Ok, we did take their land, but if you think before that they were at war with each other taking each others land, without mercy and definetly without paying another tribe to use their land. Even if you do think that it was unfair for us to take their land, think about everything that we gave them. We gave them our culture that they are living in, we gave them our technology that they are enjoying. If it were not for us they might still be living in teepees, we advanced their civilization by centuries, does that not count as anything?

I almost cannot stand the "it wasn't fair" arguement. Every civilization, every nation, every type of people, have their own "it wasn't fair" story. Why should the natives recieve money for theirs, it's nothing special, look at what whites did to blacks, they made them into slaves. Not a dime. I encourage native americans to stop living in an era that they weren't alive in, and live in the present. Natives are Canadians and as such should pay taxes along with any other Canadian. I am a white man asking his government for equality, racism should not be tolerated.

This information is misleading, and I would argue "race-based". In order to receive a tax exemption you must produce an Indian Status Card, or treaty card as they are referred to in the West (this may be why some people refer to the tax exemption as a treaty right). People without status must pay the tax on goods and services they purchase on reserve. Whether they do or do not is a matter of retail/administrative procedure. Canada does have systems in place to ensure that on-reserve business adhere to these rules, and collect taxes from non-status customers.

This article is simply another attempt to perpetuate negative stereotypes about Indigenous Peoples, and create the social clout needed by right wing agendas to change the current system in favour of their political agenda.  Keep up the good work (what little of it your are capable of), Mr. Harding.

Further, all businesses can receive a tax credit in some form or another. If an on reserve business receives a tax refund, then technically it is because they collected taxes that they should not have collected in the first place. They cannot claim tax back that they collect from non-status, and must submit these funds.  

Finally, for too long on reserve money, flowing in from the GOC, would flow (and largely still does) straight back into businesses that white people have set-up to service people living on reserve.  I have never heard Mr. Harding, or any of his settler nation colleagues, discuss how much of the 9$ billion dollar “myth” actually lands back in the hands of non Indigenous Peoples (of course the CTF would never conduct such a balanced piece of research, now would they?).

So, who's business are these off-reserve retailers losing?

- STTP (some times a tax payer)