Canada Travel Guide

Land reserved for aboriginal people was steadily whittled away after its original allocation. Almost two-thirds of it has "disappeared" by various means since Confederation. In some cases, the government failed to deliver as much land as specified in a treaty. In other cases, it expropriated or sold reserved land, rarely with aboriginals as willing vendors. Once in a while, outright fraud took place. Even when aboriginals were able to keep hold of reserved land, the government sometimes sold its resources to outsiders. Some aboriginal nations have gone to court to force governments to recognize their rights to land and resources, and some have been successful. A series of court decisions in the 1970s confirmed that aboriginal peoples have more than a strong moral case for redress on land and resource issues - they have legal rights.

In recent years, Canada has come to a few new treaty-like agreements . The Innu and Cree took Québec to court in 1973, to stop a major hydroelectric project that threatened to decimate their traditional hunting grounds. The consequent James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement , signed in 1975, gave Innu and Crees (and later the Naskapi) $225 million over 20 years in return for 981,610 square kilometres of territory. They were also given lands with exclusive hunting and trapping rights, native-controlled education and health authorities. With their funds the Cree have set up successful businesses such as Air Creebec and the Cree Construction Company. The Cree-Naskapi Act , passed in 1984, followed and enabled the Cree and Naskapi to establish their own forms of self-government - the first such legislation in Canada.

In 1973, the Supreme Court of Canada's decision on the Haida Indians led the federal government to establish a negotiating process to resolve land claims by recognizing two broad classes of claims - comprehensive and specific. Comprehensive claims are based on the recognition that there are continuing aboriginal rights to lands and natural resources and have a wide scope including such things as land title, fishing and trapping rights, financial compensation and other social and economic benefits. Specific claims deal with specific grievances that aborigines may have regarding the fulfilment of treaties.

In 1982, the government's recognition of land claims was renewed by a constitutional change, which touched off further favourable court decisions leading to new treaties with the Inuit of the Northwest Territories (1984 and 1993), the Yukon First Nations (1993) and the Nisga'a in BC (1996).

From the early 1970s until March 1996, the government provided aboriginal groups with approximately $380 million to prepare their claims. This money enabled aboriginal peoples to conduct research into treaties and rights and to research, develop and negotiate their claims. But the negotiations have been notoriously long and painstaking, and until 1990 there was a limit of no more than six comprehensive claims at one time.