First Nations entrepreneurship can be improved if Ottawa removes further barriers to property rights within the Indian Act, a new study suggests.
“Indigenous people in Canada face many barriers to entrepreneurship that other Canadians do not, so Ottawa has a responsibility to right this wrong,” said study author Tom Flanagan, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, in a May 19 press release.
The study, titled “The Indian Act: A Barrier to Entrepreneurship” noted that despite calls by Canadian politicians and indigenous leaders to repeal the Indian Act over the years, repeal “never seems to happen.”
“There is no general agreement on what should replace the Act, and First Nations are deeply attached to some of the special protections it affords,” wrote Flanagan, also professor emeritus at the University of Calgary….