Aboriginal Law & Indigenous Laws

During his nearly three decades advocating for Indigenous rights and teaching Aboriginal law, Bruce McIvor has recorded the fundamental questions that Canadians from all corners of society have asked to advance reconciliation. McIvor supplies the answers Canadians are looking for by scrapping the technical language that confuses the issues, and speaks directly to everyone looking for straight answers. Throughout, McIvor shares his perspective on why reconciliation as envisioned by the courts and Canadian governments frustrates Indigenous people and what needs to change to overcome the impasse.

This book is the proceedings of a one-day symposium sponsored by the Land Claims Agreements Coalition. Chapters report events and initiatives in chronological sequence, beginning with an explanation and evaluation of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Subsequent chapters consider historic treaties from the late
eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries and, then, modern treaties concluded since treaty making was resumed in 1973.

Providing a clear, critical analysis of the history of Aboriginal law, A Reconciliation without Recollection? exposes the limitations of the current constitutional framework of reconciliation by following the lines of descent underlying the relationship between Crown and Aboriginal sovereignty.