Aboriginal Self-Government: Rights of Citizenship and Access to Governmental Services

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

Professor Lyon’s paper responds to the reality of Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which recognized and affirmed aboriginal people’s right to self-government — that is, national independence excluded, the power of native peoples to control their own lives. This notion is a simple one, yet it has already bedevilled not only federal and provincial representatives but also the natives themselves. It raises all sorts of questions — such as who is a native, and how can a small group of natives afford services that they deem they need? In the paper, Lyon argues that if self-government is to become a reality, the following propositions must obtain: the right to self-determination includes the right to determine who is a member of the community; aboriginal governments will take the place in native peoples’ lives that provincial and municipal governments take in the lives of other Canadians; no single model of aboriginal government is possible, given the great variety in culture, size, location, and other circumstances among native communities; the right of native peoples as Canadians to essential public services of reasonable quality results from their having contributed the entire land base to the Canadian nation; self-government for aboriginal peoples with no defined territory or land base would be illusory and should not be contemplated (instead, cultural associations and support systems should be encouraged for urban Indians); given the dispersal and small size of most native communities, successful self-determination will probably require strong active regional and national native organizations for cooperation and collaboration; illusory self-government would be worse than overt dependence (governments, especially Ottawa, will have to restrain the impulse to control everything of importance) (pp.67-68).

The author of this paper, a member of the Faculty of Law of Queen’s University, has spent a good part of his professional career teaching and writing about native law. As one might expect, his paper is a well-organized and thoughtful piece that deserves to be widely and sympathetically read. It is not long — 70 typed and generally double-spaced 8 x 11” pages, followed by the Summary of Recommendations from the Final Report of the American Indian Policy Review Commission Submitted to Congress May 17, 1977, pp. 11-46. Since the United States has preceded Canada in recognizing the right of native peoples to self-determination, this Summary serves as “checklist of particular matters to be considered in working out the details of aboriginal self-government” (p.48).