Last year, Canadian First Nations leaders came to Tuahiwi marae, just north of Christchurch, for the third hui-ā-motu. They explained how they have been using their self-governing autonomy, which sounds a lot like rangatiratanga, to build economic self-determination.

I left Canada almost 30 years ago. I attended the hui-ā-motu at Tuahiwi. And I wanted to better understand how so much had changed over a relatively short period.

The change is obvious.

Ch'íyáqtel is a small First Nation of fewer than 800 people about an hour away from Vancouver, near the town of Chilliwack. Ch'íyáqtel Chief Derek Epp said that, in the early 1990s, transfers from the Canadian central government made up some 90% of his Band Council’s operational funding. Now, it only makes up about 10% - less than the grants Canada’s central government provides to some other municipal governments.

They have built housing and commercial developments. And some of the proceeds are helping them to buy back land to bring under their jurisdiction.

Three apartment towers are nearing completion near downtown Vancouver – Phase One of the Sen̓áḵw development on Kitsilano Indian Reserve No. 6, land returned to the Squamish Nation in 2002. On the reserve, the Squamish have authority a bit stronger than the authority held by other municipal governments. They broke ground for their development in 2022.

This kind of development, on a reserve, would have seemed nearly unthinkable in the early 1990s. Indian Reserves were places where micromanagement by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development meant it was hard to do anything at all – let alone build soaring apartment towers.

Today, the speed with which the Squamish went from concept to construction, under their own authority in a fraction of the time it would have taken City Hall, led Vancouver’s General Manager of Planning to conclude that, “we might be able to learn something from them”.

I cannot pretend to understand all of it. But I think I understand some of the change since then. Last week, the New Zealand Initiative released Building Nations: What Canada’s First Nations can teach us about devolution and development – a research note that puts some of the pieces together.

Canada is a huge country with hundreds of First Nations. Some had serious governance issues. Many are remote. And all had the kind of difficulty in accessing capital for development that would be familiar here on whenua Māori.

There simply was not and could not be a one-size-fits-all way out of the problem.

And Canada did not impose one.

Instead, change came gradually. The Kamloops First Nation in British Columbia instigated much of the change; the 1988 changes to the Indian Act bringing stronger tax authority for Band Councils is called the Kamloops Amendment.

Later changes brought more comprehensive fiscal management authority along with the ability to borrow against revenues, and the potential to opt out of Ottawa’s land micromanagement in favour of a locally developed Land Code.

As early movers adopted their own tax codes, they also built the fiscal institutions that could help others follow along.

Signing onto the First Nation Fiscal Management Act brings responsibility, accountability, and opportunity. Only signatories can borrow through the First Nations Finance Authority – a body similar to New Zealand’s Local Government Finance Authority. And they must meet the requirements of the Fiscal Management Board.

The books must be clean.

Opting out of the Indian Act’s land micromanagement requires independent verification that the local Nation supports the Nation’s proposed Land Code.

Meeting the accountability requirements requires building governance capabilities. First Nations built institutions that assist.

The Lands Advisory Board that verifies Land Codes also provides resource support for setting local zoning. The First Nations Tax Commission supports setting tax codes. And the Tulo Centre of Indigenous Economics trains a coming generation of First Nations administrators.

In 1996, thirteen First Nations signed the Framework Agreement letting them opt out of Ottawa’s control over land use. And only a handful had taken up tax authority.

Success is its own best advertisement. Seeing what your neighbours are doing can be more convincing than any lecture or policy paper.

Uptake of tax authority spread outward from Kamloops. By the early 2020s, about 150 First Nations had taken up tax authority. And as of August 2025, 120 First Nations had operational Land Codes.

Had central government tried to impose the changes everywhere, it would almost certainly have failed. The institutions needed for success had not yet been built. First Nations had to learn how to build them. And imposition is never as welcome as allowing choice.

Canada’s experience holds lessons in thinking about whenua Māori and devolution. If there were any single way of reforming governance of whenua Māori, someone would have found it by now.

It could be that there are only local solutions and learning from what others have tried.

But it requires letting people try.

To read the full article on The Post website, click here.