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Indigenous Rights and resistance

Learn about rights afforded to indigenous communities and resistance against efforts to restrict them.

Indigenous Resistance

Two Women on the Haida First Nation's Blockade, 2005.

More than 56 indigenous nations were occupying the land that is now known as Canada when European contact first occurred. 

Despite signing treaties with many of these nations which defined how the indigenous community was to coexist as an independent nation with Canada, Canada has consistently disregarded these treaties and claimed to be the owners and stewards of the land and to control all aspects of Indigenous people’s lives. 

Land claims agreements made after 1973 are known as modern treaties.   Although these treaties recognize certain rights of First Nations these treaties require First Nations people to extinguishment their ancestral rights to the land in exchange for compensation. 

Many of the approximately 1.2 million First Nations people in Canada are agitating in defense of their rights, restitution of their lands and resources and struggle for equal opportunity and self-determination.  Many struggles today are taking place on a case-by-case, community-by-community basis.  Between 1975 and 2004, nearly half a million square kilometers of land have come under some level of indigenous control.   In recent years, the Supreme Court of Canada has also affirmed additional rights to First Nations communities, including the obligation of governments to meaningfully consult and accommodate the interests of First Nation communities when making decisions that affect their rights.

Links

United Nations

Canadian governments’ refusal to recognize the rights of indigenous people is in violation of basic human rights as defined by the United Nations.

The draft United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples asserts that “Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired.”  In other words, Indigenous people have the right to self-determination.

The United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination also calls upon States to recognize and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples to own, develop, control and use their communal lands, territories and resources and, where they have been deprived of their lands and territories traditionally owned or otherwise inhabited or used without their free and informed consent, to take steps to return those lands and territories.

• The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights issued a critical 2005 report on the status of the Canadian Government’s relationship with Canada’s Indigenous people.

• The United Nations Human Rights Committee also commented critically on the issue of Indigenous land rights and treaties in Canada in its concluding observations in November 2005.

Supreme Court

Map of indigenous land claims and treaties, Canada.

In recent years, the Supreme Court of Canada has frequently ruled  that the governments of Canada must adequately consult with and accommodate the interests of  First Nations communities.  The exact definitions of "accommodate" and "consult" are being defined on a case-by-case basis.  For more information on the legal specificities of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision: please download a legal briefing paper by Fraser, Miller, Casgrain, LLP.

Recent Canadian Supreme Court Verdicts

These legal advancements reflect a cultural shift in public values towards Indigenous people, and the efforts of years and years of organizing and advocacy utilizing a spectrum of tactics by Indigenous communities and their allies.  Still, the indigenous movement is a long way from achieving self-determination. 

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