1969 White Paper

The 1969 White Paper (officially entitled Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian policy) was a Canadian policy paper proposal made in 1969 by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien. The White Paper would abolish the Indian Act, which the federal government viewed as discriminatory, dismantling the special legal relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state in favour of equality, in accordance with Trudeau's vision of a "just society". The federal government proposed that by eliminating "Indian" as a distinct legal status, the resulting equality among all Canadians would help resolve the problems faced by Aboriginal peoples. After opposition from many Aboriginal leaders, the white paper was abandoned in 1970.

After the intense public attention given to the Civil Rights Movement by the early 1960s, the Canadian federal government could no longer ignore the serious socio-economic problems faced by the Canadian Aboriginal population such as higher than average rates of infant mortality and poverty.

In 1963, the Canadian federal government commissioned University of British Columbia anthropologist Harry B. Hawthorn to investigate the socio-economic situation of the Aboriginal population. In 1966, he published his report, A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies. The report concluded that Canada's Aboriginal peoples were the most marginalized and disadvantaged group among the Canadian public. It called them "citizens minus." Hawthorne blamed years of bad government policy, especially the Indian residential school system, which failed to provide students with the necessary skills to do well in the modern economy. Hawthorne proposed that all forced assimilation programs such as the residential schools should be abolished and that Aboriginal peoples should be seen as "citizens plus" and given the opportunities and resources for self-determination.

...
Wikipedia