Canadian National Interest

In Menno Boldt's article "Federal Government Policy and he National Interest", he states that, "Indian policy provides too limited a framework for understanding the conduct of Indians fairs in Canada, and that the conduct of Indian affairs can be understood only as part of a boarder policy making process which impacts on Indians is identified here as the actualization of the "national interest", as a policy paradigm for understanding the conduct of Indian affairs in Canada". So, what goals does the Canadian government harbour for Indian peoples in its recent spree of policy initiatives? The Canadian "national interest" is an artificial construct, and is not a well defined, precise notion. It denotes no more than the interests
of the powerful by the federal government. Boldt describes Indian cultures as a set of premises about the purpose, value, and meaning of life. For Indians, these premises are derived from unwritten covenants the Creator communicated to their ancestors. The covenants comprehend a number of fundamental philosophies and principles that gave coherence and unity to Indian values, beliefs, social systems, customs and traditions. These fundamental philosophies and principles emphasized an organic, holistic concept of the world. Spiritual and harmonious relationships to the land and all life forms; communalism; personal duties and responsibilities to the band/tribe; social and economic justice, equality and sharing; universal and consensual participation in decision making: personal autonomy; human dignity; and so on. The governance of aboriginal peoples was suited to their hunting-gathering way of life with its band or tribal form of social organization.
With some marginal exceptions, contemporary aboriginal people in Canada are now integrated into our industrial society. They are literate and educated, own property work for wages and salaries, supply their needs through transactions in the market rather than self-provision, and deal with state agencies in a multitude of ways. Because of this integration, aboriginal communities will not be able to revive their ancient systems of informal governance. Their own cultures, now closely integrated with the general Canadian culture, require formal government. Members of aboriginal communities have to protect their own property rights and guarantee the market transactions in which they are constantly engaged. The present reality on Indian reserves is that elected chiefs and councils collectively exercise the kind of formal authority that was once exercised by Indian Agents. That will not change, no matter how the titles are revised. For aboriginals as well as for everyone else, this does not mean that aboriginal self-government is unworkable or harmful; it means that it will be like other forms of government, and will not fulfil expectations about the withering away of it. But there are further questions about how well aboriginal self-government can work in
practice? Unfortunately, Boldt's solution is utopian. None of this is to say that aboriginal politics is more factional than Canadian politics. All politics is factional. It is true that pre-Contact Indian forms of governance did not possess the formal institutions characterizing modern states -- written laws, bureaucracies, competitive elections, courts and police, and so on. But that does not mean that the informal approach to governance can be revived in contemporary Canada. While the development of aboriginal self-government in Canada has resulted in a disproportionate amount of political corruption in aboriginal communities, these circumstances have not been extensively studied in the political science literature. They are either attributed to the actions of particular individuals or dismissed as the systemic consequences of colonial oppression. A neglected area of analysis concerns the combination of tribal cultural characteristics with the requirements of a much larger, complex and productive society. Aboriginal forms of social organization were traditionally based on kinship reciprocity. While nepotism is clearly "unethical" in the context of liberal-democratic government, it is valued in aboriginal societies as "loyalty" to friends and relatives. Kinship loyalty, is an essential "difference" nurtured by self-government. While instances of malfeasance in the Canadian political system should be a concern, they are minor when compared to the existence of “unethical governance” in aboriginal communities across Canada.
The development of aboriginal self-government in Canada has resulted in a disproportionate amount of political corruption in native communities. These problems have led to a number of federal government initiatives over the last five years to address the lack of transparency and accountability in aboriginal self-government regimes. Bolt seems compelled by his sense of reasonability to define almost entirely in his own terms what he claims will be best for Indians, because he appears to doubt Aboriginal peoples capacity to know what is in their best
interest According to Boldt, "Indian leaders tend to view self-government in terms of taking over the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development's authority and structures on their reserves." He is critical of this approach, pointing out that institutional structures have their own logic and that a mere change of personnel "is no guarantee that the entrenched norms of paternalism, authoritarianism, self-interest, and self-aggrandizement by office-holders will be eliminated." Boldt's view is that, if self-government is to be worth having, Indians will have to revive the communal patterns of their past and jettison the formal, bureaucratic institutions imposed by DIAND under the Indian Act. Boldt's diagnosis of the problem is acute. Up to the 1960s, Indian Agents, subject to administrative control by the Department of Indian Affairs, exercised a remarkable fusion of legislative, executive, and judicial powers over the residents of reserves. Those powers have now been largely transferred to chiefs and band councils, even as the Department has withdrawn much of its administrative oversight. In conclusion, a balancing of individual and collective rights requires an understanding that “collective rights” or "national interests" may not always be a faithful analogue for what First Nations legal traditions and customary law actually accomplish. Such traditions and laws are a balancing of individual and collective rights within a cultural community and, along and across the boundaries of that community and others. Individual rights, in this frame work, are not opposed to but are given expression within a broader cultural framework of the particular collective identities, practices, and values of that culture. Finally, it is apparent that these identities, practices, and values are constantly evolving. It was no doubt in recognition of this reality that the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended that they be given flexible interpretation taking into account "distinctive philosophies, traditions and cultural practices of Aboriginal peoples.