Indigenous Peoples, Canada and the Possibility of Reconciliation /

The statement framed reconciliation as an “ongoing process” and “a process of renewal.”3 It has taken almost two decades — from the 1998 Statement of Reconciliation, to the 2008 Statement of Apology for Indian Residential Schools, to the December 2015 release of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) — for this project to become an important part of the Canadian public policy [...] For example, the Haudenosaunee creation story tells of Skywoman, whose fall from the sky world is slowed by the backs of birds, and for whom the turtle gives his shell as a landing place and the animals dive to the bottom of the ocean to find earth to create a soft landing spot. [...] The Constitution Act of 1982 included provisions, in section 35, that recognized and affirmed “the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.” The meaning of these words has been the subject of much political debate, with the Supreme Court of Canada taking the lead in interpreting them. [...] According to Michael Asch, the Calder decision sent Canada down the path of constitutional reconciliation, a process intended to reconcile the sovereignty of the Crown with the existence of Indigenous sovereignties.21 As Harold Cardinal argued in the Indian Association of Alberta’s response to the White Paper (Citizens Plus), Asch sees treaties as an essential element of reconciliation.22 The Cana [...] Although the court ruled that the title of the Nisga’a to their land had been extinguished at Confederation, the court’s reasoning on the existence of Aboriginal rights was influential in the development of Indian land claims policy and subsequent jurisprudence.