Yesterday the federal government made a tough choice that is ruffling feathers among some elite in aboriginal circles.

But not only are the feds on the right track, provincial and municipal governments should be following their lead.

You see, a number of political organizations in the aboriginal community received notice that their funding was facing some serious cuts.

For example, the Manitoba Assembly of Chiefs claims it is going to see a cut in annual funding from $2.6 million to $500,000 over the next two years. Similarly, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) claims its funding will be cut from $1.5 million per year to $500,000 over the next two years.

The Assembly of Chiefs, the national chiefs' body, will see a lighter handout next year as will many other political umbrella groups in the aboriginal community across the country.

No doubt those funding cuts will mean layoffs, so in that respect it’s unfortunate. But therein lies the danger of any special interest group (whether it be race related, artistic, sports, etc.) becoming addicted to government handouts – the pain is almost always rough when the funding dries up.

However, the sad reality is the federal government has a $21.1 billion deficit this year and tough choices have to be made.

Thus, they have to make decisions like cut funding for reserves and the people living in squalor or reduce funds for political aboriginal organizations that often spend time attacking the government for things like making reserve politicians to disclose their salaries?

Something tells me the masses would say cut the latter.

But not only are the feds on the right track, they should phase out funding for all kinds of special interest groups all together. (And I would note the treaties say nothing about funding aboriginal umbrella groups.)

What always gets me about groups like FSIN, the Manitoba Assembly of Chiefs and other government-like bodies such as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Saskatchewan School Boards Association is how government can literally breed government.

Think about it. You fund your municipal, provincial and federal government with your tax dollars. Those levels of government took your money and went on to create even more government bodies.

Provincial governments created school boards who in turn created province-wide school board associations and a national school boards organization.

Municipal governments went on to create provincial bodies and the national body – the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Federally, the government has a legal requirement to provide some funding to reserves. But the reserves in turn went on to create regional bodies such as tribal councils and provincial groups such as FSIN, plus a national body – the Assembly of Chiefs. No doubt there may be other non-aboriginal examples at the federal level.

Incredibly, all these additional pseudo government bodies have created their own bureaucracies which depend on the taxpayer for who knows how much nation-wide.

Again, not only are the feds on the right track with these cuts, they should cut funding for all kinds of other special interest groups and leave it up to taxpayers to decide who they want to fund those groups or not.

And while the feds are at it, municipal and provincial governments should be following their lead.

PS - the feds made another good decision yesterday too - shorten the land claims process. Given there have been many land claims settled over the past while, it's ridiculous that current land claims take an average of 15 years to settle. Couldn't there be some photocopying and adjusting of numbers to suite different communities rather than starting from scratch?

Any effort to get that length of time down to a much shorter period is a good thing for grassroots band members and those living off reserve...despite what some lawyers and consultants working on such claims might think. Click here to read more about that move.