This publication takes two earlier works from 1992 and 1993 respectively: an academic thesis on what was at the time called Indian policy and Canada's Indian Act, and a major research study for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Both have been reworked into this new book, Canada's Indian Act: Policy Perspectives from the Years Defined by Oka, Meech Lake and the Royal Commission, which is now somewhat of a time capsule.

Chapter 1: Perspectives from Academia is a reproduction of a Master’s thesis in 1992.

When originally prepared, this study represented one of few such studies in Canada that considered the politics and administration issues of Aboriginal governance in Canada. Chapter II: Perspectives from Practice is a reproduction of a final report produced collaboratively with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

This report explained how the Indian Act both protected, yet stymied, anyone with entrepreneurial drive if that person, or groups of people, were located on-reserve. This work took place in an era that featured a broader openness to consider indigenous issues, concerns, politics and possible future steps to better health and prosperity, than had been the case for the previous 15 or 20 years.

It was a time during the constitutional negotiations for the Meech Lake Accord, when indigenous issues were initially excluded, and a previously little-know Manitoba MLA, Elijah Harper, stood with his eagle feature in a filibuster in the Manitoba legislature in opposition to the Accord. It was a time many Canadians will remember when the Canadian military and indigenous protestors were featured face-to-face in news photos that garnered attention worldwide. It was also a time that a Royal Commission was announced to look at virtually every aspect of Crown-Indigenous relations in Canada; and that an aperture of broader public interest in, awareness and acceptance of, indigenous concerns was higher than it ever had been.