Conclusion

Although aboriginal peoples in Canada have been on a harrowing journey since the coming of the Europeans at the end of the fifteenth century, there are signs of progress and self-confidence among them. The constitutional readjustment of 1982 gave explicit constitutional protection of “aboriginal and treaty rights,” and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, appointed by the federal government in 1992, emphatically endorsed the inherent right of aboriginal self-government in 1996. The courts have also provided substantial support, especially in a series of Supreme Court decisions between 1985 and 1990 that greatly strengthened the legal understanding of aboriginal rights in such areas as fishing on the west coast and spiritual practices by Huron in Quebec. In spite of ill-advised efforts by the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney to cap funding for postsecondary education for native students, the number of aboriginal graduates of universities and colleges continued to rise dramatically. Data reported in 1995 indicated that almost three-quarters of aboriginal students were reaching grade twelve, compared to less than one-fifth of status Indians only fifteen years earlier. In the corre-Aboriginals: sponding period the number of status Indian young people enrolled in post-secondary education had leaped from 4,500 to 27,000. Native artists and performers in the 1990s are a major presence in music, theatre, television, and art. In their respective parts of this entry, Patrick Moore, Janet Chute, and Louis-Jacques Dorais all provide examples of Haida, Algonquian, and Inuit artists and musicians who have enjoyed success commercially and artistically.

Perhaps most revealing of all are the numerous signs of restored pride among most aboriginal groups. Eldon Yellowhorn, for example, notes the development among the Plains Algonquians of the pow-wow movement from the 1950s onward, and Alan McMillan testifies to the revival of the potlatch among the Wakashans after the legislated ban was deleted from the Indian Act in 1951. Another manifestation of this same proud sense of self and community is the increasing tendency in the 1990s of those of aboriginal ancestry, as Olive P. Dickason notes in relation to the Metis, to speak publicly about their heritage. In this respect, the decennial census of 1991 yielded a significant fact. The number of people reporting themselves as being of aboriginal heritage jumped in that survey by more than 41 percent compared to only five years earlier. While about 711,000 respondents in 1986 said they considered themselves of aboriginal ancestry, in 1991 just over one million gave themselves that identification. It might well be that this visible willingness to stand up and be counted as aboriginal peoples is the most convincing evidence of all that a spiritual, political, and cultural revival is under way in native communities across the country.