Recovering Canada by John Borrows

Author:John Borrows [Borrows, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0802036791
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2002-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

VI Aboriginal Citizenship and Social Cohesion

Even if Aboriginal peoples have rights concerning land outside of their reservations by virtue of the application of legal rights and the principles of federalism, non-Aboriginal people may question the fairness of Aboriginal peoples qualifying for citizenship in their political system, when they cannot qualify as citizens in Aboriginal peoples’ systems. Other institutions of federalism guarantee mobility rights between various jurisdictions;71 membership in other federal structures is not restricted by ethnicity. In response, many Aboriginal peoples would argue that their circumstances are different, and that ethnic restrictions on citizenship are essential to the existence and survival of the group.72 While I believe that restrictions on Aboriginal citizenship are necessary to maintain the social and political integrity of the group, I must admit I am troubled by conceptions of Aboriginal citizenship that depend on blood or genealogy. Nothing in blood or descent alone makes an Aboriginal person substantially different from any other person.73 Despite the best of intentions, exclusion from citizenship on the basis of blood or ancestry can lead to racism and more subtle forms of discrimination that destroy human dignity.

While I do not favour limits on citizenship on racialized grounds, it may be appropriate to establish rigorous citizenship requirements on other grounds to protect and nurture these communities. Aboriginal peoples are much more than kin-based groups. They have social, political, legal, economic, and spiritual ideologies and institutions that are transmitted through their cultural systems. As was argued in chapters 1 and 2, these systems do not depend exclusively on ethnicity; they can be learned and adopted by others with some effort. Aboriginal peoples should consider implementing laws consistent with these traditions to extend citizenship in Aboriginal communities to non-Aboriginal people provided that they meet certain standards that allow for the reproduction of these communities’ values. The extension of citizenship would respect the autonomy of Aboriginal communities while at the same time recognizing our interdependence as human beings.

Ultimately, however, a narrative of Aboriginal control of Canadian affairs does not conclude with a greater representation of Aboriginal people within existing Canadian institutions. Control in Canada is not exercised merely through people and institutions. Both are governed by deep-seated, global, and national tenets that animate and direct the acceptable bounds within which people and institutions can exercise power. Aboriginal notions of citizenship with the land are not currently included among these accredited ideologies. Attempts to assert Aboriginal control of Canadian affairs will encounter a matrix of power that works to exclude notions of ‘land as citizen.’ This resistance will be especially evident when the economic implications of Aboriginal control are understood. In some cases, the application of Indigenous traditions, especially in the legal sphere, might require that Aboriginal people share the wealth from the land with other Canadians; in other instances, it may mean that a proposed use would have to be modified or terminated. A reorientation of this magnitude is not likely to occur without substantial opposition from those who currently benefit from the prevailing ideologies allocating power.

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