Decendants of dissolved Edmonton-area First Nations continue to struggle to regain treaty rights

There are more landless people than you know. I know a group that has been trying to fight since 1923! Which considering we weren’t allowed to hire lawyers until 1960’s hasn’t gone well. It’s complicated and heartbreaking. And just another of the things most First Nations People know about while no else does. It’s another reason people are mad that Canadians don’t realize the government has been fighting quietly in the background. Like Indian Agents and The Schools!

One of the gifts that the Indian Act gave them. When Veterans who were promised land in return for military service wanted the land and were denied or the land was given to their Indian Agent, they hired lawyers to fight for what was promised. Instead, the government enacted that First Nations people were forbidden from hiring lawyers.

Yeah one of the many things a lot of Canadians are blissfully unaware of.

Truly second rate citizens. Disgusting to think that happened here. All the more reason for reconciliation, and treating them like equal partners.

And that, as multiple Indigenous thinkers and advocates have said from long before Confederation right up to the present day, does mean assimilating them as plain unhypenated Canadians but recognizing their land and governance rights.

As much as it might turn some peoples' stomachs, we're eventually going to have to open up the Constitution to clarify and enshrine these things. Section 35 is often criticized as Crown governments considering it an 'empty box' that has to be filled with rights, often leaving Indigenous nations without much at all.

The issue of Quebec's place in Confederation hasn't been solved yet, and neither has the issue of Indigenous peoples' place in it.