The Substance and Scope of Aboriginal Rights in Canadian Constitutional Law

Abstract:     
After some preliminary comments about the contemporaneous situation of Aboriginal peoples in Canada and about their fate under Canadian law prior to the enshrinement of their “aboriginal and treaty rights” in the Constitution Act of 1982, this paper addresses two features of the difficult task now foisted upon Canadian courts, i.e. the problem of demarcating the scope not only of the rights themselves, but also of the limits to which they can be subjected by the Federal and Provincial governments.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 16

Keywords: Indians, Native, Indigenous peoples, Aboriginal Peoples, Canada, Constitutional law, Aboriginal rights, Aboriginal title, deontological, consequentialism, limitations, constitution

working papers series