"The term “Land Claim” is itself both a misleading title and an insult to First Nations. If there is any doubt as to ownership, the benefit of the doubt must go to the original owners – the First Nations. Why should we have to claim our own lands? The burden of proof of legal title or interest in First Nations lands must rest with Canada."
Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, “Inadequacies of the Federal Land Claims Policies”. Retrieved from Contemporary Issues, Pp 119.
Many Aboriginal peoples reject the term land claim. They see land as their inherent Aboriginal right, recognized within the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Land is not now something that needs to be claimed and defended.
Aboriginals who do have a description in their language for land claim, represent the term within :
In the following passage, Georges Erasmus, co-chair of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, discusses the use of the term “land claims.”
Read the following excerpt and summarize Erasums' argument with specific reference to the term “land claims":
“There is a problem of language. A study done for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples examined over two hundred commission and task force reports issued between 1966 and 1991. The researchers pointed out that even when we used the same words, Aboriginal people and government representatives were often talking about different things….
I first want to focus on the nature of discourse between our cultures. By discourse I mean the way we carry on conversations. “Inter-cultural discourse is carried on predominantly in English or French. Since this requires translation of concepts and experience, there is the normal problem of finding words in a second language that approximate the meaning we want to convey. But beyond that, the discourse has been framed in terms that are often fundamentally alien to the way we think about an issue.
Take “land claims” for example. Elders in our nations find it strange that younger leaders launch "claims" to lands that have supported our peoples since time immemorial. “Comprehensive and specific claims” are the terms around which the Government of Canada is prepared to engage in legalistic dialogue. Aboriginal people have had to work with the prescribed terms in order to get land questions on the policy agenda, even though the language distorts our reality. The discourse is driven by an imbalance in power, and considerations of strategy.
In other areas as well—governance, health, education—Aboriginal people have been required to adopt language that is not quite our own.”
Excerpt from the 2002 speech by Georges Erasmus presented at the LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium, retrieved from www.icc-icc.ca/fr/projects/erasmus.php