Unfortunately, I have no confidence that it will come to pass.

I think the sounder course is to completely abandon the idea of race-based collective ownership by dismantling the reserve system. Give every native his/her slice of the INAC budget pie and let them buy their own land -- whether it's a piece of the old reserve or a mansion in Rosedale.

A few centuries of the government trying to make things better has not helped. Perhaps it's time to truly hand our First Nations their own destiny; let them strive and succeed (or fail) on their own merits, like everyone else. One more government agency, even a supposedly arms-length and impartial one, is just another needless delay on the road to independence and equality.

But it is not race based. It is nation based. Are you willing to give up nationality for any other cause? Maybe we should just return the land and pay the back rent and see how that works.

For example, you could not have had the British Empire out there signing treaties with races, could you?

I should clarify my comment above: I'm losing hope that <i>any</i> government will do the right thing by natives. It's become too easy to screw them over and as the potential costs mount, it becomes more financially prudent to continue.

<blockquote>A review of the 236 codes adopted by First Nations from June 1985 to May 1992 identified four main types: 1) one-parent descent rules, whereby a person is eligible for membership based on the membership or eligibility of one parent; 2) two-parent descent rules, which declare that to become eligible, both of a person’s parents must be members or eligible for membership; 3) blood quantum rules, which base eligibility on the amount of Indian blood a person possesses (typically 50%); and 4) <i>Indian Act</i> rules, that base membership on sections 6(1) and 6(2) of the <i>Indian Act</i>. Of these 236 codes, 38% used the one-parent rule, 28% had a two-parent requirement, 13% had blood quantum criteria, and 21% relied on the <i>Indian Act</i>.

-- <i>Indian Status and Band Membership Issues</i> by Megan Furi & Jill Wherrett. Library of Parliament, Political and Social Affairs Division. Feb 96 / revised Feb 03</blockquote>

Nation based with the qualifier that your membership in the nation is defined by direct Indian parentage or the racial content of one's blood. Ergo race-based.

Sorry, itchy trigger finger. Here's the link - Section C of that document.

Oh, the Indian Act is in part a race-based document but that does not define the higher treaty or constitutional reality or the reality of a First Nation. That is why is will be scrapped if and when they can figure out how to get rid of this Victoria absurdity. That statute no more defines the nature of the First Nations than the contemporarily sourced Canadian statutes restricting the rights of Chinese residents defined the nature of Chinese culture.

The SCC Lovelace case is instructive on the distinction as it is about non-band, ie non-Indian Act, communities and describes their nature - which is the class of nature of all such communities which would exist after the revocation of the Act. The Crown would still have its fiduciary duty to these peoples and also its constitutional relationship not based on race but based on nation.

Alan, you are playing at semantics here. The government will negotiate land claims or revenue sharing with specific bands/nations. The bands/nations define their membership via self-defined codes or via the <i>Indian Act</i> definition. And those codes/definitions are racially-based, as I have quoted.

So yes we are negotiating with nation-to-nation, but those nations today are racial constructs. The people who are going to get the land, or be compensated for it, are racially-defined and registered band members. The government has no other way of knowing who might be eligible; you are just attempting to obscure that point.

No, there is a hierarchy here. The First Nation defines itself. The Crown entered into treaties and constitutional obligations with the nation as Nation. Every nation defines its own citizenry. The Indian Act disrupted that and imposed far more restrictive race based rules. Once removed, the freedom to define themselves would return but even now there are non-race members of Indian Act bands just as there would be without that layer of imposed law. The nations are no more racial constructs than Slavic nations, Israel or the nations of Great Britain are.

Plus, with respect, race is a false concept. The use of the term in this discourse has an underlying delegitimizing effect. Communities and nations can define themselves through marriage and lineage as the Government of Canada recently recognized with Quebec. No one calls the Harper government racist for defining the <i>pur laine</i> of Quebec as a nation. Why is it right to use the concept in relation to smaller, weaker Canadian nations?

I think we can agree on the concept of "nationhood" as an extra-legal entity. But I'm talking about the specific ramifications of ICC rulings and compensation to bands.

You are talking about the notional that has not even been contemplated. Nowhere does the article say that Minister Prentice or the ICC are considering complete revocation of the <i>Indian Act</i>. In fact the Commission exists to settle disputes where the Government is thought to have breached the provisions of the Act.

This will merely provide a more responsive (and hopefully more accountable) mechanism to respond to land claims and breaches of treaty. It does nothing to dismantle the notion of collective legal rights granted through bloodline.

The concept of <i>pur laine</i> is equally damaging and this is why I would be happy to have Quebec leave the federation.

Communities and nations can define themselves through marriage and lineage, but where two or more nations coexist under the same geography and legal framework, it is problematic to grant legal exemptions, rights, territory and funding to specific collectives (and not individuals) defined by their marriage and lineage.

I accept all that about being problematic (including your observation on the limitation of the conservatives imagination) and such but point out only that it is the reality of the nations and that the constitutional relationship to those nations exist.

Personally, I find it quite exciting and, in a sense, Canada is now an autonomous hub of the old Empire dealing with and figuring out its relation to the intra-national nations that Britain went about acknowledging in law. It is related to (perhaps as the opposite side of the coin) the devolution of Britain itself if the Scots could ever get their act together.

I am pretty thankful they haven't gotten it together yet, I think the Union is stronger and more robust with England, Wales <i>and</i> Scotland. Not unlike our predominantly English/French Canadian federation.

But Scottish separatism, like its Quebec cousin, has become such an <i>idée fixe</i> that it is all but inevitable now. The sooner they get it over and done with, the sooner they can pick the next scapegoat for the eternal Scottish Grievance Project. Same goes for Quebec.

Neatly, each has a resource base upon which to leverage autonomy: Quebec's hydro and Scotland's oil. Whether they are an Australia or an Argentia, however, is up to them. Scotland's Darien Scheme was not a great source of confidence, however.

Oh I think they could both make a go of it, economically. It is just that I have no enthusiasm for ethnic nationalism; it seems like a reversion to the insular and small-minded. Why be part of a great multi-ethnic, multi-cultural United Kingdom whose history and exploits spans centuries, when we can limit the club to just the northern bits.

Doesn't make sense to me.

But being Scots is not ethnic - being "McLeod" is. And it is not genetic but clan. The day our own Parliament meets on its own lands again will be glorious.

If there's one thing I've gleaned in my forty-five and a half years as a Canadian citizen on planet Earth, it's that nothing is less inevitable than Quebec secession. I don't believe it will ever happen. I suspect the same is true for Scotland, given that only a small minority of the people there actually favour independence.

"Will it please the conservative grassroots?"

I can only speak for myself and people I know, but I think it will. If they can find a way to settle the small stuff, thereby clearing a path to deal with the truly messy (like 5 or 6 different claims on the Lower Mainland - all of it), that would be a very good thing.

Interesting to note that the 3 opposition parties voted down Prentice's attempt to bring civil rights to the women and children on reserves. I wonder what the logic behind that (voting it down) was?