"This is How We Did It": One Canadian First Nation Community's Efforts to Achieve Aboriginal Justice

The current proliferation of community-based Aboriginal restorativejustice programmes in Canada cannot be understood solely as the direct expression of Aboriginal Peoples asserting their right to self-deter-mination, or the result of the Canadian government's appropriation, compartmentalization and administration of restorative justice. To explain the ambiguous state ofAboriginal justice in Canada, and to iIIumi-nate government and community responses to these Aboriginal justice initiatives, we offer a case study of one such initiative in Canim Lake, British Columbia. Through interviews, the Canim Lake Band and their supporters tell of the development and implementation of a Family Violence Programme, which we (re)present as a process-oriented story of community ownership, community development and communityl government relationship building.Their example suggests that justice on Aboriginal terms can be realized provided that the solutions to crime and justice issues are community-generated and that political will is not limited by narrow interpretations of government policy. Notwithstanding Aboriginal and treaty rights affinned in the Canadian Constitution and landmark Supreme Court rulings such as Delgamuukw v. the Queen, and the recognition of Indigenous rights to self...determination in such international documents as the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the day... to...day realization of self... determination among Canada's Aboriginal peoples often remains more promise than reality, Aboriginal...designed and controlled alternatives to the adversarial criminal justice system have been identified as the key to the Aboriginal struggle for self..