First Nations and Quebec – The struggle for recognition and representation in Canada

Representatives both of Quebec and the First Nations in Canada demand their right to self-determination. The movements contest a domination by white/English-Canadians which they describe as based on inequality and injustice. They present their struggle as emancipatory. For Quebec and the First Nations it is not only a question for recognition of their distinctiveness but also one of power and participation. Their movements are forcing the Canadian state to think about what the multicultural identity they self-proclaimed really implicates and they question to which extent the state is prepared to accommodate difference (Salee 1995: p. 280). I will examine the ways in which the First Nations movement and the Quebec movement sought to achieve recognition and representation and how they constructed their movement as a form of liberation and emancipation. I will look at how the nationalist movement in Quebec sought for decades a sociopolitical and economic position which they consider at least equivalent to that of English-Canadians. Quebecers demanded a status as a distinct society and justified their demands with a different culture and language and rested it on the myth of the two founding peoples of Canada, English and French. Over the years Quebec achieved a high level of autonomy with exclusive jurisdiction and continues to shape the federal state. Indigenous peoples form the majority of the population in the 3 territories – Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon – but unlike Quebec they do not have inherent sovereignty. They only received administrative powers that were delegated in a process of devolution and their jurisdiction falls under federal responsibility. I will show how the Indian Act still determines the status of First Nation communities and maintains a legal distinction. Therefore, the movement of indigenous communities seeks to disengage from the Act’s jurisdiction. They claim for themselves a form of autonomy, which will make them into sovereign political communities and claim recognition of collective rights over the protection of individual rights inscribed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Salee 1995: p. 290).