Canadian Aboriginal Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Canadian Aboriginal Law - Essay Example This assists in managing and bonding the interaction between the government and the aboriginals. The aboriginal law was adopted from several sources of legislation since Section 91 (24) of the 1867 Constitution Act gives federal parliament the powers to legislate on matters affecting or relating to the Indians and their reserved land. Such mandate has led to enactment of various legislations including Indian Oil and Gas Act, Indian Act, and First Nations Land Management Act among others as discussed by Elkins (1999 p23). However, there had been a breakdown of the rule of law for Aboriginal people as this paper discusses. The study also describes how breaking the laws affect the Aboriginal people and the involved stakeholders such as the governmental agents. The study points out various aspects of the breakdown of the rule of law and government defiance in respect to aboriginals. The first aspect is the way the Aboriginal people are colonized internally in Canada through processes of cultural suppressions, breaching the trust and promises, legislative, dispossession, and public discriminations. The Aboriginals have no freedom of dispossessing their traditional resources and land in Canada. There had been forced relocations and taking of First Nations’ land and resources that increase the dispossession cases from indigenous people. There has also enforcement and enactment of other policies, laws, and practices perceived to weaken the Aboriginal societies and economies, forcing the people to be assimilated into Canadian mainstreams. The Aboriginal Law reinforces the approach of colonialism by ignoring the fundamental rights of the aboriginal people, especially the rights treaty (Hogg p.631). The Canadian Constitution ironically, recognizes such legislations. Moreover, the federal government of Canada continues to strengthen and maintain the domination of Indian Act by adopting legislations that affect the Aboriginals’ human rights of determining and governing their own political future. The federal government also breaks the law by refusing to fairly, promptly, and equal address several cases of private or governmental theft of Aboriginal’s reserved land and resources. This undermines the rule of law and hinders the aboriginal people from getting their justice. Another aspect is the dishonor of treaties between the government and the Aboriginal people. The treaties gives a fundamental framework for the First Nation people to govern themselves and their cultural diversities be respected by all stakeholders in the country. Unfortunately, the dishonor by the federal government of the treaties means the infringement of law and order. This gives the government an opportunity to oppress the aboriginals, especially discriminating them from better public service deliveries. This results to poor governmental services to the society such as health, water, poor infrastructures, and food safety among other services. Study reveals th at among the diseases such as Tuberculosis are commonly affecting the Aboriginal societies, as compared to un-Aboriginals in Canada. Other diseases such as diabetes were uncommon to the Aboriginal society, but it is currently affecting them at the highest rate as compared to the rest societies in the world (Coon, 2003). This is because the government discriminate them from the medical services such as insurance care system. The life expectancy of Aboriginal people is six years lower than the non-Aboriginal Canadians. This