A new book looks at what has worked and what has not in terms of living up to the spirit of the treaties between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Canada.
The book is called From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation: A Road Map for All Canadians and it is written by University of Saskatchewan professors Ken Coates and Greg Poelzer.
Poelzer says what has clearly not worked is when governments have tried to draft and implement policy that affects First Nations communities using a top-down fashion.
“Come out without consulting people, that usually doesn’t work and you can’t get away with it nowadays,” he says. “I mean, you look at the White Paper, 1969, as an example.”
Coates says while governments in Canada have failed in terms of providing the same quality of services and infrastructure to Aboriginal communities as compared to non-Aboriginal ones, the situation is quite the opposite in countries like Norway.
“You have places that have a northern area, you have isolated Aboriginal communities, predominantly indigenous populations in these areas and they have the same roads and the same schools,” he says. “They have doctors who choose to live in communities of 1,000 people. Not ones who fly in at $400,000 a year to come in once every couple of weeks and do something.”
The two say the original idea for From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation came as far back as 1993 and it is the product of a long term and collaborative process.
Although both academics have taught at a number of different universities, their work has almost always been centered on engaging directly with Aboriginal communities in a variety of different capacities.
From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation was officially launched on Nov. 30 at McNally Robinson in Saskatoon.
It is published by University of British Columbia Press. Poelzer and Coates are both members of the International Centre for Northern Governance and Development at the U of S.