ABSTRACT
The crisis of community is itself a crisis in the constitutional approach to resolving one major dilemma of the modern nation-state: the relationship between the collective political rights of collectivities that find themselves to be minorities within an existing state with political rights based on the principle of majority rule. The fact is that this interpretation is not now definitive. An alternative interpretation would be that in fact asserts unilateral dominion over Indians and lands reserved for Indians, subject only to dealing fairly with their claims. The Constitution Act, 1982 deals with a number of fundamental constitutional matters that include most importantly the rights of individual citizens, minority language education rights and a method to amend the constitution itself. It is not surprising that Canadian policy with respect to the constitutional entrenchment of Aboriginal self-government, at both the federal and provincial levels, has been advanced in a manner consistent with the contingent right thesis.
