A new paper published by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy suggests leaving the reserve might be the key to success for First Nations people.

The paper, released by the Winnipeg-based think-tank on Thursday, says people who live on reserves earn less money and face deeper social problems, including alcoholism, domestic abuse and suicide. 

"Urbanization, to a certain extent, is inevitable. People move to where opportunity is," author Joseph Quesnel said.

Quesnel's conclusion has stirred up controversy by suggesting aboriginal improvement lies outside reserves.

Dan Wilson, a special adviser to the Assembly of First Nations, said Quesnel includes statistics from the broad category of "aboriginal," which includes Métis, Inuit and status Indians, when only the last group live on-reserve.  

Wilson said he worries the Frontier Centre — which advocates lower taxes, among other things — has a right-wing agenda in trying to convince Canadians the reserve system must be abandoned and First Nations people assimilated. Following that path would lead to aboriginal funding cuts, he added.

Curtis Colon, an aboriginal living in Winnipeg, said he sees no future on his home reserve — a remote, fly-in community — for either him or his two young sons.

"It breaks my heart. I would love to go back, but I wish things were different in First Nation communities," he said of the high cost of living, lack of jobs and poor housing.

Jacqueline Romanow, acting director of the Aboriginal Governance Program at the University of Winnipeg, agreed with Quesnel's findings.

"The reason why people do better off-reserve is because there's more access to resources and education and opportunities," she said. "So how do you bring those opportunities and resources and make them accessible to everyone in Canada?"

Quesnel used data from a study analyzing the lifestyles of indigenous people in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States to draft suggestions of how First Nations in Canada could improve.

"Anecdotal evidence," he writes, "as well as recent empirical data, points to the persistence of poverty and dysfunction in many First Nation communities. However, as this study demonstrates, there are indigenous populations outside Canada that are doing better in key areas. What can First Nations learn from these examples?"

Canada should look to New Zealand, Quesnel suggests, as a model for improving the lives of its indigenous populations by promoting self-reliance and increasing access to education.

Recent court rulings confirm, Quesnel adds, that natural resource companies need to compensate First Nations for development on their traditional territories. Improvements to the land-claims process would give them access to more land, he says.

First Nations should leverage this access to land and resources to improve the conditions in their communities, he says.

Ron Evans, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, responded with a brief statement.

"We know the issues that our First Nation people face both on- and off-reserve. We would not be able to speak for the Métis or Inuit, so unfortunately we cannot speak to this report," he said in a release.