The 1969 White Paper (officially entitled Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy) was a policy paper proposal set forth by the Government of Canada related to First Nations. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, issued the paper in 1969. The White Paper proposed to abolish all legal documents that had previously existed, including (but not limited to) the Indian Act, and all existing treaties within Canada, comprising Canadian Aboriginal law. It proposed to assimilate First Nations as an ethnic group equal to other Canadian citizens. The White Paper was met with widespread criticism and activism, causing the proposal to be officially withdrawn in 1970.

The White Paper proposed legislation to eliminate Indian status. Indigenous people would be granted full rights as citizens instead of being regarded as wards of the state. First Nations Peoples would be incorporated fully into provincial government responsibilities as equal Canadian citizens, and reserve status would be removed; laws of private property would be imposed in Indigenous communities. Any special programs or considerations that had been allowed to First Nations people under previous legislation would be terminated. The Government believed that such special considerations acted to separate Indian peoples from other Canadian citizens.

After fighting in the First and Second World Wars on behalf of the United Kingdom, First Nations peoples returned home motivated to improve their status and living conditions in Canada. In 1945, the government abolished the pass system, which for 60 years had restricted status Indians to reserves. They could leave only with a pass issued by an Indian Agent. With more freedom of movement, status Indians could become more involved in Canadian society. Parliament created a Special Joint Committee in 1946, which, with the help of the Senate and the House of Commons, sought to assess the effects of the Indian Act of 1876.

In the late 1950s, activism continued to rise on reserves; by the 1960s, a widespread civil rights movement had blossomed. In 1963, the journalist Peter Gzowski published an article "Our Alabama" in Maclean's, exploring the murder of Allan Thomas (Saulteaux) on 11 May 1963 by nine white men in Saskatchewan. He reported that the murder seemed casually accepted by the local white population; Gzowski was told that Thomas was "just an Indian."

By the late 1960s, inspired by the Black Power movement in the United States, a Red Power movement had emerged in Canada. Several activists advocated aggressive actions, quoting Malcolm X and saying that they would achieve their own goals "by any means necessary". Malcolm X was not talking about the status of First Nations peoples in Canada, but his militant advocacy of Black Pride, racial separatism, and a willingness to use violence made him a hero to the Canada's budding "Red Power" movement.

Activists noted the abuses of First Nations peoples and the deplorable conditions in which many were forced to live. In 1963 the federal government commissioned anthropologist Harry Hawthorn to examine the social conditions of First Nations people in Canada. In 1966, he published his report, A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies. He concluded that Canada's Aboriginal peoples were the most marginalized and disadvantaged group among the Canadian public. It described them as "citizens minus." Hawthorn attributed these conditions to years of bad government policy, especially the Indian residential school system, which failed to provide students with the necessary skills to succeed in the modern economy. Hawthorn recommended all forced assimilation programs, such as the residential schools, be abolished, and that Aboriginal peoples be seen as "citizens plus", and given opportunities and resources for self-determination.

In 1968, the Liberals, under their new leader, Pierre Trudeau, won the election of that year under the slogan of creating the "Just Society." In late 1968, as part of the "Just Society," Jean Chrétien, the Minister of Indian Affairs, set out to amend the Indian Act. The federal government issued the information booklet Choosing a Path and consulted Aboriginal communities across Canada in pursuit of an amendment to the Indian Act. In 1969, a CBC Television documentary was aired about the life on reserves in northern Saskatchewan. It focused on several unsolved murders of Indians and Métis, and implied that they been killed by whites. The presenter of the documentary characterized the reserves of northern Saskatchewan, where the people lived at a Third World level of poverty, as the "Mississippi of Canada", referring to a poor state in the Deep South of the United States. He drew public attention to the First Nations issue.

In May 1969, the government held a meeting of regional Aboriginal leaders from across the nation in Ottawa. It heard their concerns about Aboriginal and treaty rights, land title, self-determination, education, and health care. After the consultations, Chrétien presented the government's White Paper to the House of Commons on June 25, 1969.