Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Spring 2010
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly 30:3 (Spring 2010).
Abstract
In the aftermath of the 1996 release of the massive report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and Canada's subsequent official statement of regret for the "Indian policies" that successive governments have pursued down to our own day, "We Are All Treaty People: History, Reconciliation and the 'Settler Problem'" is arguably this book's most provocative essay. Roger Epp begins by asserting that the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Euro-Canadian settlers who came afterward "constitutes a ... powerful common history, inherited, not chosen, whose birthright we can either disavow, because its burdens are too great, or else make our own through respectful initiatives." He then goes on to suggest that there is no better place to begin this process of reconciliation than in the rural West, where small towns and Aboriginal communities face common challenges: an overdependence on transfers from senior governments, the out-migration of many of the best and brightest of their young people, and the limited opportunities inherent in a global economy (where investment concentrates in the cities, and the rural places most desperate for employment are forced to bid against each other to attract whatever jobs they can).
Comments
Copyright © 2010 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.