Land, Peoples, Justice:

A Manifesto

A spectre is haunting Turtle Island/ Canada: the spectre of justice, justice for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples and for the land on which every one of us depends.

We are all treaty people. Therefore the outcome of this haunting, now and in the months ahead, can benefit (or damage) us all.

The haunting takes many forms: dignified, heart-wrenching, humorous, individual and collective tributes to the courage and creativity of these peoples and their ethical allies elsewhere in Canadian society.

The haunting is non-violent and amazingly patient but aimed unerringly at the diseased, contagious, guilt-ridden core of colonialism.

At the heart of the haunting is the settler-state’s evasion of its treaty obligations and of the implications of its racist policies.

Canada’s history hurts, but it hurts most those who have the best record in respecting the land, honouring its gifts, and ensuring we sustain those gifts even as they sustain us.

The evasion of responsibility is intensifying at the very moment when it should be replaced by generosity, good faith, and prompt remedies for centuries of treachery and abuse.

Reconciliation stops short of the redistribution of opportunity and reward.

Greed and recklessness cannot be allowed to delay justice and endanger the future.

Justice seekers of our land unite!

At this moment in history, when the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is so prominent in public consciousness, the Humanities Research Unit at the University of Saskatchewan aims to contribute to and stimulate further debate and connectivity around title to and stewardship of the land in what claims to be a postcolonial country.

This initiative builds on the 2013 conference at the University of Saskatchewan on Cultures of Reconciliation: Academic, Artistic, Activist and aims to assist in achieving a number of the commitments made by the University, and other universities and organizations across Canada, to the creative and just realization of the promises of the treaties and of the potential in all of us for living together in a good way.   

- Len Findlay