1 Should First Nation Communities Negotiate Their Rights Under Federal Policies?

• Main Author: Lynn Gehl
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; First Nations
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.545.3550; http://www.ottawaalgonquins.com/index_files/policyanalysis-sh.pdf

If any lesson is clear from history it is that native people must be given the opportunity to define their own affairs. (Purich 1991, page 425) Many First Nation communities in Canada are in the process of negotiating land claim and self-government agreements with the federal and provincial governments under the Comprehensive Land Claim and the Inherent Right Policies respectively. This process is often done so under the discourse, and thus disguise, that a treaty is being negotiated. It must be appreciated that the federal government drafted and finalized these policies with little, if any, input from First Nation peoples. Given this, I feel it is well worth articulating some of the problems in negotiating under these policies in hope that First Nation peoples will begin to think critically about them. At the onset, it must be appreciated that treaties are negotiated between nations just as the North American Free Trade Agreement was. Given that treaties are normally negotiated on a nation-to-nation basis one has to ask two questions. First, if it is true that First Nations are in fact negotiating treaties with the crown on a nation-to-nation basis as many claim they are, why are they negotiating under guidelines that the federal government has unilaterally drafted? And second, why are provincial governments involved in the negotiating process? Furthermore to these two questions, negotiating under the federal government’s policies places many limitations and restrictions on First Nation community efforts to establish a better existence. Some of these restrictions are listed below: Under these policies the federal government demands that First Nations relinquish all their undefined land and resource rights for a much smaller set of clearly defined rights.