Reading Comprehension

PT118 · S2 · P4 · Q23 Canadian Aboriginal Rights

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The following passage was written in the late 1980s.

Topic

The ongoing challenges aboriginal peoples face in Canada when seeking legal recognition and enforcement of their constitutional rights, especially regarding land and traditional customs.

Framework

Problem / Solution

Main Point

Even though Canada extended constitutional protection to aboriginal rights in 1982, the implementation and recognition of these rights remain inconsistent and problematic due to vague legal language, interpretation issues in provincial courts, and difficulties tied to proving and defining aboriginal customs and land ownership. The sentence appears late in the first paragraph and best summarizes the main frustration.

P1: Constitutional Reform and Its Limits

Constitutional protection for aboriginal rights was added in 1982 to help secure these rights for Indian, Inuit, and Métis peoples. However, this move shifted the burden of interpreting vague constitutional language to provincial courts, leading to inconsistent application and weak protection of aboriginal rights despite their ongoing advocacy.

P2: Difficulties Proving Customary Rights

The constitution says aboriginal peoples have rights to land, self-government, and legal protection of customs, but applying these in real life is hard. Courts want proof that a custom is "traditional," meaning it existed before British rule. This is tough because aboriginal societies often rely on oral history, making it hard to provide the kind of written evidence the courts want.

P3: Interpreting "Ownership" and Restrictive Court Decisions

Even when aboriginal groups prove their land claims, courts often interpret their rights very narrowly. For example, in a 1984 Ontario case, judges decided owning land did not mean full ownership (like selling it), but just the right to use it for survival. The author criticizes the provincial court for being too conservative and suggests real progress may only come if these issues reach Canada's Supreme Court, which might enforce constitutional reforms more robustly.

23.

The passage provides the most evidence for the claim that the author has a negative attitude toward which one of the following?

  1. the 1982 constitutional reforms’ burdening

    Opposite, if anything

    The author definitely thinks that provincial courts have a really tough task, but he isn't mad at the 1982 reforms. Overall, this author is looking out for the aboriginal rights. He's unhappy when they're not being sufficiently protected or recognized. In the second to last sentence of the first paragraph, where the author describes the enormous burden of interpretation, he also acknowledges that it's not the fault of the reformers. The constitutional language was necessarily general -- in other words, the author understands why the constitutional language was written broadly. He doesn't fault the reforms.

    15% picked this

  2. the difficulties in interpreting such

    Not Opinionated

    Throughout the passage, the author is commenting on problems / difficulties with this recent situation of adding language to the constitution to protect aboriginal peoples. One of those problems is ambiguity in terms like "indigenous" and "ownership". Another problem mentioned in the 2nd paragraph is the requirement that something be a long-standing traditional custom in order to be protected. In other words, there are several points in this passage where the author is acknowledging the difficulty of the present interpretation situation. We wouldn't have any way of elevating one aspect of the problem over another, in order to call one the thing the author was most negative about. Even though problems and difficulties are "negative" things, talking about them is more descriptive. One can describe a problem without having a negative attitude. I can say that More than 400,000 Americans have already died from COVID Clearly, I would have a negative attitude about that statement, but that statement didn't contain any visible attitude whatsoever. It was factual.

    8% picked this

  3. the criterion used to determine

    Not Opinionated

    This is just like (B). Again it points to one of the various things about this situation that the author identifies as problematic. But we don't have any way of elevating one aspect of the problem over another, in order to call one the thing the author was most negative about. Even though problems and difficulties are "negative" things, talking about them can be purely descriptive. One can describe a problem without having a negative attitude. I can say that More than 400,000 Americans have already died from COVID Clearly, I would have a negative attitude about that statement, but that statement didn't contain any visible attitude whatsoever. It was factual.

    4% picked this

  4. the requirement that aboriginal peoples

    Less Opinionated than the Answer

    This is just like (B) and (C). The 2nd paragraph sketches out two problems: - terms like "indigenous" are very hard to interpret - the requirement that Aboriginal peoples provide documentation for the long-standing nature of a practice they want protected is hard for a mainly oral culture. We don't have any way of elevating one aspect of the problem over another, in order to call one the thing the author was most negative about. It does seem like the author thinks it's a pretty unrealistic requirement to have for aboriginal people, if you know that they often relied on oral tradition. But I think the test writers wanted us to react to the more explicit negative attitude found in the final paragraph (regrettably / excessively conservative).

    15% picked this

  5. Correct

    the definition of ownership imposed

    Why this is right

    In the last paragraph, the author says it's regrettable that the provincial court was excessively conservative in terms of how it interpreted the definition of ownership. It resulted in an unsatisfactory application of the new forms. It's the most explicit attitudinal marker in the passage, so even though the author seemed to have negative feelings about other aspects of this problematic situation, we have the best evidence for a negative attitude about the 1984 court's decision, because of the explicit attitudinal words.

    Skill tested: Author's Attitude · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    58% picked this

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