meegwetch big wedge means thank you in a
jib way so miigwetch for being here with
all of us today now we’d like to take a
moment and ask all of you to look around
this room I know it’s dark but just just
look around look at the people next to
you now try to remember the door you
came in and before that the chilly path
that you you entered the building with
now try harder try to imagine this area
hundreds of years ago before there were
phones or computers or big glass
buildings
I know it’s likely impossible so let me
paint a picture this very spot was the
traditional home of indigenous
communities like the here on wend at the
Seneca and most recently the
Mississauga’s of the new Credit River
then as now they had laws and government
economies and trade their sacred
traditions including art and ceremonies
and stories connected them to each other
and to this land I believe that all of
us at UTSC should be part of
acknowledging our indigenous history but
not just as a history as a present and
as a future we all have a responsibility
to take action and that is what I am
here to talk to you about today today
I’d like to take you on a journey it’s a
journey that I think is so important
it’s to try to understand what it means
as non-indigenous people how to
acknowledge colonialism towards
indigenous people and how to build
better relationships and I want you to
join me on this quest now I had the
unusual privilege of growing up in
Canada’s North getting to do really cool
things like
right ski-doos and have lots of snow
days and one time even sleep in an igloo
but of all the memories I have there’s
one that stands out especially vividly
I’m gonna take you back there so it was
May 1993 almost 25 years ago my friends
and I shuffled into the weather gym of
our high school in Iqaluit sitting on
the uncomfortable wooden bleachers of
Anouk shook high school we joked with
each other as we slowly made our way
into the room getting shushed as always
by our frustrated teachers but on that
particular day instead of watching a
soccer game like we normally would we
were going to watch the Prime Minister
of Canada sign the Nunavut land claims
agreement with mu8 leaders this document
signed next to the rickety basketball
hoop created Nunavut which means our
land
Nunavut became Canada’s third territory
and a self-governing area for the Inuit
of the eastern Arctic now the land that
I stood on then as as you can see was
really different from the land that
we’re all on right now in the summer
time the land was dotted with wild
beautiful flowers and in the winter time
there were unimaginably high slopes of
snow but that land Nunavut would be led
by those whose ancestors had lived there
for thousands of years Inuit could
govern their land and their people
themselves now seeing that law signed it
made a big difference to a lot of us in
high school we were quiet maybe for the
first time ever but for me seeing that
it profoundly changed how I saw the
world now as a lawyer and as a professor
my passion is governance who gets to
decide what happens in cities
I teach city politics and
decision-making and in my classes you’ll
learn all about councillors and budgets
and elections but you’ll also learn
about treaties and about laws and you’ll
learn this through texts that are
written by indigenous authors and you’ll
even learn this from indigenous people
themselves because urban governance very
rarely includes talk about First Nations
people the First Nations people that had
governments here first and that really
bugs me because I know that so much of
the story is missing so here’s some of
the things that you would learn in my
class I’m not gonna go through the whole
thing because you know we want to keep
it light but one of the things you would
learn is that Canadian cities are in
fact where they are because of the
indigenous communities that were here
first
so the credit dawn and Humber rivers
attracted people here because of the
rich famine as a salmon fisheries and
the Rouge and the Humber in particular
were really important for trade this
trade and economic activity led to
settlements and people and Families long
before Europeans and then other people
came now in most text books about urban
government very little is ever said
about this early origin of cities but
names like Toronto and Spadina and
Mississauga and Ontario all come from
this legacy and there are other names
too this is a slide from Okemah Makana
an organization that you should all look
up that is doing really cool things to
reclaim indigenous names and history on
city spaces like billboards and street
signs right here in Toronto in fact you
would see some of these signs right now
downtown so indigenous stories are so
often missing but I am committed to
looking and today and in the future I’m
asking you to start looking for the
missing stories in your own experiences
in the places that you inhabit everyday
and you can start right here right now
here at UTSC so to acknowledge means to
be curious and open to challenging what
we think we know I think there are three
kinds of acknowledging that we can do we
can acknowledge history we can connect
learning to Aki which means land in a
Jif way and we can nurture respectful
and reciprocal relationships so we all
need to reconcile ourselves to an
important truth and the truth is that
there’s a long legacy of colonialism
that affects how we think of indigenous
people one effect of this colonialism is
on the laws that we are taught when
Europeans came to Canada they met
indigenous people with governments and
laws and land who’d been here for
hundreds or thousands of years in some
cases this land that were on was already
subject to an agreement to a to a trade
agreement long negotiated long sorted
out it was called the dish with one
spoon wampum belt covenant and this this
agreement was to share the land
peacefully now Europeans knew that
indigenous people were here and this was
reflected in many of the laws that came
afterwards including the royal
proclamation new treaties were created
between these governments and First
Nations and they were created to share
the land and the resources that were
here but settlers they didn’t really
know what it meant to share and they
didn’t follow the laws that they had
agreed to so for example UTSC
rests on top of the Williams treaty this
is an agreement that was signed between
first nations and the Canadian
government about power relating to a
huge area of land it is as meaningful as
the Canadian Constitution but very few
of us ever hear about it
UTS C’s website which you’ll see on the
screen behind you doesn’t even mention
this treaty so treaties and
relationships with colonial powers have
deeply affected indigenous communities
government decisions have meant that
indigenous people have lost a lot
children have been sent to residential
schools and families have been torn
apart indigenous people have lost their
right to fish and hunt and to access
land that was never given away First
Nations have had to spend a lot of money
trying to force the Canadian government
follow the laws that they had agreed to
now acknowledging this is really hard
for some people it’s hard for many
people some think that it was only our
ancestors who were part of this not us
others of us think that we are here too
recently for this history to be
meaningful to us and that we can’t
possibly be to blame now I have a former
student who could tell you a lot about
this she’s a first generation young
woman from Ethiopia and in one of my
classes she studied the city of
Toronto’s urban Aboriginal strategy and
through this project she interviewed a
lot of indigenous leaders and this
student had always thought of herself at
the proverbial bottom and what she
realized by doing this project is how
much privilege she had as a university
student as a newcomer and that was
amazing to see it was amazing to see her
absorb those lessons so thoroughly and
so honestly and she’s now gone on to do
a lot more work relating to
reconciliation but this is the first and
the hardest part of acknowledging and
all of us here at UTSC have a great
opportunity we have elder Wendy Phillips
who’s helping to guide the university
along the path of reconciliation she’s
teaching us tons of things that most of
us have no idea about
but we all have to take responsibility
ourselves we all need to become aware to
question what we are told is the whole
story this is a first kind of
acknowledging to see with open eyes what
is right in front of us this is a map of
the Greater Toronto area showing the
treaties that form part of this area
where is your home your family your work
which treaty are you part of a second
acknowledgment is about the land called
a key in a Jif way too many indigenous
communities the way that we understand
ownership is a deeply flawed and
problematic idea there is no single
owner that takes control of space
against all others instead a key the
land below us and above us is meant to
be taken care of for future generations
and for all beings now as a
non-indigenous person I’m trying to
shift how I see and think and feel by
paying attention to the land we’re so
blessed here at UTSC to be part of this
gorgeous area but how often do we ever
think about it so let’s imagine the land
as a core part of our learning this
isn’t easy an ash knob a legal scholar
John Burroughs says that the idea that
law can be learned from reading the land
is hard it requires practice it’s a
literacy that is very often not taught
in schools for example in my own
Department of City studies we could
transform City Planning by doing it
alongside indigenous communities what
would cities look like if they were
co-developed and co managed together our
campus here could have indigenous
languages on all of our buildings can
you imagine what that would mean if
every day we
absorbing this connection to the land
and to our indigenous history and at
minimum we could show the indigenous
history of this space on our website
it’s an easy thing to do
I believe that connecting to the land
will change how we think and I hope it
leads us to truly sharing the land with
indigenous people as our treaties as our
laws said that we should as a third way
of acknowledging let’s think about
relationships universities are
fundamentally about people so every year
at the conclusion of my classes my
students write an evaluation for me and
every single year they say that the best
part of the whole class was each other
was learning what their fellow students
had to say now I try really hard not to
take this personally but I agree because
at the end of the day it’s what the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission said
– they said that education is the key to
reconciliation but only a true and
complete experience can build the
relationships that we need to have
respectful and peaceful coexistence
between Aboriginal and non-aboriginal
people relationships were meant to be at
the core of treaties the intention was
to connect indigenous and non-indigenous
people within a nation to nation
relationship so let’s think of
indigenous people not as a news report
or an archeological relic or a cartoon
character or a character at all
indigenous people are our classmates our
teachers our colleagues they’re our
friends so for all of us here this means
noticing when indigenous knowledge and
perspectives are missing so here’s some
of the ways that you can acknowledge you
can read and listen to the many
indigenous writers poets and academics
like Haydn King and Lea miracle and
LeAnn Simpson you can connect with UTS
C’s elder Wendy Phillips and join her at
the many ceremonies and events that are
taking place right here if you don’t
know of it you can download the first
story app which gives you guided tours
throughout the city so that you can
connect better with the indigenous
history and present of our city you can
read the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission report it’s available online
just download it and read it it’s really
important and you can also ask why there
aren’t more indigenous professors that
are teaching your classes so I want to
leave you with two final points first of
all Canada’s history and story cannot be
taught in a one-sided way none of our
laws are meaningful if certain ones are
ignored this is a basic fabric of
democracy so all of us have to do
something and that something is to learn
the whole story second way more room has
to be created for indigenous voices to
be heard at UTSC and elsewhere the
indigenous history of cities shouldn’t
really be taught by me it should be
taught with someone who knows more it
should be taught with someone with an
indigenous background so this is all
just a start to acknowledging our
indigenous history but I know that we
can do it and I want you to join me
meegwetch [Applause]
jib way so miigwetch for being here with
all of us today now we’d like to take a
moment and ask all of you to look around
this room I know it’s dark but just just
look around look at the people next to
you now try to remember the door you
came in and before that the chilly path
that you you entered the building with
now try harder try to imagine this area
hundreds of years ago before there were
phones or computers or big glass
buildings
I know it’s likely impossible so let me
paint a picture this very spot was the
traditional home of indigenous
communities like the here on wend at the
Seneca and most recently the
Mississauga’s of the new Credit River
then as now they had laws and government
economies and trade their sacred
traditions including art and ceremonies
and stories connected them to each other
and to this land I believe that all of
us at UTSC should be part of
acknowledging our indigenous history but
not just as a history as a present and
as a future we all have a responsibility
to take action and that is what I am
here to talk to you about today today
I’d like to take you on a journey it’s a
journey that I think is so important
it’s to try to understand what it means
as non-indigenous people how to
acknowledge colonialism towards
indigenous people and how to build
better relationships and I want you to
join me on this quest now I had the
unusual privilege of growing up in
Canada’s North getting to do really cool
things like
right ski-doos and have lots of snow
days and one time even sleep in an igloo
but of all the memories I have there’s
one that stands out especially vividly
I’m gonna take you back there so it was
May 1993 almost 25 years ago my friends
and I shuffled into the weather gym of
our high school in Iqaluit sitting on
the uncomfortable wooden bleachers of
Anouk shook high school we joked with
each other as we slowly made our way
into the room getting shushed as always
by our frustrated teachers but on that
particular day instead of watching a
soccer game like we normally would we
were going to watch the Prime Minister
of Canada sign the Nunavut land claims
agreement with mu8 leaders this document
signed next to the rickety basketball
hoop created Nunavut which means our
land
Nunavut became Canada’s third territory
and a self-governing area for the Inuit
of the eastern Arctic now the land that
I stood on then as as you can see was
really different from the land that
we’re all on right now in the summer
time the land was dotted with wild
beautiful flowers and in the winter time
there were unimaginably high slopes of
snow but that land Nunavut would be led
by those whose ancestors had lived there
for thousands of years Inuit could
govern their land and their people
themselves now seeing that law signed it
made a big difference to a lot of us in
high school we were quiet maybe for the
first time ever but for me seeing that
it profoundly changed how I saw the
world now as a lawyer and as a professor
my passion is governance who gets to
decide what happens in cities
I teach city politics and
decision-making and in my classes you’ll
learn all about councillors and budgets
and elections but you’ll also learn
about treaties and about laws and you’ll
learn this through texts that are
written by indigenous authors and you’ll
even learn this from indigenous people
themselves because urban governance very
rarely includes talk about First Nations
people the First Nations people that had
governments here first and that really
bugs me because I know that so much of
the story is missing so here’s some of
the things that you would learn in my
class I’m not gonna go through the whole
thing because you know we want to keep
it light but one of the things you would
learn is that Canadian cities are in
fact where they are because of the
indigenous communities that were here
first
so the credit dawn and Humber rivers
attracted people here because of the
rich famine as a salmon fisheries and
the Rouge and the Humber in particular
were really important for trade this
trade and economic activity led to
settlements and people and Families long
before Europeans and then other people
came now in most text books about urban
government very little is ever said
about this early origin of cities but
names like Toronto and Spadina and
Mississauga and Ontario all come from
this legacy and there are other names
too this is a slide from Okemah Makana
an organization that you should all look
up that is doing really cool things to
reclaim indigenous names and history on
city spaces like billboards and street
signs right here in Toronto in fact you
would see some of these signs right now
downtown so indigenous stories are so
often missing but I am committed to
looking and today and in the future I’m
asking you to start looking for the
missing stories in your own experiences
in the places that you inhabit everyday
and you can start right here right now
here at UTSC so to acknowledge means to
be curious and open to challenging what
we think we know I think there are three
kinds of acknowledging that we can do we
can acknowledge history we can connect
learning to Aki which means land in a
Jif way and we can nurture respectful
and reciprocal relationships so we all
need to reconcile ourselves to an
important truth and the truth is that
there’s a long legacy of colonialism
that affects how we think of indigenous
people one effect of this colonialism is
on the laws that we are taught when
Europeans came to Canada they met
indigenous people with governments and
laws and land who’d been here for
hundreds or thousands of years in some
cases this land that were on was already
subject to an agreement to a to a trade
agreement long negotiated long sorted
out it was called the dish with one
spoon wampum belt covenant and this this
agreement was to share the land
peacefully now Europeans knew that
indigenous people were here and this was
reflected in many of the laws that came
afterwards including the royal
proclamation new treaties were created
between these governments and First
Nations and they were created to share
the land and the resources that were
here but settlers they didn’t really
know what it meant to share and they
didn’t follow the laws that they had
agreed to so for example UTSC
rests on top of the Williams treaty this
is an agreement that was signed between
first nations and the Canadian
government about power relating to a
huge area of land it is as meaningful as
the Canadian Constitution but very few
of us ever hear about it
UTS C’s website which you’ll see on the
screen behind you doesn’t even mention
this treaty so treaties and
relationships with colonial powers have
deeply affected indigenous communities
government decisions have meant that
indigenous people have lost a lot
children have been sent to residential
schools and families have been torn
apart indigenous people have lost their
right to fish and hunt and to access
land that was never given away First
Nations have had to spend a lot of money
trying to force the Canadian government
follow the laws that they had agreed to
now acknowledging this is really hard
for some people it’s hard for many
people some think that it was only our
ancestors who were part of this not us
others of us think that we are here too
recently for this history to be
meaningful to us and that we can’t
possibly be to blame now I have a former
student who could tell you a lot about
this she’s a first generation young
woman from Ethiopia and in one of my
classes she studied the city of
Toronto’s urban Aboriginal strategy and
through this project she interviewed a
lot of indigenous leaders and this
student had always thought of herself at
the proverbial bottom and what she
realized by doing this project is how
much privilege she had as a university
student as a newcomer and that was
amazing to see it was amazing to see her
absorb those lessons so thoroughly and
so honestly and she’s now gone on to do
a lot more work relating to
reconciliation but this is the first and
the hardest part of acknowledging and
all of us here at UTSC have a great
opportunity we have elder Wendy Phillips
who’s helping to guide the university
along the path of reconciliation she’s
teaching us tons of things that most of
us have no idea about
but we all have to take responsibility
ourselves we all need to become aware to
question what we are told is the whole
story this is a first kind of
acknowledging to see with open eyes what
is right in front of us this is a map of
the Greater Toronto area showing the
treaties that form part of this area
where is your home your family your work
which treaty are you part of a second
acknowledgment is about the land called
a key in a Jif way too many indigenous
communities the way that we understand
ownership is a deeply flawed and
problematic idea there is no single
owner that takes control of space
against all others instead a key the
land below us and above us is meant to
be taken care of for future generations
and for all beings now as a
non-indigenous person I’m trying to
shift how I see and think and feel by
paying attention to the land we’re so
blessed here at UTSC to be part of this
gorgeous area but how often do we ever
think about it so let’s imagine the land
as a core part of our learning this
isn’t easy an ash knob a legal scholar
John Burroughs says that the idea that
law can be learned from reading the land
is hard it requires practice it’s a
literacy that is very often not taught
in schools for example in my own
Department of City studies we could
transform City Planning by doing it
alongside indigenous communities what
would cities look like if they were
co-developed and co managed together our
campus here could have indigenous
languages on all of our buildings can
you imagine what that would mean if
every day we
absorbing this connection to the land
and to our indigenous history and at
minimum we could show the indigenous
history of this space on our website
it’s an easy thing to do
I believe that connecting to the land
will change how we think and I hope it
leads us to truly sharing the land with
indigenous people as our treaties as our
laws said that we should as a third way
of acknowledging let’s think about
relationships universities are
fundamentally about people so every year
at the conclusion of my classes my
students write an evaluation for me and
every single year they say that the best
part of the whole class was each other
was learning what their fellow students
had to say now I try really hard not to
take this personally but I agree because
at the end of the day it’s what the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission said
– they said that education is the key to
reconciliation but only a true and
complete experience can build the
relationships that we need to have
respectful and peaceful coexistence
between Aboriginal and non-aboriginal
people relationships were meant to be at
the core of treaties the intention was
to connect indigenous and non-indigenous
people within a nation to nation
relationship so let’s think of
indigenous people not as a news report
or an archeological relic or a cartoon
character or a character at all
indigenous people are our classmates our
teachers our colleagues they’re our
friends so for all of us here this means
noticing when indigenous knowledge and
perspectives are missing so here’s some
of the ways that you can acknowledge you
can read and listen to the many
indigenous writers poets and academics
like Haydn King and Lea miracle and
LeAnn Simpson you can connect with UTS
C’s elder Wendy Phillips and join her at
the many ceremonies and events that are
taking place right here if you don’t
know of it you can download the first
story app which gives you guided tours
throughout the city so that you can
connect better with the indigenous
history and present of our city you can
read the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission report it’s available online
just download it and read it it’s really
important and you can also ask why there
aren’t more indigenous professors that
are teaching your classes so I want to
leave you with two final points first of
all Canada’s history and story cannot be
taught in a one-sided way none of our
laws are meaningful if certain ones are
ignored this is a basic fabric of
democracy so all of us have to do
something and that something is to learn
the whole story second way more room has
to be created for indigenous voices to
be heard at UTSC and elsewhere the
indigenous history of cities shouldn’t
really be taught by me it should be
taught with someone who knows more it
should be taught with someone with an
indigenous background so this is all
just a start to acknowledging our
indigenous history but I know that we
can do it and I want you to join me
meegwetch [Applause]
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