At the end of this parliamentary session and the (near) end of the Government’s current four-year mandate, we can now more clearly take stock of the legislation affecting Indigenous peoples that actually made it through the legislative process. This brief provides an overview of the Bills affecting Indigenous people – those that have passed, those that will not move forward, and those in progress.
Canada’s Fisheries Act has been and continues to be one of the most oppressive and one of the most contentious of these acts. This brief reviews the potential impact of the proposed amendments to the act that are currently being reviewed by the Senate.
As the federal government moves towards new Indigenous self-government and service delivery policies, the central component is a revised fiscal relations regime. However, from a treaty perspective, there remains concerns with the proposed funding model.
This latest brief is a warning from Aotearoa about why Indigenous peoples should be concerned about USMCA, the new continental free trade agreement, framing exception clauses as “tools being used to circumvent our participation in the governance of our own territories.”
Last month, the National Post ran a story titled, “Saskatchewan Launches 16-month undercover sting to catch First Nations man illegally selling $90 worth of fish. Seriously.” This brief contextualizes this instance within a larger context of power relations between government agenda and Indigenous peoples, accountability and surveillance.
This brief examines the status of the $2.6 billion in new funding promised by the federal government for First Nation education. Since publishing this brief, the Department of Indigenous Services Canada contacted Yellowhead, providing specific information with respect to expenditures in First Nations elementary and secondary education.
Based in the Faculty of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University.