Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 6/4/2010 (3248 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GIVING aboriginal people the right to own property on reserves could help cure the abject poverty that plagues First Nations, a top Tory thinker and a former chief said Tuesday.

Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Ron Evans said he's open to the idea, if Ottawa makes good on long-standing treaty obligations to share resource revenue with First Nations.

Tom Flanagan, a University of Calgary politics professor and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, said lack of property rights is one root of the poverty that grips remote reserves with little economic development, poor housing and few jobs.

Bands don't even have legal title to their reserves. Those lands are held in trust by the Crown, so any project on a reserve such as a casino or a golf course needs the approval of the Indian Affairs minister, a slow and painful bureaucratic process that deters investors.