From 1927 to the 1969 White Paper

his was the period during which Canadian authority was extended to the Arctic. Prior to the arrival of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the 1920s, the only outsiders the Inuit generally had contact with were Hudson's Bay Company employees and Christian missionaries. It was only after World War II that federal government authority and services were extended beyond the RCMP presence. In the 1950s, Canada relocated some Inuit to the High Arctic, promising an abundance of game and government assistance (which turned out to be grossly inadequate), but that may have been intended to strengthen Canada's claims to sovereignty. The conditions endured by the relocated communities in the early years were deplorable.

When the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta were created, the federal government retained ownership and control of public lands and natural resources (unlike in the other provinces, where most public lands and resources are provincial: Constitution Act, 1867, s. 109). This source of discontent in the prairie provinces was removed in 1930, when public lands and resources were transferred to them by the Natural Resources Transfer Agreements (given constitutional force by the Constitution Act, 1930). One provision in those agreements (which apply only in the prairie provinces) retained federal ownership and control of Indian reserves. Another provided that provincial game laws would apply to "Indians of the Province" except when they are hunting, trapping and fishing for food, at any time of the year, on unoccupied Crown lands and other lands to which they have a right of access. This provision has been interpreted and applied in several Supreme Court decisions, including Prince and Myron v. The Queen, [1964] SCR 81; The Queen v. Sutherland et al., [1980] 2 SCR 451; and Moosehunter v. The Queen, [1981] 1 SCR 282. In R. v. Horseman, [1990] 1 SCR 901, the Supreme Court decided that the Treaty 8 (1899) right to hunt commercially had been taken away in Alberta by the provision limiting the right to a right to hunt for food; in exchange, the geographical extent of the right was expanded from the treaty area to the whole province and the application of provincial game laws was restricted.

The 1927 prohibition on pursuing land claims (as described in Period 5, above) was removed when the Indian Act was amended in 1951. At the same time, section 87 (now section 88) was added to the Act, making provincial laws of general application apply to "Indians", subject to the terms of treaties and other Acts of Parliament, and "except to the extent that such laws are inconsistent with this Act or any order, rule, regulation or by law made thereunder, and except to the extent that such laws make provision for any matter for which provision is made by or under this Act." Section 88 was applied to protect treaty rights against provincial laws in Simon v. The Queen, [1985] 2 SCR 387; R. v. Sioui, [1990] 1 SCR 1025; and R. v. Morris, [2006] 2 SCR 915. The section does not protect treaty rights against federal laws: The Queen v. George, [1966] SCR 267.

In 1960, status Indians were accorded the right to vote in federal elections. In 1969, the federal government issued a policy statement, known as the White Paper, proposing a major shift in its approach to Indian affairs. Among other things, the Indian Act would be repealed, the Department of Indian Affairs would be abolished and general responsibility for Indigenous Peoples would be transferred to the provinces. The White Paper was explicitly intended to assimilate Indigenous people into Canadian society in the name of "equality."

The White Paper was strongly opposed by many First Nations, who responded with their own document, "Citizens Plus" (also known as the Red Paper). They demanded that their treaty rights and inherent Indigenous rights be respected so that their cultures would be maintained. Opposition to the White Paper, which was subsequently retracted, became a rallying point for uniting the Indigenous nations and asserting their rights in the 1970s.