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Who are the Aboriginal peoples of Canada? Who decides? How many are there, and where do they live?

The 1982 amendments to the Canadian Constitution recognize and affirm "the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada", specifically the Indian, Inuit and M tis peoples. This book is about the legal and policy issues that must be confronted if this Constitutional commitment is to be honoured. In its 1996 report, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples laid out a process to recognize and define Canada's Aboriginal peoples. The federal government has ignored it. Instead, it continues to maintain and develop the Indian Act, the legislative mechanism created for the administration of 19th century policies of colonial control over Indian reserves and their residents.

Pre-eminent authors in the field canvass a range of issues, including: whether courts have a role to play in defining Aboriginality; possible interpretations of s. 91(24) of the Constitution, which assigns responsibility for "Indians and lands reserved to Indians" to the federal government; and the examination and analysis of the international concept of recognition, as it has been applied to American Indian tribes and how Canada might learn from the experience. Timely, up-to-date, and forward-looking, the analysis in this book will provide an essential conceptual frame of reference with which to measure the future development of Aboriginal legal policy respecting recognition, definition and jurisdiction in Canada.