e.Flanagan describes three meanings attached to sovereignty and provides arguments why each one of them is not viable. The first is a group of powers such as making laws and raising revenue. The second is land ownership and the third is relations with other sovereign countries. Aboriginal people are spread out across all ten provinces, with 600 bands being represented on over 2200 reserves. These small clusters of people living on remote pieces of land have little in terms of employment opportunity or economic prospects. Thousands more, Metis and non-status aboriginals live outside of these reserves. The fact that native land is spread out in many pieces all over Canada makes it unrealistic to think they would ever be unified. Flanagan states, they are simply not viable as sovereign states” . According to Flanagan, aboriginal leaders claim sovereignty in many areas, but since native bands are scattered around the country, both on and off reserves, these pieces could never constitute sovereign states. Native leaders “adopted the classical language of statehood” to describe their people. Aboriginal bands are now, more commonly referred to as “nations”, many of whom who have differences in their languages and customs. Given this awkward demographic and native culture situation, it is difficult to see how aboriginal people could have a separate currency, trade with other nations, and make laws without causing chaos throughout the rest of Canada. Aboriginal people “have a distinctive and tangible collective nature” , whereas involvement in bigger societies is generally done on an individual level. This creates a conflict in accommodating such a different point of view. The Charlottetown Accord provided for aboriginal self-government as one of the three orders of government, but Flanagan points out that the Accord made no mention of sovereignty. Flanagan debates the necessity of a thir...
