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CHAPTER 12
Changing land tenure, defining subjects: Neoliberalism and property regimes on native reserves
Jessica Dempsey, Kevin Gould and Juanita Sundberg
Note: This may not be the final version of the chapter, as it is currently in process of publication.
These are contradictory times in Canada. The United Nations (UN) Development Index consistently ranks Canada among the top 10 states, yet First Nations in Canada would rank sixtyeighth (Assembly of First Nations n.d.). One out of four First Nations children live in poverty, whereas for non-First Nations Canadian children this ratio is one in six. These discrepancies are compounded by the fact that non-Aboriginal Canadians earn almost twice the annual income of
Aboriginal peoples. This situation led the UN Office of the High Commission on Human Rights’
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to overtly criticize the Canadian government for its deplorable record on First Nations’ poverty. In 1998, the committee called for an urgent national strategy on the issue and, in 2006, it expressed serious concern about
Canada’s lack of progress on First Nations poverty (CESCR 2006). At the same time, a number of recent Supreme Court verdicts have challenged the legacy of colonial history in Canada.
Through a stream of progressive rulings on Aboriginal rights and title (i.e., Supreme Court of
Canada decisions in Delgamuukw (1997) and Haida (2004), and the BC Supreme Court decision in December 2007 known as Xeni Gwet’in, or the Williams decision), the Supreme Court has made very clear the legal responsibilities the Canadian government has to First Nations.
Alongside such legal challenges is a broad international mobilization in favour of indigenous rights as demonstrated by the recent passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
People adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2007. Canada, however, was one of four countries to vote against the General
CHAPTER 12
Changing land tenure, defining subjects: Neoliberalism and property regimes on native reserves
Jessica Dempsey, Kevin Gould and Juanita Sundberg
Note: This may not be the final version of the chapter, as it is currently in process of publication.
These are contradictory times in Canada. The United Nations (UN) Development Index consistently ranks Canada among the top 10 states, yet First Nations in Canada would rank sixtyeighth (Assembly of First Nations n.d.). One out of four First Nations children live in poverty, whereas for non-First Nations Canadian children this ratio is one in six. These discrepancies are compounded by the fact that non-Aboriginal Canadians earn almost twice the annual income of
Aboriginal peoples. This situation led the UN Office of the High Commission on Human Rights’
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to overtly criticize the Canadian government for its deplorable record on First Nations’ poverty. In 1998, the committee called for an urgent national strategy on the issue and, in 2006, it expressed serious concern about
Canada’s lack of progress on First Nations poverty (CESCR 2006). At the same time, a number of recent Supreme Court verdicts have challenged the legacy of colonial history in Canada.
Through a stream of progressive rulings on Aboriginal rights and title (i.e., Supreme Court of
Canada decisions in Delgamuukw (1997) and Haida (2004), and the BC Supreme Court decision in December 2007 known as Xeni Gwet’in, or the Williams decision), the Supreme Court has made very clear the legal responsibilities the Canadian government has to First Nations.
Alongside such legal challenges is a broad international mobilization in favour of indigenous rights as demonstrated by the recent passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
People adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2007. Canada, however, was one of four countries to vote against the General
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