But what is Canada and where does Canada come from?Why does this country have a native name in a French form - Canada - taken over by England and then by the Dominion which was so reluctant to keep it? Why? 

In 1867 a proclamation was in fact nearly issued to the effect that the territorial entity about to be created by the BNA Act should definitely not retain the old Franco-Native name Canada, but should rather be called Borealia, as a counterpart to Australia, down under on the other edge of the Empire, etc. If it was nevertheless decided to keep the name there must have been a reason. And  obligations in consequence. 

Why then the intention to continue to use the name Canada? Who is really authorized to use this name in international law? One cannot with impunity take the name of a country which existed for  two centuries before it was appropriated without becoming subject  to certain obligations to that country! 

I therefore come back to my initial question. What then is Canada in relation to the other countries of the American hemisphere, and what does it really intend to be? And why, in any case, are there provinces? What is the origin of these provinces? 

It appeas to me that there were no provinces at the time of the Conquest.[6] And it is obvious that the "provinces" did not create themselves. Why were there, later or earlier, Territories, and where did they come from? One may wonder whether there were not sometimes, in this country, migrations imposed on the territory as well as on the Indians who frequented it! 

Why are there still, in 1992, Northwest Territories which are largely focused on the Northeast? Is this one of the many anomalies at the foundation of the Canadian identity, or does it conceal something else? 

I repeat my question: where do the provinces come from? And what goal was in the minds of those who undertook the structuring of the native lands? The Quebec exegete Northrop Frye could not help seeing in this thoroughly pan-Canadian structure an absolute geographical arrogance, inherent in a religion which confused creation with destruction. 

I venture to think that these are not idle questions For, if the provinces really do exist, there must be something like a province's political mental universe? A Saskatchewan-ness or a Saskatchewanism, a British Columbianness or a New Brunswickism, or something of the sort, which could be asked to define the constitutional philosophy of the nation. Is there, outside Ontario of course, whose point of view some people occasionally manage to confuse with that of the country, a provincial vision of the nation as a whole? 

This string of questions is not put forward for exclusively theoretical reasons, far from it. The appearance of a third level of government presupposes that there is a second level both of government and of political thinking - the Province - which has its own mental universe. Let it be said once more, the provinces, Quebec included, did not create themselves, although Quebec is not a province but a provincialized residue of the Canadian people who preceded it. 

To ask these questions is to recognize that the question of the inherent right of self-government and the concomitant establishment of a third level of government amount to the expression of  
something much more than a mere delegation of administrative authority. I mean that there can no longer be any possible future for the viability of Canada unless the native component is included.  

If Canada itself was the constituent factor that set up the provinces, whose powers were of necessity defined after that happened, the native dimension, on the other hand, presents itself as a factor establishing Canadian identity. 

This being so, there is another aspect which appears to be of fundamental importance. Beyond the historical balance of power in which everyone is involved there has to be somewhere within the new federation a special place, a heartland which may serve as a native territorial foundation for all the rest. If there is not, it will have to be invented. 

In much the same way as the Quebec of the Canadians in 1763 has become the Quebec of today, the vast Indian territory which was broken in pieces between 1774 and 1783 has to located somewhere within the space that constituted the Conquest. In other words, the challenge to be faced is this: how and where, within the territory, should the native equivalent of Quebec be established, politically and culturally?  

It may be useful to recall here that such an idea has already been discussed, at the time when the initial proposals were made for the establishment of Nunavut and Denenden, at the end of the seventies. The eventual transformation of the Northwest Territories into new provinces - or into new territorial entities which might be different from provinces, and whose geopolitical nature would still have to be defined - was to become de facto the cornerstone of the new native Canada. What is the situation today?  
 

I am not too sure, but one thing is clear. The existence of this Commission is already an answer to Thomas Berger's question: "Will we or will we not follow the pattern of the history of the West at the end of the 19th century?"