Creating choices

As with all C. D. Howe Institute publications, the analysis and opinions presented in this study are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute's members or Board of Directors. [...] During the coffee break, political theory and the forthcoming referendum retreated to the background as participants debated the rights and wrongs of Gordon Benoît’s taxes. [...] On the matter of taxation, the commissioners reported, “We assured them [the chiefs negotiating Treaty 8] that the treaty would not lead to any forced interference with their mode of life, that it did not open the way to the imposition of any tax, and there was no fear of enforced military service.” In rendering his verdict that Benoît need not pay tax, the Federal Court Trial Division judge thus [...] In their haste to obtain the acquiescence of the Indians, the commissioners had doubtless misrepresented the treaty’s provisions. [...] The commissioners’ report to Ottawa was better evidence, some Aboriginals at the SFU lecture argued, of what the Indians thought they had signed than was the text of the document itself.