Natives and Self-government Essay

In 1976 the Fraser government passed the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Several state governments passed their own Land Rights Acts, which recognised aboriginal and Torres Strait islander claims to land and guaranteed them royalty payments from mining companies working there. Some laws enforced by the government became challenging for most indigenous people to abide by. Through the analysis of this information we understand the impacts the government and its laws had towards the indigenous society of

Political Scientists, Thomas Flanagan and Roger Townshend explain the key to the big question: “Can a Native State Exist Within a Canadian State?” in the readings: “The Case for Native Sovereignty” and “Native Sovereignty: Does Anyone Really Want an Aboriginal Archipelago?”. The essay will outline and provide evidence to both sides, whether there could or could not exist a Native State in Canada. The document will argue that Natives are not organized enough to form their own government. Throughout the decades, Natives have agonized many savageries at the hands of the European settlers. The essay will take Flanagan’s side with the belief that Natives should not be sovereign, using the textbooks “Principles of Comparative Politics”, and

Protection, civilization, assimilation: An outline history of Canada’s Indian policy by John L. Tobias, 1991.

Firstly, Aboriginals have been run out of their native lands and what little they have left is constantly being fought over by the Natives, the government and major corporations. Mr. Norman Slotkin, a lawyer for the Union of Ontario Indians, had this to say:

Throughout history, the Native people of North America and the Europeans have continually had arguments and disputes over land. To this day there are still issues trying to be resolved. Twenty years ago, the beginning of one of the most violent and intense land disputes in present day Canada occurred. This event is now referred to as the Oka Crisis, named after the town Oka in Quebec. This crisis caused a confrontation involving the Quebec provincial police, the Canadian armed forces and the Mohawk people.1 The stand that the Mohawk people took in the town of Oka became a major revelation for the aboriginal people spreading awareness of aboriginal rights across Canada.

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

Second, Canada’s First Nations’ plight can be improved through self-governance. According to Pocklington, “For several years, Canadian aboriginal leaders have been demanding the recognition of a right of Native self-determination and thereby, for the aboriginal collectivities that choose it a right of self-government” (102). Aboriginal self-governance is a controversial issue in Canada. Before researching the issue I believed that self-governance would deter national unity, after further investigation, I presently believe that the claim for Aboriginal self-governance is justifiable. Although, according to Blakeney, “It will be a real challenge to make effective

Oppression also occurred on a political level when the Canadian government imposed systems for the Aboriginal peoples to govern them- selves. Aboriginal people were no longer allowed to follow their traditional forms of governance and the Indian Act Chief and Council System.

Townshend describes how Aboriginals view the Canadian government as a foreign government. Furthermore, Townshend disputes the process of assimilation, integrating Aboriginals to the modern Canadian society. The solution is to create a third tier government that would work in cohesion with the Federal and Provincial levels. Different levels of government and the “…sharing of jurisdictional powers between government institutions is already part of the essence of the Canadian state,” (Townshend 39). If Canada is able to increase globalization and trade agreements on an international level, than Canada should not be so unwilling to share jurisdiction with an Aboriginal government.

The way the government of Canada handled the issues of the First Nations, effectively demonstrated the fact that the government regarded the immediate problems of the First Nations as a matter of indifference. The efforts of Canada persistently indicated that unless the First Nations held any benefit to the expansion of the economical, political or social aspects of their government, they would be overlooked merely because of their cultural origins.

Aboriginal self-government is a long standing issue that continues to be a struggle for the First Nations People. To truly understand the scope of Aboriginal self-government within First Nations communities, more effort is needed to understand the legislative system that runs Canada. This issue of self-governance has been very destructive in First Nations communities. After signing the Treaties, First Nations People was stripped of their livelihood and from that point on to abide by the Dominion of Canadas legislative policies. One current issue that would be a perfect example is the Nisga People in British Columbia who is no longer under the protection of the

A “two-track” approach to obtain self-government was adopted by the Federal government in 1985. One path was through constitutional negotiations, while the other was through “community-based negotiations with Indian bands, and a tripartite process between the federal government, provincial government and Metis and Non-Status Indians” (Wherret & Allain, 1999, 3). This approach led to a new policy on Community-Based Self-Government Negotiations by the federal government which helped extend the control and the ability for bands to facilitate legislative self-governments contracts. Self-government for aboriginal people was also being attainted through the negotiations of comprehensive lands claim agreements. These agreements based on unextinguished Aboriginal title where not constitutional protected as “the government preferred to negotiate self-government arrangements separately from other matter in order to avoid entrenchment under s.35(3) of the Constitutional Act, 1982 (Wherret & Allain, 1999,

From the first contact between Aboriginal Peoples and European immigrants to the present day, the aim of Canadian government policy has been to assimilate the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. The attempted forced abandonment of their culture was perpetrated through a variety of strategies including force, aggression and legalities. While historians and politicians may disagree about the motivations of Canadian policy, the impact has been irrefutable. In efforts to create one unified nation, successive governments failed to recognize their destructive actions. In this failure, Canada has come close to shattering the sub-nations and peoples who comprise them. This paper will review the government’s effort to absorb the Indigenous peoples’ culture, their refusal to assimilate, and will also identify potential strategies for future relations.

Over the past years, Canadian courts have repeatedly urged that aboriginal title conflicts should be resolved through negotiation, rather than litigation. The primary reason being that litigation is costly and time-consuming. For example, the decision for the Delgamuukw case took a duration of thirteen years. Furthermore, litigations that deal with the issue of aboriginal rights and title are “generally narrowly focused” and “ultimately leaves the question [posed about] how aboriginal rights and title apply unwarned.” For instance, the courts of Canada repeatedly failed to come up with a clear definition on the legal scope of Aboriginal rights despite the fact that they have several opportunities to do so. The Delgamuuku case clearly illustrates this when the Court “did not define how aboriginal title applied for the First Nations involved.” Instead, the Court came to the conclusion that a new trial was required, which ultimately will be more expensive and take longer.

According to the Cornell University Law School’s ‘Legal Information Institute’, self-determination ‘denotes the legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order’. As a major concept of international law, self-determination gives people the right to control their own fates under certain fundamental criteria, and can be claimed by a minority that bases its lifestyle on an ethnic identity that is distinguishable from regular society, with a strong desire for cultural preservation. It has been considered to be a framework with the ability to guide legislative reforms within Australia, with an underlying ‘rights- based’ approach to Indigenous Issues. Self-determination is considered to be an important aspect of the legal system in regards to Indigenous Peoples, as it provides them a process of choice, to guarantee the practice of Indigenous social, cultural and economic needs.