In reply to Melanie.

However, it is important to remember that there are hereditary chiefs who have aligned with the band councils on both these issues (abolition of the Indian Act in favour of the Gitxsan Alternative Governance Model) and the Enbridge agreement. So it's not cut and dry.
And in terms of the reserve system, that's very much tied to the Indian Act, which has a lot of back and forth in recent history. On the one hand, many people take the same viewpoint you do. On the other, it is where most Aboriginal rights in Canada are derived from, and there is a big concern surrounding the what abolishing the Act in part or in whole would do in terms or land rights, title, consultation, benefits, governance... pretty much everything. In some ways it as seen as just another attempt to get rid of the "Indian Problem" by getting rid of the existence of "Indians" as a legal entity. That came up under Trudeau with the so-called "White Paper" and was quite controversial.