Canadian National Interest

In Menno Boldt's article "Federal Government Policy and he National Interest", he states that, "Indian policy provides too limited a framework for understanding the conduct of Indians fairs in Canada, and that the conduct of Indian affairs can be understood only as part of a boarder policy making process which impacts on Indians is identified here as the actualization of the "national interest", as a policy paradigm for understanding the conduct of Indian affairs in Canada". So, what goals does the Canadian government harbour for Indian peoples in its recent spree of policy initiatives? The Canadian "national interest" is an artificial construct, and is not a well defined, precise notion. It denotes no more than the interests
With some marginal exceptions, contemporary aboriginal people in Canada are now integrated into our industrial society. They are literate and educated, own property work for wages and salaries, supply their needs through transactions in the market rather than self-provision, and deal with state agencies in a multitude of ways. Because of this integration, aboriginal communities will not be able to revive their ancient systems of informal governance. Their own cultures, now closely integrated with the general Canadian culture, require formal government. Members of aboriginal communities have to protect their own property rights and guarantee the market transactions in which they are constantly engaged. The present reality on Indian reserves is that elected chiefs and councils collectively exercise the kind of formal authority that was once exercised by Indian Agents. That will not change, no matter how the titles are revised. For aboriginals as well as for everyone else, this does not mean that aboriginal self-government is unworkable or harmful; it means that it will be like other forms of government, and will not fulfil expectations about the withering away of it. But there are further questions about how well aboriginal self-government can work in
The development of aboriginal self-government in Canada has resulted in a disproportionate amount of political corruption in native communities. These problems have led to a number of federal government initiatives over the last five years to address the lack of transparency and accountability in aboriginal self-government regimes. Bolt seems compelled by his sense of reasonability to define almost entirely in his own terms what he claims will be best for Indians, because he appears to doubt Aboriginal peoples capacity to know what is in their best