Many of Canada's national parks were established on the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples and it has been argued that early national parks were used as tools of colonialism. Although today Parks Canada promotes itself as working closely with a number of Indigenous groups as partners in the management of many national park reserves, past national parks acts explicitly excluded Indigenous peoples from parklands. In some cases, Indigenous people were forcibly removed from areas that would become national parks, while in others, Indigenous people were encouraged to sell or trade their reserves for lands outsides of the park.