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Royal Proclamation
The RP is a document that set out guidelines for European settlements on aboriginal lands in what is now North America. It was initially issued by King George the second in 1763 after Britain won the seven years war to officially claim british territory in North America. -
Reserve System
Aboriginals were forced to go to Reserve’s because they were seen as an obstacle for British. The size of reserves were significantly smaller than the land aboriginals previously were on. Living conditions were worse than anywhere else in Canada, suicide rates were higher and money is controlled by the Chief and councils who do not always distribute money fairly. Aboriginal leaders were not included in confederation negotiations, the goal was to diminish aboriginal culture. -
Indian Act
The goal of this act was to make aboriginals and take on western culture. give up on their culture. it provided schools, medical care, hunting and fishing rights and annual treaty payments to aboriginals. Aboriginals did not have to pay income or sales tax to give them “special status”. Aboriginals were not allowed to take up land, or vote in provincial elections, and they saw this as colonization and unfair treatment, they could not act as a normal Canadian citizen. -
Aboriginal Right to Universal Suffrage
On March 31st, 1930, Aboriginals were given the right to federally vote in Canada. -
National Indian Brotherhood & Native Council of Canada Formed
The “status” Indians formed the National Indian Brotherhood. It also raised the national profile of aboriginals among “Indian” communities of the issue of aboriginal control of their government. The NIB also brought attention to issues like housing, health care and economic development. It established itself as a powerful voice for status aboriginal people in Canada. -
White Paper
Introduced by the government to address issues related to aboriginal struggles. proposed the abolition of reserves and an end to special status for treaty Indians. Aboriginals denied this, seeing it as cultural assimilation. -
Residential School System Abolished
The first residential schools were set up in the 1840s with the last residential school closing was in Saskatewan in 1996. They were abolished but not all closed -
1980's Movement Toward Self Government
Some rights to self government were displayed in the constitution act of 1982, but they were still far from being an independent government. A Special Committee of the House of Commons on Aboriginal Self-Government was appointed in 1982, and in 1983 the Penner Report was produced, which recommended that First Nations be recognized as a distinct order of government and that processes leading to self-government be established. -
Assembly of the First Nations
An Aboriginal assembly formed in the 1980’s (it from and replaced the NIB) apart of the UN assembly that has their chiefs represent them. -
Passing of Bill C-31
The Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869, in defining those eligible for Indian status, excluded women who married non-Indian men from eligibility for treaty and other benefits. In 1985, this portion of the Act was repealed with Bill C-31, a controversial idea that gave women the right to maintain their Indian status in marriage. The bill stopped that status to those who had lost it by, by getting a university degree, or by serving in the armed forces during the Second World War. -
Meech Lake
In 1987 the Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney attempted to win Québec's consent to the revised Canadian Constitution — following the Québec government's rejection of it in 1981. The result was the Meech Lake Accord, an agreement between the federal and provincial governments to amend the Constitution by strengthening provincial powers and declaring Québec a "distinct society. -
Oka Standoff
The Oka crisis was originally a land claims issue. Mohawk peoples objected to the growth of a golf course on sacred Native burial grounds during the summer of 1990. To protest this, Mohawk warriors from the Kanesatake and Kahnawake reserves blockaded a road that led into the golf course near Oka. Tensions grew when the Mayor called in the Sûreté du Québec to remove the blockade. They stormed the barricades on 11 July 1990 but met considerable resistance from the well-armed warriors. -
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Nisga’a Treaty 1992-1998
A mere 111 years after a group of northwestern B.C. natives first asked Ottawa and Victoria for a treaty confirming their title to hundreds of square kilometres of the remote and lovely Nass River valley, their descendants may finally be on the verge of satisfaction. -
Ipperwash Ontario Crisis
The Ipperwash Crisis took place in 1995 on land in and around Ontario’s Ipperwash Provincial Park, which was claimed by the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation. The cause of the crisis was the taking of the Stoney Point Reserve in 1942 by the federal government for use as a military camp. After repeated requests for the land to be returned, members of the Stony Point First Nation occupied the camp in 1993 and in 1995. -
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Gustafsen Lake BC
The Gustafsen Lake standoff was a confrontation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ts'peten Defenders in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, at Gustafsen Lake. The standoff began on August 18, 1995, and ended on September 17, 1995. The RCMP operation would end up being the most costly of its kind in Canadian history having involved 400 police officers and support from the Canadian Military. -
Statement of Reconciliation Issued in 1998
The 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples made a number of recommendations to the Government of Canada regarding residential schools. Canada consequently made a Statement of Reconciliation to residential school survivors in 1998 and created the Aboriginal Healing Foundation -
Delgamuukw Case
The Delgamuukw case also known as Delgamuukw of British Columbia, concerned the definition, the content and the extent of Aboriginal title. The Supreme Court of Canada observed that Aboriginal title constituted an ancestral right protected by Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. Influenced by the Calder case, the ruling in the Delgamuukw case had an impact on other court cases about Aboriginal rights and title, including in the Tsilhqot’in case. -
Creation of Nunavut
On April 1, 1999, the map of Canada was redrawn: the Northwest Territories divides into two territories to allow for the creation of Nunavut, a homeland for Canada’s Inuit. The creation of Nunavut is testament to the strength of Inuit political leaders and to the flexibility of Canadian political institutions.
