Book Review of Alan Cairns, Citizens Plus: Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian State
14 Pages Posted: 13 Jan 2009
Date Written: January 11, 2002
Abstract
Cairns is critical of suggestions of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In his view, they pushed for a "maximum amount of self-government" for First Nations, while neglecting the "civic relation of Aboriginal peoples and individuals to federal and provincial communities and their governments." Legal academics, he observes, have a "pervasive tendency" to "undervalue, underestimate, or overlook the continuing links,"and have become members of an "intellectual social movement."
This book review is critical of Cairns for failing to provide details on an alternative and for taking a mono cultural view of what it means to be "Canadian".
Keywords: Indigenous, self-government, Cairns, Indian, Aboriginal, Canada
JEL Classification: H77
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation