This is the best summary I could come up with:
Canada led efforts to weaken the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations, working secretly with Australia to develop a watered-down substitute in the early 2000s, newly released Australian cabinet records show.
Crafting the state-friendly alternative was the Chrétien Liberal government's idea, but one Australia backed as a pressure tactic against Indigenous leaders who wouldn't alter their 1993 original draft, the records say.
The two Commonwealth governments understood the sensitivities around their backroom tactics, the records suggest, going around the official UN working group and keeping their talks, beginning in June 2002, quiet for at least a year.
Kenneth Deer, who is Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) from Kahnawà:ke just south of Montreal and was involved in developing the declaration from 1987 to 2007, wasn't surprised by the files.
The governments jointly proposed deleting references to demilitarization, restitution of land, armed conflict and cultural genocide, while adding language affirming the territorial and political integrity of sovereign states, ultimately yielding mixed results.
Deer said Canada's government stance softened after Paul Martin became Liberal prime minister in 2003, and hardened with the election of Stephen Harper's Conservatives in 2006.
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