Reconstituting Canada: The enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of ‘Indians,’ circa 1837–1900

• Published in: University of Toronto Law Journal
• Main Author: Kirkby, Coel
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 2019
• Subjects: anishina*; First Nations
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/utlj.2018-0078; https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/utlj.2018-0078

The constitutional history of Canada and First Nations is often told as the promise fulfilled of Aboriginal rights and treaties. I will challenge this story by recovering the story of the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of ‘Indian’ subjects in the first three decades of Canadian Confederation. Far from forgotten actors in a foretold play, ‘Indian’ voters were crucial to determining the outcome of three closely contested federal elections and challenging settler ideas of the nascent Canadian nation. The question of the ‘Indian’ franchise was always embedded in competing constitutional visions for Confederation. The Canadian dream of transforming and assimilating Indigenous peoples would give way to a cynical idea of segregation under the permanent regime of the Indian Act. If the ‘Indian’ franchise was the apotheosis of assimilation, its revocation marked the start of racial segregation. I juxtapose these Canadian constitutional visions with two alternative possibilities. The Anishinaabe-dominated Grand General Council accepted the franchise as part of its vision of reconciling membership in both their treaty-recognized nations and the Canadian state. The Confederacy Council of the Six Nations, in contrast, rejected the franchise as an existential threat to Haudenosaunee self-rule mediated by a treaty relationship with the Canadian and imperial governments. Recovering the constitutional contests driving ‘Indian’ enfranchisement and disenfranchisement shows us how the successful imposition of a single vision of a white democracy silenced alternative visions of multinational coexistence. It also reminds us of the multiplicity of constitutional possibilities for a common future.