Foreword

• Pages: 9-10
• Author: Gregory Tardi

ix

Foreword

During his academic preparation for the practice of law, Bryan Birtles

became interested in the complex legal aspects of the relationship

between that part of the population of Canada comprised of those

now called settlers and the Indigenous peoples, who inhabited this

area earlier than the settlers’ arrival. He pursued this interest during

articling and is now in the same field of practice, seemingly his chosen

career path. is constant attention has enabled him to claim the label

of expert. With the present book, he is both enhancing his own exper-

tise and fostering the knowledge of the Canadian population at large,

in respect of his area of specialization.

Canada is today acknowledged to be a constitutional democracy.

Indeed, that is the bedrock of the Understanding Canada collection. In

that context, the first important revelation for readers of this volume

in the collection is that several treaties between the colonizers and

the Indigenous peoples predate more comprehensive and better-known

constitutional documents. Whether or not these instruments that are

the focus of this book are categorized as being “constitutional” in

nature, they evidently constitute part of the legal foundation upon

which Canada is built. In that sense alone, they are worthy of attention.

ere is far more.

Treaties are not only historical. e treaty-making process inside

Canada continues and is likely to remain a feature of the political-legal