Self-Government

• In response to First Nations' demands for greater autonomy, the House of Commons established a parliamentary committee in 1983 known as the Penner Committee to investigate Indigenous self-government.
• The committee stated in its report that this right was part of the lives of all First Nations and should be entrenched in the Constitution alongside Indigenous and treaty rights.
• In 1995, the government launched the Inherent Right Policy to negotiate arrangements with Indigenous groups to make self-government a reality.
• This process involved extensive consultations with Indigenous leaders at the federal, provincial and municipal levels and took the position that the right of Indigenous self-government already existed within the Constitution.
• New self-government agreements would then be partnerships between Indigenous peoples and the federal government.
• The policy also recognized that no single form of government was applicable to all Indigenous communities.
• Self-government arrangements would therefore take many forms based upon the particular historical, cultural, political and economic circumstances of each Indigenous group.
• Since the introduction of the policy, there have been 17 self-government agreements completed, many of which are part of larger Comprehensive Claims agreements.