Canadian Race Relations Foundation

This short paper argues against Pierre Trudeau’s infamous White Paper on the basis of two premises. The first is that the relationship between the Canadian government and Aboriginal peoples must be not be given higher priority than relationships between the government and other minority groups. Second, given this equal footing, if Aboriginal peoples are awarded benefits from the government, all other minority groups will seek similar treatment. The author discusses the White Paper argument’s troubles with cause and precedent. He stresses the unique position of Aboriginal peoples as the original occupiers of the land and the unjust impositions placed upon them by early Christian European nations. Finally, the author also comments on the impossibility for equality among all people in present Canadian society.

Aboriginal peoples, original occupiers of these territories, held certain inalienable rights to choose their own relationships with the lands, and all living things upon them (including other peoples). These rights were abrogated with the imposition of European laws and norms. The Doctrine of Discovery was an immoral 'gentlemen's agreement' that stated it was justified for Christian European nations to claim absolute title to other lands if those lands were deemed as unoccupied or vacant, according to their own skewed Eurocentric concepts of such. There is no defensible argument for these original actions of the colonizing nations, and therefore, Trudeau is standing upon shaky ground by unconsciously or consciously supporting an historical claim of absolute sovereignty over these (now Canadian) territories. Aboriginal peoples have been the direct recipients of the ramifications of these colonial activities, in so many cruel ways. (p.2)