Literary reconciliation

that “it’s really important that Canadians, no matter how old they are, know the true history of this country.”

Teachers will be trained to decolonize their practices, centre Indigenous pedagogy and appropriately integrate the 4 Rs of education: relevance, reciprocity, respect and responsibility. Shafqat finds there is more reciprocity in teaching methods in these classes, where everyone is learning together.

Although the course is dedicated to improving English language competencies, it’s also an opportunity to delve into historical and contemporary Indigenous issues. In Shafqat’s experience, teachers give students more space to absorb this difficult part of Canadian history.

“There is a focus on the harsh histories but there’s also a focus on Indigenous joy and resurgence, talking about the success of our people across the country,” explained Shafqat. “Some issues that come up, for example, will be the Mi’kmaq fishing dispute on the east coast or Grassy Narrows – I know in my class last year we talked about the Kanesatake Resistance or Oka Crisis.”

After the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report seven years ago, school boards across Canada began slowly addressing its call to action for “age-appropriate curriculum on residential schools, treaties and Indigenous peoples’ historical and contemporary contributions a mandatory education requirement for kindergarten to Grade 12 students.”

Next September, Ontario will launch a mandatory social studies curriculum being developed for Grades 1-3, which includes an introduction to the residential school system and the Indigenous relationship to the land. Indigenous issues are already part of the curriculum in Grades 4-8 and 10, including mandatory learning on residential schools in Grades 8 and 10.

Indigenous content in other provinces can vary, depending on what material teachers choose. Before the Quebec government budgeted $19.4 million in November 2021 to support reconciliation in education, the First Nations Education Council (FNEC) struggled to keep up with teacher requests about Indigenous issues.

Most of the funding is allocated to updating content, aligning history and culture curricula with the truths of First Nations in the school’s region. Along with $4 million to update books and teaching software to reflect modern Indigenous realities, the FNEC helped overhaul outdated teacher training.

“We’re building the foundation for tomorrow so we’re focusing the curriculum modernization efforts on youth at the elementary and high school level,” FNEC director general Denis Gros-Louis told the Nation at the time. “We offered the minister our best advice to create a competency about understanding First Nations and Inuit communities.”

While Gros-Louis was optimistic at the time, by last fall’s provincial election campaign he lamented in a Montreal Gazette op-ed that “efforts to decolonize the Education Ministry’s pedagogical curriculum have all gone largely unanswered.”

Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville unveiled his priorities January 26 to fast-track training, renovate schools and hire more teachers, the FNEC saàys he neglected to address systemic barriers for First Nations students.

“Weak collaboration on the development of Indigenous educational content in the new Culture and Citizenship in Quebec course and the adoption of Bill 14 [which enforces stricter French language use in education] are clearly the results of a lack of consideration of First Nations in educational matters,” stated Gros-Louis in a press release January 31.

While Quebec’s history curriculum has been criticized for ignoring Indigenous impacts, revelations in the last few years forced the government to admit its content regarding residential schools is deficient.

After the TRC report, the Cree School Board launched a full curriculum review and added a new study unit on residential schools in 2020-21. The material could be a valuable resource for other school boards, particularly an extensive toolkit that focuses on non-Indigenous teachers.

“It’s something that needs to be put into the history programs across Canada,” CSB instructional services coordinator Sherry Weistche, who helped develop the new curriculum, told the CBC. “We have to help them to understand where we’re coming from – but they need to listen.”

Kahnawake remembers Billy Two Rivers

Former wrestler, activist and political leader Billy Kaientaronkwen Two Rivers passed away February 12 in Kahnawake at the age of 87. Multiple acquaintances remembered him as hugely influential and “larger than life.”

Two Rivers gained fame as a professional wrestler, turning heads with his Mohawk haircut, leather jacket, beaded vest and regalia. From his debut in Detroit in 1953 at age 17, he moved on to the National Wrestling Alliance along the Atlantic coast before spending six years in England. Travelling across Europe, Northern Africa and even Japan, he viewed himself as an ambassador for all Indigenous people.

“He was very, very wellknown and he was always the good guy,” said Joe Delaronde, spokesperson for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake. “If you go back to the 1950s and 1960s, Native people were kind of an afterthought and here you had a real live Mohawk person doing very well in that business. He was great, he made us look good.”

Two Rivers was inducted into the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame and served as the curator for a First Nations wrestlers section called “War Chiefs of the Mat.”

“He was renowned around the world,” said Kyle Zachary from Kahnawà:ke Peacekeepers and a pro wrestler himself. “He told me to always give back. No matter where you go in life, always come back to your community.”

After retiring from wrestling in 1976, Two Rivers entered the political ring and was elected chief at the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake in 1978. He served on council until 1998.

“I wrestled for 24 years and then I wrestled for 20 years in council,” Two Rivers recalled last June. “That was rougher wrestling than anywhere else.”

Alliance confronts miners in Ring of Fire

Quebec’s largest education union says Quebec is ignoring the needs of school support staff in Northern Quebec

Concerned that the Ontario government is providing “easy access” to their homelands, four First Nations in the so-called Ring of Fire formed an alliance in late January to demand that Premier Doug Ford end the “free entry system” for miners in their communities.

The First Nations concerned about mining development in the carbon-rich peatlands known as the Breathing Lands include Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), Wapekeka, Neskantaga and

Asubpeeschoseewagong

Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows)

First Nations.

“Ontario continues to allow mining exploration companies to stake claims on our land against our will,” said Grassy Narrows Chief Rudy Turtle. “Our land and our people have endured too many impacts from industry already. We cannot bear any more.”

Turtle said that since Ford became premier, mining claims in the territory had quadrupled, most seeking gold. Turning the region into a mining hub was central to Ford’s re-election platform last year, touting the “critical minerals that the entire world is after.”

Experts question optimistic estimates of the minerals’ value and whether they’re worth the cost of reaching them. Not only is it the world’s second-largest intact peatland complex, but building access roads and other infrastructure would cost billions of dollars.

“These are the world’s lungs, and rampant mining development could not only destroy this globally critical carbon sink but release its huge store of carbon and escalate climate change further into catastrophe,” read a joint letter from five Chiefs to federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault last year.

US commits $580M to water claims

The United States Department of the Interior announced $580 million in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Reclamation Water Settlements Fund to comply with Indian water rights claims.

As of November 2021, the US recognized 34 Indian water rights settlements through Congress and had pledged $120 million a year in mandatory funding from 2020 until 2029 through the Reclamation Water Settlements Fund.

“Water is a sacred resource, and water rights are crucial to ensuring the health, safety and empowerment of Tribal communities. Through this funding, the Interior Department will continue to uphold our trust responsibilities and ensure that Tribal communities receive the water resources they have long been promised,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.