ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the implementation of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in the Canadian context. It argues that while Canada has a well-established regime of Indigenous rights protection that provides the latter with opportunities to have a voice in decisions over natural resource extraction, this internal regime also paradoxically serves to constrain how FPIC is interpreted and translated in domestic practices. We therefore discuss how Indigenous Peoples challenge the status quo and assert their own interpretations of FPIC using three different modes of action: confrontation through courts and direct action, collaboration through negotiated agreements and reappropriation, under which Indigenous Peoples create their own parallel mechanisms to express consent (or lack thereof). We conclude with two illustrations of this emerging practice of reappropriation and discuss some of its limits and potential.
