No abstract

Elder, Kungarakan tribal group and a member of the Iwaidja tribal group 26 Consultant to the Commonwealth Department of Health, Indigenous tobacco control advocate, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia Contributors All authors have contributed substantially to conception, drafting and finalisation of this fundamentally important open letter. Competing interests None declared. patient consent for publicatiopn Not required. provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Writing policy that applies to First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples in Canada has become more interactive as communities and their representative organizations press for practical recognition of an Aboriginal right of self-determination. When the policy in development is aimed at supporting “respect for human dignity” as it is in the case of ethics of research involving humans, the necessity of engaging the affected population becomes central to the undertaking.