First Nations? Second Thoughts

By Tom Flanagan format: trade paperback publication: June 2000 ISBN: 9780773520707

Price $29.95 Quantity This item is in stock and usually ships within 24 hours.

Winner of the 2000 Donner Prize.

Over the last thirty years Canadian policy on aboriginal issues has come to be dominated by an ideology that sees aboriginal peoples as "nations" entitled to specific rights. Indians and Inuit now enjoy legal privileges that include the inherent right to self-government, collective property rights, immunity from taxation, hunting and fishing rights without legal limits, and free housing, education, and medical care. Underpinning these privileges is what Tom Flanagan describes as "aboriginal orthodoxy" - the belief that prior residence in North America is an entitlement to special treatment.

Flanagan shows that this orthodoxy enriches a small elite of activists, politicians, administrators, and well-connected entrepreneurs, while bringing further misery to the very people it is supposed to help. Controversial and thought-provoking, First Nations? Second Thoughts dissects the prevailing ideology that determines public policy towards Canada’s aboriginal peoples.

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