Settling old debts

The author of this study has worked independently and the opinions expressed are therefore his own, and do not necessarily refl ect the opinions of the board of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. [...] Their preferred This study will call for a stabilization of this course was to follow the barest minimum of increase, as well as a plan to deal with all legal requirements involved and to prefer specifi c claims as quickly as possible once a the solution that appeased the public and fi nal volume is determined. [...] Sources within the Assembly of First Nations Moral and Economic Reasons (AFN), the major organization representing for Expediting the Process on-reserve Indians, estimate that the total value of unresolved land claims is between 3 The central contention of this study is that $2.6 billion and $6 billion. [...] While private ownership of land, it is important this paper makes the argument that self- that First Nations receive certainty of title government should be the eventual goal to the lands and resources that ought to be of First Nations, who would then be freed available to their communities. [...] In the past, it was the and specifi c claims.21 The new entity, he government that assessed the validity argued, would help mitigate any real or of claims, but this was a clear confl ict of perceived confl icts of interests that de- interest, as the government would also be legitimize the claims process and would the judge in a claim where it is an interested allow Indian Affairs to focus on its c