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The thorniest issue was the right of aboriginal self-government. That right was included in the Charlottetown Accord, which went down to defeat in a 1992 national referendum, which in turn prompted Ottawa to hand the entire matter of federal aboriginal policy to a royal commission. In 1996, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples turned in a 4,000-page report with 440 recommendations, just one of which was a call for new Royal Proclamation to set out a new relationship between Canada and First Nations.

Ottawa responded with a policy hodgepodge that included the establishment of a $350-million “healing fund” in recompense for the legacy of the concentration camps that so many federal residential schools became. Over the years, the lawsuits mounted. The largest class action suit in Canadian history produced the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, and to date, the Agreement has paid out nearly $3 billion in 31,970 claims.

The agreement also provided for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which on Tuesday released its 388-page executive summary (six volumes are yet to come), mostly taken from the evidence of nearly 7,000 witnesses in more than 300 cities, towns and villages across Canada. Just one of the TRC’s 94 recommendations was a reiteration of the 1996 Royal Commission’s call for a new Royal Proclamation.

It would be wise for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to carefully and cautiously consider how to proceed, rather than just leap at everything at once. The way forward should not be about just trying to decide what would be best for Canada’s aboriginal people. It has to be about what’s best for all of us. Aboriginal people have to be involved in deciding that, too. We all have to sort this out together.

If there is any lesson to be learned along the long road from 1837, that would be it.

Terry Glavin is an author and journalist.