Aligning against Indigenous jurisdiction: Worker savings, colonial capital, and the Canada Infrastructure Bank

Abstract

This paper considers the significance of the newly conceived Canada Infrastructure Bank in relation to the political economy of settler colonialism in Canada. I argue that the Canada Infrastructure Bank is a fundamentally colonial institution that marshals private capital to reproduce and extend the jurisdictional power of the setter state. The Bank is an arms-length financing institution whose purpose is to leverage private and institutional capital for investment in large scale, nation-building infrastructure, including infrastructure that supports resource extraction in remote and northern Canada. The first section of the paper examines the specific configuration of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. I suggest that the need to attract private investment into certain kinds of infrastructure development must be understood in relation to state struggles to exercise territorial jurisdiction over Indigenous lands and resources. This struggle is reflected in the specific configuration of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. The second part of the paper focuses on some of the implications of pension securitization. The Canada Infrastructure Bank has deliberately been designed to leverage Canadian pension fund capital; I ask what it means to grow settler workers’ savings through investment in privatized, resource development infrastructure.

Reconciliation 2.0: Resolving Contradictions in the Production of Settler Colonial and Capitalist Space in Canada

“…McCreary and Milligan 2018; Radcliffe 2019). Researchers have documented how the reproduction of settler colonial authority operates as a condition of possibility for capitalist extraction and accumulation (Coulthard 2014; Nichols 2015; Pasternak and Dafnos 2017; Stanley 2016) and more recently, how neoliberal capitalism functions to expand settler colonial authority through market relations (Cameron and Levitan 2014; Parson and Ray 2016; Pasternak 2015; Rossiter and Wood 2016; Stanley 2019). Yet, the co‐articulation of settler colonial and capitalist spaces is not always symbiotic.…”

Anti‐Indigenous policy formation : Settler colonialism and neoliberal political advocacy

“…Sociologists have pointed out that these groups have inchoate goals and tactics when it comes to executing their visions (Andrews & Edwards, 2004), and their activities range from agenda‐setting to participating in decision‐making processes, to being directly involved in policy implementation. The wide‐ranging scope of activities that these formal groups engage require close and careful empirical attention around how advocacy groups contribute to Indigenous‐settler relations and Indigenous‐state policy formation (Stanley, 2019; Weaver, 1981), especially those that are not Indigenous‐led or oriented around advocacy for Indigenous nations (Corntassel, 2007). Analysis of Indigenous‐settler relations ranges from a social movements focus (Wilkes & Corrigall Brown, 2010; Ramos, 2006), to understanding solidarity and settler colonialism (Snelgrove et al., 2014), to analysis more focussed on organizations dedicated to social provision, health, and international advocacy (Corntassel, 2007; Culhane, 2003; Johnson, 2013; Langford, 2016; Nelson & Wilson, 2021; Ramos & Young, 2018).…”

Reconciling with capitalism: Selling Crown land to settle with First Nations

“…Critics such as James (2013: 37) argue these types of developments are often “abstracted from any deeper consideration of the long‐term structural and attitudinal racism that tends to give rise to historical wrongs in the first place” (see also Datta 2019; Henderson and Wakeham 2013; Starblanket 2018). For Starblanket and Coburn (2020: 89), “Too often … [the] mobilization of Indigenous political practices, including treaties, enables the state to recognize Indigenous worldviews, only to radically denature them by reincorporating them into existing capitalist economic relationships under the authority of the colonial state” (see also Atleo 2015; MacDonald 2011; Stanley 2019).…”