When restitution is delayed, friction replaces alignment and risk replaces certainty. That is bad for First Nations. It is also bad for the projects, the investors, and the economic objectives Ottawa says it wants to advance.
Cowessess First Nation has a major specific claim with the Government of Canada that has been negotiated and agreed to in principle. The legal entitlement is established. The number is known. What remains is performance — the part of any normal transaction where the money moves and the deal closes. That part is not happening on a schedule a business person would recognize. The file sits. The capital is withheld. And the explanations do not match the urgency Ottawa applies to other priorities.
Gap Between Rhetoric and Performance
In more than two decades advising First Nations across Canada, I have rarely seen the gap between political rhetoric and federal performance as wide as it is today. Cowessess First Nation, in Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan, shows what that gap looks like in practice — and theirs is far from the only case.
There is a phrase in federal policy circles these days about the need to move "at the speed of business." It shows up in speeches about critical minerals, in announcements from the new major projects office, in the language Ottawa uses to describe how Canada will compete globally. It is a promise to investors that the federal government understands what timelines cost. It is a promise Ottawa should be keeping on another file too. And right now, it is not.
Costs of Delay
Under the Carney government, the focus has been elsewhere: defence spending, support for Ukraine, the housing crisis, the acceleration of major resource projects. Each is a legitimate national priority. But they are being pursued alongside an equally binding obligation that is not being treated with the same urgency — the settlement of First Nation specific claims. These are not discretionary files. They are legal commitments the Crown has already accepted.
Here is what delay actually costs. Cowessess has serious, viable major project aspirations. The Nation is ready to invest in its own future and contribute to the Saskatchewan economy. But investment requires capital. Settlement payments are not just restitution for past wrongs — they are the financial engine that allows a First Nation to participate on its own terms, without going hat in hand for project financing. When those funds are delayed, projects stall. Opportunities are lost. Momentum dissipates.
Contradiction in Federal Policy
There is a contradiction in current federal policy. Ottawa has built a major projects office and is moving aggressively on resource development under Bill C-5 timelines. At the same time, the restitutionary payments that would enable First Nations to participate in those projects sit in administrative gridlock. Those two tracks are interdependent. Pretending otherwise will create problems Ottawa does not want to deal with later.
