On May 22, members of the Tsawout (SȾÁUTW) nation, with support from the Songhees and the other local WSÁNEĆ nations, including Tsartlip (WJOȽEȽP), Pauquachin (BOḰEĆEN), Tseycum (WSIKEM), Malahat (MÁLEXEȽ) and allied supporters from the Greater Victoria community, will lead an action to reclaim the original name of PKOLS, now known as Mount Douglas, in what is now known as Victoria, in what is now known as British Columbia.
Throw a stone in the water, and ripples extend outward.
Chief Theresa Spence's Sacred Fast on Victoria Island did not produce a meaningful dialogue with the Crown and the Prime Minister, but it did produce something entirely different and more enduring: a vision.
Seventeen year old David Kawapit Jr., from Quebec's Whapmagoostui First Nation, on the coast of Hudson Bay, had the vision. In it, he saw a wolf and a bear. The wolf, he explains, is the First Nations’ peoples, and the bear is the government. Singly, the wolf is destroyed, but when the wolf is accompanied by its brothers and sisters, they can easily take down the bear.
Bill C-45 ignited Idle No More, both the moment in time and movement afterward. The moment that Idle No More signifies, though, represents a point or blip in a very long history of Indigenous people struggling to get Canada to respect Indigenous people's rights to land and water, live up to their treaty responsibilities and find their true humanity. Think about it, Pontiac’s rebellion took place in the 1700s. My ancestors have been doing their work for a long long time. Enough said on this.
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"The indigenous capacity for forgiveness and reconciliation is almost beyond belief."
Few Canadians can speak with a genuine understanding of that capacity. Dr. Marie Wilson, who sits on Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), is one of them.
In November of last year, Indigenous activists and allies from across Canada came together in Winnipeg to form Defenders of the Land, a network of Indigenous communities and activists in land struggle across Canada.
Out of this network came a call for a pan-Canadian event, Indigenous Sovereignty Week, which is now upon us. Close to 30 cities and communities across Canada (and even a few in the United States) will be holding public events from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1.
