What are treaty rights to health?
Map of the numbered treaties.
"In many Crown-First Nation treaties and specifically the Numbered Treaties, there is reference to health care provisions. Referred to as a medicine chest in some cases or aid in others, this provision appears in written and oral versions of treaties... Regrettably, since those treaties were negotiated, Canadian federal governments have generally disavowed the fact that Indigenous people hold treaty rights to health."
From Covid-19, the Numbered Treaties & the Politics of Life, by Gina Starblanket and Dallas Hunt, for the Yellowhead Institute.
For more information about Treaties, see the Aboriginal Treaties research guide.
Suggested Books & Articles
Aboriginal and Treaty Rights to Health by ISBN: 9781895830798Publication Date: 2015Great chapter to introduce treaty rights to health, history, and interaction with law.
- The Treaty Right to Health: A Sacred ObligationNCCIH paper. By Aimée Craft and Alice Lebihan. Good place to start.
- Identifying and Advancing the Treaty Rights to Health… Signed from 1871 and 1906 in Manitobaby Boyer, Yvonne; Spence, Sheyenne (2015).
A detailed examination of the treaty right to health in many of the numbered treaties. - Covid-19, the Numbered Treaties & the Politics of Lifeby Gina Starblanket and Dallas Hunt (2020). Yellowhead Institute report.
- Innovations in First Nations health: exploring the effects of neoliberal settler colonialism on the Treaty Right to Healthby Merrick, Rita. Dissertation/thesis.
This thesis explores a recent innovation in First Nations health, the formation of Canada's First provincial-wide First Nations Health Authority (FNHA). Analyzing this service model against Indigenous assertions of a Treaty Right to Health expressed in the Numbered Treaties, I argue that the realizations of the Treaty Right to Health cannot solely be met under neoliberal models of increased Indigenous capacity in health care service administration.