Donald Nicholls, Vine Deloria Jr Postgraduate Fellow, Indigenous Law and Policy Program, University of Arizona, James E Rogers College of Law

“From Treaty to Negotiated Settlement:  The Development of Indigenous Rights in Canada”

As in its neighbour to the south, the USA, the primary means of negotiating “peace and friendship” with the Indigenous peoples of Canada occurred primarily via treaties between first, the British and French Colonial governments, and then after federation, between the Canadian federal government and Indigenous peoples throughout Canada, which include First Nations (Indian Tribes), Metis, and Innuit and other Polar Peoples.  Unlike in the US, where treaties were confined to the earliest stages of relations between the federal government and the Tribes, treaty making has played a major role throughout the development of Canadian Aboriginal policy, including today where “modern treaties,” or negotiated land claims settlements constitute the major policy initiative to settle Indigenous land claims.  This land claim settlement process takes on added significance, given that when the official treaty process concluded in 1921, no agreements had been made in relation to tribal lands in Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, Newfoundland, The Yukon or in most of the Northwest Territories or British Columbia.

This paper provides a socio-legal history of the treaty process in Canada, and the practical impacts of these developments on the lives of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples.  It considers the rights reserved to the Indigenous Peoples in Canada via historical treaties, and in particular, the increasing importance of modern day treaties, that is negotiated settlements, which have led to an increasing importance of Canadian Indigenous Peoples in the life of the Canadian nation.

I was born on a little island in the James Bay Territory, Moose Factory Island. I have lived a good deal of my life in my mother's reservation, Mistissini - making me a part of the Cree Nation in Northern Quebec. I have worked for the Cree School Board, the Cree Regional Authority and Mistissini Band Council drafting laws, updating policies, human resources consultant, computer consultant. I am President/Managing Partner of Waasiyaau Development Group, a private group of five Cree youth, who built a commercial complex in my community as our tribe could not afford to do it with public funds. I worked for the Department of Justice Canada, Department of Justice Quebec and Grand Council of the Crees as Regional Justice Coordinator of the Cree Nation. I have a B.A. from the University of Western Ontario in Economics; a LL.B. from University of Toronto Law School; a B.C.L. (Civil Law) from McGill University Law School; and now, a LL.M. (Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy) from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law. I have been Research/Teaching Assistant for Vine Deloria Jr., Robert Williams Jr., Donna Craig and am to be the Vine Deloria Jr. Fellow next year at the University of Arizona to work on the Northern Tribes Initiative.