i could nitpick the language in the indigenous section, which is a good chunk of the document, but i'm not going to. what's more important to me is that the government eventually adopts the general idea that the colonial state needs to take a step away from overseeing indigenous communities as protectorates, and finds ways to allow them to define what sovereignty actually means. it's easy enough to come into this with a collection of preconceived notions, and the undrip is just another set of them, but if you look into this what you'll see is that what these people actually want is a complicated, messy thing with a lot of tribe-by-tribe specifics and very few universalized approaches. you could never write a policy paper on this, not in 2000 pages, let alone 20.

so, what we need is a commitment to the democratic process, which sounds almost trivial, but is deeply lacking in our present and in our history. unfortunately, this is going to be exceedingly difficult because what we are is a colonial state. asking canada to stop being a colonial state is like asking a lion not to hunt. it's a fundamental transformation that is going to require not just a deep reanalysis of the indian act - and a commitment to democracy means understanding the subtlety around the abolition v replacement debate within indigenous communities - but probably a reanalysis of confederation, and an overhaul of the constitution. we took a first attempt at this under the elder trudeau, but he really just laid the groundwork for future reforms, something that was deeply understood but that we couldn't get through (see meech lake), as the discussion turned to globalization in the late 80s.

so, they get the general idea right. and, that's all you can ask for in a document like this.

but, i also want to make a foundational point: the future of the green party and the indigenous sovereignty movement are almost certainly intrinsically interwoven. it is long overdue for the greens to make a serious outreach attempt for indigenous voters, and i hope their efforts work out. this should be their base.