Aboriginal Governments and Power Sharing in Canada

Anthony G. Gulig teaches history at the University of Saskatchewan.

This is a compilation of essays and presentations that were part of the
Aboriginal Governments and Power Sharing conference held in Kingston in
February 1992. The book’s 70 pages are divided in two parts: the first
provides a brief overview of the conference discussion and analysis,
while the second includes three of the papers presented at the
conference.

The first section’s overview is really too brief for any real
analysis of the complex issues with which the conference dealt. If any
real consensus was reached in this work, it was that effective
implementation of Native self-government or any power-sharing model
would be extremely complicated, hardly a revelation to anyone remotely
familiar with such issues.

Far more valuable are the published conference papers. Robert Young of
the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations at Queen’s University
suggests that both provincial and federal governments must openly and
without reservation accept the reality of the inherent nature of
aboriginal sovereignty and self-government; such acceptance would serve
only to expedite the practical reality of implementing Native
self-government, whatever its eventual form.

David J. Elkin’s comments about the future of aboriginal peoples and
Canada are equally insightful. He warns that any honest discussion of
Canada’s future must address the place of Native people in Canada, and
he likens the debate over Quebec’s place in Canada to that over the
future of aboriginal self-government and sovereignty.

The book includes a useful list of conference participants, among them
scholars and provincial/federal representatives responsible for
intergovernmental relations—possible contacts for those interested in
understanding more clearly the numerous issues surrounding Native
self-government and sovereignty.