Acceso usuarios
Michael McCrossan
This paper examines governmental policies surrounding issues ofland and territory in the context ofreconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state. It traces not only a committed effort during Stephen Harper's tenure as Prime Minister to establish private property regimes on Aboriginal reserves, but also the creation ofa policyframework surrounding land, energy infrastructure, and treaty rights which radiate with eliminatory rationalities. The paper argues that these logics not only undercut Indigenous jurisdictions and territorial claims in favour of existing constitutional structures and non-Aboriginal economic interests, but also serve to represent Aboriginal peoples as "Canadians" seeking forms of integration into the broader social and economic structures of settler society. Ultimately, this paper demonstrates that conservative discourses surrounding "marketization" and "reconciliation" have worked in tandem to dispossess Indigenous peoples and sustain the legal, social, and territorial boundaries of the Canadian state. It concludes by questioning the extent to which the newly elected Liberal government under Justin Trudeau will truly embrace Indigenous understandings of non-exploitative territorial relationships and responsibilities, or whether it will continue the policy trajectory strengthened by the Harper Conservatives of treating Indigenous territories as settler-colonial sites ofunrealized economic potentialfor the benefit, andprotection, of the larger "Canadian" nation
