One native issue resolved, more fester.

Ottawa -- A $4 billion deal is bringing to an end years of litigation over the residential schools issue, meaning about 80,000 former native students of the institutions will be paid an average of $24,000 each. About 130 such schools operated across Canada until the last one was shut down in 1996. Prior to the deal, more than 3,000 claims had been settled in or out of court, with payouts totalling $114 million (National Post, Dec. 16, 2006).

But points of contention persist between Canadian governments and native peoples. A tense standoff over housing developments being built on disputed lands in Caledonia, Ont. continues. And natives are complaining about the danger of a wave of discrimination complaints if the federal government goes through with the repeal of a 30-year-old section of the Human Rights Act that blocks complaints against the government and band councils. Cash-strapped councils say they will be peppered with human rights claims, while dissent and tension would be sown on reserves (Toronto Star, Dec. 14, 2006).

Contesting the demands of Canada's native peoples has become a thankless enterprise, as at least one MP has found. John Cummins (Delta-Richmond East, B.C.) has been critical of the $120 million, 578-page Tsawwassen Treaty, which guarantees that first nation a guaranteed quantity of fish that takes precedence over the rights of every other Canadian--a "race-based fishery," in effect. As well, some of the best farmland in Canada is to be removed from B.C.'s Agriculture Land Reserve for a port expansion.

"Mr. Cummins can't find a friend on the Hill in Ottawa these days, because questioning a treaty is perceived as anti-Indian," reported Gary Mason in the Globe and Mail (Dec. 14, 2006). "There's not a politician alive who wants to be tarred with that brush." Mason added that "there are lots more" special deals with native groups yet to come.