(Photo: Ambre Giovanni)
Ten years ago, on June 2, 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report was tabled with 94 calls to action. Much has changed over the past decade. The Canadian public is increasingly informed about the issues affecting Indigenous communities across Turtle Island.
But there’s also a backlash in the face of challenges exacerbated by climate change, the consequences of which are amplified by human action.
Not only that, but we’re also witnessing a big step backwards south of the border, through daily attacks on human rights. It’s fair to say that, in recent years, a great social experiment has been taking place.
Ten years ago, thanks to a generous economy and a stable relationship with our U.S. neighbours, Indigenous rights became increasingly important in politics and among the population.
Back before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded its work, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was invited to make a formal apology on behalf of Canada for its role in establishing and operating residential schools.
From then on, there was growing recognition of the colonial role Canada played in unceded territories inhabited by nations with their own languages, political systems, family structures and so on.
This showed itself through compulsory sedentarization on reserves, followed by the forced school enrolment of children under the hand of the churches, but with the help of government. These school systems were designed to “kill the Indian in the child.” It wasn’t because they wanted what was best for the children, but because Indigenous Peoples were getting in the way of the economy.
Like the caribou that are put in pens by government today because they impinge on the forest industry’s interests, we, too, once stood in the way, and the government put us in enclosures.
Lately, especially with the pressure of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war, we’re feeling this more and more as Canada seems to be building its own “drill baby drill” movement.
Listening to the news, I’ve been feeling what I felt during the Harper government when I got involved in the Idle No More movement. We were calling on women to protect water in the face of a “mammoth” bill that was destroying one of Canada’s oldest water protection laws to facilitate the passage of pipelines across the country.
This preceded the tabling of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report.
I remember those years well, because the work I had done in mobilizing social networks was extremely useful in the role I was to obtain as social media manager for the Quebec event and the final event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Ten years later, after all the apologies and the work of reconciliation between our nations, I can feel the return of the pressure that used to be part of everyday community life: the “café-croissant consultation.”
In those days, the modus operandi for saying you’d “consulted” Indigenous communities was often to arrive in the community and meet the band council with coffee and pastries, talking about anything and everything without promising anything. Afterward, projects would be developed, and they would say the communities had been consulted.
The government has a duty to consult Indigenous communities. The latter are mobilizing their power to protect against extractive projects throughout Canada.
Recall how the Wet’suwet’en used their ancestral rights toprotect their territory and build a smokehouse across the pipeline route, or when they confronted the RCMP with dancing as they dragged a woman away. (These images shocked us in 2020).
Even today, in Quebec, forestry projects are being pushed forward with the government’s forestry reform and energy bill.
Next door, the Ford government’s Bill 5 — the “Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act” — was delivered without authorization from the Chief and councillors of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug community. It lays out a path to “expand Ontario’s mining capacity.”
Indigenous rights are also topical in Alberta, particularly in discussions around the idea of separating from Canada. Chiefs have reminded the government and people in the province that treaties have been signed, and that if they don’t like being part of these territories, they are welcome to leave.
The federal government’s Bill C-5 — intended to reduce interprovincial trade barriers and speed up infrastructure projects — also threatens the right to consultation, which is recognized in the Canadian Constitution and Supreme Court of Canada rulings.
The next few years will tell us whether this reconciliation was signed with invisible ink or not.
We’ll no doubt be hearing less about reconciliation and more about economic reconciliation, the same threat that for years has translated to, “Either you sign and you’ll get money, or you don’t sign, you’ll get nothing and we’ll do it anyway.”
Will they eventually wear us down?
I’m curious to see the mental gymnastics that will be used.
I’m curious to see how Indigenous Peoples will be able to unite and protect themselves against the wendigo economies that want to devour them and their children’s future.
Now that I’m dusting off my red pen from a decade ago, the stakes are more serious. Back then, I was motivated by my community, but now what drives me is the need to leave my children an ability to exist and enjoy the same land their ancestors have had the privilege of treading since time immemorial. I want to ensure my children and grandchildren and their children and grandchildren can continue to live well on these lands.
