Nous sommes tous ici pour y rester

What justifies the Canadian state's proclamation of sovereignty and jurisdiction over its vast territory, if not the weight of its majority population and its power to impose itself? Why should Canada's original inhabitants have to claim their rights to what was their land when the settlers arrived?

These are the questions that have been at the heart of every court ruling on aboriginal rights, every reminder of treaty obligations and every negotiation of land claims, and they are the questions that anthropologist Michael Asch has been asking for nearly thirty years. In We're All Here to Stay - a statement by Chief Justice Lamer in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia - Michael Asch re-examines Canada's history through the prism of Aboriginal rights and the relationship between First Nations and settlers. He discusses the reasons why settlers can claim their right to remain in the country, beyond their power to impose it. By examining various possibilities and points of view, he proposes a path based on respect for the ‘spirit and intent’ of these treaties, which he believes could now offer both communities an ethical way of being ‘here to stay’.

Michael I. Asch (born April 9, 1943) is a Canadian anthropologist. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta and a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria. Over the years, much of his work has focused on issues of indigenous rights and indigenous-settler relations in Canada.