Citizens Plus, also known as The Red Paper, 1970
This is the Aboriginal response to the federal government's
White Paper, 1969.
- The legislature and constitutional basis of Indian
status and rights should be maintained until Aboriginals are
prepared and willing to renegotiate them.
- The only way to maintain Indian culture is remain as Indians.
- Aboriginals already have access to the same services as other
Canadians, plus additional rights and privileges that were established
by the British North America Act,
various treaties and governmental legislation.
- Only Aboriginals and Aboriginal organizations should be given
the resources and responsibility to determine their own priorities
and future development lines. The federal government has a distorted
view of treaty rights and is not to be trusted on this issue.
- The government wrongly thinks that the Crown owns reserve
lands. The Crown merely "holds" such lands, though
they belong to Aboriginals. The government also thinks that
Aboriginals only can own land in the Old World, European sense
of land ownership. Therefore, the Aboriginal peoples should
be allowed to control land in a way that respects both their
historical and legal rights.
- The Indian Act should be
reviewed, but not repealed. It should only be reviewed when
treaty rights issues are settled and if there is a consensus
among Aboriginal peoples on such changes regarding their historical
and legal rights.
- The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs should cease
to exist in its archaic and paternalistic form. A similar federal
agency should be established to look more closely at and be
more attuned to the needs of the Aboriginal peoples - particularly
when it comes to ensuring that treaty and land rights promises
- Aboriginals reject the appointment of a sole commissioner
in a Royal
Commission, because he will be appointed by the government
itself to protect its interests without Aboriginal consultation.
The government, instead, should call an "independent, unbiased,
unprejudiced" commission that should have the power to
bring any witnesses or documents that it or the Aboriginals
wish to present. Its judgments should be legally binding.