A First Nations Province

Gwynneth C.D. Jones is a policy advisor with the Ontario Native Affairs
Secretariat.

This book is an expansion of an October 1990 Globe and Mail article by
Courchene, and was intended to contribute to the debates leading up to
the Charlottetown Accord. While it attracted interest, it did not
represent the position of any of the participants; nor was it a solution
that was seriously considered in the negotiations. Its value lies in the
fact that it is one of the very few published attempts to work through
the implications of a constitutional option for the realization of
aboriginal self-governments.

The model Courchene and Powell present is deceptively simple: the
creation of a First Nations Province (FNP) by applying provincial
powers, institutions, and fiscal and intergovernmental relations to the
collective land base and population of aboriginal peoples in Canada. The
authors pull data on the registered Native population and existing
Native reserve land base, together with statistics on government
revenues and expenditures, to sketch the demographics and economics of
an FNP; they also analyze the application of provincial political and
constitutional frameworks.

The model has the advantage of being familiar and relatively
comprehensible, even to nonaboriginal Canadians. It requires minimal
constitutional adjustment, and the authors demonstrate that it could
meet some of the aspirations of aboriginal people. However, it also has
many flaws, including the logistics of such a disparate entity; the
exclusion of Métis, nonstatus Indians, and off-reserve aboriginal
people from the benefits of the concept; and the failure to address the
unique legal and political characteristics of aboriginal peoples arising
from aboriginal and treaty rights, including the fiduciary
responsibilities of the Crown. It extends to aboriginal peoples a
nonaboriginal governing framework that fits in well with what we’ve
got already but fails to reflect aboriginal ways of governing.

The authors generally do not attempt to resolve these problems, having
presented their proposal for others to refine. Though their model does
not stand alone as a solution to Native self-government, it is concrete
enough to be evaluated. This work is an example of the analyses that
would be most helpful in understanding and implementing self-government.