Last summer, Pierre Poilievre delivered a speech to the Assembly of First Nations blasting what he called the Liberals’ “performative reconciliation.” In other words, talking a big game but accomplishing little. His government, he said, would make tangible differences in Indigenous people’s lives—mostly by getting them access to cold, hard cash from resource-extraction projects. “If reconciliation means anything,” he declared, “it means saying yes to economic opportunities.”

His preferred vehicle for doing so is the First Nations Resource Charge, a proposed policy intended to streamline negotiations between Indigenous communities, governments and resource companies. The FNRC proposes allowing Indigenous communities to negotiate directly with firms that want to exploit resources on their land, rather than........

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