Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T20:24:50.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Canada’s Strategy of Dispossession: Aboriginal Land and Rights Cessions in Comprehensive Land Claims

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

Colin Samson
Colin Samson*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology University of Essex Colchester, England Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper offers a sociological interpretation of the Canadian Comprehensive Land Claims (CLC) process, arguing that CLC is a strategy used by the state to dispossess Aboriginal peoples. CLC does this through leveraging the cession of Aboriginal rights and the relinquishing of indigenous lands. Drawing upon the ongoing Innu Nation Tshash Petapen (‘New Dawn’) agreement, I examine four related aspects of the process and the agreement which operate to dispossess the Innu: (1) the undemocratic social and political contexts in which agreement is elicited, (2) the depletion of Aboriginal rights of the indigenous party, (3) the depletion of indigenous lands, and (4) the creation of wealth and debt. Finally, I will interpret these processes as building on social changes inflicted on the Innu. These are characterized by imposed law and the state of exception.

Résumé

Cet article présente une interprétation sociologique du processus canadien de revendications territoriales globales (Comprehensive Land Claims, CLC). L’auteur avance que le CLC est une stratégie employée par l’État pour dépouiller les peuples autochtones, en exploitant les cessions des droits et des territoires autochtones ancestraux. En se fondant sur le processus d’accord « New Dawn » avec la Nation innu Tshash Petapen, l’auteur examine quatre aspects interreliés du processus de négociation et de l’accord qui se conjuguent pour dépouiller les Innus: (1) les contextes social et politique antidémocratiques dans lesquels cet accord est arraché aux Innus, (2) l’extinction des droits ancestraux de la partie autochtone, (3) l’épuisement des territoires ancestraux autochtones et (4) la création de richesse et de dette. Enfin, l’auteur offre une interprétation sociologique de ces processus, selon laquelle ceux-ci se fondent sur des changements imposés aux Innus, sur un système de droit étranger également imposé et sur l’état d’exception.

Keywords

comprehensive land claimsdispossessioncertaintycessionInnu Nationextinguishmentimposed lawrevendications territoriales globalesdépouillementcertitudecessionNation Innuextinctiondroit imposé
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , April 2016 , pp. 87 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Canada. 2003. Resolving Aboriginal Claims – A Practical Guide to Canadian Experiences. Accessed at: http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100014174/1100100014179 15 February 2015.Google Scholar
Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. 2014a. Comprehensive Land Claims. Accessed at: https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100030577/1100100030578 16 February 2015.Google Scholar
Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. 2014b. Renewing the Comprehensive Land Claims Policy. Accessed at: https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1405693409911/1405693617207 27 October 2014.Google Scholar
Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada Committee (2014). Proceedings of meetings on December 3rd, 2014. Accessed at: http://openparliament.ca/committees/aboriginal-affairs/41-2/28/bernard-valcourt-2/?page=3 15 February 2014.Google Scholar
Agamben, Georgio. 1995. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by Heller-Roazen, Daniel. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Alcantara, Christopher. 2008. To treaty or not to treaty? Aboriginal peoples and comprehensive land claims negotiations in Canada. Publius: The Journal of Federalism 38 (2): 343–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alcantara, Christopher. 2009. Old Wine in New Bottles?: Instrumental Policy Learning and the Evolution of the Certainty Provision in Comprehensive Land Claims. Canadian Public Policy 35 (3): 325–41.Google Scholar
Alcantara, Christopher. 2013. Negotiating the Deal: Comprehensive Land Claims Agreements in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Alcantara, Christopher, and Nelles, Jen. 2014. Indigenous peoples and the state in settler societies: toward a more robust definition of multilevel governance. Publius: The Journal of Federalism 44.1:183–204.Google Scholar
Alfred, Taiaiake. 1999, Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aragón, Fernando. 2015. Do better property rights improve local income?: Evidence from First Nations’ treaties. Journal of Development Economics (0304-3878) 116:43–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asch, Michael. 2002. From terra nullius to affirmation: reconciling Aboriginal rights with the Canadian Constitution. Canadian Journal of Law & Society. 17:23–39.Google Scholar
Asch, Michael. 2013. On the land cession provisions in Treaty 11. Ethnohistory 60 (3): 451–67.Google Scholar
Asch, Michael, and Zlotkin, Norman. 1997. Affirming Aboriginal title: a new basis for comprehensive claims negotiations., In Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada: Essays on Law, Equity, and Respect for Difference, ed. Asch, Michael, 208–29. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Carole. 2005. Searching for guarantees in the midst of uncertainty: negotiating aboriginal rights and title in British Columbia. American Anthropologist 107 (4): 586–96.Google Scholar
Borrows, John. 2002. Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Bouchard, Serge. 2004. Caribou Hunter: A Song of a Vanished Innu Life. Trans. Irving, Joan. Vancouver: Greystone Books.Google Scholar
Cabana, Brad. 2013. “Were the Innu Bribed for the Muskrat Falls vote?” Rock Solid Politics (blog). Accessed at: http://rocksolidpolitics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/were-innu-bribed-for-muskrat-falls-vote.html 9 November 2014.Google Scholar
Cassell, Elizabeth. 2013. Some reflections on hydroelectric development and the land rights of the Innu who live in Quebec and those who live in Labrador. Journal of Human Rights in the Commonwealth 1 (1): 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CBC. 2010. Booze used to buy Natuashish votes – court told. CBCNews, 24 August. Accessed at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/booze-used-to-buy-natuashish-votes-court-told-1.936228 9 November 2014.Google Scholar
CBC. 2012a. Natuashish ordered to hold new vote by Federal court, ‘Substantial problems’ in 2010 election, judge rules. CBCNews Newfoundland & Labrador, 5 January. Accessed at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/natuashish-ordered-to-hold-new-vote-by-federal-court-1.1131930 9 November 2014.Google Scholar
CBC. 2012b. Innu angry over development company salaries: now-departed CEO made $1 million over the past two years. CBCNews Newfoundland & Labrador, 12 July. Accessed at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/07/11/nl-711-innu-development-salaries.html 9 November 2014.Google Scholar
CBC. 2012c. Protesters shut down Sheshatshiu Innu Nation office: Looking for answers about Innu Development Limited Partnership spending. CBCNews Newfoundland & Labrador, 13 August. Accessed at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/08/13/nl-innu-spending-protest-813.html 9 November 2014.Google Scholar
CBC. 2013a. Too few Aboriginals working at Muskrat Falls, group says. CBCNews Newfoundland & Labrador, 13 March. Accessed at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/too-few-aboriginals-working-at-muskrat-falls-group-says-1.1339464 23 November 2014.Google Scholar
CBC. 2013b. Racism common at Muskrat Falls site, say Innu workers: Nalcor Energy says it strictly prohibits discrimination and will not tolerate workplace harassment. CBCNews Newfoundland & Labrador, 23 August. Accessed at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/racism-common-at-muskrat-falls-site-say-innu-workers-1.1305513 16 November 2014.Google Scholar
CNW. 2014. Anicinabek, Atikamekw and Innu First Nations join forces to defend their ancestral rights and titles. CNW, 13 November. Accessed at: http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1445633/anicinabek-atikamekw-and-innu-first-nations-join-forces-to-defend-their-anscestral-rights-and-titles 17 November 2014.Google Scholar
Cornell, Stephen, and Kalt, Joseph P.. 2006. “Two approaches to economic development on American Indian reservations: one works, the other doesn’t.” Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, Udall Center paper, University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Cotterill, R. S. 1954. The Southern Indians: The Story of the Civilized Tribes before Removal. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Coulthard, Glen. 2007. Subjects of empire: indigenous peoples and the ‘politics of recognition’ in Canada. Contemporary Political Theory 6 (4): 437–60.Google Scholar
Coulthard, Glen. 2014. Red Skins, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Deloria, Vine. 2011. [1969]. The Disastrous Policy of Termination. In The American Indian Intellectual Tradition: An Anthology of Writings, 1772–1992, ed. Martinez, David, 327–44. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Diabo, Russell. 2013. Harper launches major First Nations termination plan as negotiating tables legitimize Canada’s colonialism. The Bullet, 10 January. Accessed at: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/756.php 19 October 2014.Google Scholar
Doyle, Cathal. 2014. Indigenous Peoples, Title to Territory, Rights and Resources: The Transformative Role of Free Prior and Informed Consent. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dufraimont, Lisa. 2000. From regulation to recolonization: justifiable infringement of Aboriginal rights at the Supreme Court of Canada. University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review 58 (1): 3–30.Google Scholar
Egan, Brian, and Place, Jessica. 2013. Minding the gaps: property, geography, and Indigenous peoples in Canada. Geoforum 44: 129–38.Google Scholar
Epstein, Robert. 2002. The role of extinguishment in the cosmology of dispossession. In Justice Pending: Indigenous Peoples and Other Good Causes, eds. Alfredsson, Guðmundur and Stavropolou, Maria, 45–56. Amsterdam: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Forer, Norman. 1979. The imposed wardship of American Indian tribes: a case study of the prairie band Potawatomi. In The Imposition of La, eds. Burman, Sandra and Hurrell-Bond, Barbara, 89–114. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, Ginger, and Klinck, Jason. 2005. Canada’s resilient north: the impact of mining on aboriginal communities. Pimatisiwin 3 (1): 116–39.Google Scholar
Goldenberg, S. M., Shoveller, J. A., Koehoorn, M., and Ostry, A. S.. 2010. And they call this progress? Consequences for young people of living and working in resource-extraction communities. Critical Public Health. 20 (2): 157–68.Google Scholar
Gregoire, George. 2012. Walk with my Shadow: The Life of an Innu man. St. John’s: Creative Publishing.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. 1975. Legitimation Crisis. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Hammond, Marc. 1994. On the Use of Labrador by Quebec Naskapi Ancestors. Schefferville: Naskapi Band of Quebec.Google Scholar
Harris, Cole. 2004. How did colonialism dispossess? Comments from an edge of empire. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94 (1): 165–82.Google Scholar
Henriksen, Georg. 2009. I Dreamed the Animals: Kaniuekutat: The Life of an Innu Hunter. Oxford: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Hopper, Tristin. 2014. Kwikwetlem chief got massive salary in part by abandoning land claim and taking 10% of $8M payout. National Post, 12 August. Accessed at: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/12/kwikwetlem-chief-got-massive-sallary-in-part-by-abandoning-landclaim-and-taking-10-of-8m-payout/ 9 September 2014.Google Scholar
Idle No More. 2014. Turn the tables: reject the interim land claims policy. IC Magazine, 15 November. Accessed at: https://intercontinentalcry.org/turn-the-tables-reject-the-interim-land-claims-policy/ 15 November 2014.Google Scholar
Innu Nation and Mushuau Innu Band Council. 1995. Gathering Voices: Finding Strength to Help Our Children. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre.Google Scholar
Innu Nation. 2014. Innu Business Registry, 27 March 2013. Accessed at: http://www.innu.ca/images/stories/PDF/Registry_Mar_26_2013.pdf 9 November 2014.Google Scholar
Irlbacher-Fox, Stephanie. 2009. Finding Dahshaa: Self-Government, Social Suffering, and Aboriginal Policy in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Kirkness, R. 2000. Northern communities in transition: traditional economies and the impact of hydro-electric development in two Cree First Nations, Northern Manitoba, Canada. In Traditional Occupations of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples: Emerging Trends, ed. International Labour Organization. Geneva: ILO.Google Scholar
Kulchyski, Peter. 2005. Like The Sound of a Drum: Aboriginal Cultural politics in Denendeh and Nunavut. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.Google Scholar
Légaré, André. 2008. Canada’s experiment with Aboriginal self-determination in Nunavut: from vision to illusion. International Journal on Minority & Group Rights 15: 335–68.Google Scholar
Loney, Martin. 1995. Social Problems, Community Trauma and Hydro Project Impacts. Canadian Journal of Native Studies 15 (2): 231–54.Google Scholar
Mackey, Eva. 2014. Unsettling expectations: (un)certainty, settler states of feeling, law, and decolonization. Canadian Journal of Law and Society 29 (2): 235–52.Google Scholar
Mailhot, José. 1997. The People of Sheshatshit: In the Land of the Innu, Trans. Harvey, Axel. St. John’s: Institute of Social and Economic Research Press.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2012. Define and Rule: The W.E.B. DuBois Lectures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mannheim, Karl. 1936. Ideology and Utopia. Trans. Wirth, Louis and Shils, Edward. New York: Harvest Books.Google Scholar
Martin-Hill, Dawn. 2008. The Lubicon Lake Nation: Indigenous Knowledge and Power. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Thomas 1975. Translator’s introduction to Legitimation Crisis, by Habermas, Jurgen. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Nadasdy, Paul. 2003. Hunters and Bureaucrats: Power, Knowledge and Aboriginal State Relations in the Southwest Yukon. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Niezen, Ronald. 1993. Telling a message: Cree perceptions of custom and administration. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 13 (2): 221–50.Google Scholar
Omar, Sidi M. 2008. The right to self-determination and the indigenous people of Western Sahara. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 21 (1): 41–57.Google Scholar
Orkin, Andrew. 2003. When the law breaks down: Aboriginal peoples in Canada and governmental defiance of the rule of law. Osgoode Hall Law Journal 41 (2&3): 445–62.Google Scholar
Pemberton, Kim. 2010. ‘B.C. aboriginal groups’ treaty-related debt nears $397M – and Growing.’ Vancouver Sun, 6 October. Accessed at: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/aboriginal+groups+treaty+related+debt+nears+397M+growing/3634712/story.html 8 October 2010.Google Scholar
Preston, Jen. 2013. Neoliberal settler colonialism, Canada and the tar sands. Race & Class 55 (2): 42–59.Google Scholar
Prince, Michael J., and Abele, Frances. 2005 Paying for self-determination: Aboriginal peoples, self-government, and fiscal relations in Canada. In Canada: The State of the Federation, ed. Murphy, Michael, 237–66. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
Proctor, Andrea. 2012. Nunatsiavut Land Claims and the Politics of Inuit Wildlife harvesting. In Settlement, Subsistence and Change among the Labrador Inuit: The Nunatsiavummiut Experience, eds. Procter, Andrea, Feit, Lawrence, and Natcher, David C., 189–208. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.Google Scholar
Rendell, Mark. 2014. Innu Nation Elections open to Judicial Review. The Telegram, 13 April. Accessed at: http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2014-04-13/article-3687973/Innu-Nation-elections-open-to-judicial-review/1 9 September 2014.Google Scholar
Saku, James, and Bone, Robert. 2000. Modern treaties in Canada: the case of Northern Quebec agreements and the Inuvialuit final agreement. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 20 (2): 283–307.Google Scholar
Samson, Colin. 2003. A Way of Life That Does Not Exist: Canada and the Extinguishment of the Innu. London: Verso Press.Google Scholar
Samson, Colin. 2013. A World You Do Not Know: Settler Societies, Indigenous Peoples and the Attack on Cultural Diversity. London: School of Advanced Studies Press.Google Scholar
Samson, Colin, and Cassell, Elizabeth. 2013. The long reach of frontier justice: Canadian land claims “negotiation” strategies as human rights violations. International Journal of Human Rights 17 (1): 35–55.Google Scholar
Scoffield, Heather. 2011. Attawapiskat First Nation must pay Ottawa $1,300 a day to run its finances. The Toronto Star, 8 December. Accessed at: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2011/12/08/attawapiskat_first_nation_must_pay_ottawa_1300_a_day_to_run_its_finances.html 9 September 2014.Google Scholar
Scott, Jacquelyn. 2006. ‘Doing Business with the Devil’: Land, Sovereignty, and Corporate Partnerships in Membertou Inc. In Self-Determination: The Other Path for Native Americans, eds. Anderson, Terry, Benson, Bruce, and Flanagan, Thomas, 242–72. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sider, Gerald. 2014. Skin for Skin: Death and Life for Inuit and Innu. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Tanner, Adrian. 1977. Land-use and Occupancy among the Montagnais Indians of North West River. Report on file. St. John’s, Newfoundland: Memorial University Center for Newfoundland Studies.Google Scholar
Taussig, Michael. 1987. Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Taussig, Michael. 1997. The Magic of the State. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tully, James. 1995. Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in the Age of Diversity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whiffen, Glen. 2014. Appeals court decision ends fuss over 2012 Innu Nation election. St. John’s Telegram, 29 November. Accessed at: http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2014-11-29/article-3956192/Appeals-court-decision-ends-fuss-over-2012-Innu-Nation-election/1 1 December 2014.Google Scholar
White, Graham. 2006. Cultures in collision: traditional knowledge and Euro-Canadian governance processes in Northern land-claim boards. Arctic 59 (4): 401–14.Google Scholar
Woolford, Andrew. 2011. Transition and Transposition: Genocide, Land and the British Columbia Treaty Process. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry 4 (2): 67–76.Google Scholar
Wright, Shelley. 2014. Our Ice is Vanishing, Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers and Climate Change. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
York, Geoffrey. 1990. The Dispossessed: Life and Death in Native Canada. London: Vintage UK.Google Scholar