Summary Of Alanis Obomsawin'sTrick Or Treaty?

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.

Since the colonization of Canada First Nations people have been discriminated against and assimilated into the new culture of Canada through policies created by the government. Policies created had the intentions of improving the Aboriginal people’s standard of living and increasing their opportunities. Mainly in the past hundred years in Canadian Society, policies and government implemented actions such as; Residential schools, the Indian Act, and reserve systems have resulted in extinguishing native culture, teachings, and pride. Policies towards the treatment of Aboriginal Canadians has decreased their opportunities and standard of living because of policies specified previously (Residential schools, the Indian Act, and reservation systems).

By signing this treaty, the natives will have to move onto reserves and have a lack of self government control. Today the amount of Indian Reserves only cover 1% of Canada. This amount of land is far too limited for nearly 1 million Natives living in Canada. With that being said, the Aboriginal peoples lost all of their rights to govern themselves if losing land wasn’t enough torture. The shortness of self-government influenced the lives of many Aboriginal peoples in many ways. For example, they didn’t have the right to decide or speak for themselves when it comes to times when they hunt or fish because of government laws of protecting wildlife (Clark, Bruce, and John K. Wallace. Making Connections: Canada's Geography. Second Ed. ed. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education, 2006. 562.). As stated in “Making Connections Canada’s Geography Second Edition, Native people earn their their money by trapping muskrat and selling their skin to produce fur products, but soon after they moved to a new location they promptly realized there is a lack of water flow resulting in a limited amount of muskrats, therefore many trappers are no longer able to earn a stable amount of money, their economic base has been ruined due to the lack of resources their new living space has to offer (Clark, Bruce, and John K. Wallace. Making Connections: Canada's

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

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:

Resolving conflicts is one of the most appreciated characteristics of a human being. It may afford one to be at peace, either, with themselves or others. Throughout North America history many conflicts arose between settlers and native people leading to a colonization procedure. Unfortunately, Canada continues to struggle with this ongoing process, which almost annihilated more than the First Nations culture. Aboriginals were forced to assimilate other culture while somehow had to find a way to bury their traumas during this terrible endeavour. To remediate this ongoing process, some authors voice this situation using their own experiences aiming for a resolution. Evidently, distinct approaches are

Often times, when it came to the discussion on equality within Canada, the actions of Canada were compared to those of the United States, and often times, a comment is made stating that the United States could learn from Canada’s example when it came to racial harmony. However, this idea was often criticized as the racial problems within Canada were just as severe. The respect and the livelihood of the First Nation were violated for years even before the start of the twentieth century. However, the issues of the First Nations were hardly ever brought to light by other Canadians because these issues were often hidden deep within the reserves that these First Nations were forced into. From taking their land away to disregarding their cultures, the government rarely ever acknowledged the needs of the First Nations until they could no longer be ignored. The government continuously stressed assimilation, especially with the Indian Act , and expected the First Nations

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

The Canadian government says that it is dedicated to making its obligations to First Nations by discussing issues and bringing closure to all claims. Canada likes to underlie that by looking at the historic inequality and building strong partnerships among First Nations people; governments, and the private sector are emerging. Nevertheless, the current progress of First Nations Land Claims is very unhurried and seems to be deliberately painstaking.

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

These ‘White Papers’ focused on the social and economic problems that were rampant within the First Nation communities and was considered to be humane because of the fact that Native peoples were integrated within mainstream society [pp.6]. These problems were ‘highlighted’ through the result of various studies conducted by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development from 1966 to 1969 and became the basis of the ‘White Paper’. Although the paper was ultimately defeated, these beliefs were brought into mainstream society and became a more idolized form of modernizing the Aboriginal peoples. This form of ‘helping’ the First Nations peoples was the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development [D.I.A.N.D] way of dissolving the First Nations reservations. These institutionalized ideologies were masked as social and economic reforms that addressed the First Nation communities [pp.5-6]. Such reforms include the state of welfare on First Nation communities, re-educating the youth, and the identification of a First Nations person according to the government, which also includes the apology that Prime Minister Harper spoke on June 11th, 2008. These ideals have become the driving force behind the United Nation’s ‘Universal Declaration of Indigenous Rights’. This declaration has yet to be signed by Canada for a variety of reasons, one of them being that it is in direct violation of Article 25, which is a right to social services and health

“As long as the sun shines, grass grows and the rivers flow…” written in the Treaty 8 accords, describes the length of time treaty 8 will remain valid (Booth et al, 2011). These words were meant to solidify a union between those settling and those native, but very little has been done on the government side to uphold these promises. The treaty guarantees the First Nations the right to hunt, fish, trap and harvest. The duty lies with the governments to consult and accommodate any affected First Nation if there is a reduction in the amount of land set aside for these activities and yet that rarely happens (Booth et al, 2011). Thankfully, many of those who

Throughout the years, there have been many fights for Aboriginal land claims and treaties. As the English settlers didn’t see the First Nations people as ‘people’, they were usually overlooked when treaties were being signed, or when decisions were being made about them.

Experts have calculated that the Indigenous communities have the “means, the motives and the opportunity to significantly impede about $650 billion worth of new investment in natural resource development over the next decade” (Wilson 19). For a government who was relying almost solely on gas and oil to stimulate the economy, this blockade could have been disastrous for the Harper government. Furthermore, many Indigenous people believed Harper’s reluctance to honor to Accord was also due to his military ambitions in the Middle East (Wilson 23). Where the Harper Government increased the yearly federal funding for the military by 1.1 billion for the next five years (“Budget Plan 2006” 127). With money being injected into the military and the Conservative Party reluctant to acknowledge the potential of the Accord, it was hard to imagine that the standing of living of the Indigenous people would improve over the next five-years. Yet, in the 2006 Federal Budget the Conservative Party claimed

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.