Liberalism, Culture, Aboriginal Rights: In Defence of Kymlicka

Abstract

In their 1969 so-calledWhite Paper on Indian Policy,Pierre Trudeau's government argued that it was time to abolish the group-specific rights differentiating Aboriginal people from other Canadians, including, in some Aboriginal societies, the group-specific right to restrict voting, residency, public office, and other social goods, to their Aboriginal members. Given the negative impact the loss of such so-called collective or group rights would have on the security of their cultures, Aboriginal people were incensed, and, consequently, the federal liberals backed down. More recently, Gordon Campbell maintained as a 1996 election promise that, were his provincial liberal party to be elected in British Columbia, he would oppose group-specific rights for Aboriginal people in British Columbia. Both Trudeau and Campbell argued that it is wrong for Aboriginal people to have group-specific rights by appeal to the idea that such collective rights are discriminatory because they assign opportunities to individuals on the basis of culture or race. Political elites are not alone in thinking that collective rights override individual rights. In fact, it has become a national motif that Section 15 (1) of the Canadian Charter, which makes it illegal to discriminate on the grounds that citizens are to be guaranteed equal protection of the law, is incompatible with group-specific rights for Aboriginal people.