The essay is presented in four parts. The first part provides one way of appreciating the rise of collective rights by tracing the recent development of the concept of planned development and the social initiatives and intervention that are occurring at the state level. Many of the issues discussed are reflected in the case study presented in the second part (James Bay Cree). The next part widens the framework by exploring accountability and self-determination in the context of the heterogeneity and diversity that exist within and between all contemporary Aboriginal communities. The essay concludes with a general discussion of tradition, the state, and the problem of accountability in Aboriginal Canada. The author advises that there has begun to emerge in many Aboriginal communities an internal dialog that involves people from diverse sectors of contemporary Aboriginal populations (hunters, administrators, youth, women, Pentecostals, or Native spiritualists). Such a dialog is the only hope for discovering what substrate of cultural commonality such diversity might still have. It is also one of the few mechanisms for finding a guide for developing institutions and arrangements that reflect the cultural past while serving the needs of the present and the future. Developments so far are promising. 8 notes