Indigenous Politics in Canada

This course focuses on the legal and political relationship between Canada’s Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state. The course provides a detailed genealogy of the relevant legal and political touchstones of the relationship from the Hawthorn Report in 1966 to the present-day Unist’ot’en roadblocks on Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia. Students will gain a sense of the historical and ongoing pendulum-like legal and political relationship between the Canadian state and Indigenous communities. Students will become familiar with a shortlist of relevant legal and political concepts: Aboriginal rights, treaty relationship, nation-to-nation, reconciliation, resurgence, honour of the Crown, duty to consult, and Indigenous spirituality.