Since 2016, Ontario has marked Treaties Recognition Week, inviting people of all ages across the province to learn more about the treaties that govern the lands we live on, the relationships those treaties establish, and what our responsibilities are -- to Indigenous peoples, to the lands, and to the future of our relationships.
What is a treaty? What does it mean? If we start with the History of treaties in Ontario, we land quickly and squarely at a vast intersection of broken promises that continue to this day. As the history notes: "Despite the promise of early treaties and the mutually respectful partnerships they established, Indigenous peoples were targeted by colonial policies designed to exploit, assimilate, and eradicate them."
Learning about the history of and responsibilities and obligations embedded in treaties is a first step at disrupting colonization's continued influence and impact on the daily lives of Indigenous people: oppression has always relied heavily on maintaining ignorance both among those who are oppressed and those who tacitly approve the oppression through colonial institutions.
But increasingly, we see that forging new types of relationships must be at the core of healing our treaty bonds, and of making new commitments to uphold responsibilities that were abandoned.
“Treaties are more than written agreements, they were made with the spirit and intent of creating mutually respectful relationships, outlining responsibilities and obligations for all of us. Awareness is key to fostering an equitable relationship," states Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Reg Niganobe in a recent article launching a new public education resource.
In health care, creating awareness relies on changing the relationships between Indigenous clients/patients and non-Indigenous providers, but also in changing the relationships between Western, colonial-rooted health systems and organizations, and Indigenous health care leaders and organizations who are charting new paths for healing. Last year, we wrote on this blog about one such shifting relationship, and the steps it took to put Indigenous health in Indigenous hands across primary health care in parts of Southwestern Ontario.
The Alliance and its members continue to urge health and social system organizations and teams to engage with the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council on Indigenous Cultural Safety Training. Creating safe, welcoming and culturally appropriate experiences for Indigenous people in non-Indigenous institutions is a core tenet of many treaties, at the core of a true Nation to Nation understanding. These trainings are essential to being able to forge new relationships, among individuals, around boardroom tables, and at higher levels in government and policy-making. Make no mistake: it's all those individual relationships that add up to either a continuance of the status quo, or a break with colonization and the beginnings of truth and reconciliation.
What is a promise? What is a commitment? How do treaties impact life? Families? What's the impact on Indigenous language and culture? How have treaties changed, and how are they interpreted now? (In these videos and other places, learn from Indigenous voices and knowledge keepers.) We must choose to ask ourselves these questions, and then seek answers. Asking questions and seeking answers from Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people engaged in relationship-building is a huge key to the future of our treaty relationships. Will our future relationships be different, and based in new understandings and follow after the necessary prerequisites of un-learning and de-colonizing ourselves, our systems and our ways of relating?
We are all treaty people. Our awareness of that, what it means, and figuring out how to have new relationships based in respect and keeping promises will determine the answers we get to these questions, and what our future will be.