 Good afternoon. So it's a great honor to introduce and perhaps more importantly to welcome home our keynote lecturer Dr. Kiera Ladner, who is a 2001 graduate of Carleton's doctoral program in political science. Dr. Ladner is an associate professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba where she held a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Politics and Governance for 10 years. In 2014, Dr. Ladner was inducted into the inaugural cohort of the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in recognition of her outstanding contributions in the fields of constitutional law and politics, federalism, Indigenous governance and Indigenous political science. The citation for that induction noted that she, quote, continues to challenge settler societies, states and universities from an Indigenous and decolonized perspective. Kiera boasts an outstanding research record as P.I. and several large-scale grants including comparative work on Indigenous constitutional politics on Australia and New Zealand, which doesn't actually explain why she's always putting things on Facebook out of Hawaii, but that's the whole other story. Knowledge creation through digital media on anti-violence and marginalized communities and a new project on creating digital archival spaces for decolonization, resurgence and reconciliation. Republications also include writings on multiple aspects of gender and indigeneity, the racialization of welfare, and she is a contributor on many occasions to public policy debates through her collaborations with, for example, the National Aboriginal Health Organization. Kiera's co-editor with Leanne Simpson of the 2010 collection entitled This is an Honour Song 20 Years After the Blockades, and is co-editor of a new and very timely collection entitled Surviving Canada Indigenous People Celebrate 150 Years of Betrayal. So I could go on with a longer recitation of her accomplishments, but given the focus of this conference on FPA, I do want to share how Kiera originally ended up at Carleton. I first heard her name in an MA admissions committee in the School of the then Canadian Studies in the other faculty, not FPA. I just want to mention that, and when one of my colleagues read out a reference letter that cited not only her fine scholastic record, but also the fact that she was a great rodeo writer. So I really sold the committee on her application because our quota of rodeo riders was a little low that year, so we thought, why not? When she arrived at Carleton in 1995, though, we quickly learned that Kiera had many talents beyond rodeo, and her at that point emerging thinking about treaty federalism would be groundbreaking. I think it's fair to say that Carleton furnished Kiera with an intellectual home that she had been seeking, one in which she established herself as a very exciting emerging creed scholar who had much to learn from, but perhaps even more to teach the discipline of political science. Her two graduate degrees from Carleton laid the groundwork for her successful and still very much unfolding academic career. For me personally, and I suspect for many in the room, Kiera influenced our thinking about decolonization, both respect to state power, the need to decolonize academic disciplines and our own classrooms, the impact of nationalisms, the limitations and possibilities of federalism, and more generally the urgency of the need to radically reorganize political relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous populations. Now Kiera always had lots to say about other things, for example the advantages of being from the prairies, the idiosyncrasies of Alberta politics, and why everyone should drive a pickup truck at some point in their life. But those are topics for another time. Instead, Kiera today will share with us her thoughts on reconciliation, resurgence and renewal, an alternate division for Canada 2042. Please join me in welcoming to the podium my colleague and friend Dr. Kiera Ladner. Hello, how are you? Hello, how are you? Hello, how are you? How are you? How are you? I wanted to just be invited to say thanks for pulling for that introduction, although maybe not the stories of rodeo that's a very long time ago. Way back the University of Calgary where they actually have a rodeo team, like who knew? And I once had a rodeo scholarship, who knew? I also want to say thanks to the organizers for inviting me back. It's wonderful to be back in Ottawa and wonderful to see the campus and see people again. I also wanted to pay my respects to the Odao, because we sit here on unseated Algonquin territory, and I think that that must be recognized and we must not only pay respect to that territory, but give good stories to that territory so that people here too have something to speak of at the end of today. It's nice to return to talking about Canadian politics. I've been spending far too much time in airplanes going back and forth between Australia and New Zealand and Canada and occasionally Hawaii, talking about how to rebuild constitutions and how to start thinking about developing a post-colonial lens to a constitution. I find this quite odd seeing how at one point I decided I was giving up my work in constitutions, kind of like I gave up rodeo for better things. I was going to go off and work in Hawaii and work with Sovereign Tis and have a bit more fun than hanging out with constitutional scholars and lawyers. I also spent a lot of time now working. My work on Canada now is really simply that of working with missing and murdered women, their families and working on a database with Shauna Ferris. And so it's nice to actually come back to my original work on Canada and to have something more positive to think about. And I really do want you to know that this is more positive than the other work that I do on Canada. Conference organizers asked me to envision and think about Canada in 25 years. The Canada we'd like to see, the Canada we dream of, what do we think Canada would be like in 25 years? I want to step back, though. I want to step back 27 years to a conference 27 years ago when George Erasmus spoke at a conference organized by the Department of the Secretary of State. A conference which was organized in 1989 to talk about what Canada should be celebrating in 1992, the year of Canada 125. Also the arrival of Columbus in the Americas. At that conference, Erasmus gave a riveting speech, much of which you can find on CBC. His riveting speech begins and ends with the same line of thought. There is not a solitary thing for Indigenous people to celebrate in Canada. Not a solitary thing. Why? Poverty. 90% unemployment rates in many communities. I'd actually go higher than the 90% rate. The death of languages, unfulfilled treaty promises and the list went on. Nothing to celebrate. He ends with a consideration that there could be something to celebrate. There could be something to celebrate if Canada decided to change. If Canada decided to address its relationship with the land, a land it acquired illegally, fraudulently. And if Canada decided to begin to deal with its relationship with Indigenous people, he warned that not dealing with these issues would lead to troubled times. Canada would no longer be just a nation defined by fights and skirmishes between its two founding nations. That these two founding nations would no longer define Canadian politics, but that Canadian politics would be defined by Indigenous relationships or the lack thereof. It's interesting. He gave the speech in 1989. He warned of worsening relationships. He warned of a thing called OKA. We're still waiting to see something to celebrate. He wanted something to celebrate. He said that he had better things to do than coming to conferences like this to be Canada's conscious. And I'd have to say, I totally agree. We have to do something and do something now. Canada has had many opportunities to change. Following that speech, as I said, we had OKA or the crisis at Ganesadagé and Ghanawagé. We've had Iprawash, we've had Bert Church, we've had Idle No More. We've had hundreds of court cases, each costing millions of dollars, some costing in the billions for Canada just to fight. And we've had reports of deaths in custody. We've had reports such as the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People and still nothing has changed. Worse, I think it's actually worse in many communities than it was 27 years ago. We have less clean water, we have less housing, we have worse education systems. Nothing has changed, it's only gotten worse. So when someone suggested what were Indigenous people going to contribute to Canada 150, when my research partner, Myer Tate, said, maybe we should do something, we kind of jumped at the opportunity and have put out a book about surviving Canada, talking really very much about what there has been to survive, but also looking forward. And we look forward on this birthday, this 150, and look towards 175, thinking that maybe, just maybe, the TRC's report a year and a half ago, maybe that will give impetus for a wake-up call. Maybe that will cause a transformation. But the problem is reconciliation post-TRC is really being discussed as this great big national hug. Let's include Aboriginal people. Let's tell them that we're sorry for everything that Canada has done. Let's bring Indigenous people into the universities. Let's hire some faculty. Let's indigenize programs. Much of this is nothing more than a great big hug. But I'm still hopeful. I'm hopeful that in 25 years' time, I won't be asked back to give the same speech. I'm hopeful that in 25 years' time, I can retire and the persons, the people that come after me will be here talking about a life under treaty where treaties are implemented. We'll be here talking about decolonization. And that decolonization isn't just a pipe dream, but it's actually happening. People will be here talking about a life lived together on a Gunkman land. Perhaps I turn to Sinclair, Chief Justice Sinclair. Pardon me, Justice Sinclair. I've just put him as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I'm sure if you'll like that appointment. It looks better than they said it, right? No one wants to abolish it. Sinclair has commented that the TRC represents Canada's midlife crisis. And it's a midlife crisis, which is calling Canada to deal with the fact that it exists on someone else's land, that it's here fraudulently. And that we need to find some other way to live together, get apart. If this is indeed a midlife crisis, I'm going to offer up my vision of what Canada should be and where we should be going for Canada at 2042. Needless to say, I acknowledge that this vision might be really one of Canada 200 or even 250, acknowledging that Canada has been very slow to move. Perhaps not even moving on the Indigenous file. I remember the words of my grandfather, which still give me hope. And he used to remind me that it took 500 years to get to this point. I think he was really talking about 1992. And while we don't have time to waste, if we really want to move forward, it's not going to be an easy 25. Or an easy 50. Or an easy 75. Or an easy 100 years forward. My vision of 2042 brings me back really to my time at Carleton. And it's interesting to come back and think about these ideas once again. We're still dealing with the same issues. We're still dealing with the fact that treaties are not being recognized. We're still dealing with concepts such as treaty constitutionalism or treaty federalism. We're still dealing with concepts rather than realities. Still dealing and thinking through issues of traditional governance and how to bring traditional governance forward. So 25 years from now, my vision is to see Indigenous languages, Indigenous laws, Indigenous governance, everywhere. To be talking and thinking through these issues in the halls of these academies. But also to be talking and thinking through these issues in our communities. Both Canada and First Nations. This vision is still a bit of a pipe dream. But I have no problem with pipe dreams coming from people of pipes. There's a bit of a glimmer of hope and that glimmer of hope is really with the Prime Minister that is talking about the TRC or the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Talking about UNDRIP, the UN Declaration. Talking about the Constitution, Section 35. And talking about the need to implement all of these. Perhaps that is the midlife crisis. Perhaps if these are actually implemented and not just talked about in the way in which electoral reform has been talked about. Perhaps we can move forward. I want to talk about a transformative vision of reconciliation. Probably something that we would never hear in the next few years. Spoken about by the likes of Trudeau. But I hope one day we will hear spoken about by him or another Prime Minister. The transformative vision of reconciliation that I offer. Really is simple. It's let's stop talking about the Indian problem and let's start talking about the Canada problem. Simple. Canada doesn't have an Indian problem. Indians, Aboriginal people, Métis, Inuit, all Indigenous people have a Canada problem. And I think Canada is one that needs to reconcile itself with its past. And if it is going to move forward and to become the nation that it aspires to be. The nation that it always speaks of being when on the international stage. The nation that Trudeau speaks about every time he walks into a community. If Canada is to become that nation, the nation like that Kimmelika and others have written about. Canada is going to have to reconcile itself with its past. Recognize that it is a colonizer. Recognize that it is a guest on Indigenous lands. And that it needs to learn how to share those lands in a mutually beneficial, mutually respectful and mutually recognized way. And I'll come back to those three momentarily. American Silent Canada is going to require finding a new way to live together. Chief Justice Lamarra, the Supreme Court, and really who was a Chief Justice, once said, probably his most hospitable boards and ways towards Indigenous people, is that we are all here to stay and we must find a way to live here together. So let's find a way to live here together. My vision is that Canada must begin this process by recognizing and dealing with legal fictions. The biggest one, the doctrine of discovery. Let's face it, written, proclaimed in 1537, the doctrine of discovery is legal magic, which is there only to justify how a group, small, very small group of white people supported by the church can take over the rest of the world. And do so lawfully. Law supported the idea that might makes right. That someone can walk into someone else's house, say that they're not really a human being, or they don't have the sufficient level of civilization, and they can take everything that belonged to that other person. And they can subjugate the people in that house and do anything to them because they're not really human beings. Let's get rid of that notion. Let's get rid of that as the basis and the foundation for Canada. It is simply illegal magic. The doctrine of discovery has really four parts. We have Terranolius, the idea that Canada was an empty land. It's been used from time to time by the courts. And we have really three pieces of the doctrine of discovery. Europeans have rights vis-a-vis other European nations simply by finding a new land that is not claimed by another European. Second, you can claim not only the land vis-a-vis other Europeans, but you can actually claim all the property that you can get your hands on, either by conquering or by negotiating treaties, legal fiction. The problem with all of this is it's really just a legal myth, a legal fiction to hide might makes right, and to hide the whole imposition of crown sovereignty. That crown sovereignty cannot be questioned because the crown, the queen, the king acquired this land honorably and justfully and lawfully. I don't know about you, but I don't think that walking into someone's house and saying that they're really not civilized is a lawful way of living life. It sure as hell isn't the way we do things in 2017. And that sure as hell isn't gonna be the way that we do things in 2042. So I think we have to do what the recent court in a decision called Silcotein, some people call it Chilcotin, but Silcotein begins this idea of walking away from the doctrine of discovery. Chief Justice said that the doctrine of discovery really doesn't apply to Canada. Also claimed that it never really did, but I think a lot of Aboriginal people might disagree with that idea. The issue is that the Supreme Court has really talked about the removal of the doctrine of discovery, but only insofar as territory is discussed. So the court is willing to recognize that Aboriginal people have Aboriginal title and areas where there's no treaty. So we have Silcotein being recognized as having title to their territory. I think it was rocket science. The reality is though the courts have not stepped back in the area of sovereignty. They may be ready to say that there is no application, the doctrine of discovery, and so far as territory is concerned, but they're sure as hell not ready to discuss the whole matter of indigenous sovereignty. Instead, they continue to use every decision that they possibly can to reinforce the idea that Crown sovereignty, Canadian sovereignty will not be questioned, that it cannot be questioned. That, my friends, is a problem. But the idea, the assumption of Crown sovereignty rests on the mere idea that indigenous people are not human beings, or that they were not sophisticated or developed enough to be rated the same. So in 2042, I think it's going to be time for the people of Canada to have found a different way of living here, to recognize that Crown sovereignty, their right to live in territory isn't actually based on some legal myth, but is instead based upon indigenous consent, is instead based upon living here in a better way, making something better, making this nation what it appears to want to be. I understand this really from the foundation of Treaty Six. That idea of how we're going to live together for most peoples has already been dealt with. So we're not actually talking about having to create something new and a foundation, a legal foundation for Canada to exist, for Canadians to be sharing the land, we have it in treaties. Treaty Six, coming off South Central Saskatchewan and South Central Alberta, gives four basic rights to Canadians. Those rights are as follows. The Queen's people have the right to live in Cree territory. They have the right, secondly, to put up fences and to use a plow blade deep of land, farming. Interesting point, they have to actually still ask Cree to cut down trees to put up fences. And they have to pay for those trees if they gain approval to cut down the trees. So there's a bit of a quagmire there. So you can put up fences, but only if you get approval. There's a right not to be molested in Cree territory and there's a right of the Queen's people to govern themselves. The Cree did not choose to govern the Queen's people. It recognized that the Queen's people would govern themselves, just as the Cree would continue to govern themselves, both in the shared lands, that which Canada likes to call the seated territory. And Cree would continue to govern themselves on those which are often referred to as schoongun, those little pieces that were kept for the Cree nation. Nope, they weren't supposed to be little tiny pieces. This vision of treaty gives a vision for Canada to live in a very different way. It gives a vision of Canada to live where crown sovereignty is not assumed. It's actually founded and grounded on the territory and on Canada's relation to what Erasmus called for. Canada's relationship to land and Canada's relationship to indigenous people. So Canada could change. This vision of Canada and of living together gives us an idea of legal and constitutional pluralism of multiple sovereign keys within the same nation. I think it also gives something that is going to be required in 25 years or even sooner. I think we need to see some scholarship on how we deal with multiple sovereign keys within the same territory. And how do we go about building and seeing beyond the state? How do we build something beyond the Westphalian project? And I think that Canada could be a leader in this manner. This gets me to my second big point in my talk. We have to think about how we live together in a different way. We have to think about this idea of sovereignty that the crown's assertion of sovereignty is wrong and that we can actually find a way forward beyond that. The second point is that we actually have to think about how we live in these shared sovereign keys. How we live with multiple sovereign keys, multiple jurisdictions. This shouldn't be rocket science either. We live in a federation. We already have many of the tools that we would need to actually start to deal with and think through multiple jurisdictions. And I'm gonna step back to work that I did on treaty constitutionalism here because I think that that still to me offers a vision forward. And it offers a vision forward because it really does start to discuss what this means for Canada. So in 2042, I would hope that we're dealing with the idea of multiple sovereign keys. And that we figured out how to deal with multiple sovereign keys using the current constitution. We acknowledge that section 9124 isn't a discussion of federal jurisdiction over Indians through which they can do anything or not do anything that they wish. And we move beyond that to talk about a federal fiduciary relationships. We look at the federal government as having the responsibility for the role or the role for determining and living that right of being here and negotiating with indigenous nations, that relationship. The Indian Act is gone so we no longer need the Department of Indian Affairs to govern every single aspect of Indians life from birth to death and beyond. Can we start to think about what do we need to make this situation of legal pluralism or constitutional pluralism multi-jurisdictional governance work? As a constitutional scholar, I would love to say, hey, let's throw out the master's tools, let's throw out the master's house and let's begin again. Let's actually talk and think about what it would mean to build a new constitution completely from the ground up. New Zealand has talked about doing this. New Zealand has recently talked about doing this in relationship with how do they deal with not only Maudi but and bring Maudi in as a partner in New Zealand, but how do they go beyond that and start to institutionalize and constitutionalize the treaty? I know as a constitutional scholar that opening up the Canadian constitution just isn't going to happen. It would be fun. I remember the last time through. I think I actually met Larry the last time through. It was my first trip to Ottawa. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun talking about Charlottetown and what we could do. Huge visions of how do we actually rethink this country? I'd love those days again, but I know I'll be having to just fly to Australia, New Zealand if I really want to live those days again, that Canada likely is not going to go down that path. So instead of thinking about a new constitution, I think we have to think about how we make the existing constitutional work. And here's where I really get back to that work on treaty constitutionalism. Section 91, 92 of the, what was the British North America Act, the Canada Act in 167, Constitution Act 1867, sets forward federal and provincial jurisdictions. We have to somehow get beyond federal and provincial jurisdictions and actually make space for indigenous nations. It's not about delegating authority. It's not about, hey, you can govern yourselves if you abide by these laws. It's not about, hey, we'll give you some money, we'll give you a budget, but you have to spend it exactly the way we want you to, but we'll call that self-government or self-administration. We have to actually get around the idea that there's two levels of governance and to start thinking about these multiple jurisdictions. So I pose, as I always have, following in the footsteps of those like Saagish Henderson to suggest that Section 35 of the constitution, which recognizes and affirms Aboriginal and treaty rights, the existing Aboriginal and treaty rights of Aboriginal people of Canada, can be read as a parallel to Section 91 or parallel to Section 92, that the treaties which do not cede indigenous sovereignty, but rather protect indigenous sovereignty that are then recognized and affirmed in Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982, that in doing that recognition, it actually gives protection to indigenous sovereignty. It actually gives constitutional protection and a right of governance within the parameters of the constitution to start thinking about indigenous sovereignty as a parallel, as having their own jurisdictions parallel and concurrent to Section 91, 92 and the concurrent jurisdictions 93 on. This is what I'm thinking about when I think about renewal. We have to renew and start rethinking the Canadian constitution in a decolonizing lens, in the lens that we think of if we think of multiple sovereignty. So if we throw out the assumption of crown sovereignty, if we throw out the assumption that Canada has jurisdiction over Aboriginal people, we're gonna need to fill it and make some space. And I think that space has already been made. So renovate, renovate the house. We can imagine that this is already being done. We had an announcement last week that Jody Wilson is heading up a committee for Trudeau with six cabinet ministers on indigenous issues. We can acknowledge and imagine that maybe self-government is being discussed in these meetings. That maybe Jody Wilson is able to educate five other ministers in Trudeau that self-administration is based upon a legal fallacy. And that negotiated inferiority will only serve to ignite indigenous people and give us nothing to celebrate. 25 years from now, I hope that we are through those discussions. And that we have at least had a few years figuring out how do we live in these multiple jurisdictions. There's gonna be some major things to deal with. We can't simply put section 35 and say, hey, this is all gonna work, great. We actually have to start thinking about how do we live together in a mutually beneficial way? That the benefits, the resources that are drawn and extracted from the lands, not only have to be consented to by indigenous peoples, but indigenous peoples should actually gain the benefit of their lands. Not only say on what happens on their lands, but the benefit of their lands. So we're gonna have to find a way to think about redistribution. That we're not talking about this discussion of handouts. Tell you, every time I hear that, oh, Aboriginal people get everything. Handouts, handouts, handouts. Let's go back and think treaty, treaty, treaty. Healthcare, treaty right, not your treaty right. Education, treaty right, not Canada's treaty right. A welfare state, a treaty right and treaty number six because people had the forethought to say that assistance must be given in times of pestilence and starvation. Treaty six, I think is a better arrangement, but that's probably because I come from there. We're gonna have to actually start to think about what those terms of treaty six mean, or those terms of treaties, or what it means to be living in unceded territory and having to negotiate a treaty with the people here. But in terms of treaty six, we can also talk about economic sustainability because that was covered in the treaty. 25 years now, we're going to have to deal with some pretty big issues, including the thing called inter-jurisdictional immunity. Inter-jurisdictional immunity and it's really about the way government's jurisdictions go together. If both governments are operating in the same area or another's laws are thought to actually be impeding the laws of government, you go to court, you take that to court, the judges deal with it. Judges have essentially cost out the idea of inter-jurisdictional immunity when it comes to Aboriginal laws and Aboriginal lands. Giving fair right to provincial governments under section 88 of the Indian Act, and I know Larry, it's a lot more complicated than that, the other constitutional scholar in the room, but we've seen the judges say, we're not dealing with this. Well, it's not for them necessarily to be dealing with and it's actually not a matter of federal or provincial jurisdiction. They're missing the point. We have to actually start dealing with federal, provincial, or indigenous jurisdiction. And how do we work out the relationship between those? We're going to have to start dealing with those issues of power and privilege. And we're also going to have to start dealing with the institutions of nations. How do we actually have a federal government or a unified government or how do we deal with shared jurisdictions and shared lands? Because as I said, Treaty Six never ceded indigenous territory. We simply said non-indigenous people are welcome, can live on those territories, can govern themselves, but the Cree will continue to govern themselves on that territory. So working on that relationship is going to take some time. And I hope that 25 years from now in my pipe dream, we're sitting and talking about those relationships. The last thing that I want to just cover very briefly is I think that which is closest to my heart. And that is about rebuilding indigenous governance. If we get rid of the Indian Act tomorrow, and oh, I wish that would happen. What are we going to do? The main question that I have had for many years is most easily understood in Cree. It's about that treaty promise and Treaty Six that's epic in it. There will not be a rope around the neck. So when we remove the rope around the nation's neck, when we remove the Indian Act from First Nations lands, when we remove the Indian Act from Skungun, that those lands that were reserved and that were supposed to be sovereign spaces of only Cree people. What do we do? I think at first we will see mostly incremental change. That incremental change is going to be a people talking about how do they govern themselves today? We're still gonna have thoughts and discussions about return to nation, a rebuilding of nation, because these bans, these First Nations, whether it's close to here in Mohawk territory, whether it's Oswego or Dianonega or Oswe... Yes, my mind is now blank. Name any community. We can go to Treaty Six. We can go to my territory. These bans are not nations. So we can talk about, and inside conversations, are going to have to talk about how do we return to nations? How do we return to clients? How do we discuss and move forward in the removal of band membership in the Indian Act? I don't think we're gonna see big change overnight. And the reason that I don't think we will see big change overnight is because Indian Act leadership is very much vested in the continuation of a similar sort of system, as is the Indian industry. And there's a huge Indian industry and half of it exists in the city. I made more money as a graduate student, consulting while finishing my PhD and consulting only several days a month than I did as a faculty member when I first started teaching. The industry here has so much vested in the continuation of a similar sort of system. I think we're gonna see this similar sort of system continue because many of the leaders are also not reading what we have our students read. They're not reading the Glenn Coltards of the world or the Simpson be that Audra or Leanne. And they're not reading Hayden's phenomenal posts and blogs about let's move and let's move now. We don't have leadership in every community that is going to be able to have the tools to move forward tomorrow. I think what we'll see is going to be sad in my books. And it's gonna be sad in my books because I think we're gonna see the Harvard school and the Harvard project take a stronger hold on indigenous communities here. For those of you that don't know the Harvard project, I urge you to look it up. It is the Indian industry wrapped up in a nutshell. It is all about the idea of good governance models that enable economic prosperity. Somehow good governance equals economic prosperity and economic prosperity is going to equal good governance. And it's gonna do so if first nations follow what they see as their guideposts. Practical sovereignty, building a system of governance that has a cultural match, effective institutions of governance, nation building leadership, and a strategic orientation. Economic, economic, economic, exploitation, exploitation, exploitation need I go on. Sad, I don't think any of the people in the Harvard project are political scientists. And none of them are really trained in indigenous political thought. And I'd go head to head with each one of them on those grounds. And I like to do so when I come across them. And we've had a lot of opportunity in New Zealand where the Harvard project basically has set up shop. Chandler and LaLonde and cases in New Zealand are really showing me as if I needed a reason. The good governance requires much more than a cultural match. Non-incremental change is still going to mean hierarchical institutions that are Western in nature that do not do anything in terms of real decolonization. And that's a huge issue. But I think that this is the route that so many will take. And so many will take because every year the Harvard project, Native Nations project, Banff Center, all whole phenomenal workshops and every chief and council goes out. This is how they know how to rebuild. 25 years time, I hope that the grassroots resurgence has really been able to engage in such a nation building activity that we're not actually talking about the Harvard project anymore. I think that we need to really move this resurgence and keep these conversations going now. And I look around the room and I know several people here are engaged deeply in these conversations. Conversations are needed in every community and in every urban space because 60 to 80% of First Nations and Indigenous people live in urban spaces and are probably never going back to the res. Why would they? Home on the res? Don't think so. We need to start thinking about how and asking questions about how do we want to live together as nations today? We have to start thinking through building governance and rebuilding governance that not only has a cultural match but is actually founded and grounded on Indigenous principles of governance. What does it mean to have consensus-based governance today? What does it mean to operate via clients or other models of governance when those models of governance have been outlawed by this country for over 150 years? Rebuilding is going to be an arduous and hellish process but it is probably the process that I am most excited by. We think what it means to be a citizen, what it means to have institutions and good governance and this is why I'm excited. I'm a constitutional scholar through and through. Thank you, Carlton. I could thank you, Miran Smith and Francois Roche but they both left Carlton but I am a constitutional scholar through and through. Well, I can't dream about changing Canada's constitution. I can dream of the day that we're actually thinking and rebuilding constitutions and training people to rebuild and rethink constitutional governance in community and that we're thinking about developing constitutions in each territory that cover an entire territory and talk about how the Algonquins on this unceded territory are going to retake power. Not as something that has to be consulted with this duty of consultation or the duty of governance that the Supreme Court has given the federal government but I'm thinking more of that nation rebuilding in a place called Odawa, this territory that clans and families are thinking about what does it mean to be Odawa in this territory 25 years from now and that they have been doing so for 25 years just as they did so for the 25 years before that and the 25 years before that because rest assured while governance has been outlawed while ceremony and languages have almost been destroyed people have been keeping them and those knowledge keepers are going to be our constitution makers. Those knowledge keepers are going to be our teachers because they are the teachers that we should be paying attention to rather than the academics like me that somehow got a degree. So 25 years from now I hope that I'm not back giving the same talk and I hope that we no longer have this Indian Act and I hope that maybe I can retire and go to Hawaii or Australia and not work. Thank you. I've always had these little books that she would carry around but so there's a few more good lectures in here. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Thank you for your thoughtful analysis of the Canada problem and thank you for your generosity in giving us a vision for 2042 and thank you in advance for taking some questions if you don't mind. So if people would please use the mics and we have about 10 or 15 minutes for questions who would like to start? Such a loud voice. Okay. What's my voice? I should be all right here. So what about forming alliances with aboriginals in Australia and New Zealand and other places? If there's continued resistance from the legal and political system in Canada would you think that that would be a natural avenue to follow in terms of putting more pressure to obtain what you mean you want? That's already been done. We have this thing called UNDRIP and UNDRIP has been there for a number of years. It had a, it began in Mi'kmaq'i at the table of the grand chief of the Mi'kmaq nation and Sagish Henderson and I've heard other stories. Wilton likes to claim that it began at his table but lots of people thought about these great things of getting together as indigenous people and indigenous people. Someone was talking today about the US being like this big mammoth one nation and all powerful. They only learned that from the British. I look at Anglo-Settler societies and with very few exceptions everyone's dealing with some of the same issues. New Zealand is a place that's getting it right. They're moving forward. Treaty, you know, treaty implementation. Treaty has to be considered and every single piece of legislation passed by the government of New Zealand. So I think that having these discussions and doing that comparative work and having people come over having us go is a fantastic way and I think that more alliances will be struck. So, yeah. Thank you for your wonderful talk and thinking. I want to share something very small with you. I am working on Bolivia and I think it will be good to discuss someday this different international experience. And in Bolivia they changed the constitution and they did a beautiful constitution because a lot, a lot. And today I cannot say that indigenous people are better. Even if the president is indigenous. But listen to you. I learned something that is going to be very important is that in Bolivia they're trying to do again a constitution, territorial constitution in the state and your proposal of having multiple sovereignty and in each nation. I think that is very, very important. And thank you. And I hope I would like to hear more about it and if you know this experience. Thank you. Bolivia blows my mind, their constitution, what they've done. But it's like South Africa. South Africa has this phenomenal constitution. Phenomenal constitution. But it hasn't really changed things. It's kind of like 1982. 1982 was, I look at 1982 and look at the dreams that were imagined and made into 1982 really without anyone knowing. Trudeau senior said, I don't know what the fuck you want. And that's a quote to Jody Wilson's father. Jody Wilson's father responded, my daughter's going to become prime minister and watch her. These are really pipe dreams. And I think that I talk great things about what the constitution could be, this vision, do I think it's gonna happen by 2042? Not the way I see it. I wish. If we started tomorrow and Canadians woke up and decided that they no longer want to be colonizers, hey, maybe we can get somewhere. But most people aren't gonna, aren't there. And even those that wake up and decide to live their life differently don't know what it means to live their life differently. So it's gonna take a long time. And these constitutions are a place to start. They're a place to start training people, talking about constitutions, talking about the TRC, talking about reconciliation. It's a place to start. And it's our job to continue talking. Are they pipe dreams? I remember being up in Darwin, past Darwin, I don't know if there's really any way that you can physically get past Darwin in Australia. But I'm up in Darwin and we have a community consultation with their expert panel on constitutional reform. And we go out of Darwin aways and there's a tin shed, dirt floor, wonderful flying cockroaches, huge frigging cockroaches. I come from the priorities, I don't like bugs. And I sit down and I start to listen to this grandmother stand up. And she's talking about the Canadian constitution and talking about what section 35 and 25 mean. And how great it would be to have section 25 in Canada or in Australia. And I thought, do you know that that's never actually worked? Section 25 is really was meant to be a shield against all other sections of the constitution to shield Aboriginal and treaty rights from abrogation and derogation from Canada. It's never worked. Supreme Court has basically, it doesn't consider. It means nothing. But here, this grandmother was talking about what it could mean and could mean if they could get something like that in Australia. I've seen grandmothers and grandfathers get up in Australia and talk about the Canadian constitution, Bolivia and South Africa. I think we have the tools in our toolbox to do something that we could decolonize the constitution. We can renovate rather than throw it out. And I think Bolivia threw it out and started again, but the issues are still there. Same with South Africa and we have to find a way to actually work through some of those issues. But how, yeah, same questions as I asked 25 years ago. I don't know. How the indigenous person wanted to wake up to be a colonizer was happy not to wait until 2042 in the introduction of the cause of the change. You're talking about what would it be like? What would you be hoping for that person to behave like? I think a lot of non-indigenous people aren't really sure what to do. I think that one of the first tasks is to start. We, Hayden raised a point earlier. I think it was Hayden that could have been anyone in the previous panel that the acknowledgement of territory are aptly worked. What does it mean to you when you acknowledge that you live in unceded Algonquin lands? So maybe the first step is to come to terms with what it means to live in unceded Algonquin lands and what the relationship should be according to the Algonquin people. So maybe it's about time for Carlton professors to take that first step and to start thinking about what does it mean to have a university or to be a university professor on that unceded territory. The previous panel was talking about that. I think that that's a really great place to start. What does it mean to transform that relationship? And I think that it's going to mean transforming personal relationships. It's going to mean supporting renewal and a resurgence within indigenous communities. And that's something that we can all actually work towards making space. My research space now with the zero budget, lovely university life, when we're all in the same boats we have big buildings and no budgets. That's your van was on strike for three weeks. You know, my space has held a, this idea of let's bring youth together and let's bring women together to start talking about constitution renewal. That can be done by anyone. You know, what people need is a parking pass, lunch, and someone who says, hey, why don't we all get together and I'll start this process and you guys can continue it. You know, we've worked with three different groups of youth through women with one and it hasn't gone exceedingly well with one of them. But, you know, we learned from that space and we learned from that time doing it and those conversations and where the youth are and where the youth want to begin with those conversations. And I think that that's maybe a place to start is making space in your own university, your own classroom and encouraging space to be provided and being an ally. You know, I work as an ally every day when I'm in Australia. You know, usually four or five times a year I'm over to Australia and New Zealand. I work as an ally, I work as an ally. My community relationships are as an ally and, you know, working on constitutional transformation there, you know, it's me as an ally, not me coming in as expert. You know, I have a lot of expertise from Canada. It's me coming in and really trying to be humble and trying to be the person that supports communities rising up. I think the other thing in that is just really trying to support your Indigenous colleagues and your Indigenous students in encouraging those process. It's hard and it's a hard thing when that comes to issues like 10 o'clock or whatnot. I am always talked about as I'm in Hawaii or used to be in Hawaii a lot. And I have no research publications out of that project. Although that project is now on quasi-hold because my couple shirk applications, I got back one that said by the committee, an interdisciplinary committee that said, one, it's not interdisciplinary research and two, we don't fund Hawaiian vacations. Sovereignty movement, working in communities. I wasn't at the beach. So I think that we have to then find a way to salvage because I had worked with communities for four years. And what does it mean to have a project that won't go? And a project that won't go because there's also relationships with the community and we're not done and we don't know when we'll be done. So things like that have to be considered. I have a question that's troubling me. I don't know North America, even though I'm from here, as well as I know Africa, where I've studied for many, many years and the quest, but the question in my mind is when can you say that land belongs inevitably to a particular group of people and that I think I'm thinking in Zimbabwe, where there were turbulence in South Africa, people came up, the Lose came up to Southwest Zambia, the Ndebele people came up. They came up in the 1800s and before. The Dutch settlers came out in the 1600s. At what, there's a lot of shifts all over the world. There are people, layers of people. The Magyars who came, who are in Hungary, come from Asia in the 1300s. So I don't know, as a historian, is there a problem with saying that a people are indigenous and they are the rightful owners of land when the movement of people, especially now, we're in a period where there's 50, what, 50 million migrants running around the world right now, running from terrible situations. So how do you make these decisions about who's indigenous and who's not? Luckily I'm not making that decision. There's my cop out. I'm not making the decision. I think that the reality is land here was taken fraudulently. There's these things called treaties that gave specific rights. And that's to me when treaties and things were negotiated, to me, that's that presence of spirituality. I talk about things being a pipe tree. Well, that pipe came out and that pipe, to me, is what made it lawful. And so that sharing of land, that welcoming of people, that now, as a person of treaty six, I can sit on both sides. And I think that that, to me, is the reality that newcomers, aliens, Canadians, however we want to call, whatever language we want to call settler society and are welcome. But are welcoming to someone else's territory originally and there's been some agreement as to how newcomers are gonna live on that land. As to relationships because people moved around. I talk about this being Algonquin territory. Was it always Algonquin territory? Probably not. But the reality is Algonquin people were the people here who were recognized as being the lawful owners and the lawful carers of the land by the other people around them. By that system of international law or indigenous law. And so while Cree people moved out into what was Blackfoot territory and sent off the Soto and the Shoshone and other people, the reality is that relationship to land is there. The reality is that other nations recognize Cree people and Saskatchewan as that being Cree territory. And I think that this is why we can talk about Métis territory because the Métis are a late comer. The Métis have territory because of being connected to a nation and then become their own nation. And that's why I think that we can talk about Métis, the Métis nation having a territory even though it's an overlapping territory. I don't think that indigenous people have ever thought about exclusive territory. It's quite foreign. There's always been these meeting places. There's always been this very different understanding of territoriality. And I think that that gives rise to, that even though there's movement, there's an understanding of territoriality and there's an understanding of that being someone's territory. And when people came here, they entered into relationships with those people, those territories. They said that this is how they were gonna live and we're asking people to keep their word. But more so than that, if we acknowledge that this thing called the doctrine of discovery was really just one great big lie, regardless as to whether you believe in indigenous people or indigeneity or what we have to actually find a way to live on this land in a way that isn't founded on the doctrine of discovery but is founded on a different relationship. And I think that that's where I'm asking people to go. If we're tossing that out, if we're tossing it out for territory, perhaps we also have to toss it out and talk about sovereignty and talk about national relationships in a very different way. I think I'm gonna suggest that we continue these conversations over reception and I'm gonna call on Associate Dean Dr. Karen Schwartz to end the evening and give a formal thank you. I'm going to be very, very brief. It's been a long day and thank you all for hanging in with us. I just want to say thank you very much, Kira. And I hope we won't be calling you back in 2042. Not that this hasn't been wonderful but I hope we won't be calling you back. And I also hope that by 2042 we have learned how to live together by nations and that we start that process. And we have a very small token of our appreciation. Thank you.