Aboriginal Rights as a Tool of Colonialism

This essay from First Peoples Law can help you understand the formation of Indigenous rights in Canada and the problems within that rights framework. The author outlines how Canadian courts have created Indigenous rights that are secondary to non-Indigenous rights, and how they have maintained their limited position overtime. He explains how the Supreme Court of Canada's interpretation of rights fits into a wider project of oppression through creating and recreating 'the other,' and he explains how decolonisation cannot truly begin without truth-telling. This resource will be useful to anyone whose organisation is working with Indigenous peoples in Canada.