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Thomas Eugene Flanagan (born 5 March 1944) is an American-born Canadian author, conservative political activist, and former political science professor at the University of Calgary. He also served as an advisor to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper until 2004.

Flanagan has focused on challenging certain historical interpretations of Native and Métis history. In connection with his multi-year research and publications on Louis Riel, Flanagan published a reinterpretation of the North-West Rebellion, defending the federal government's response to Métis land claims. He began publishing works on Rielleader of the 1885 North-West Resistancein the 1970s, which evolved into a multi-year 'Louis Riel Project' that he coordinated. During the 2012 provincial elections he served as the campaign manager of the Wildrose Party, an Alberta libertarian/conservative provincial party.

As part of his political activism, Flanagan began to write as a columnist in 1997 in The Globe and Mail, National Post, Calgary Herald, Ottawa Citizen, Maclean's, and Time. He regularly made appearances on Canadian television and radio as a commentator until January 2013, when he began a "research and scholarship leave" from the University of Calgary prior to his retirement.

Education and teaching

Flanagan was born on 5 March 1944 in Ottawa, Illinois, US. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Studying political science under John Hallowell, Flanagan earned a Master of Arts degree in 1967 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1970, both at Duke University in North Carolina. He served as Head of the Political Science Department and Assistant to the President of the University.

Since the 1970s Flanagan published numerous scholarly studies "debunking the heroism of Métis icon Louis Riel, arguing against native land claims, and calling for an end to aboriginal rights."

Flanagan developed his concept of aboriginal orthodoxy in which he argued against aboriginal collective rights. He claimed that section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which stated that "The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed" resulted in thousands of cases involving aboriginal and treaty rights&nbsp;– indeed thousands of cases including residential school claims. Flanagan decried the increased influence of the courts and "[t]he sheer volume of these cases" which threaten "to take policy-making out of the hands of elected representatives and put it into the hands of a small cadre of judges, lawyers, law professors, and expert witnesses." Although Flanagan admits that he has profited as expert witness, he also believes that "[this] flood of litigation is detrimental to democracy."

Louis Riel

Flanagan has written about his change of views regarding Métis leader Louis Riel:

Flanagan developed a theory that Riel could be understood as a millenarian prophet, not just as a political figure. He translated and edited Riel's diaries and co-edited a volume of Riel's youthful poetry which won the 1978 Prix Champlain. He also published the book Louis 'David' Riel: Prophet of the New World, which won the Canadian Biography Award from the University of British Columbia.

Flanagan later participated in the "Louis Riel Project", collecting and publishing all of Riel's writings, which have been dispersed among more than 40 archives in Canada and the United States. The University of Alberta Press published the work in 1985 to commemorate the centennial of the North-West Rebellion. In connection with this work, Flanagan also published a reinterpretation of the North-West Rebellion, highlighting how the government had responded to Métis land claims.

First Nations? Second Thoughts

Flanagan later published the controversial First Nations? Second Thoughts, which critiqued the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The book received the Donner Prize for the best book of the year on Canadian public policy in 2000, and the Donald Smiley Prize from the Canadian Political Science Association for the best book on Canadian government and politics.

In his 2002 review, Yale D. Belanger, compared Alan Cairn's publication entitled Citizens Plus with Flanagan's First Nations? Second Thoughts. He concluded that the ideas in First Nations? Second Thoughts should be made publicly available and read as a companion piece with Cairn's Citizens Plus. The books were written for very different audiences: Flanagan wrote First Nations? Second Thoughts (2000) for the lay reader while Cairns wrote for an informed academic audience. Belanger questioned why Flanagan as a professional academic did not access more robust peer-reviewed scholarly resources regarding analysis and statistics, preferring instead to make extensive use of newspaper clippings from the Calgary Herald, the National Post, and The Globe and Mail and the conservative magazine the Alberta Report. Flanagan did not visit any First Nation communities to research the publication nor did he quote any Aboriginal leader in support land privatization in exchange for the end of the reserve system (Belanger 2002:107). Belanger described Flanagan's tone as "distasteful", "militant", and "sensationalist." He claimed he echoed "the assimilation rhetoric of 19th century policy makers and politicians" which perpetuates a stereotyped image of First Nations as "uncivilized" and "unwilling to shake the social pathologies he suggests proliferate all reserve communities." But he felt that readers would have a more holistic understanding of the complexities of the debate by reading both books.

According to Suzanne Methot's review of the book, Flanagan claimed that "European civilization was several thousand years more advanced than the aboriginal cultures of North America" and colonization was therefore "inevitable" and "justifiable."

Flanagan wrote a book on property rights in 1979, a book on game theory in 1988, and another about conservative Canadian political parties in 1995. His books on Preston Manning and the Reform Party, and Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, were based on his experiences as political adviser and campaign manager (discussed below).

In 1996, Flanagan was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy II). The citation mentioned his contribution to the study of Louis Riel and the Métis, Western Canadian history, and Canadian political parties.

Beyond the Indian Act

In their 2010 publication, Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights, co-authors Thomas Flanagan, Christopher Alcantara and André Le Dressay, introduced the First Nations Property Ownership Initiative (FNPOI). was a finalist for the Donner Prize. According to an 28 August 2016 article by Sasha Boutilier in Policy Options, they misrepresented the FNPOI in Canada, which Boutilier described as a "proposed piece of opt-in legislation that would have allowed First Nations to grant fee-simple interests to First Nations members". Boutilier said that their criticisms of the First Nations Land Management Act (FNLMA) which he calls a "quiet success", are "quite simply inaccurate", and that the authors, while acknowledging the FNLMA’s "effectiveness in reducing transaction costs", would leave "each First Nation on its own to develop its own system of property rights and failed "to provide technical assistance in the form of model land codes and zoning regulations."

Substantial grants of land provided to the Metis by the Manitoba Act were rapidly transferred from Metis to immigrants from Ontario who had arrived in large numbers. New research in the 1970s and 1980s shifted the blame to the government's lack of administration of the land grants. Flanagan and Ens (1996) argued that the government acted appropriately and that the Metis had gained financially.

The Manitoba Métis Federation has been in and out of provincial and federal courts for decades in a high-stakes land-claims negotiation. The case involves Prime Minister John A. Macdonald and Louis Riel and an unfulfilled promise of land for the Métis people. Manitoba Métis Federation v Canada & Manitoba court case was argued before the Supreme Court of Canada in 2012. In 2012 Tom Berger, the indigenous rights lawyer represented the Manitoba Métis Federation in the Supreme Court (SCC Case Information: #33880 Manitoba Métis Federation Inc., et al. v. Attorney General of Canada, et al.) claiming that the federal government never "lived up to the 1870 deal that settled the Red River Rebellion, fought by Métis struggling to hold on to their land in the face of growing white settlement." "A Métis win would probably lead to high-stakes land-claim negotiations&nbsp;– and fulfil a prophecy made by Métis leader Louis Riel more than a century ago."