(Alan Pratt is a lawyer practising exclusively for First Nations clients in the Ottawa area. He is identified in the final Report of the Royal Commission, and he prepared a number of legal and policy analyses for the Commission.)

In June 1990, when Manitoba MLA Elijah Harper stood in the way of his legislature adopting the Meech Lake Accord, Prime Minister Mulroney offered a Royal Commission into Aboriginal issues as part of a package to induce a change in his position. That offer was rejected. It was not until 1991, in the aftermath of the events at Kanesatake, that a Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was appointed. At the time, many considered it to be nothing more nor less than a desperate act of procrastination by the increasingly unpopular government of Prime Minister Brain Mulroney. From the point of view of the governments that appoint them Royal Commissions of course tend to be about procrastination. They permit the government of the day to buy itself two or three years without having to tackle difficult issues of the day. Those two or three years can be eternity in political life.

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal People released its final report on November 21, 1996. The report was sent out into a vastly changed political landscape in Canada. During its lifetime, the Charlottetown Accord was negotiated and defeated. The Liberals are in power in Ottawa, led by none other than the man who introduced the infamous White Paper of 1969. The Royal Commission's life began late in the term of the previous government and it has ended late in the term of the present one, a government mostly obsessed with deficit reduction and, in the short term, also with re-election.

Elijah Harper is now a member of the Liberal caucus. Former Prime Minister Mulroney is again in the news, but now it is his defence of a $50 million libel action against the government he formerly led that is making headlines. Ron Irwin, the Minister of Indian Affairs, has said that he would rather have taken the $58 million cost of the Commission and built houses with it. He is going ahead with minor amendments to the Indian Act in the face of widespread opposition from First Nations.

The Commission did not shy away from the difficult questions, and was able to draw upon the cream of Canadian and international thinkers about Aboriginal issues. Academics, politicians, lawyers and Aboriginal and non Aboriginal members of the public all played a role in its work. the Commission was, if nothing else, an excellent example of how consultations work. It threw a large net out and gathered in all the information that it could. Then, with time and money running out, it had to prepare a final report, and a monster it is, nearly 4,000 pages long with over 400 recommendation, attractively if drably presented, the monotony of words broken by few maps and charts. It is serious piece of work and it looks the part.

Many have criticized the report. There is certainly a grain of truth in some of the bad things that are being said about the Commission, about its report, and about the timing, about its cost. Each of the A Who's Who cast advisers and authors - not to mention the seven Commissioners themselves - surely have reason to be unhappy about some compromise or another in the final Report, so that enthusiasm for the Report as a whole tends to be somewhat tampered across the board. It is a compromise, and in the end does not apologize for it.

But so what if the report will not please everyone? Surely the real question is whether there are things in the Report that make sense. Has the Commission come up with even one idea that is absolutely right? Will it result in the saving of few lives, or lead to some hope for some Aboriginal community where before there was none? Is so, the $58 million cost of the Commission is undoubtedly worth it.

It is spirit, I recommend that government officials and First Nations peoples look at the Commissioner's report from a fresh perspective and with an open mind. This article is directed primarily not to federal and provincial government decision makers, but to the Aboriginal leadership and those who choose them. My own opinion, which I confess is far from being entirely objective, is that - for all its flaw - the Commission's Report is a document of historic importance and enduring value. Furthermore, we will probably not be seeing another Report like it in our lifetimes. There may be studies into specific issues, but there will not be another comprehensive look at the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and rest of our society.

While we all wait for some type of reaction from the federal government, I would like to draw attention to one of the Commission's conclusions that begs for action from Aboriginal people.

The Commission concludes that Aboriginal people in Canada have the inherent rights of self-determination and self-government. But it then goes on to conclude that only nations of Aboriginal people have those rights. Individual communities (including individual Indian Act bands) do not have those inherent rights except as part of the border nations they comprise.

This is a dramatic and - so far at least - largely overlooked conclusion. Of the approximately 1,000 Aboriginal communities in Canada (including First Nation communities on reserves and others) the Commission concludes that there may be between 60 and 80 Aboriginal nations. The number is uncertain because nationhood is not solely dependent on pre-contact ethnicity but also upon present-day self-determination. Aboriginal people are free to determine the composition of their nation as long as it meets certain basic criteria.

My question is this: are Aboriginal people in Canada ready to embrace this conclusion? Are they willing to push for the reconstitution of their nations? Do they accept it as a central objective of change? Can they collectively reach consensus on this issue? Does this conclusion pose too much of a treat to the existing political structures in Indian Country?

For my part, I agree with the Commission. I agree that the imposition of the Indian Act form of government has imposed an alien political culture on First Nations people. It has imposed short-term thinking, and it has distorted Aboriginal decision-making into a municipal model. the Indian Act, combined with the establishment of fragmentary reserves as a land base, has resulted in a fragmentation of Aboriginal nations. It has pitted Astatus and Anon status Indians against each other and it has created rivalries between individual communities based on whether the federal government saw fit at one point or another in the past to confer recognition to them.

This fragmentation has been a central component of the Aboriginal policies that have been practised represent First Nations communities exclusively. There are some years when I seem to spend the bulk of my time dealing with internal disputes so that the real issues of Aboriginal and treaty rights all too often are not the priority. Time, energy, resources and emotion are burned up in circular and futile internal battles while the federal and provincial governments escape having to face their responsibilities.

The Commission's emphasis on the nation and to the individual First Nation community as the unit of restructuring relationships in Canada may be the main thing that separates its reccommendations from existing federal policies, particularly 1995 policy on the so-called Ainherent right of self-government. The federal policy, the successor of the 1986 Acommunity based self-government policy, does not contemplate that the Aboriginal party will be a nation. It assumes that negotiations will be with individual communities or collections of communities.

The Commission contends that a drastic restructuring of the relationship between Aboriginal people and others in Canada is required. Aboriginal Nations must be reconstituted from the fragments of individual First Nation and other communities. Those Nations must be accorded constitutionally protected rights of government. Treaties must be implemented in accordance with their spirit and intent and new treaties must be made. A drastic transfer of land and other natural resources must be made on favour of Aboriginal people.

The Report also calls for a symbolic act to kick off a new era of respect: a new Royal Proclamation that commits the Crown to justice for Aboriginal people and builds on the Royal Proclamation of 1763. That symbolic act of commitment must also bring with it real and tangible change in the form of new legislation and the commitment of serious resources to back up the promise of a new era. False or empty symbolism will be worse than doing nothing, but it is a strong possibility.

The revitalization of nationhood will cause disruption and short-term uncertainly. It will challenge the status quo for Aboriginal leaders as well as their non-Aboriginal counterparts. There will be a tremendous inertia against such fundamental change. In practice, it will cause tremendous stresses upon the Chiefs and Councils and other leaders, whose day-to-day responsibilities are already crushing. The governing bodies of communities of a few hundred are faced with all the challenges of much larger governments, not to mention land claims and constant proposals for fundamental change.

My personal reaction to this is that the Commission has hit a great many nails on the hand in identifying the root causes of injustice to Aboriginal people Canada. There is no point in pretending that the poverty of Aboriginal people is the result of anything other than injustice and the willful blindness of the majority to their rights. Injustice to Aboriginal people has been generations (and in many places has been centuries) I the making. How can anyone argue with that? How can anyone question that it will take a massive amount of capital and a significant amount of time to reserve the trend?

The problem is really that non-Aboriginal governments see only in four or five year terms. Ten years is an eternity. Twenty is inconceivable. A recommendation that says that the government must spend billions in the short term is perceived as worse than lunacy. It is irrelevant.

In 1991, Indian Affairs Minister Tom Siddon boldly committed to setting all specific claims in Canada by the end of the century. I remember it well, because I laughed, along with everyone else who works in the land claims field. But for Mr. Siddon it was perfectly reasonable, because I nine years was an eternity to him no difference because Aboriginal people did not believe it and the announcement was worth at least a sound bite on the National news.

So, what can we expect? The problem is, if I can say so, that nobody expects anything. Aboriginal leaders have declared their support for the Report, but only in the most general of terms. Most of them have probably not has the chance to read it or be properly briefed on it. Most of them are forced to think in two-year terms in any event, because of the Indian Act elective system. To many of them, the central theme of reconstituting Aboriginal nationhood may come close to challenging their own political legitimacy as leaders, and would be a major step into the unknown.

The reality, unfortunately, whatever the excuse. is there is a very possibility that it will be consigned to the dusty shelves of official and private apathy. In my view, Aboriginal people can expect the federal government and to even greater extent the their provincial counterparts to ignore the Report with a vengeance. It will take continuous pressure from Aboriginal people to make a change.

But be clear on this. The fundamental changes that are necessary will come only as the result of political pressure and public education and - to some extent - scare tactics. What is at stake is the survival into the next century of Aboriginal peoples, Aboriginal and treaty rights as meaningful components of Canada's constitutional structure.

I am convinced that the key to this is the need for Aboriginal people to resolve to embrace the goal of rebuilding their nations, and to act upon that resolve, to act as nations. Only collective actions will matter, not talk of action. Real action in the direction of nationhood will be dramatic reversal of the trend of the past. It will result in new concentrations of Aboriginal power instead of continued marginalization. It will permit new - and very old - sources of political power and moral legitimacy to be tapped. It will make the difference between begging for respect as victims and demanding respect as nations.

I fear that if the Royal Commission's message is not heard, accepted and acted upon, the Aboriginal peoples of Canada will continue a slide toward marginalization in this country. The power of Aboriginal peoples is in their nationhood, in their sovereignty, in their existence as peoples. But real power comes not from words or theories but in numbers and ability to exercise real power. Remember the 1969 Red Paper, the Oka crisis and Meech Lake. Aboriginal people have power and they make a difference.

The Royal Commission's conclusions should be heard as a wake-up call for all Aboriginal people from coast to coast. Community-based initiatives are necessary. But unless the Aboriginal Nations can be revitalized and vested again with legitimacy, power and resources the Aboriginal communities that make up those nations will have limited avenues for empowerment and development.

Nation building, or rebuilding, will require long-term strategic thinking, as well as the setting aside of many petty differences. In my opinion it may well be the only chance in our lifetime to reverse the trends of the past 500 years.

Nothing would be more convenient to the established order than the quick and silent death of this Report. It is radical in the sense that it goes to the root of the current problems facing Aboriginal peoples and to address those problems it recommends radical changes in the allocation of power and resources, on the basis of respect for nation-to-nation relationships. Having said this, anyone who gives the Report a fair reading will come away convinces that only radical change can avoid a dismal future for Aboriginal peoples in Canada and the human and financial costs that that future will bring.

In closing, I would like to make a few modest recommendations of my own to the Aboriginal communities and the Aboriginal leadership.

There should be RCAP study groups in every Aboriginal community, in every Friendship Centre, in every prison where Aboriginal people are over-represented. Those discussions might well result in a rejection of many of the recommendations and conclusions of the Report, but they will at least get Aboriginal people looking at and thinking about the most fundamental questions about their place in Canada.

Do not treat the Report as any kind of Bible. It should be read as a source of inspiration for change, but not as a blueprint for change. Reading the Report will make you angry the justice of the past, but it may make you hopeful for the future because it lays out the way forward.

Convene a summit meeting of First Nations and other Aboriginal organizations to prepare a strategy of action. I believe that this action must, first and foremost, include making a commitment to the concept of nationhood.

Have faith in your own power and the justice of your cause. The power that has enabled your peoples to survive the next 500 years. Deep down, Canadians are moral and just people and they will respond to your cause if you keep them aware it.

Keep the Report alive. Without intense lobbying from Aboriginal people, with deep grass-roots support, the Report will die. It is as simple as that. It is already dead unless Aboriginal peoples in Canada can be persuaded to study it, make it relevant and make it theirs.