(For those of you who may not be aware of the ancient practice of bundling, it was a means of familiarizing a young betrothed couple with each other. They were allowed to sleep in the same bed -- usually fully clothed-- with a board --presumably without knot holes-- between them to keep things from getting too intimate.)

In order to receive government funding, the proposed organization had to be incorporated, non-profit, and demonstrate some form of actual representivity. This created two very difficult hurdles.

The first problem was that the off-reserve Aboriginal people across the country were extremely diverse and very difficult to represent. Some had family connections on reserve, others did not. Some had recently been enfranchised (struck off Indian Act lists) others had been separated for generations. Some lived a traditional life style, others were completely urbanized. Some still identified themselves as Indian, Inuit or Metis, others were losing, or had already lost any personal or social reason to maintain that identity.

They did, however, have some general characteristics in common. Although from many different tribes, bands, and communities, they did share Aboriginal heritage, or at least Aboriginal ancestry. They certainly all lacked social and political recognition of themselves as Aboriginal people. As a result they lacked access to any benefit from their Aboriginal and Treaty rights. They were, for the most part, also very poor.

The second problem was that, with some notable exceptions, very few off-reserve peoples had any recent tradition of social or political organization. They had been, in most cases, unilaterally divorced from their tribes and bands. In urban settings they were dispersed among a much larger non-Aboriginal population. Having been deliberately excluded from modern political processes (including the right to vote) right up to 1950, there was very little motive or opportunity to organize in any significant way. In fact, up until 1950 it was actually illegal. But there were exceptions.

Many in the new leadership had (as a result of two World Wars) some military experience and the self-respect and self-reliance that came from being treated in foreign lands as soldiers, rather than belittled as Indians in Canada. There were also many Aboriginal tradesmen and skilled and semi-skilled workers who had some labour union experience. These two models formed the basis around which off-reserve Aboriginal organizations were, for better or worse, to develop.

A few intrepid individuals, at their own expense, began the process of developing the needed organizations. They hitchhiked across the country encouraging the formation of ³locals² (12 or more signed-up members) at the community level, who were then affiliated with organizations created at the regional or provincial level, who were in turn affiliated with a national organization incorporated in 1971 as the Native Council of Canada.

The initial motivation behind these organizations were simple -- to improve the extreme conditions of poverty that many Aboriginal people had to endure. The basics --food and shelter-- and the frills of the day --education and jobs-- were the issues around which the early organization were formed.

From a government point of view, the motivation was equally simple. the Canadian government was being embarrassed both nationally and internationally by the third world conditions Aboriginal peoples faced. They were also worried that the Calder decision would raise the spectre of Indian land claims and thwart development in the northern parts of Canada where Aboriginal people were still a majority. Under the flag of Participatory Democracy² the idea of Aboriginal representative organizations seemed politically appropriate. Government bureaucrats assumed it would be useful to have ³little brown bureaucrats² who would deliver government programs to Aboriginal communities.

They were in for a nasty surprise.