Canadians wonder why their living standards keep falling. Why is the American economy growing while ours stagnates? Why are we falling behind?One reason is the massive amounts of money that have gone into government spending on indigenous people. It has escalated to historic, unsustainable levels, fundamentally straining the nation’s fiscal framework.According to a recent study by the Fraser Institute, Ottawa has paid out an estimated $113.2 billion — adjusted for inflation — to First Nations for lawsuits and class action settlements since 1974, with the overwhelming majority of these massive liabilities piling up after 2015.But what most Canadians don’t know is that one of the main reasons this massive spending has occurred is a document that few have even heard of — the Directive on Civil Litigation Involving Indigenous Peoples — or “Reconciliation Practice Directive” (RPD).The RPD was cynically forced on this country by former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould in her final hours in office in 2019.By systematically stripping government lawyers of their ability to defend the Crown, the RPD opened a fiscal floodgate. As I argued in my 2019 C2C Journal essay, the mainstream media narrative in 2019 largely ignored how the former attorney general utilized her position to prioritize an aggressive, sovereign indigenous rights agenda over traditional rule-of-law frameworks and standard Crown protection. The resulting explosion in government spending, accelerated by the RPDs, is what this article is about.First, what is a Reconciliation Practice Directive?An RPD, as defined by government sources, is a set of instructions from the government that guides government lawyers on how to incorporate indigenous traditions and collaborative frameworks into legal proceedings. It aims to resolve disputes respectfully, uphold the honour of the Crown, and systematically advance truth and reconciliation.This all sounds nice, but the directive actually prohibits government lawyers from using their best defences to fight indigenous claims. The RPD tells government lawyers that any defence that might offend indigenous sensibilities — namely the best defences, such as extinguishment — simply cannot be used. Senior government lawyers have described the RPD as being like trying to defend claims with “one hand tied behind your back.” Another way to describe the RPD is to imagine a big thumb pushing down hard on the scales of justice in favour of the indigenous claimants..And that is exactly what has happened. Profoundly unjust cases, like the infamous BC Cowichan case, can only be understood when one realizes that the judge didn’t have the best defences before her when she made her shocking ruling. It was a case of true “blind justice” with a judge who had only heard half of the government’s case, because of the RPD. Only Richmond’s lawyers raised the extinguishment defence, while the provincial and federal lawyers were prevented from doing so by the RPD. In effect, the indigenous claimants were authorized by the RPD to tell the government lawyers what defences they would allow to be litigated. Is it any surprise that the indigenous litigants only allowed government lawyers to advance their weakest defences?The well-known maxim “garbage in, garbage out” applies. This is not a criticism of the trial judge in that case — she didn’t hear the Crown’s best case, because the RPD stopped government lawyers from advancing it.But I go further and argue that it is no longer “justice” if one party is denied the ability to properly defend itself. Or, put even more bluntly: For indigenous claims, Canada does not have a justice system — it has an injustice system that always favours the indigenous claimant. It has become a system rigged against Crown sovereignty and the taxpayer.Canadians first heard about RPDs at the hearings concerning the SNC-Lavalin scandal in 2019. Remember? As I argued in the C2C essay at the time, the mainstream media told a simplistic “good guy, bad guy” story to explain what unfolded between Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould. Justin Trudeau was the bad guy who tried to force a courageous Jody Wilson-Raybould to compromise her position as justice minister and attorney general. At least that’s the story our media told.Trudeau did those things. But the Lavalin scandal was actually just the usual Liberal/Quebec sleaze that has kept the Liberal Party in power for most of Canada’s history. The Lavalin chicanery only became front-page news because Wilson-Raybould used it to get what she wanted.The real story is that Wilson-Raybould cynically exploited the SNC-Lavalin scandal to her advantage, in order to get her major Assembly of First Nations (AFN) project — yes, the RPD — implemented.Conrad Black gets much of it right, as usual, in his uncompromising analysis of the whole sordid affair.The push for the RPD did not originate from impartial legal scholars or financial planners, but mainly from indigenous groups, foremost among them the Assembly of First Nations. Jody Wilson-Raybould — before her appointment to cabinet — served as a prominent regional chief for the AFN. She brought this explicit advocacy mindset into the heart of Canada’s justice system, viewing her role not as a neutral defender of the Crown’s broad public interest, but as an activist positioned to dismantle state institutions from within. Her operating philosophy was clear in her 2017 speech: “Colonialism cannot be stemmed and ultimately overcome without recognition and implementation of the inherent rights of Indigenous peoples.”Later in the same speech, she said, “I have taken steps to change the way Canada participates in litigation with Indigenous peoples.”This philosophy directly conflicted with traditional Canadian legal practice. By framing standard constitutional litigation and the verification of historical claims as “colonialism”, Wilson-Raybould sought to delegitimize the very mechanisms that protect public resources from unchecked liability.The sweeping changes proposed by the attorney general had not been met with universal acclaim within the Liberal government; instead, they faced justifiable alarm from more pragmatic members of the cabinet. Ministers tasked with managing Crown relations and the federal budget recognized that abandoning standard legal defences was a radical step that posed an unprecedented threat to Canada’s fiscal stability.This internal opposition was led by figures like Carolyn Bennett, the minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations. Bennett and her allies recognized that the RPD went too far, too fast, and lacked the necessary safeguards to protect public funds. The prevailing view among more responsible members of the administration was that any shift in legal policy required a slow and measured approach.The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) recognized that completely disarming Department of Justice lawyers would leave the government defenceless against hyper-inflated historical grievances. Consequently, the PMO intended to subject the draft to rigorous internal review — a process that would have rightly neutralized its most radical elements — or cancel it entirely — to protect the federal balance sheet. Simply put, the RPD would never have been implemented, and would have been placed in the dusty bin of bad ideas where it belonged..But Wilson-Raybould outmaneuvered them to secure her true objective — the institutionalization of her radical RPD. By positioning herself as a righteous defender of judicial independence against PMO interference, she created a political shield.This calculated delay bought her the exact timeline needed to finalize the draft of her RPD without cabinet scrutiny. When the prime minister finally moved to reassign her on January 7, 2019, the manufactured crisis had served its purpose. It provided her with the ultimate chaotic backdrop to execute a rapid bureaucratic ambush, forcing the PMO to choose between managing a massive political scandal or intercepting an unvetted legal mandate.On January 11, 2019, she utilized the final 96 hours of her independent constitutional authority to unilaterally sign and publicly issue the RPD. By the time she was officially stripped of her title on January 14, 2019, she had successfully tied the hands of the Canadian government, using the corporate scandal as a Trojan horse to pass her primary legislative agenda.So, by using the SNC-Lavalin scandal to her advantage, Wilson-Raybould succeeded in completely changing Canada’s justice system by forcing the radical RPD into the system.The intricacies of what went on need a book. Suffice it to say that before she decided to exploit the SNC-Lavalin issue, Wilson-Raybould was losing the battle with her cabinet colleagues to make her RPD permanent government policy. By exploiting the SNC-Lavalin controversy, she succeeded in getting her way. They lost. She won. Or more accurately, Canada lost, and the AFN won.Once enacted, the RPD effectively forced the Department of Justice to capitulate in almost every major civil dispute involving indigenous claims. It replaced a culture of rigorous legal verification with a mandate of institutional surrender. The floodgates opened.The impact on the Canadian taxpayer was achieved through several key mechanisms within the RPD:The RPD instructed Crown lawyers to abandon standard legal shields, such as statutes of limitations and the doctrine of laches. These legal principles exist for a reason: they ensure that claims are brought forward while evidence is fresh and reliable. Forcing the Crown to litigate events from centuries ago without these defences made a fair trial impossible. Litigators were ordered to treat court as a “last resort” and to prioritize negotiated settlements. By signalling to plaintiffs that the government was forbidden from aggressively fighting a case in court, the directive destroyed Canada’s negotiating leverage, allowing claimants to demand historic, unchecked payouts. By requiring lawyers to concede the existence of broad, undefined rights at the outset of a dispute, the RPD skipped the essential fact-finding phase of litigation, essentially pleading guilty before the trial even began. The judgments started rolling in. The federal treasury was ransacked..Let me be clear: This is not a personal attack on a very capable woman. In fact, Wilson-Raybould and her colleagues likely think that she furthered the cause of indigenous people by cleverly foisting the RPD on the hapless Trudeau government. And she can’t be blamed for the fact that our misguided politicians, lawyers, and judges kowtow to these race-based RPDs. This article is an attack on RPDs and all race-based policies, and on the AFN vision of Canada that Wilson-Raybould stands for — namely, a country chopped up into hundreds of race-based enclaves.But despite all of that, if the geyser of spending unleashed by her RPD had solved what has always been called Canada’s “Indian problem” by significantly improving the lives of most Indians, one could argue that the avalanche of spending has all been worth it.However, we can see for ourselves that it has not. Despite the massive spending, most Indians remain locked in dependency, and most reserves remain dysfunctional and economically useless. In fact, all of that extra spending might have actually made the Indian dependency problem worse. Those people are the victims, not the beneficiaries, of race-based policies like the RPD..At the House of Commons Justice Committee hearing into the SNC-Lavalin scandal on March 6, 2019, then Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick gave this veiled warning to the country about the damage he knew that the RPD would do — unless cancelled.“This directive to all Government of Canada litigators could mark a profound change in Canada's legal landscape. However, it could be repealed or gutted at the stroke of a pen,” said Wernick.We should have listened to Wernick in 2019 before so much damage had been done.But better late than never. We should now demand that the RPD be immediately cancelled at the federal level.And in BC, where the new Conservative government is committed to repealing DRIPA, they should immediately cancel their RPD.Before it’s too late.
