First Nations and the Canadian State: In Search of Coexistence

By Alan Cairns

Based on the 2002 Kenneth R. MacGregor Lecture

For nearly half a century, driven largely by Quebec nationalism, Canadians have engaged in an almost uninterrupted process of constitutional introspection, seeking a set of institutional arrangements capable of bringing a sense of unity to our large and diverse federation. The emergence of First Nations and other Aboriginal peoples onto the constitutional agenda has given the issue of Canadian citizenship and national unity a new dimension and salience. We are caught in a conflict between a democratic Canadian state which is in the business of creating citizens as a functional requirement for its effective ruling capacity and an indigenous nationalism frustrated by the constraints of this Canadian nation-building project. In this essay Alan Cairns outlines the contours of this struggle and suggests a manner of thinking which might move us in the direction of a viable middle ground.

At the core of the essay is a political scientist’s vision of how Aboriginal peoples and non-Aboriginal Canadians are to share half a continent. This vision is grounded in four key contexts. The first is the global anti-colonial movement of indigenous peoples in settler societies, understood as the second stage of anti-colonialism following the successfulThird Worldindependence movements. The second context brings to the foreground a variety of Aboriginal realities in Canada, including the urban Aboriginal population, high rates of intermarriage with non-Aboriginal Canadians, the small size of First Nation communities, and the large Aboriginal ancestry population which does not self-identify as Aboriginal. The third context comprises a survey of Aboriginal constitutional alienation with respect to Parliament, elections, the federal system (especially the provinces), the Charter and Canadian citizenship. The fourth and final context seeks a pathway through the Aboriginal-state impasses through an attempted synthesis of two somewhat contradictory perspectives on accommodating national unity and multinational diversity - both associated with the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. In the postscript, ‘A Recipe for Living Together,’ Professor Cairns provides a series of more concrete recommendations as to how Aboriginal and other Canadians might forge a common future.

Price: $20.00 plus tax and shipping.

This publication is available from: