ABSTRACT
Many people today would see Canada and Australia as among the most congenial and interesting countries in which to live. Both offer a wide range of economic opportunities, reflecting the richness and diversity of their resource bases; both are democratic in their politics and wholly support the principles of freedom of expression; and both, arguably, have not only embraced the concept of multiculturalism but are making it work. Yet along with these great achievements both Canada and Australia also exemplify the legacy of a colonial history which condoned the dispossession of the original inhabitants on the premise that these ‘first peoples’ did not use the land and its resources productively and therefore could not further ‘development’. As that implies the incomers saw aboriginal Canadians and Australians as inferior. That perception still to a large extent remains. It has separated the aboriginal peoples from all others, marginalising them as a people whose needs and aspirations have long been discounted and effectively barring them from participation in the modernisation process. Ironically, although both Canada and Australia now wholly espouse the multicultural ideal, the marginalisation of Indian, Inuit and Aboriginal peoples has persisted and has only in very recent times begun to be broken down. Effectively this means that, as the title of this study suggests, the ‘first peoples’ of Canada and Australia have formed a ‘third world in the first’. They are culturally and economically separate, with demographic and socio-economic characteristics more similar to those of many developing nations than to the industrialised countries to which they belong.
