The Doctrine of Discovery was set out in a series of declarations by popes in the 15th century. These declarations (known as “papal bulls”) provided religious authority for Christian empires to invade and subjugate non‐Christian lands, peoples and sovereign nations, impose Christianity on these populations, and claim their resources. These papal bulls were written at a time when European empires were embarking on widescale colonial expansion.

The Doctrine of Discovery is still an important legal concept in Canada today even though it was written hundreds of years ago. Both French and English colonial powers in what would later be known as Canada used the Doctrine of Discovery to claim Indigenous lands and force their cultural and religious beliefs on Indigenous peoples. Once Canada was created, the Doctrine of Discovery influenced the imposition of national, colonial laws on Indigenous peoples. This is because it denies the validity of longstanding systems of Indigenous governance and sovereignty.

In the Canadian context, the Doctrine of Discovery has led to the seizure of Indigenous lands and the displacement of Indigenous peoples. As colonial settlement spread over the territory that became Canada, many Indigenous peoples entered treaty relationships defining how they would share the land with the newcomers. Influenced by the absolute claims to power and authority expressed by the Doctrine, Canadian law interpreted these agreements as surrendering title and control, despite these concepts being largely alien to Indigenous cultures.

The Canadian government has also claimed title and control over unceded Indigenous lands. This was demonstrated in the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia.[3] The ruling found that the Tsilhqot’in had indeed demonstrated their Aboriginal title to their land. This meant that they had "an exclusive right to use or occupy the land for the nation’s collective benefit."[4]

However, the ruling also said that Aboriginal title could be defied by the Crown (either the provincial or federal governments) if it could justify such action.

The racist assumption of superiority and dominance embodied in the Doctrine of Discovery underpins many aspects of Canada’s colonial history, including the Indian Act, the reserve system, the Indian residential school tragedy, and the Sixties Scoop.

During Pope Francis' 2022 visit to Canada to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s residential schools, there were calls from Indigenous people for the pope to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery. Kate Gunn, a partner at the law firm First Peoples Law, stated that this would be an "important way of beginning to acknowledge the way the Doctrine has been used as a tool to justify the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their lands for centuries, and beyond that as a tool for enabling cultural genocide in the form of residential schools."[4]

In March 2023, the Vatican officially repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery. In a statement,[5] the Vatican admitted that the papal bulls on which the doctrine is based "did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of indigenous peoples." The statement denied that the Doctrine of Discovery was a teaching of the Catholic Church and claimed that these documents had been "manipulated for political purposes" by colonial empires to justify their treatment of Indigenous people. The Vatican also acknowledged the importance of Indigenous voices in addressing the Doctrine of Discovery.

The Vatican statement on the Doctrine of Discovery was generally received as a positive first step by some Indigenous groups and representatives. However, many pointed out that the statement stopped short of rescinding the papal bulls – Dum Diversas (1452), Romanus Pontifex (1455) and Inter Caetera (1493) – on which the doctrine is based.

What does the Vatican's statement mean in the Canadian context? Tamara Baldhead Pearl, who is from One Arrow First Nation and an assistant professor of law at the University of Alberta, believes the repudiation of the doctrine may not lead to significant changes to Canadian law. "But," she says "it will have a significant impact on those who make changes in the law, so that we distance ourselves from the Doctrine of Discovery and use the treaties [and] the nation‐to‐nation relationship that we had, as confirmed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, as the foundation of our relationship here in Canada."[6]