More than thirty years ago, section 35 of the Constitution Act recognized and affirmed “the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.” Hailed at the time as a watershed moment in the legal and political relationship between Indigenous peoples and settler societies in Canada, the constitutional entrenchment of Aboriginal and treaty rights has proven to be only the beginning of the long and complicated process of giving meaning to that constitutional recognition.

In From Recognition to Reconciliation, twenty leading scholars reflect on the continuing transformation of the constitutional relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state. The book features essays on themes such as the role of sovereignty in constitutional jurisprudence, the diversity of methodologies at play in these legal and political questions, and connections between the Canadian constitutional experience and developments elsewhere in the world.

Patrick Macklem is a Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.

Patrick Macklem's profile page

Douglas Sanderson (1920-2002) was a native of Kent, England. A veteran of the RAF, after the Second World War he emigrated to Montreal, where he studied briefly at McGill. Sanderson turned to writing mystery thrillers when his first novel met with disappointing sales. Hot Freeze, his second foray into the genre, was followed by twenty others; many written under the noms de plume "Martin Brett" and "Malcolm Douglas".

Brian Busby is Ricochet Books' series editor. He is the author of A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet, Translator, Memoirist and Pornographer (McGill-Queens UP, 2011) and editor of The Heart Accepts It All: Selected Letters of John Glassco (Véhicule, 2013).

Douglas Sanderson's profile page

‘This book provides the essential underpinnings for future attempts to convey to Canadians the complexities of their evolving relationship with the first nations.’

BC Studies winter 2016/17