Indigenous Land Claims and Economic Development

The Canadian Experience

Bibliographic Data

ID4038587
AuthorsRobert B Anderson (0000-0003-2834-545X, University of Regina), Bob Kayseas (Deakin University), Leo-Paul Dana (0000-0002-0806-1911), Leo Paul Dana (0000-0003-2474-4664), Kevin Hindle (Deakin University)
Year2004
Volume28
Issue3
Pages634-648
Publication date2004-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe American Indian Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0095-182X • E-ISSN: 1534-1828
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1353/aiq.2004.0089
OpenAlexW2031805431
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited9

The current socioeconomic circumstances of the Aboriginal people in Canada are abysmal. According to the 1991-census, 42 percent of Aboriginal people received social welfare, as opposed to 8 percent of the Canadian population as a whole.1 In the same year unemployment among Aboriginal people stood at 24.6 percent, almost two and one-half times the national rate of 10.2 percent. The Aboriginal population will rise by 52 percent between 1991 and 2016, while the working age Aboriginal population will increase by 72 percent (compared to 22 percent and 23 percent respectively for non-Aboriginal people). This means that as bad as these circumstances are, the prospects for the future are worse unless something is done to change the relative socioeconomic circumstance of Aboriginal people vis-à-vis other Canadians. Aboriginal people in Canada have not been standing idly by accepting their socioeconomic circumstances. They have established development objectives and a process for attaining them (see figure 1). Entrepreneurship-the identification of unmet or undersatisfied needs and related opportunities and the creation of enterprises, products, and services in response to these opportunities-lies at the heart of this Aboriginal approach. Through entrepreneurship and business development they believe they can attain their socioeconomic objectives. These objectives include (1) greater control of activities on their traditional lands; (2) self-determination and an end to

Census · Economic growth · Economics · Entrepreneurship · Geography · Indigenous · Political science · Population · Poverty · Socioeconomic development · Socioeconomic status · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Unemployment · Welfare · Welfare dependency · Canadian Identity and History · Demography · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Mining and Resource Management