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Injustices Inflicted on the First Nation People of Canada Essay

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Although the Canadian government has done a great deal to repair the injustices inflicted on the First Nations people of Canada, legislation is no where near where it needs to be to ensure future protection of aboriginal rights in the nation. An examination of the documents that comprise the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms reveal that there is very little in the supreme legal documents of the nation that protect aboriginal rights. When compared with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples it is clear that the Canadian Constitution does not acknowledge numerous provisions regarding indigenous people that the UN resolution has included. The most important of these provisions is the …show more content…

81). Section 35 of the constitution states the rights of Aboriginal Canadians. The specific sections that are important to this argument are Section 35(1) and 35(3) because they are the only sections in the constitution that explicitly acknowledge aboriginal treaty and land claim rights. The exact interpretation of what is encompassed as an aboriginal constitutional right has come under question in a number of cases which include Sparrow v. The Queen and where it is stated that these rights must be “interpreted flexibly so as to permit their evolution over time,” (Manus, 2006, p. 6-7). However, while flexibility is important to the interpretation of aboriginal rights it is insufficient in ensuring that protection of those rights in all cases, as the courts may chose to interpret these vague constitutional laws in various ways. This is evident in the Van der Peet Court ruling which “reduced the concept of aboriginal rights protection from one under which courts must acknowledge and protect an indigenous culture to one under which courts scrutinize individual tribal practices,” (Manus, 2006, p. 14-15). In essence, the exclusion of aboriginal rights that explicitly acknowledge the intimate relationship First Nations share with the land leave too much room for these laws to be interpreted in a manner that may work against indigenous peoples interests. Furthermore, while Canada’s constitution falls short in this respect, the United Nations

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