Quote:
Originally Posted by Agamemnon
I definitely agree its awkward having 2 legal/political systems in Canada. IMO everyone should be a Canadian Citizen and subject to the same rights/laws. One option would be to 'cash them out' (FN), give them the land the Reserves sit on (cut into parcels and distibuted), and cut a gigantic, massive cheque, and then say 'you're the same now!', and treat them like regular Citizens just like everyone else.
Obviously there would be a ton of issues with that, in particular the legal aspects of just shredding some treaties...
I'd love a solution that leaves us all 'the same' legally at the end, but probably not possible. Not really a fan of 'Canadian Apartheid' (harsh?  ), 2 peoples 1 country. |
Even just fixing land title is a mess. It seems simple just giving title to the bands and ending the approval in the Indian Act but that certainly wouldn’t be universally agreed to by First Nations people. Then there would be the question of how those lands are distributed would the federal government dictate they be given to individuals or would they go to the band themselves. If they go to the bands themselves then how you you ensure it is not misappropriated. Is it even the Canadian Government role to ensure that band assets aren’t misappropriated?
And on and on and on.
I think giving ownership over land and houses to individuals rather than beholden to Nation leadership and government leadership would be a start but it would be a radical change to how Treaty lands are administered and would requires decades of negotiations with hundreds of individual nations and members.
I think the starting point is to define what success looks like.
To me it isn’t necessarily integration and being the same as the rest of Canada.