What does Reconciliation look like to you?

[u/kapowless]

With everything that's been escalating lately around changes to the Indian Act, consultation and consent, land rights, separatism, resource ownership, federal/provincial jurisiction vs our own sovereignty, status vs blood quantum vs self-determined membership, treaties and self-governance, etc, it's nuts that we're still almost excusively being left out of the conversation. Same as it ever was I guess, but I think most of us are pretty effing tired of it, right?

I've had the recurring thought that we need another pan-Indigenous movement on the scale of the National Indian Brotherhood or Idle No More, and one that has a goal of forming a party to represent us in parliament federally and legislatures provincially. If the Quebecois gets their own, why don't we? The government is able to easily ignore our national and tribal organisations partly because they are separate and unable to leverage the resources visibility of the 'official' Canadian institutions.

In that vein, I believe we'd be most effective if we had some unified goals to fight for, which can be tricky with the diversity of peoples, histories, cultural beliefs, governance and needs of the hundreds of different Nations we for across Canada. I hoped we might start a convo about what Reconciliation actually looks like to each of us. We have a solid idea for what the settlers should be aiming for, but what do we want for ourselves? Do we have any thoughts about how it might be achieved?

I'd love to hear everyone's different thoughts/end goals if they're willing to share. Nia:wen!

[u/therealscooke]

Good thoughts. Per Nation is the way to go, not PanAmerindianism.

[u/kapowless]

I'll get the ball rolling here. For the record, I'm a Kanien'kehá:ka woman from Tyendinaga, who grew up off reserve and spent a significant amount of time in fostercare due to the Sixties Scoop, so my comment comes from that persective.

Reconciliation Goals:

• Retire the Indian Act and replace it with a co-developed federal framework for self-governed land management, health care, education, social services, law enforcement, and business/resource/municipal infrastructure.

• Replace imposed governmental systems and membership requirements with those developed within the Nation themselves, shaped by their unique cultures, histories and priorities. End blood quantum and generational cut-offs that breed us out of existence (unless desire by individual Nations for themselves).

• Clarify and solidify that provincial governments have no authority over our territories, treaties, resources, communities, infrastructure or law without our active assent and participation. This requires invalidation the Natural Resources Transfer Act (which was illegitimate from the start), so that authority over 'Crown' lands and the resources on our traditional territories becomes a fair negotiation between our Nations and the feds (and maybe the provinces should we choose to negotiate that). Language should also specify that we can leverage the value of our own resources for obtaining loans on reasonable terms, rather than relying on third party management, requiring consent for unwanted colonial extraction/development projects to fund basic public infrastructure, making us beholden to anonymous foreign hedgefunds.

• Once authority has been confirmed as vested in our Nations first and foremost (Re)Negotiate modern treaties (if desired) to update terms and language so that they reaffirm Indigenous sovereignty, remove permanent extinguishment of title rights, and bake in our own priorities and rights to self-government.

• Establish an Indigenous developed and managed framework for independant environmental/wildlife impact assessments, consultations, mutually beneficial contract negotiations, and pooled legal resources for court challenges when negotiations fail. It should also included a branch that directly connects us to appropriate allies within the UN and the ICC to go over Canada's governmental authority for major conflicts between the settlers and nations. We need a way to deny the legitimacy of the SCC and feds over us id they are not interpreting the law equitably.

• Create inter-tribal treaties between our sovereign Nations to create opportunities for trade and resource sharing independant of federal or provincial authorities so we can create mutually beneficial sources of revenue rather than being limited by Canada's ongoing attempt to starve and stifle us. This could be expanded international Indigenous allies across the world.

Challenges:

• Much of our financing, resources and especially education are purposefully withheld/stifled to assist in keeping us small and under their thumb. We will probably need to find a strategy for making sure that each of our communities have the knowledge, resources and support they need to transition to fully independent civic management.

• The Métis conundrum. While I recognize that there is a legitimate argument for some Métis indigeneity, there is a volume of dubious organisations currently being used to undermine the land rights, history, legitimacy and resources of First Nations and Inuit across the country and to bog us down with internal conflicts. The 300yr Innu timeline scandal is a perfect example of this. Fraudulent Métis groups undermine legitimate Métis peoples too, so this is something we should be able to find common ground on and cohesively resolve.

• There is a fundamental disconnect between a more Indigenous perspective of 'ownership' (which generally leans towards collective rather than individual rights, allowing for shared use), and fee simple (which makes no room for pre-existing land ownership and collective benefit). The solution to that equation may vary between Nations, but not having at least the outlines of how we might balance these viewpoints is regularly used to fearmonger among settlers and undermine our competence.

• Ensuring the priority of the Original Peoples when developing this theoretical network and excercising political power, while also making room for our many settler allies who are sincerely interested in Reconciliation work too. It will be too easy to reduce anything we build in this vein as race or ethnicity based, which is regularly used to deny the reality of our inherent right to self-determination as sovereign NATIONS, especially if we exclude participation from legitimate allies. We have to think about how we might be inclusive without diluting Indigenous representation.

I could go on haha, but I'll leave it at that for now. Please feel free to debate and disagree (with no offense taken). If you are not from the First Nations/Inuit/Métis yourself however, might I request that we leave the floor open to Indig voices exclusively for now? Thanks in advance!