Morse, Brad --- "Book Review - Broken Promises: The Aboriginal Constitutional Conferences" [1985] AboriginalLawB 27; (1985) 1(13) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 15

• Book Review-Broken Promises: The Aboriginal Constitutional Conferences

---

Book Review -

Broken Promises:
The Aboriginal Constitutional Conferences

by R. E. Gaffney, G. P. Gould, A. J. Semple

New Brunswick Association of Metis and Non-Status Indians,

Fredericton. New Brunswick, Canada, 1984, 115 pp. $11.95 (Cdn)

Reviewed by Brad Morse

Broken Promises is an excellent book for Australians to read to gain a quick, yet relatively thorough, overview of the new dimension to Aboriginal rights that has developed in Canada since patriation of its Constitution in 1982. Several books, monographs and articles have been published in the last three years describing the history of this constitution-making process as it affects the aboriginal peoples of Canada and the possible legal implications of the rights that have been entrenched therein.

This tort book, however, is the first to provide an insider's view from the vantage point of a provincial aboriginal organisation which was actively involved in the long struggle for the entrenchment of aboriginal and treaty rights in the Constitution Act 1982 (in ss 25 and 35). The New Brunswick Association of Metis and Non-Status Indians (NBAMNSI) has also beena major participant, through its national representative (The Native Council of Canada), in the First Ministers Conferences of 1983 and 1984. These conferences bring together the Prime Minister, all the provincial and territorial Premiers, and the political leaders of the 4 national aboriginal oranisations to discuss constitutional amendments that will affect aboriginal peoples and the rights guaranteed to them in the Constitution. The Constitution itself requires that these meetings must be held in the hopes that the rights of aboriginal peoplescan be clarified and entrenched in the Constitution.

The authors consist of the research director, the president and the constitutional advisor of NBAMNSI, in that order, who have also collaborated on several other books in the past. They are well equipped indeed to analyse and comment upon these Canadian developments.

After briefly describing the different national political aboriginal organisations, the book outlines the long background to the negotiation of the new Constitution as it involved aboriginal peoples of Canada and their rights. It then continues by tracing the tragic story of discrimination perpetrated against Indian women under the federal Indian Act. Chapter III outlines the positions taken at the First Ministers Conference (FMC) of 1983 by the seventeen participant parties. While the next part concentrates upon a by-product of these developments, namely, a federal Parliamentary inquiry into Indian self-government and how it should be expanded.

Chapter V discusses the FMC in 1984 and its total lack of progress, while the next chapter attempts to analyse the FMC process as a whole, as a new version of the treaty-making process designed to mediate between the rights of the settlers and the original inhabitants. Broken Promises concludes with a critical review of developments in the last few years and recommendations for the future. This excellent book also contains a brief note on the law of aboriginal rights along with four appendices consisting of two declarations of rights by Indian Nations on the one hand and Metis and Non-Status Indians on the other as well as the relevant provisions of the Constitution Act 1982 and the constitutional amendments agreed to at FMC 1983 (which were proclaimed on June 21, 1984).

The three authors are bluntly honest concerning internal aboriginal politics and deeply critical of federal policies. They view the Indian Act, from which NBAMNSI's members arc excluded, as historically destined to foment assimilation through blatant paternalism. They regard the latest federal proposals on Indian self-government as cast in the same mold, while presenting an image of enlightenment, as they continue to divide Indian people along anachronistic legal, rather than cultural, lines while creating tiny governments over numerous small, scattered reserves. The writers also attack most federal and provincial government leaders as short-sighted, at best, or antagonistic to meaningful restructuring of Canadian society to permit true aboriginal self-determination.

Although one may fault the writers for regularly expressing their biases and opinions, this reviewer believes this to be the true strength of Broken Promises. It is unabashedly representing the point of view of a large segment of the aboriginal population very forcefully, it presents a picture of Canadian developments that is otherwise unobtainable from overseas. It clearly articulates that obtaining entrenched rights in the Constitution was only the first round in what will prove to be a long fight.

With further FMC’s in April 1985 and 1987, this is the most current description of these events now in print. I can strongly recommend Broken Promises to anyone wishing to obtain the latest inside look at constitutional developments in aboriginal rights in Canada.