We were working with a local government client last week in a meeting that had a very contentious subject matter focused on the return of land and uses of that land, to First Nations owners. There was an important conversation as a part of this work that involved removing a structure that had some historical significance to the community but was seen as a mark of an oppressive history by the First Nations owners who could not contemplate it remaining on their land. It is a wickedly complicated issue right at the heart of what reconciliation really means: returning land, transferring ownership and working with history.
Our client did an incredible job of preparing multiple stakeholders to participate in this discussion, by meeting each group personally and hearing their thoughts on the situation. All the stakeholders, twenty in total, agreed to come to a two hour dialogue to discuss the issues at hand. Our client put together a beautiful 8 page booklet with much of the technical information in it about proposals and process and sharing some of the things they had heard in the pre-meetings. The format of the day included a presentation from the First Nations about what they were proposing and why, with most of the meeting involving a World Cafe for dialogue.
It went well. We received a couple of really powerful pieces of positive feedback.
These kinds of conversations are the sharp edge of the reconciliation wedge. It is one thing to conduct a brief territorial acknowledgement at the beginning of a meeting or event, it is entirely another for people to sit down and discuss the issues around the return of land.
In debriefing with our client this week, she made the following observations about what contributed to the usefulness of the container for this conversation:
- Very small groups – no more than four at a table – meant that there was no need for people to “take their best shot” as they would have in a larger plenary format. Groups smaller than five reduce the performative nature of conversation and allow dialogue to fully unfold. This enabled people who needed to invest a lot of emotional energy and attention in their speaking and listening, to operate in a more relaxed way.
- The questions for the dialogue were very broad. Sometimes the most powerful question is “what are you thinking and feeling about what you just heard?” This question kicked off 45 minutes of intense learning, listening and story telling at the tables.
- The invitation process is everything. We helped our client design an invitation process but she took the lead in going to each group separately and talking to them about why they were needed in the conversation.
- There were no observers. Everyone in the room was at a table except for me and our graphic recorder. Everyone at a table had a question they needed answered or a curiosity about the outcome. there was no certainty in the room, no positionality, and yet, each person spoke about their own experience and their own perspective and listened carefully to what others said. Also, everyone in the room had to stretch their perspectives to participate. This was not comfortable for anyone, because this work isn’t comfortable for anyone. It is literally unsettling.
- The First Nations leadership pulled no punches in explaining their reasons for their proposal and why it was important that the structure be removed from their lands. This can be a very tricky thing because while it is important for non-indigenous stakeholders to hear First Nations perspectives, there is a tremendous amount of emotional labour involved in talking about traumatizing history. We had one of our own team prepared to talk about the history and emotional legacy of the structure. She had interviewed people from her community and was well positioned to share the rationale but on the day we didn’t need to her to tell the story as the leadership were willing to tell that story themselves. Enabling this to happen well is important.
Reconciliation is nothing without the return of the lands or the influence over the lands which we acknowledge as “unceded territory.” What stops people from going much further than territorial acknowledgement is the fear of being unsettled in the conversation. But we can’t do this work without holding containers that allow for people to be unsettled. Only that way to we share perspectives and find possibilities and to do so in small, deep conversations where stories can be shared, perspectives understood and . Or sometimes not. But the path to reconciliation requires us to try, and these few notes and observations might help in that.
The other day a friend asked me who is doing good writing that can inform her own journey with reconciliation. She is a very involved white woman, doing work with universities and indigenous communities and even she was having trouble finding good resources to keep her learning going and share with others.
I couldn’t point her to sources for a couple of reasons. First, the world is moving really quickly, and good articles and papers that are written are often out of date fairly quickly. But more important, to get published, a writer often has to sanitize the outrage, emotional cost and downright tiredness that comes with being a visible indigenous voice in this world.
I am convinced that you cannot understand what reconciliation really needs to be unless you are immersed this emotional edge. The work of repairing, honouring and building relationships between settler and indigenous people in Canada is hard work and requires a lifetime to undertake. This is not easy, it will never be easy and there will be a mix of joy and anger, surprise and offence. It is worthy work.
For me, this is where twitter is immensely helpful. Twitter has amplified indigenous voices without sanitizing the raw, daily reality of living in country where the IDEAL of reconciliation is so far away from what is actually happening. For non-indigenous people, listening is important but so too is action.
These twitter accounts are some of the best I have in my feed at the moment. They are honest, thoughtful, engaging, and powerful voices. They will connect you to other voices in the indigenous twitter sphere and they will illuminate the news and events that escape the attention of the main stream media. Following their accounts and their networks expands my horizons every day.
@KimTallBear (Dakota) a Professor and a supporter of indigenous science and technology.
@apihtawikosisan (Metis) Chelsea Vowel is a writer and mother who has made a name for herself busting myths about indigenous people and issues. Her writing is real, honest and forthright.
@Terrilltf (Blackfoot). Terrel Tailfeathers mostly retweets lots of resources and perspectives. He helps me find new sources and voices.
@rjjago (Kwantlen). Robert Jago is an uncompromising writer and an entrepreneur who tweets lots of impactful threads about settler – indigenous relationships.
@indigenousxca A shared twitter account that features a new indigenous host every week, usually a person in academia. Amazing diversity of voices and perspectives here.
@RussDiabo (Mohawk). I have known Russ Diabo for many years. He is an expert in indigenous law and title and is a brilliant commentator on politics and policy matters affecting indigenous communities and nations. He publishes an occasional First Nations strategic bulletin
@APTNNews is Canada’s national Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Covers news in indigenous communities and national issues from the lens of impact on indigenous peoples.
@UBCIC is the twitter account of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs that tweets out articles and perspectives on issues facing BC indigenous communities and beyond.
EDITED: to add @Indigenousxca.
Detail from Richard Shorty’s work “Genesis 1:20-25”
Wednesday is National Aboriginal Day and ten days later, Canada commemorates its 150th birthday. Since the centenary in 1967 and even since Canada 125 in 1992, the whole enterprise of Canada has become deeply informed by the need for reconciliation between indigenous people and communities, and settler people and communities.
We are all treaty people. Everyone in Canada who has citizenship is also a beneficiary to the treaties that were signed and made as a way of acknowledging and making binding, the relationship between settler communities and indigenous nations. The ability to own private land, for example, is one way in which settlers benefit from treaties that were signed long ago, even if those treaties were made hundreds of years ago in other parts of the country. Canadian society depends on the ability of governments to provide access to land and resources, and that access flows directly from treaties. Not from conquering and taking. From legally binding agreements. You are a treaty person.
The promise of Canada has never been properly delivered to indigenous communities. Over decades courts have declared this. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission declared this. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples declared this. It is evident in data and research and popular culture.
The need for reconciliation is long overdue.
For thirty years I have worked in this space, and lately I have been working with a small set of principles, when settlers ask me about reconciliation. Here they are:
- Reconciliation requires restitution. For reconciliation to be real it must be accompanied by restitution. Reconciliation efforts aimed at increasing awareness are fine, but they should have a direct and material benefit to indigenous people and communities, When indigenous communities do well, we all do well. Restitution can happen in all kinds of ways including the return of lands and property, but it also requires the honouring of the ongoing relationships embedded in the treaties in which mutual benefit was supposed to flow for the future.
- Reconciliation is unsettling. My friend Michelle Nahanee talks about “emotional equity” which is one way of thinking about what it costs for indigenous people to interact in non-indigenous contexts. It is inherently unsettling. For non-indigenous people a true commitment to reconciliation means unsettling notions of what you take for granted. Just understanding how you are a treaty beneficiary is one way to suddenly become unsettled. And I have often said that the only job for settlers in reconciliation is to be unsettled. It is from that place that we can all meet and work on a different set of ideas than colonization.
- Settlers need to make the first move. Still with the idea of emotional equity, it is important that settlers make the first move in a reconciliation initiative. Indigenous people cannot be expected to be the ones to make it easy for everyone to do reconciliation. Settlers must make the first moves, and must do so in all the vulnerability and fear that comes from making the first move. Do something, do it badly, be open to learning and keep going.
- Reconciliation is a verb. The right term is “reconciling” because we aren’t ever going to acheive a place wher ethe world is reconciled. It is an ongoing project. If the project of the last 150 years was about creating a Canada where there were once only dozens of nations, perhaps the project of the next 150 years should be about figuring out how to make a country possible that reconciles the interests, duties and obligations of it’s history and privilege with the results of the colonization that enabled that privilege. There is no certain answer, but I have faith that together we can create a place that is better than either of us can do separately.
- Its about relationship. The reason why Canada has to confront the horrible legacy of colonization is that Canadians entered into and then promptly forgot the nature of the relationships that were set in place by the laws and policies of 1763. In that year King George proclaimed that nations west of the Atlantic watershed needed to be dealt with as nations, and according to the rule of law. That proclamation, recognizing the importance of relationship over domination, became the basis for all Aboriginal law in Canada and is still to this day the standard upon which adherence to the rule of law is applied. All Canadians are born or move into a relationship with indigenous people and the relationship is direct, personal and beneficial. Reconciliation needs to restore this sense of mutual dependancy and correct the balance.
I will be hosting conversations on reconciliation at Canada Day commemorations on (Nexwlelexwem) Bowen Island this year with my friend Pauline Le Bel, who is running a series of interesting events this year called “Knowing Our Place” about the relationship of Bowen Islanders to the Skwxwu7mesh Nation and to our At’lkitsem (Howe Sound). If you’re on Bowen, join us. If not, host your own and think about why reconciliation matters to you.
While we are known as a country of tolerance and peace, and we largely are, there is a longstanding thread that runs through our history and right into our present that claims a kind of Eurocentric supremacy, and it has its impact against immigrants, indigenous people and people of colour who were born here.
In the Red Deer story a group of high school kids are punished for fighting, in an incident that involved Syrian refugee kids and others. The response was a protest against the Syrian kids, because some people believed that the Syrian kids were getting different punishment for their role in the fight. That wasn’t true.
However that did not stop some of the more seedy xenophobes and dogwhistle racists from getting their voices heard on the matter, and the Euro-centric white supremacy thread again surfaced. Consider this quote from Steven Garvey who organizes against Muslims:
“Who we are as a people, as a country, as a heritage, it’s all getting pushed aside and if we don’t stand up for us as a people, as our country, we’re going to lose it,” Garvey said. “We welcome people coming to our country, but they have to integrate into our society. It’s not about accommodating their values.
“It’s about standing up for Canadians, our freedoms, our civil rights and our liberties. And some of these cultures that are coming are incompatible with our own.”
Garvey’s voice is not at all unusual, and the sentiment is not at all uncommon. Many non-indigenous Canadians, if you ask them, will tell you that immigrants should integrate into their idea of society, and that we should not accommodate their values, and that our own laws and cultural practices should be respected, as if this has been going on from time immemorial on this continent.
And of course this begs two questions. First is, where were you from 1500 until now? Because without having done exactly this to the tens of millions of indigenous people here, there would be no basis for a man of immigrant European heritage to claim that his particular set of values is “Canadian” and therefore supreme in this place.
The second question is “which values?” which is a question that Kellie Leitch has spun into a dog whistle political campaign to attract racists and xenophobes to her leadership bid for the Conservative Party. Those that voted for her are now members of that party, and despite the results of the leadership race, they will remain members of that party unless they quit.
The question of “which values?” is totally confounding in a country as big and diverse as Canada. We have a Constitution, and that’s as close as it gets to a collective expression of values. The Constitution dictates the legality of our laws. Break the law, you’ll be punished by the courts. So we already have a mechanism for doing what Garvey says we should be doing.
Except he’s not saying that our current rule of law is good enough. He and others like him want to pick and choose what Constitutional rights apply. For example, he wants to exercise unfettered freedom of speech but he would like a limit of the freedom of religion – his organization is called the Worldwide Coalition Against Islam, after all. I suspect that he values the ability to freely associate or have access to equality before the law, but I’ll bet he quibbles with the protection of Aboriginal rights as defined by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. All of those rights are equally protected in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Justice demands that Canadians uphold and live by this Charter, something we’re not always very good at.
So what does he really want? Garvey’s ideas – that are readily shared by many with the merest of prompting across this country – are not fundamentally Canadian. They are not compatible with our Constitution or the laws we have set in place to help everyone who lives here get along.
Worse they are a perfect example of the ongoing imposition of a colonial mindset on the Canadian psyche. Canada is not a “nation-state.” this is not a country that is composed of a single nation of people with a shared history, language and set of values and standards. There are many many expressions of what it means to be Canadian and they are allowed within the framework of the laws we have made to try to balance rights and responsibilities. The shadow of the colonial violence that sought to erase indigenous cultures and laws is that the colonizers somehow became the victims. It isn’t true. Colonization still proceeds apace, and Euro-centric racism and xenophobia drives the seedier parts of the civic conversation on immigration policy.
Bigots like Garvey should not be left unchallenged as long as news outlets like the CBC see fit to give his ideas daylight.
It is both our right to do so, and our responsibility.
Yesterday I spent most of the day honouring people who have worked for decades to preserve and grow the Skwxu7mesh language. I’m on the advisory board of an organization called Kwi Awt Stelmexw, which supports Skwxumesh language learning and fluency. Kwi Awt Stelmexw translates roughly as “everyone who is here in the present moment” meaning ancestors and descendants. It is for these people that we are all doing our work.
There are only a handful of fully fluent Skwu7mesh speakers currently. When I say a handful, I mean 7. My friend Khelsilem has been ramping up fluency capacity with an immersion program at Simon Fraser University and we are now about to witness the graduation of that first cohort of 14 people who are well on their way in their fluency journey.
Yesterday Khelsilem hosted a ceremony to honour everyone who had done so much to keep the language alive, and who had brought us to this point where we can build a fluent future.
During the ceremony yesterday several speakers shared their thoughts and a few powerful images came to mind. Chief Ian Campbell talked about the return of the herring to our inlet, Atl’kitsem (Howe Sound) which has signalled a shift in the story that people have about this place. People are beginning to harvest herring eggs again using the old practice of placing cedar or hemlock bows in the water and allowing the herring to spawn on them
I reflected that alongside the return of the herring comes the return of the language. Just in the last five or six years as we have seen numbers of these fish increasing, we have also seen the use of the Skwxw7mesh language increasing as well. It is as if every herring is a word and every language learner is one more bough placed in the water upon which the language can spawn.