To my understanding, not if it means abolishing the Treaties and their distinct rights underneath it, which are so fundamentally tied to their identities. As Ovide Mercredi put it, Indigenous people would prefer to live under the Indian Act rather than get rid of something that's so critically important to who they are. I have never seen anything to contradict him.

The thing is that Pierre Trudeau tried this 50 years ago and failed. Unfortunately, Harold Cardinal's book "The Unjust Society" reflected-and still reflects-all too well why that approach just won't work, and why the Natives will never, ever consent to it.

Non-Native people might be sick of hearing about this, but Native people are equally sick of having to make the same point over and over and over and over again-the Treaties were never meant to assimilate Indigenous people and identities. The Natives have never consented to it. Assimilation would simply complete the work of the Indian Act. This issue isn't going to go away until we recognize this fact. We tried forcible assimilation, and it led directly to the residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, the alcoholism, social dysfunction, and the problems on reserves.

That said, I'm not necessarily too worried about Maxime Bernier. He's arguably too stupid to be an effective political leader, particularly when the same libertarians who initially supported him are being drummed out of the People's Party for complaining about the racists he's letting into the party. Justin Trudeau is being accused of kicking out candidates for not playing up his feminist credentials...and Bernier is accused of the same thing to candidates complaining about racists infiltrating the PPC.

Frankly, Bernier's in a race to save his own political skin. Last I heard, he was neck and neck with his Conservative opponent, and I can only imagine how the good people of Beauce feel about Bernier's seemingly endless clown show. If he loses his own seat come October, it won't surprise me at all.

I always thought Bernier was a fool, and it would just confirm what I thought all along.

Oh and while you’re at it inform the doctors still doing forced sterilizations which has been going strong in this decade.