Many Court Cases Within Canada Regarding Indigenous People

v. Gladue, came the Supreme Court decision that restorative justice is extremely crucial to the justice system in Canada, and that s. 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code applies to Gladue even though she lives off-reserve, because the larger problem present is the disproportionate number of Aboriginals in jail. However, they also say that restorative justice isn’t the only thing that needs to be considered when sentencing aboriginals, and that some crimes are serious enough to deserve traditional punishment and sentencing. In addition, the Supreme Court Judges say that allowing a new trial solely on the basis of her aboriginal status would not be in the public

Nobody deserves to be a ‘nobody’: unrecognized and unappreciated for their uniqueness. This is the reason why throughout history, Canada has been working to make sure that the Métis are not ‘nobodies’. Canada has provided enough recognition for Métis culture and rights through existing legislation. Historically, the Canadian government, or Dominion of Canada, has acted upon efforts to protect Métis land through legislation. Furthermore, Métis inherent rights to land, hunting, fishing and autonomy have been met with current and improved legislation. The Métis are now recognized as Aboriginal peoples and share the same rights through Section 35 of the Constitution. These pieces of legislation make it possible

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

This topic is of great interest to me because I was fortunate enough to grow up in a community, surrounded by five First Nations reserves. I chose this case because in my community, an RCMP officer pled guilty to assault causing bodily harm to an Indigenous man and abandoning him 10 kilometres outside of town. Similar to the R v Mann case, race was also neglected from the case in my community.

The next paragraph explores this topic. The Metis have been, and are, heavily represented and legislated upon in the legal system. This is expressed through the numerous laws crafted through the years concerning the Metis, such as the Alberta-Metis Settlements Accord. They are recognized in the Constitution as having the legal right to hunt as Metis, confirming their status in the

Thomas Flanagan disapproves the idea of Native sovereignty ever coexisting with Canadian sovereignty. Flanagan identifies the flaws in Townshend’s arguments referring to them as a theoretical approach and not a practical approach. It is true that the sharing of jurisdictional power is the essence of the Canadian state but this cannot apply to the Aboriginals of Canada. One reason a third level of government cannot work in Canada is “In the 10 provinces, Canada has over six hundred Indian bands living on more than 2200 reserves, plus hundreds of thousands of Métis and non-status Indians who do not possess reserves,” (Flanagan 44). Flanagan draws the fact that “No one has proposed a workable mechanism by which this far-flung archipelago could

My first reason to support the fact that Canada hasn’t affirmed collective rights for the Aboriginal group is the Indian Act and how poorly it treated the Aboriginals. The Indian Act is a federal legislation that is related to the rights and status of First Nations peoples (“status Indians”), which was first passed in 1867. During this time, the government thought that is was appropriate/acceptable to make laws for the First Nations peoples without consulting them. This move connected to Canada’s colonial past, the part where people of European descent strongly believed that their culture and way of life was way more superior to any other culture existing. In other words, they were ethnocentric. Within the Indian Act, it defied who may be registered as a “status Indian” with treaty rights. This meant that the Federal government were the ones who mostly made

Several questions were raised in the analysis of this case. Firstly, “whether the pleadings preclude the court form entertaining claims for aboriginal title and self government?”

As per the Canadian history, it is believed that Canada was first settled down by First Nations, Inuit, Metis and Europeans, who suffered greatly during and after the establishment of Europeans. These were highly organized societies; hence, they had the mentality of changing and incorporating the Aboriginal peoples into the mainstream society way of life. (Horner J. 40) It was during this process and after the establishment of a Canadian Government, that Aboriginal peoples were discriminated, and treated very unfairly. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada brings about an enormous part of this discrimination and Canadian Aboriginal History.

For several hundreds of years, Aboriginals have been impacted by the Indian Act in many ways. They have dealt with numerous challenges that have changed their lives forever. Laws were created by the Canadian government with the purpose of controlling Natives and assimilating them into Canadian culture.For multiple years,

Many scholars in the constitutional legal field for numerous reasons have argued the conceptualisation of standing. The law of standing establishes a series of rules that ultimately determine whether a person who starts legal proceedings is the proper person to do so. Scholars including Patrick Keyzer, Simon Evans as well as Grand Chief Charles Grand Chief Fox all have individual standpoints on how standing can be altered to for a greater constitutional justice. Throughout this essay it shall be argued that the standing tests that are prevalent in today’s constitutional environment limit those that could have grounds for standing but are unable to seek constitutional justice, and how it specifically affects indigenous Australians. When approaching standing from Keyzer and Evans’ standpoints and expanding upon their notions, it can be observed that slightly altering the definition of standing and the tests that insinuate individuals have special interest within cases broadens the scope to allow for an inclusion of the indigenous populations and interest groups. This is one of the ways in which standing can be modified to be more lenient and allow for a broader approach to standing. Additionally, the arguments that Keyzer and Evans push highlight standing within Australia, while on the other hand Grand Chief Fox investigates the effects that standing has and its impact within Canada, these ideas assessed to investigate if Australia can follow the model of standing Canada has

In addition to the relocation of the natives, the dominant group justifies this action by the paternalistic model. The reasoning by the government is that the aboriginals are “Childlike and immature”, and can not conduct themselves in a civilized manner. (Kallen, 1995) Furthermore, the aboriginals are not expected to reach maturity, and they are regarded as permanent children. They can not self-govern themselves and will always be dependant on the dominant group for support. (Kallen, 1995) The dominant group makes the aboriginals believe that they are less than human, and can not do things for their self, and will continually be dependant on the dominant group. To help ensure this, the government proposed the Indian act, where the federal minister of Indian affairs, has had ultimate authority over all decisions affecting the lives and destinies of the Indians residing on the reserves. (Kallen, 1995) Throughout the years the Indian act has abled the minister to control resources which include, land, housing, income, etc. basically all aspects of Indian life. This was just another way for the dominant group to have total control of everything in Canada. This helps ensure that that the control of dominant powers is not threatened by minorities, and that the individual and collective rights of the dominant population

The Effectiveness of the Law in Achieving Justice for Indigenous People In relation to Australia, the term ‘Indigenous peoples’ refers to two distinct cultures of people who inhabited the land prior to European settlement – The Aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islanders. This population declined dramatically over the 19th and early 20th century due to the introduction of new diseases from European settlement, Government policies of dispersal and dispossession, the era of protection, assimilation and integration causing a cultural disruption and disintegration of the Indigenous peoples. In the 20th century the recognition and protection of Indigenous peoples land rights and human rights have been

After the strangling claws of the Indian Act were felt, the Canadian government began to issue more laws that intruded with the aboriginals lives and took away their rights. The first of these was the “Potlatch Law” (Hanson, n.p.). It banned potlatches and other ceremonies of the aboriginals, all for the purpose of forcing the

According to the Indian Act (1876), we determined someone’s status by one’s parentage of blood quantum to know how much Indian were they? A First Nations woman, who married with white man, lost her entitlements as Indian, so did her children. However, regardless of race or ethnicity, if another raced woman married a First Nations man, she gained “status” under the terms of the Indian Act. I feel that was completely unfair, and obviously discriminatory, that horrific situation continued until 1985.