As we approach Treaties Recognition Week, after last month’s HWDSB 2024 Walking Together Challenge (details to follow), we must hold critical space for a moment of pause, prayer, and reflection. On Monday morning, November 4, 2024, both Indian Country and Canada lost a most notable figure,  Murray Sinclair , Ojibway name Mizanay (Mizhana) Gheezhik, a member of the Peguis First Nation, Treaty 1 Territory and raised on St. Peter’s Indian Reserve.  

An Anishinaabe man, father and grandfather, Murray Sinclair was also a lawyer, judge, active listener, and advocate. His work led him on many paths towards justice for Indigenous Rights, Human Rights, Education, Reconciliation and with an emphasis on healing the damaged relationship between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Peoples in Canada.   

In his recent 2024 publication and oral telling, Who We Are : Four Questions For a Life and a Nation (goodminds.com), Sinclair shares his story and the story of a nation. Drawing upon Indigenous ideologies and worldviews in shaping four fundamental questions – Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Who Am I? — Who We Are examines the roles of history, resistance and resilience in the pursuit of forging a path for all Canadians, as Justice Sinclair “takes readers into the story of his remarkable life, while challenging them to embrace an inclusive vision for our shared future”. 

Although our nations are saddened by the loss of the Honourable Murray Sinclair, Mazina Giizhik, and while we realize that only 3 out of the 94 Calls to Action that came from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report, had been accomplished and witnessed by him in his lifetime, his legacy will and must continue. Reconciliation is a journey and “education is the key to reconciliation…Education got us into this mess and education will get us out of it” (Senator Murray Sinclair, 2015). 

Over the past month beginning on September 30th, Orange Shirt Day and National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, all Education Centre staff and the Board of Trustees were invited to participate in the ‘HWDSB 2024 Walking Together Challenge’, in which individuals and/or department teams were tasked with completing a 17 kilometer “walk and roll”. Throughout the month of October and leading up to Treaties Recognition Week, they were also encouraged to use 17 as an anchor to deepen their professional learning and capacity building on Indigenous Education and Restorative Indigenous Educational Wellness by engaging in 17 articles, 17 texts, 17 pod casts, 17 facts, etc. The significance of 17 kilometers is that it represents the distance from the Mohawk Institute Residential School to Chiefswood Park, the distance that many children, or inmates, would have journeyed home.  Staff were invited to financially contribute to a survivor-led initiative, Mohawk Village Memorial Park, as they work together to transform a space of harm to one of intergenerational healing.   

System Leaders also engaged in a Silver Covenant Chain Activity, to enable them to reflect on their personal and professional commitments to mobilizing Indigenous Educational Wellness and Reconciliation in their own spheres of influence.  In Mohawk, Silver Covenant Chain translates into Teyontatenentshónteron (We are connected by our arms), which symbolizes the importance of linking our arms together in a common cause to create strength through unity.  As we approach the 10th year anniversary of the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report and 94 Calls to Action, we continue to reflect on and renew our commitments. 

At HWDSB, we continue our journey of reconciliation, grounded in peace, friendship and respect, while working alongside the Indigenous Education Circle (IEC), Indigenous Education Department (IED) and the local Indigenous community and host nations, to honour Indigenous Peoples, the original agreements, treaty rights and treaty relationships. 

November marks three steps on this journey: we welcome and recognize Treaties Recognition Week (November 4 to 8), as well as Indigenous Veterans Day (November 8) and a contemporary celebration, Rock Your Mocs (November 15).  Below is a message created with the Indigenous Education Department, in the spirit of fostering positive relationships with Indigenous communities. 

In 2018, the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation (MIRR) announced that Ontario has designated the first full week of November as Treaties Recognition Week.
 

The MIRR Treaty Awareness campaign is an opportunity for Indigenous Peoples and Treaty Partners to teach and learn about the historic agreements, that were meant to be the foundation for the ongoing relationships.   

A treaty is a legally binding nation-to-nation agreement – for example, Indigenous Nations and Crown – that sets out the rights, responsibilities and relationships between the Indigenous Nations of these lands, and the federal and provincial governments on behalf of the Crown. 

Treaties can only be made between nations, and, Indigenous nations continue to practice the five pillars of nationhood criteria, which include: language, distinct culture, ways of practicing a common belief system (ceremony), sovereign form of governance and ancestral relationship to land/territory. 

Treaty agreements between Indigenous Nations and the Crown were based on eternal peace, friendship and respect. 

As Indigenous Peoples and Canadians, we are all Treaty People. We have a shared responsibility to learn about a complex history that will inform today’s relationships. Learning about the history of treaties and their original intent helps everyone to identify those parts of the relationships that require attention for healing and restoration. 

As educators, it is important that we honour treaty week by presenting the contextualized truth about treaties. Many treaties were broken, ignored, and displaced by colonial legislation that include but are not limited to the Indian Act, the imposition of provincial hunting and fishing laws that impacted ancient practices for self-sufficiency. The treaties were made in agreement as partners, but the legislation predicated the genocide that was revealed in the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Final Report by Justice Murray Sinclair. 

The Indigenous Education Department (IED) within HWDSB acknowledges that the implementation of Treaties Recognition Week lessons and activities is a crucial step toward emphasizing the often- overlooked truth, in Truth and Reconciliation (see Education for Reconciliation, Calls to Action #62-65) . 

We anticipate educators will engage with our tool for maintaining proficiency in Indigenous Education.  We call them the 3 As; accuracy, authenticity and accountability to both the Indigenous and treaty partner community.   

This can be a difficult part of this journey. What can be more humbling, is the self-efficacy that we engage in when we learn the truths and realities of how the Crown directly impacted Indigenous communities by not honouring the treaties and agreements.  We have the opportunity to correct the perspective that many of us were taught from. We have a responsibility to unlearn the distorted truths that we were taught and relearn and reaffirm the treaties in an honest and reconciliatory way. 

We honour and celebrate our Warriors who continued their duty to protect our villages. When great conflict arose overseas, they answered the call as allies.     

Indigenous peoples never surrendered nationhood sovereignty and therefore, were not recognized as Canadian citizens during World War I and World War ll, and served as allies of the Crown. This means that they could not be conscripted (drafted) to serve. Every Indigenous soldier that served in both Great Wars, volunteered.  

Many were enfranchised as a result, meaning that they were stripped of their legal right to be registered as a status Indian. These veterans could not return to their home communities to live as they were no longer band members. 

Others, who maintained their Indian status, were not legally eligible to purchase and/or own (off-reserve) land. It was illegal for status Indians, including veterans, to purchase the lands that they fought to protect. 

If they attempted to purchase land, the authorities were called to inform them of the consequences, which included jail (Forgotten Warriors by Loretta Todd – NFB). 

Lands such as Ipperwash that were ‘borrowed’ for military purposes under the War Measures Act, to date, have not been returned to the host Nations.   

We remember Indigenous Veterans, Warriors who served during the American Revolution, the War of 1812, World War l, World War ll. Many Indigenous soldiers volunteered on either side of the imposed border (Jay Treaty). We also acknowledge that many served during other conflicts including Iraq, Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. 

Locally, Mississaugas of the Credit holds the distinction in Canada, of being the community who had the highest number of volunteers per capita. Every man who could, served during World War l and World War ll. 

Recently, a Six Nations woman received an honour when an elementary school in Brantford was renamed Edith Monture Elementary School. She served in the first World War as a U.S. Army Nurse. 

On November 8, 2024, please take the time to honour and remember Indigenous veterans, families, communities and nations. The only way that we can truly engage in reconciliatory practice, is to learn the truth, then we know what we are reconciling. 

• Honouring Indigenous Veterans 

• Indigenous Veterans, Veterans Affairs Canada 

• History, Veterans Affairs Canada 

Moccasins 

Watahkwah’ón:we (Kanyen’kehá:ka – Mohawk translation) 

Makazinan (Anishinaabemowin – Ojibway translation)  

Rock Your Mocs emerged out of a social movement among Indigenous nations from our southern relatives as an opportunity to celebrate the protection and resurgence of our distinct and diverse Indigenous cultures. We are still here. We will always be here. 

Rock Your Mocs is a virtual intertribal – meaning it welcomes members of all nations to wear Makazinan/Watahkwah’ón:we with pride. Participants are invited to take pictures and post to social media with the hashtag, #ROCKYOURMOCS.   

We understand that there are concerns about cultural appropriation. If treaty partners choose to wear their moccasins, we encourage teachers and parents to have conversations about cultural appropriation vs. cultural appreciation in their classrooms and at home; we emphasize eternal peace, friendship and respect. 

We invite everyone to wear a turquoise ribbon (robin egg blue) to represent the strength in unity that we celebrate across Turtle Island. Educators can also use the page from the Group of 6 Colouring Book to create a classroom display.   

The Moccasins that we wear on our feet tells a story of how we still walk gently on Mother Earth, how our Ancestors still guide us, and how we always have and always will, belong to the Earth. 

We encourage Indigenous Peoples and treaty partners to consider how we will walk forward and continue our journey towards Reconciliation and Restorative Indigenous Educational Wellness. 

• Rock Your Mocs  

• Group of 6 – Indigenous Education Sharepoint (Internal document)