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It is a need for secure and satisfying lives in the relatively small world of Waskaganish that motivated this thesis study. The author looked for assurances of legal rights when vast parts of Canada were annexed. Investigations uncovered a solemn and binding promise made by the Canadian Parliament to Her Majesty's Government of Great Britain. That promise was entrenched in Canada's first constitution, itself a British statute. This study uncovered proof of such assurances, in forms readily admissible in Canadian courts. These assurances are fundamentally important to achieving any education or socio-cultural goal. Equally important is to understand why and how these assurances have been so long suppressed. In addition, this author needed to explore the possible integration of state command order with the customary order of the Aboriginals of Rupert's Land, prerequisite to restoring a bijural equilibrium of previous centuries of relations between the Hudson's Bay Company and Aboriginal First Nations. Finally, the author illustrates such a bijural approach in the example of training, apprenticeship and recognition of competence within provincially certified trades.
About the author
John S. Murdoch, has lived in Aboriginal communities for almost fifty years working in a variety of capacities from teacher to pilot. His earlier attentions were focused on educational and anthropological questions.
