by Ahmed Charai

    Despite Canada’s global image of progressivism, its Indigenous communities remain in crisis, raising the provocative question of whether US policy under Trump delivered more concrete results for Native peoples.

    Canada has long cultivated an image of itself as a global beacon of progressive values, multicultural tolerance and moral leadership. Its leaders speak with polished conviction on climate justice, gender equity and the rules-based international order. 

    However, beneath this carefully managed international image lies a national disgrace, one that has persisted through political cycles, public apologies and photo-op reconciliations. The truth is that Canada’s Indigenous peoples, the First Nations, Métis and Inuit, remain trapped in conditions that more closely resemble those of a neglected colony than of equal citizens in a prosperous democracy.

    Canada Treats Its First Nations Like Second-Class Citizens

    For over a decade, successive Canadian governments have promised a “new relationship” with Indigenous peoples. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015 on a platform of historic reconciliation. He pledged to end long-term drinking water advisories in all First Nations communities within five years, acknowledging that it was unconscionable for children in a G7 country to grow up without safe tap water. 

    Yet, as of 2025, that promise remains broken. According to Indigenous Services Canada, 33 long-term boil water advisories remain in effect across 29 communities, with some, such as the Neskantaga First Nation in Ontario, having been in place for over 30 years.

    This crisis goes beyond infrastructure. It extends to Canada’s criminal justice system, where Indigenous people are imprisoned at staggering rates. According to the Office of the Correctional Investigator, they comprise 5 percent of the Canadian population, yet account for 32 percent of all federal inmates. Among incarcerated women, the disparity is even more egregious: Indigenous women now account for over 50 percent of federally sentenced women. 

    These are not just statistics; they are symptoms of a justice system that has failed Indigenous Canadians at every level.

    Even reforms intended to protect have been corrupted. After widespread condemnation of solitary confinement, Canada introduced “Structured Intervention Units” as an alternative in federal prisons. But a 2024 investigation by Reuters revealed that 44.2 percent of those placed in these isolation-like units were Indigenous, many held for weeks or months without the legally mandated out-of-cell time or access to mental health care. 

    Has Prime Minister Carney Improved the Lives of Indigenous Canadians?

    Trudeau may have departed the office, but his successor, Prime Minister Mark Carney, an elite central banker with no prior elected political experience until 2025, has shown no sign of altering this trajectory. Carney’s leadership has been characterized by diplomacy, economic stability and a return to technocratic governance; however, his approach to Indigenous affairs has been defined by inertia. 

    The federal government released its Indigenous Justice Strategy in early 2025, touting partnerships and listening sessions, but little has changed on the ground. The water remains undrinkable, the prisons remain full and the promises remain unfulfilled.

    In contrast to this stagnation, the United States, so often portrayed as Canada’s troubled sibling, has quietly made more tangible progress on Indigenous empowerment, particularly under the administration of Donald Trump. It is fashionable in progressive circles to dismiss Trump’s legacy, but facts should take precedence over feelings. 

    How Has President Trump Helped Native Americans?

    During his term, Native American tribes in the US gained expanded access to Opportunity Zones, federal tax incentives and rights to energy development. While these policies were controversial, they contributed to increasing tribal autonomy, enabling many to pursue self-sustaining economic projects and infrastructure improvements.

    Moreover, the United States formally recognizes tribes as sovereign nations in their own right, granting them direct legal standing with the federal government, a framework that Canada still denies its First Nations. 

    Even flawed institutions like the Indian Health Service (IHS) provide a federal infrastructure for health and emergency response, which does not exist in Canada. In economic terms, US tribes have been able to create independent enterprises, such as casinos, energy companies and more, often without the same degree of suffocating bureaucracy that hinders Canadian First Nations.

    It is in this context that one must ask the unthinkable: Would Indigenous Canadians be better off under US governance? 

    Would they have more sovereignty, more resources and more dignity if they were subject to American, not Canadian, law? 

    The United States Treats Its Indigenous Population Better Than Canada

    This is not a call for annexation nor a literal proposal for a political union. It is a rhetorical provocation meant to expose a cruel irony. In a world where Canada is applauded for compassion and the United States is scorned for harshness, it is the United States that has, in some key respects, delivered more for its Native populations.

    In Neskantaga, generations have lived without safe water in a country that boasts of its global development aid. In Winnipeg, Indigenous youth are criminalized for petty offenses and funneled into a prison system that offers no escape. In Attawapiskat, children contemplate suicide at rates five to ten times the national average. And in Ottawa, the government provides carefully worded acknowledgments, commissions and commemorative plaques.

    If Canada is unwilling to protect its First Peoples, if it cannot even provide them with the most basic human rights, then perhaps it is time for the international community, including the United States, to begin asking why. And possibly, those in power in Ottawa will realize that reconciliation requires more than ceremonies and speeches. 

    It requires results.

    If the maple leaf cannot extend protection to those upon whose lands the nation was built, then it is no longer unreasonable to consider whether the stars and stripes might. What we are witnessing is not merely a failure of policy but a deeper failure of national will. The controversy does not lie in posing the question; it lies in the silence, inertia and moral complacency that have made such a question both possible and necessary.