[smallmancontrov]

So why not run programs along the lines of current economic status, which is relatively easy to objectively determine and relatively light on ethnic, racial, and national animus? It is impossible to do a good job of litigating history and it is guaranteed to make people hate each other.

[elefanten]

This is absolutely the correct answer, all identity-based solutions are coarse and imprecise ways to solve a directly measurable problem (relative economic hardship). But the identity-based lever has proven too effective rhetorically and creates ample rent-seeking and self-enrichment opportunities to those wielding political power with an identity-based community. Plus, general means-based intervention is generally scary to the “wealthy” identity (cutting across all other identity divisions).

[sdenton4]

I'm not sure how you get from 'the Canadian government must respect the treaties that it signed' to 'identity-based solutions.'