Government

Government Policy  Indigenous Foundations UBC
Contains overview and historical links to the Proclamation, Indian Act, Constitution Act, UNDRIP (under Global Indigenous Issues) and much more

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
Library and Archives Canada

Indigenous Services Canada (ISC)
"works collaboratively with partners to improve access to high quality services for First Nations, Inuit and Métis"

and: Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada
"to renew the nation-to-nation, Inuit-Crown, government-to-government relationship between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Métis"

Note: Until 2019 the antecedent of the two departments above was Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada

Indian Residential Schools
Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada

Aboriginal Fisheries Fisheries and Oceans Canada
"Programs supporting Aboriginal fisheries and funding for commercial fishing development and conservation"

INAN Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs
House of Commons

Standing Committee on Indigenous Peoples
Senate

Research Publications Library of Parliament Research
path: Find a Publication -> select Subject: Indigenous affairs. Can limit to publication type, e.g. background papers etc.

See also: Ministries & Organizations section of UBC Library's Aboriginal Law guide

Organizations and Associations

Assembly of First Nations (AFN)
national advocacy organization representing First Nation citizens in Canada​​​

Aboriginal Futures
major research area of the think tank Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Manitoba

Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC)
"Working towards the recognition, implementation and exercise of our inherent Indigenous Title, Rights and Treaty Rights"
Major Online Resources section, including the McKenna-McBride Royal Commission, First Nations Digital Document Source (land rights research) and UBCIC publications

See also Associations from SFU Indigenous Studies resources page

 

Statistics and Microdata

Statistics

For Statistics, see the Statistics section of Indigenous Studies research resources Fact and Data page

Microdata

Abacus Dataverse Network
"Research data repository run by the British Columbia Research Libraries' Data Services" Start with Select > Simon Fraser University
Path to Aboriginal Peoples Survey: Click on Advanced Search > Title Search:  Aboriginal Peoples Survey
Also of interest might be Aboriginal identity by Age and Sex  custom tabulation from the 2016 Census


For data research question please contact the Research Commons data librarian team at data-services@sfu.ca

Books

Compact, contract, covenant: Aboriginal treaty-making in Canada (print and online)
Aboriginal and treaty rights in Canada: Essays on law, equity, and respect for difference (print and online)
Aboriginal peoples and politics: the Indian land question in British Columbia, 1849-1989 (print and online)
Aboriginal Justice and the Charter: realizing a culturally sensitive interpretation of legal rights (print and online)
The Pleasure of the Crown anthropology, law and First Nations (print and online)

Strange visitors: Documents in Indigenous-settler relations in Canada from 1876 (print and online)
Indigenous in the City: Contemporary Identities and Cultural Innovation (print and online)
As we have always done : indigenous freedom through radical resistance (print and online)
Journeying forward: Dreaming First Nations independence (print and online)
As long as the sun shines and water flows : a reader in Canadian native studies (print and online)
Citizens plus: Aboriginal people and the Canadian state (print and online)

For more titles in the  SFU catalogue see the Subjects for the books above or view Indigenous Terminology

Journal article and full-text databases

Terminology 

to consider for finding material for Indigenous topics, for either Keyword or Subject searching. Remember you can use the truncation symbol, the asterisk (*), to find various endings of a particular word, and quotation marks ("") for phrase searching:

(“First Nations” OR Indigen* OR Aboriginal OR Indian)

from Jenna Walsh's Indigenous Terminology
 

For scholarly journal articles, start with:

Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America
"citations for books, essays, journal articles, and government documents on all aspects of Native North American culture, history, and life" (note: Subject term Native Americans sometimes used for Canada, as well as First Nations)

America: History and Life
"Literature on all aspects of U.S. and Canadian history, culture and current affairs from prehistory to present"
Sample subject terms: Indigenous peoples; First Nations

Political Science Complete
Full-text political science articles [sample subject term: Indigenous peoples]

Google Scholar (this link gives you SFU journal access)

"Cited by" example: searching article title "In a fishy place" and clicking on Cited By in the results will glean more recent articles

For more database suggestions see also: 
Top resources for Indigenous Studies and 
Top resources for Government of Canada - Federal

Newspapers two databases are:

Canadian Newsstream national and local newspapers

CBCA Complete Canadian newspapers, magazines and journals

For more information see also  UBC Library's newspapers section of their First Nations and Indigenous Studies guide

 

For reports and backgrounders and more, start with:

Canada Commons
Canadian public policy documents from government and nonprofit organizations as well as think tanks

For older documents:

Canadian Research Index 
(1982-2019) Access to "all depository publications of research value issued by both the federal government and the ten provinces and three territories". Older reports are on Microlog fiche, which is very useful, as many are not available on government sites or in print in libraries

(Accessing Microlog fiche: email Nina Smart (nsmart@sfu.ca) with the report's title and Microlog number, to request a special loan. Example:  1992's "Native women and aboriginal treaty rights: a discussion paper"  Microlog number: 92-04323)

See also organizations in the section above, such as UBCIC's Online Resource section
 

Finding works by Indigenous scholars

Finding Indigenous voices
This guide from SFU Library's Indigenous Curriculum Resource Centre (ICRC) offers research strategies for finding works by Indigenous scholars and authors, including addressing the question, "how can you tell if an author is Indigenous?" 

See also:  Indigenous Information Literacy videos including "Source Evaluation"
From Kwantlen Polytechnic University's Rachel Chong
 
Yellowhead Institute
 "critical policy perspectives in support of First Nation jurisdiction...First Nation-led research centre"  Research section has reports and briefs

Writing and other resources and tools

Resources available to SFU Public Policy alumni

Alumni services
SFU Library guide - useful electronic resources available for off-campus include:

Sage Data (formerly Data planet)
"public, private and commercial sources of standardized and structured statistical data" - still fairly American, but Canadian content being added constantly

OECD iLibrary
Covering country studies, forecasting publications, reports, periodicals, and socio-economic databases

Project MUSE Search
Humanities and social sciences ebooks and ejournals, e.g. Canadian Public Policy. See also  Research Area > Social Sciences > Political Science > Policy Studies  and Research Area >  Area and Ethnic Studies > Canadian Studies

 Sage Research Methods Online (SRMO)
ebooks, articles, reference sources, and videos
Video example: "Education, Indigenous Peoples, & Canada" [link] by SFU Library's own Ashley Edwards

Other resources

CanLII Canadian Legal Information Institute
Canadian legislation, regulations and decisions. Sample search term: "Indian Band"

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
over 15,000 journals and 5,000,000 articles. Sample keyword search: indigenous
Sample titles:  Aboriginal Policy Studies (University of Alberta) and International Indigenous Policy Journal (University of Winnipeg)

Downtown Eastside Research Access Portal (DTES RAP)
research and research-related materials about DTES.  Topics include Indigenous Peoples, Health, Food security and more

GALLOP Portal 
"one-stop access point to full-text searchable electronic government documents collected by Legislative libraries in Canada for their jurisdictions"

Borealis "Canadian Dataverse Repository"
sample term: "First Nations"
 

Native Health Databases University of New Mexico
Note: no full text - as there are no links SFU's journal holdings links you can search on SFU's Journal List page)
 

Other SFU Library guides

Residential Schools: SFU Library resources
Finding Government Resources & Information 

Law: Indigenous Research: Law
Supreme Court of Canada cases involving Indigenous peoples

Business: Library guide for Executive MBA in Indigenous Business and Leadership

 

Contact information

Contact Jenna Walsh, Indigenous Initiatives Librarian & Librarian for Indigenous Studies at 778.782.9378 or jmwalsh@sfu.ca or Nina Smart, Public Policy Liaison Librarian, at 778.782.5043 (Tuesdays and Thursdays) or nsmart@sfu.ca (Monday to Thursday), or Ask a librarian if Jenna or Nina is not available or you have a general question
 

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