Each June 21, Canadians mark National Indigenous Peoples Day. Yet a deeper question often goes unasked: Who exactly qualifies as “Indigenous Peoples” under Canadian law?
Over the past 150 years, terminology has shifted from “Indian” to “Aboriginal” to “Indigenous.” The Indian Act (1876) remains in force. Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 defined “aboriginal peoples of Canada.” “Indigenous” has largely replaced “Aboriginal” in everyday use, drawing from UNDRIP, but the constitutional term cannot simply be discarded where Section 35 rights are at issue.
Language shapes perceptions, but words alone do not rewrite constitutions or renegotiate treaties. Long before these labels, there were the Mohawk, Cree, Ojibwe and dozens of other distinct peoples whose identities predate the Indian Act and the Constitution.
