I think Flanagan's being realistic here in outlining the downsides of the costs of extending benefits and rights to a particular group based on degrees of ethnic affinity. Consider that people in Hamilton seem to dislike Torontonians "escaping" to their city and raising the rents, starting yoga classes and artisinal bakeries. Imagine the rez! If the "are you native' blood quotient (a term I dislike, but it's part of the racist structure) goes back to 1876, it's possible about a third of my social group, including my wife and son, could be classed as "Indian". Ironically, perhaps, as the son of a 100% Celtic immigrant and therefore capable of being fully taxed as a non-native, I would have to return to Britain, where I would have a case to identify as aboriginal to those islands and maybe get some crappy land from the Saxon overlords to farm in mid-Wales. None of this debate, of course, gets help and services to today's reservations, school survivors or urban First Nations people.