Pamela D. Palmater

“And whereas great Frauds and Abuses have been committed in purchasing Lands of the Indians, to the great Prejudice of our Interests, and to the great Dissatisfaction of the said Indians … no private Person do presume to make any purchase from the said Indians of any Lands reserved to the said Indians … but that if at any Time any of the Said Indians should be inclined to dispose of the said…

If you were expecting to read an academic text analyzing justice issues faced by aboriginal peoples in Canada, or a legal text that explained the complex reasons why aboriginal people are overrepresented in the justice system, you would be as disappointed as I was after reading John Reilly’s Bad Medicine: A Judge’s Struggle for Justice in a First Nations Community…

“Call it assimilation, call it integration, call it adaptation, call it whatever you want: it has to happen.” These words come straight from the pages of Tom Flanagan’s 2000 work First Nations? Second Thoughts and sum up his conviction that since First Nations in Canada are uncivilized and their governments produce “wasteful, destructive, familistic factionalism,” they should not be entitled to self-governing…