Understanding the past and future
The Rise of Indigenous Economic Power: Deconstructing Indian Act Economics
by Carol Anne Hilton
Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2025
$29.99 / 9781774060155
Reviewed by Matthew Downey
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For Canadians of different moulds, the word ‘Reconciliation’ might be associated with a swathe of different consequences, from the performance of various types of land acknowledgements to the complete upending of the political status quo. Crown-Indigenous relations is a vastly misunderstood subject. This lack of understanding is matched by an apparent lack of transparent action at the provincial and federal levels of government. This was made crystal clear by the 2025 Cowichan Tribes decision, in which the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that the Cowichan Tribes of Vancouver Island holds Aboriginal Title to sections of land in the city of Richmond at the mouth of the Fraser River, including sections of privately held land. Despite assurances from First Nations representatives that they have no interest in threatening privately held land, the decision spurred widespread public consternation and is currently under appeal. Carol Anne Hilton’s The Rise of Indigenous Economic Power was published a few months before the Cowichan Tribes decision and yet will serve as an enlightening read to anyone who, in that case’s wake, find themselves wondering what practical Reconciliation looks like, and why it really matters.
There are some critics who will associate Reconciliation with the political cause of reparations, a policy championed by select progressives in the United States as a way to right the past wrongs of slavery through financial compensation to descendants. A standard criticism of reparations decries the present punishment of individuals for the past crimes of their ancestors. Without commenting on such policies, it is useful as a comparison to the view of Reconciliation as the righting of wrongs committed in the past. As Hilton makes clear in her book, aptly subtitled Deconstructing Indian Act Economics, the goal of First Nations is not to simply obtain financial recompense for the harms of a colonial past, but rather to be accepted as partners in an economic system which was previously designed to shut them out. What is more, Hilton forwards a positive assessment of Indigenous economic trajectory, driven by Indigenous cooperation, ingenuity, and advocacy.
Unlike our neighbours to the south, Canada is not a land conquered under the stamping hooves of charging cavalry. Our constitution is not a documentary culmination of a revolution; we have no ‘year one’ or ‘independence day’ asserting a whitewashed cleanliness of republicanism over our colonial origins. Canada’s sovereignty stems from the British sovereignty that was confirmed by various treaties and agreements across the continent, A Mari usque ad Mare. The fact that Canada was carved out by the pen rather than the sabre has fuelled its fair share of scoffing remarks at the superiority of our style of colonialism to that practised by the likes of Andrew Jackson and Colonel Custer. However, it has also particular brand of suppression to which Canadian First Nations have been subjected. For, while Canada’s unique constitutional makeup stems from the 1763 Royal Proclamation, which mandates that British ownership of land be based on negotiations with sovereign First Nations, the subsequent history was one of broken promises rather than partnership.
In British Columbia there were no treaties (excepting the Douglas Treaties that were later unacknowledged by the colonial government, as well as Treaty 8 in the Peace River region) with the various Indigenous groups. The particularity of BC as the only province without treaties can be explained by the imperatives imposed on the first colonial governments by the influx of headstrong (and at times annexationist) Americans during the 1858 Fraser River gold rush. However, that initial decision to impose unnegotiated British sovereignty has resulted in the current milieu of public controversy around Aboriginal Title. The Indian Act, as an attempt to universalise and legitimate federal control of Canada’s Indigenous peoples apart from treaty agreements, embodies the broken promises and lost potential of Crown-Indigenous relations.
The nature of First Nations’ relationship to the Indian Act is something that Hilton devotes much well-needed attention to in contextualising the expression of Indigenous economic successes in recent times. Hilton finds creative means of establishing the impact of the Indian Act, such as through the personification and identification of character traits related to the intentions of the legislation. This is used in the subsequent creation of a diagnostic profile of the anthropomorphised legislation, aligning her examples of manipulative behaviour with various possible disorders. Citing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association, Hilton goes so far as to align the Indian Act’s traits with disorders like Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. In establishing the ideological history of the Indian Act, Hilton is perhaps less comprehensive. For instance, when discussing the 19th century European ideological background from which the Indian Act sprung, the evangelical powers of religion and political reform, embodied in the moralistic politics of Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, or even the exploratory colonial missionary work of Dr. Livingstone, are neglected in favour of a contextualising mention of the contemporary inventions of the matchstick, microphone, and typographer.
Hilton is effective in elucidating the many ways that the Indian Act has intentionally alienated First Nations from the Canadian economy. The Indian Act estranged them from the value of their lands and territories, with the government allowing itself through its fiscal responsibility over ‘Indian moneys’ to set a cap on what rents can be charged by band governments. As Hilton recounts, First Nations under Indian Act economics have been unable to leverage the financial value of either their reserve lands or their traditional territories as a direct result of government initiatives to assimilate their populations. This book represents an effort to correct the perception of Indigenous economic success as something which must be mandated by the federal government at a cost to the regular taxpayer. While invoking the requirements associated with the maintenance of the ‘honour of the Crown’, and the fiduciary responsibilities of the Crown to work for the interest of Indigenous partners, Hilton states how with investment Indigenous groups can be strong and self-sufficient in advancing economic opportunities.
The narrative that Hilton is communicating, in line with the term ‘Indigenomics’ that she has coined, is one in which First Nations have risen above economic alienation to seek inclusion. Interspersing her writing with examples from success stories across Canada, Hilton notes throughout the first-hand accounts of Indigenous leaders from the Tsawwassen to the Mi’kmaw. A section designed to illustrate the progress that has been made, lists ‘Twenty-five moments of Indigenous success that John A. Macdonald would have never seen coming,’ with examples including the recognition of aboriginal rights in s.35 of the Constitution Act 1982 and the title agreement between the Haida Nation and British Columbia over Haida Gwaii. Although this book serves as a call to action to encourage greater participation in advancing the Indigenous economy, Hilton makes sure to posture First Nations as driving forces in creating opportunities.
On April 2, 2026, Premier David Eby announced that the government of British Columbia would be altering the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which was the legislated aligning of BC’s laws with the United Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). After initial backlash from First Nations leaders, it was announced that aspects of the legislation dealing with land title would be simply “suspended.” This announcement resulted from the fact that DRIPA was directly cited in court cases on Aboriginal Title such as the Cowichan Tribes decision. As the politics of Aboriginal Title develop, it is important to appreciate the fact of Indigenous economic inclusion as something that is a benefit to Canada as a whole.
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Matthew Vernon Downey is an independent writer and researcher based out of Victoria, B.C.. He has degrees from UVic (BA hons) and the London School of Economics (MSc). [Editor’s note: Matthew Downey has also reviewed books by Ivan E. Antak, Thomas F. Pedersen, Tim Martin, M. Wylie Blanchet, Jonathan Manthorpe, and Robert Amos for The British Columbia Review. He has also contributed an essay on the subject of Amor de Cosmos.]
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The British Columbia Review
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Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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