For the first five or six years of their existence, the energies of off-reserve Aboriginal organizations and their leadership were very much absorbed by bread and butter issues and by attracting members to their community locals. The federal. and some provincial governments agreed to provide what was called core funding to the Native Council of Canada (NCC) and, as time went on. to provincial affiliates. These funds just barely covered the cost of office rent, salaries for elected executive officers, and a minimal administrative staff.

In direct response to media exposes of pitifully inadequate housing both on and off-reserve, the federal government launched a Native housing program for reserves. Off-reserve leaders successfully negotiated a similar program to address inadequate off-reserve housing needs. This funding, more or less inadvertently, provided a financial base for organizations to hire field workers who doubled as organizers of new locals. Word spread that joining a Metis and Non-Status Indian (MNSI) local could put you in line for a brand new house.

By 1975-76 things seemed to be developing fairly smoothly, at least on the surface. But an undercurrent was developing which would soon sweep the entire process down a very unexpected channel. The ugly duckling (off-reserve Aboriginal representative organizations) was paddling its way around the federal funding pool. But the other ducks (both governments and Status Indian bands and organizations) were laughing behind their backs. The Canadian government was spending money on Aboriginal people, but the spending was designed only to alleviate poverty. There was still a tremendous resistance to Aboriginal demands that their Aboriginal and Treaty rights be addressed.

Those same demands were being raised with increasing frequency in the board rooms of the various off-reserve provincial affiliates and national Aboriginal policy makers focussed their attention on three closely related political issues:

1. Federal recognition of all Aboriginal peoples in Canada
2. Reinstatement of enfranchised Indians under the Indian Act
3. Resolution of outstanding Aboriginal land claims.

The Trudeau government of the day, assuming that Aboriginal land claims were largely mythical, decided to fund representative organizations, on and off-reserve, to undertake the research necessary to identify what those potential claims might be. At the same time, the Federal government was becoming increasingly involved in trying to patriate the Canadian constitution which, up to then, could only be changed with the consent of the British Parliament and the Queen. When these two seemingly separate government initiatives met in Indian country, Aboriginal representative organizations exploded onto the national stage.

Virtually every Aboriginal representative organization in the country plunged into a research process between 1977 and 1980 to collect and analyze data related to their potential claims. Libraries and archives were raided, elders were interviewed, and documents were collected that clearly established literally thousands of claims across the country. Most Aboriginal people already had a sense they had been ripped off, but the degree to which that process had been meticulously recorded by colonial authorities was a complete surprise. Most organizations now had more ammunition then they knew what to do with. The question was, how best to use that ammunition and to whom (public, courts or government) should they point the information guns.

The government, on the other hand, quickly moved away from any perception that it was prepared to accommodate just any Aboriginal claims. Under pressure from the Justice Department and its Minister Jean Cretien (now Prime Minister) the government took a formal and legalistic stance. It proposed to address only those claims related to unsurrendered territory (which the government defined) and denied liability for claims in existing Treaty areas. Government policy also refused to recognize pre-confederation treaties in the maritime provinces.

At the same time the government was lobbying British Parliament to patriate the Canadian constitution. They were soon joined, much to the delight of British Members of Parliament and the British public, by feather bonneted dancing and drumming Indians and sash bedecked Metis who were actively opposing patriation, at least until they received assurance Aboriginal and Treaty rights issues would be addressed. The ugly duckling had literally crossed the big pond and was on the attack.