Native Sovereignty

July 11th 1990, marked the beginning date of the Oka Crisis in Quebec Canada. It lasted until September 26th 1990 resulting in one fatality of a local police officer. The violent clash was triggered by something as simple as a golf course extension and as complicated as native burial traditions. It had drawn world attention, catapulting native land rights into the mix. The Oka Crisis is just one of many conflicts between the Aboriginals and the Canadian government. A major issue that has been of much debate in the 20th century has been Native sovereignty. The demand sounds simple, allow Aboriginals of Canada to govern themselves; however, coexisting with the Canadian government makes this idea extremely complicated. Roger Townshend states that there is a difference in perception between Non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people about jurisdiction over Canadian territory and that is one reason Aboriginals should be governing themselves. Opposing this view, Thomas Flanagan argues against Native sovereignty for it is not a workable mechanism in Canadian politics. Native sovereignty can never coexist with Canadian sovereignty because of the complexity of having a third level of government, a resolution cannot be breached since each tribe’s traditions are different, and the idea of having a functioning conglomerate of native groups is very improbable.

Roger Townshend makes a number of points that support the idea of Native sovereignty. He identifies that the very perception of sovereignty in regard to Aboriginals in Canada has changed. In the initial contact by early European settlers, Aboriginals were treated as “…allies or as enemies, but in any event, as nations to be treated as equals with European States,” (Townshend 37). Through ti...

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...t within Canada would be much less apparent. This would provide Aboriginals the ability to develop within the boundaries of the Canadian constitution.

Works Cited

“…allies or as enemies, but in any event, as nations to be treated as equals with European States,” (Townshend 37).

“…changes in sovereignty based on conquest, discovery and settlement, or treaty,” (Townshend 37).

“…sharing of jurisdictional powers between government institutions is already part of the essence of the Canadian state,” (Townshend 39).

“In the 10 provinces, Canada has over six hundred Indian bands living on more than 2200 reserves, plus hundreds of thousands of Métis and non-status Indians who do not possess reserves,” (Flanagan 44).

“No one has proposed a workable mechanism by which this far-flung archipelago could be knit together into a single level of government,” (Flanagan 45).