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The Influence of Judicial Uncertainty on Executive Support for Negotiation in Canadian Land Claims Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Christa Scholtz
Christa Scholtz*
Affiliation:
McGill University
*
Christa Scholtz, Department of Political Science, McGill University, Room 414, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montréal, Québec, CanadaH3A 2T7; christa.scholtz@mcgill.ca.
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Abstract

Abstract. Governments and Indigenous groups bargain under the shadow of the law, and this paper pushes the judicial politics research agenda by examining empirically whether flickers in law's shadow systematically affect the implementation of the Canadian government's negotiation choice in the Indigenous land rights context. Through interviews and a time series analysis of Canada's specific claims policy, I find that judicial uncertainty increases the federal government's propensity to accept specific claims for negotiation. However, there is evidence that Indigenous protest action during the Oka crisis and Elijah Harper's role in scuttling the Meech Lake constitutional accord, more than other factors, greatly impacted the federal budget allocated towards negotiation.

Résumé. Les négociations entre les gouvernements et les groupes autochtones se déroulent sous les auspices de la loi, et le présent document examine le programme de recherche sur les politiques légales afin de déterminer de façon empirique si certaines imprécisions dans la loi influent sur les options retenues par le gouvernement du Canada en ce qui concerne les droits sur les terres autochtones. Une analyse statistique de la politique de revendication en vigueur au Canada ainsi qu'un certain nombre d'entrevues m'ont permis de constater l'existence d'un flou juridique qui amène le gouvernement fédéral à accepter d'examiner certaines revendications spécifiques à la table des négociations. Il semble toutefois que certains incidents particuliers, comme les gestes de protestation posés par les autochtones lors de la crise d'Oka, ou le rôle joué par Elijah Harper dans l'échec de l'Accord constitutionnel du lac Meech, aient eu une incidence marquée sur l'importance des sommes allouées par le gouvernement fédéral à ces négociations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 417 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 2009

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