Reading Comprehension

PT118 · S2 · P4 · Q24 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.

24.

The passage provides evidence to suggest that the author would be most likely to assent to which one of the following proposals?

Aboriginal peoples in Canada should
Too Strong
Too Strong: don't answer to the law While this author does seem to want aboriginal people to have strong guaranteed rights, she hasn't ever said that they should be 100% exempted from the Canadian legal system. Like if an aboriginal person robs a Canadian liquor store, this author would probably still think that person is accountable to Canada's federal laws.
0% picked this
Correct
Oral tradition should sometimes be
Why this is right
This is lovable since it's so weak (sometimes). Does our author ever seem to be suggesting that oral tradition should sometimes be allowed as legal documentation of an indigenous custom? Yes, at the end of the 2nd paragraph, the the last two sentences explain that the constitution is supposed to protect long-standing traditional indigenous customs, and so provincial courts have required aboriginal people to provide legal documentation of long standing practice. The author says this requirement makes it difficult for aboriginals to support their claims. Our author wants the aboriginal people to be able to take advantage of their newly guaranteed constitutional rights, so she would be dismayed if a provincial court rule were thwarting the aboriginals from supporting their claims. She points out that they often relied on oral tradition rather than written records. This answer is sort of a takeaway from combining those two ideas, "Damn, provincial courts, why you gotta require legal documentation (i.e. written records ... don't you know that many of these societies relied on oral tradition for their long-standing customs, not written records?" In this case (sometimes), you should accept their oral tradition as documentation of their long-standing traditional custom.
Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
66% picked this
Aboriginal communities should be granted
Too Strong: full protection of all
Although we know our author is supportive of aboriginal people having protected rights, and she wants the court to be more lenient in terms of accepting oral history as "documentation" of long-standing customs, it's too extreme to say that our author would sign off on saying aboriginals should be granted 100% protection of 100% of their customs.
4% picked this
Provincial courts should be given
Too Strong: no authority
Although the author complains about one provincial court's ruling, Here, the provincial court's ruling was excessively conservative we can't say that she has the extreme point of view that provincial courts should have zero authority to decide any of these cases.
4% picked this
The language of the Canadian
Not Mad at Constitution
In the first paragraph, the author is describing the problematic situation of courts' needing to figure out how to interpret the new constitutional language, but she's not blaming the courts or the constitution for being too vague. In the second to last sentence of that 1st paragraph she says that the court is burdened by having to interpret and translate the necessarily general language of the constitution. That modifier is saying, "I'm sympathetic to why it needed to be written in a vague, general way."
26% picked this

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