant breakthrough. What follows are a number of suggestions

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for accelerating the progress that has already been made. Most of the following
suggestions should be acted on in close collaboration with First Nations:

• Increase the options available on the financing continuum described
above

• Correct an anomaly relating to the refundable benefits under personal
income tax

• Standardize the administration of First Nation taxes
• Develop a more effective strategy for promoting the benefits of taxation
• Improve coordination between OSR policy and tax policy
• Develop a policy on multi-tiered governments

Increase the Financing Options Available

Moving from the Indian Act to a negotiated self-government regime is a huge leap
for First Nations. This explains in part the slow progress being made on the self-
government front. If the government were to develop incremental steps related to
financing, this might make the leap less daunting. Such steps could include the
following two in particular:

• Introduce a First Nations personal income tax (FNPIT) act. The
parallel here would be the act for the FNGST, which emphasizes a
voluntary approach. At the moment, First Nations can pursue personal
income tax jurisdiction only with self-government agreements. While the
initial demand will no doubt be low, having a personal income tax option
could be attractive to a number of First Nations, especially those with
large and growing non-member populations.

• Introduce a multi-year grant as a fiscal transfer vehicle. This grant
would be available only to First Nations that meet and maintain third-
party certification standards, such as a modified ISO 9001. Such a grant
would move some First Nations closer to the type of fiscal transfer now
found under self-government agreements. Third-party accreditation
would ensure that the governance and program quality is of the level
required to justify such an approach to funding First Nations—essentially
a hands-off approach with much reduced conditionality and reporting.

For those First Nations that have already taken the difficult steps to achieve
self-government and have obtained agreements, the federal government should
reduce the growing number of conditional transfers that supplement the self-
government transfer. Our interviews on self-governing First Nations in the Yukon
indicated that such conditional transfers are major irritants to these communities
and skew the accountability relationship back to the federal government.

Correct an Anomaly Relating to Refundable Benefits

First Nation members who are eligible for a Section 87 tax exemption can still take
advantage of the refundable benefits (e.g., GST and child tax benefits) available

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through the administration of the personal income tax system.25 As we noted
earlier, these benefits can be substantial: a family of four in British Columbia
might be eligible for a refund totalling as much as $11,000 (see Appendix B –
page 85.) The anomaly is this: under Section 81 of the Income Tax Act, all income
that is tax exempt from another act need not be considered in the calculation of
these refundable benefits. Thus, a Status Indian with a large income that is tax
exempt under Section 87 would be eligible to receive these benefits. The result
is very questionable social policy, with the rich receiving a sizable benefit under
a program designed to aid the poor. Moreover, the anomaly would represent a
serious disincentive for a First Nation considering entering a personal income tax
agreement with the federal government, should a FNPIT be developed.

Standardize the Terms and Legal Authority of First Nation
Tax Agreements

The federal government now has over forty tax administration agreements with
individual First Nations. These agreements cover personal income tax, FNGST,
or its predecessor, the First Nations Sales Tax on gas, tobacco, and alcohol.
Such one-off agreements are better than none at all, yet despite some success in
efforts to adopt a “template” approach, they may be cumbersome to negotiate
and implement. What is more, the individualized agreements yield a patchwork
taxation system that may inhibit economic development on First Nation land.
Rather than having consistency and clarity across the First Nations taxation
landscape, potential investors must examine the terms for each individual First
Nation. Therefore, we suggest greater standardization of these agreements and
the legal/legislative authorities upon which they are based. As noted above, opt-in
framework legislation for a First Nation personal income tax (similar to the
existing opt-in framework set out in the First Nation Goods and Services Tax Act)
would be a positive step in this regard.

Develop a More Effective Promotion Strategy

We have seen that First Nations are in many cases wary of any discussions that
would affect the Indian tax exemption. Their wariness is compounded by their
sense that benefits would flow to the federal government through reduced fiscal
transfers to First Nations communities. Given this mistrust, the federal govern-
ment is in a poor position to advocate the benefits of taxation to First Nations. To
this end, we suggest that the government partner with a credible First Nation orga-
nization to develop a more effective strategy: the First Nation Tax Commission
and/or the National Centre for First Nation Governance. A first step here might be
to partner in conducting joint research on the experience of First Nations that have
already developed tax regimes.

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Improve Coordination between OSR Policy and Tax Policy

We were unable to find any public document explaining federal policy on the
treatment of OSR in self-government agreements. This is odd, given that actual
OSR agreements—for example, with the Tsawwassen First Nation—are publicly
available. Because the treatment of OSR is a critical factor in weighing the pros
and cons of initiating a tax regime, it is essential that First Nations be able to
access a copy of the OSR policy.

More fundamentally, our interviews in the Yukon revealed that there is insuf-
ficient coordination between Indian and Northern Affairs (which has responsibil-
ity for OSR policy) and Finance Canada (which directs tax policy). There is a
strong requirement for a Government of Canada policy that links tax and own-
source revenue policies. This would be especially urgent if the government were
to introduce a First Nation personal income tax act.

Develop a Policy on Multi-Tiered Governance

As the RCAP has argued, with additional points added by the Institute On Gover-
nance, there are solid governance reasons for adopting multi-tiered self-govern-
ment in certain circumstances. The federal—and indeed, provincial—govern-
ments need to develop a policy on this issue, ideally in collaboration with First
Nations. Part of this policy should address how tax powers would be distributed
among these tiers.

D. The Jean Allard Proposal

Jean Allard, a former MLA from Manitoba, has advocated that a portion of federal
transfers to First Nations should go directly to Status Indians, both on- and off-
reserve, as “modern” treaty payments (2002). Specifically, Allard called for an
increase in treaty payments from the current $5 under the numbered treaties to
$5,000 per individual, resulting in a family of five receiving $25,000. The result,
according to Allard, would be to “re-inject a measure of independence and
accountability into the lives of the Indian community” (2002, 166).

Allard’s objective is laudable and to some extent fits with the themes of this
paper. That said, assuming that the federal government does not have a legal obli-
gation to pursue this course, we believe that implementing the Allard proposal
would not be sound social policy. Firstly, the proposal does not distinguish
between rich and poor and therefore would represent a substantial windfall for
some, both on- and off-reserve. Secondly, it would not in itself establish a tax rela-
tionship between members of First Nation communities and their governments.
Finally, the proposal would have the effect of reducing federal transfers to some
of Canada’s poorest communities while benefitting provincial governments by
reducing their welfare loads.

In conclusion, the better approach is to establish a FNPIT and to attempt to
ensure that First Nation residents, especially the less well off, take full advantage
of current tax benefit programs.

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Conclusion
This paper has shown that the decision to tax or not to tax is inherently political.
It has sought to demonstrate why, from a good governance perspective, it makes
sense to introduce tax regimes on reserves despite the political hurdles associated
with such introductions. New taxes are always a tough sell—and even tougher
in First Nations communities with no prior experience of taxation and a long-
standing resistance to being taxed by any government. Yet both international
and Aboriginal examples indicate that taxation is an essential ingredient in the
legitimacy, direction, performance, accountability, and fairness of governments.
The taxation relationship establishes a crucial tie between governments and their
citizens—a tie, as the political conduct of rentier states has shown, that is perhaps
most noticeable in its absence.

For First Nations communities, broad-based taxation regimes would provide
their governments with the resources they need to pursue community priorities.
And for First Nations families and individuals, the equity aspect of consump-
tion and personal income taxes stands to benefit the poor directly via substantial
benefits and rebates.

The final section of this paper provided some policy and research options for
both First Nations and federal governments to consider. Some of the options
presented would entail substantial changes to the present relationships between
governments. With the exception of framework personal income tax legislation,
however, most would occur at the policy and administrative levels and would
involve new frameworks and infrastructures rather than broad constitutional
reforms. If undertaken incrementally, the changes would be more manageable
for all levels of government, and once established, they would promise to yield
both lasting revenue sources and substantial governance improvements to First
Nations within a matter of years rather than decades or half-centuries.

The interests of First Nations communities and the general Canadian public
alike would see broad-based taxation for First Nations occur sooner rather than
later. To that end, we hope that the federal government, First Nations govern-
ments, and such key intermediate bodies as the First Nations Tax Commission
will cooperate closely to make taxation a working reality for First Nations govern-
ments that choose to exercise this option.

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Appendix A: The Relationship of IOG and UNDP
Governance Principles

The IOG Governance Principles The UNDP Principles and Related UNDP Text

1. Legitimacy and Voice Participation: All men and women should have a voice in
decision-making, either directly or through legitimate intermediate
institutions that represent their intention. Such broad participation
is built on freedom of association and speech, as well as capacities
to participate constructively.

Consensus Orientation: Good governance mediates differing
interests to reach a broad consensus on what is in the best interest
of the group and, where possible, on policies and procedures.

2. Direction Strategic Vision: Leaders and the public have a broad and
long-term perspective on good governance and human
development, along with a sense of what is needed for such
development. There is also an understanding of the historical,
cultural, and social complexities in which that perspective is
grounded.

3. Performance Responsiveness: Institutions and processes try to serve all
stakeholders.

Effectiveness and efficiency: Processes and institutions produce
results that meet needs while making the best use of resources.

4. Accountability Accountability: Decision-makers in government, the private
sector, and civil society organizations are accountable to the
public, as well as to institutional stakeholders. This accountability
differs depending on the organizations and whether the decision is
internal or external.

5. Fairness Equity: All men and women have opportunities to improve or
maintain their well-being.

Rule of Law: Legal frameworks should be fair and enforced
impartially, particularly the laws on human rights.

APR_Vol10.indb 82 18/10/10 2:21 PM

3 / The Link Between Taxation and Good Governance in a First Nations Context / 83

Appendix B: Federal and British Columbia Tax
Payable Net Benefits

Federal and British Columbia Tax Payable Net Benefits, 2009 Tax Year

Single Individual One-Earner Family of Four
T

ot
al

I
n

co
m

F
ed

er
al

B
F

P
ro

vi
n

ci
al

T
ax

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ef

u
n

d
ab

B
en

efi
ts

N
et

T
ax

P
ay

b
le

F
ed
er
al
B
F
T
P
ro
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n
ci
al

T
ax
R
ef
u
n

d
-a

b
le

B
en
efi
ts
N
et
T
ax

P
ay

ab
le

(
$)

5,000 0 0 474 (474) 0 0 10,395 (10,395)

10,000 0 0 1,257 (1,257) 0 0 11,609 (11,609)

15,000 455 0 563 (108) 0 0 11,905 (11,905)

20,000 1,155 180 488 847 0 0 11,015 (11,015)

25,000 1,855 576 488 1,943 77 251 9,450 (9,121)

30,000 2,555 952 488 3,019 777 628 8,290 (6,885)

35,000 3,255 1,188 295 4,148 1,477 864 7,026 (4,685)

40,000 4,055 1,539 18 5,576 2,277 1,215 5,684 (2,192)

45,000 5,112 1,910 0 7,022 3,335 1,585 5,134 (215)

50,000 6,204 2,292 0 8,496 4,426 1,968 4,684 1,710

55,000 7,304 2,677 0 9,981 5,526 2,353 4,484 3,395

60,000 8,404 3,062 0 11,466 6,626 2,738 4,284 5,080

65,000 9,504 3,447 0 12,951 7,726 3,123 4,084 6,765

70,000 10,604 3,832 0 14,436 8,826 3,508 3,884 8,450

75,000 11,704 4,321 0 16,025 9,926 3,996 3,684 10,239

80,000 12,919 4,846 0 17,764 11,141 4,521 3,484 12,179

85,000 14,219 5,427 0 19,646 12,441 5,103 3,284 14,260

90,000 15,519 6,042 0 21,560 13,741 5,717 3,084 16,374

95,000 16,819 6,656 0 23,475 15,041 6,332 2,884 18,489

100,000 18,119 7,285 0 25,404 16,341 6,961 2,648 20,618

Source: Department of Finance, Aboriginal Tax Policy Section.

Notes: Refundable benefits include the federal amounts for Goods and Services Tax Credit, the Working Income Tax
Benefit, the Universal Child Care Benefit, and the provincial amounts for Sales Tax Credit, Family Bonus, Earned Income,
and the Climate Action Credit.

One-Earner Family of Four assumes both children under the age of six.

APR_Vol10.indb 83 18/10/10 2:21 PM

84 / Part One: Voting and Governance

Endnotes
1 The authors and Institute On Governance gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the

Department of Finance, whose resources made this project possible. We also thank those who
agreed to be interviewed by us: Andre LeDressay of Fiscal Realities; Jon Kesselman of Simon
Fraser University; staff members of the Whitecap Dakota First Nation in Saskatchewan and the
Westbank First Nation in British Columbia; two individuals working with several Yukon First
Nations; and senior officials at the Aboriginal Tax Policy Section, Department of Finance. The
assistance of all parties contributed greatly to the research of this paper. The end product presents
views of the authors alone.

2 Benoit v. Canada [2002] FCT 243 at para 327.

3 Benoit v. Canada [2003] FCA 236 at para 51.

4 See here, “Working Draft: Indian Government Taxation” (Department of Finance 1993, 9). A
more detailed discussion of the Section 87 exemption can be found in “Aboriginal Taxation of
Non-Aboriginal Residents: Representation, Discrimination, and Accountability in the Context of
First Nations Autonomy,” Canadian Tax Journal 48(5) (Kesselman 2000, 1531). As Kesselman
also notes, the tax exemption has long been the subject of dispute and legal analysis.

5 See here Dickson, J. in . (1983): “As I read it, s. 87 creates an exemption for both persons and
property. It does not matter then that the taxation of employment income may be characterized as
a tax on persons, as opposed to a tax on property.” Cited in Imai and Hawley, The 1995 Annotated
Indian Act, 86. In successive cases, the Supreme Court has set out principles application of the
exemption to income based on an assessment of “connecting factors” to a reserve. The Canada
Revenue Agency has developed guidelines based on this direction .

6 Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, “Fact Sheet—Taxation by First Nation Governments,”
(viewed on March 22, 2008). See also comments from Department of
Finance officials. According to these, the rationale behind a revenue-sharing mechanism is to
contain federal costs (in the form of foregone tax revenues) where, for example, non-members
comprise a substantial portion of the First Nation’s tax base.

7 At the time of writing, those with personal income tax jurisdiction are the Yukon First Nations
(originally seven, now ten), the Nisga’a, the Tlicho, the Labrador Inuit, the Tsawwassen, and
Maa-nulth in British Columbia.

8 Finance officials indicated that this mechanism prevents unreasonable sharing by the federal
government and contains the income tax revenues the federal government must forego where
non-members of the First Nation account for a significant proportion of the tax base of the latter.

9 The modern treaties include a negotiated transition period allowing for some adjustment to the new
tax treatment: eight years for sales taxes and twelve years for other taxes, including income tax.

10 All figures taken from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, “Fact Sheet—Taxation by First
Nation Governments.”

11 As a caution, Fiscal Realities noted a potentially serious bias in the composition of the sample
selected: four respondents (20%) were ITAB members and five were property-tax-collecting
First Nations. The bias, if it existed, would mean that “the philosophical barriers to taxation
identified in the study are even more prevalent in the First Nation population than is reported in
this survey (Fiscal Realities 1997, 55).

12 One commentator with thorough knowledge of both recent federal government practice
and the views of the Assembly of First Nations suggested the source of these concerns. For
one, First Nations still feel the effects of the devolution of service delivery to their govern-
ments without sufficient capacity-building efforts in the 1980s and early 1990s, an effort they
perceived as a “dump and run” action by the federal government. Secondly, federal funding
for core programs has not had an inflation adjustment (now at a very low 2%) since 1996. And
thirdly, there is evidence—including a report from the auditor general on First Nations Child and
Family Services—that federal funding for First Nations for core functions is lower than provin-
cial funding for the same. These aspects of the recent history of the fiscal relationship provide
the context in which First Nations regard any federal government attempt to introduce taxation
on-reserve and settlement lands.

APR_Vol10.indb 84 18/10/10 2:21 PM

3 / The Link Between Taxation and Good Governance in a First Nations Context / 85

13 Benoit v. Canada [2002] FCT 243 at para. 227(4).

14 Hundreds of definitions of governance have been offered. For our purposes, the one provided
by the World Bank suffices: “Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which
authority … is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored
and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound
policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and
social interactions among them” .

15 Appendix A of this paper indicates the link between the UNDP’s nine principles of good gover-
nance and the five principles articulated by the Institute On Governance.

16 See Section 8 of the 2005 First Nations-Federal Crown Political Accord on the Recognition
and Implementation of First Nations Governments: “First Nations and Canada are committed
to respecting human rights and applicable international human rights instruments” .

17 To cite only one example, a recent comparison of public services provided by local governments
in Tanzania and Zambia found that local governments depending heavily on revenues collected
from citizens expended funds more efficiently than those that did not. Whereas the latter tended
to consume resources on salaries and infrastructure, governments depending on tax for revenues
spent more on service provision, regardless of differences in political institutions (Hoffman and
Gibson 2006b, 5, 23).

18 On this point, see especially “Does Taxation Lead to Representation?” (Ross 2004, 247). Seeking
to account for policy and regime developments in terms of the fiscal resource funding them,
so-called fiscal theories of governance have emerged only in the past twenty-five years in the
comparative government literature. That said, the theories have been subjected to rigorous
quantitative testing and have steadily gained prominence in the comparative literature since
the seminal 1985 publication of Robert Bates and Dau-Hsiang Lien’s “A Note on Taxation and
Representative Government,” Politics and Society 14(1) (1985, 53–70).

19 See especially the work of the Frontier Center for Public Policy (FCPP). As part of a campaign
to democratize election practices and generally to improve governance practices on-reserve, Don
Sandberg of the FCPP has created an Aboriginal Governance Index that rates the governance
performance of First Nations in Saskatchewan and Manitoba .

21 This argument is also offered by researchers of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic
Development and appears in a recent book edited by Miriam Jorgensen: “Funds that originate
in Washington or Ottawa often originate in outsiders’ ideas about what Indigenous nations need,
and they tend to bring conditions and limits with them. Most such funds are program specific,
keeping decisions about funding priorities in federal hands. They are also inconsistent with the
idea of independence. As a tribal leader once said to us, every federal dollar ‘is a leash around my
neck’” (Jorgensen 2007, 165). In the Canadian context, one finance official expressed a hunch
that Indian Affairs programming had in many cases determined the structure of First Nations
governments—thereby potentially further undermining the “self-determination” of those govern-
ments.

21 This principle is enshrined in the Constitution Act, 1982 in section 36(2).

22 See here “Tsawwassen First Nation Own Source Revenue Agreement,” .

23 The Department of Finance provided the authors with this figure. The table it was drawn from
(see Appendix B) indicates that a family of four would not begin paying taxes until its income
reaches approximately $50,000. Note that First Nation residents are already eligible to receive
these benefits.

24 Stephen Cornell of the Harvard Project made a similar observation in 2007. As one of the
necessary foci of research for Indigenous governance in the near future, he noted: “We need a
systematic examination of what Indigenous governance requires in terms of both structure and
scale.” Although there is no shortage of Indigenous solutions to governance challenges, “we are
not very good yet at analyzing those solutions and making these emergent Indigenous models
and the practical analysis of why they work available to Indigenous and non-Indigenous decision
makers” (Cornell 2007, 168).

25 See Appendix B for a comprehensive list of these refundable benefits.

APR_Vol10.indb 85 18/10/10 2:21 PM

86 / Part One: Voting and Governance

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