Jérôme Melançon: Thank you Annie for being here, it’s great to meet you. I’ll let you get started: what should we know about treaties? When we are talking about treaties, what are we talking about?

Annie Battiste: Well that’s a big question and we’re going to have some really factual conversations about it, and I hope that we can kind of go through a journey. But before that, I thank Emily for introductions and the agenda today and being at this space, I thank you for doing all those paces to make sure that I felt comfortable and with the tobacco, thank you so much.

Today we’re really talking about treaties, but treaties are about relationships. And it would be remiss of me if I didn’t talk about relationships that I have and who I am and how I come to treaty knowledge. Of course, today I’m here as a speaker with the Office of the Treaty Commissioner, who’s been working for the last 20 years on engaging and bringing back that treaty relationship that has been disjointed through policies and practices and things that have happened. in our settler history. One is, I am a visitor on this territory. I consider myself a visitor on this territory, as I come and go back to my communities and I spend a lot of time in Unama’ki Cape Breton. And it is a special place, but I’m from Potlotek First Nations I’m a First Nations Mi’kmaw woman from Nova Scotia who came here with her parents when she was younger and has had a complicated relationship of moving from Nova Scotia to Saskatoon in Treaty 6 and today, of course, I’m visiting in Treaty 4 territory.

With those conversations and understanding of visitor of this territory, how do I myself relate to treaties, is through Peace and Friendship treaties. And today we’re going to talk a little bit about that and we’ll make sure that we all understand what those words mean, but it really is a conversation about the Treaty of 1752 is the one my mother’s ancestors signed, and that’s my relationship as a First Nations person to treaties. When I come to Saskatoon or I come to Regina where this is located and my feet are planted on right now, is recognizing that there are responsibilities and protocols. And a lot of time, as a First Nations person in my own culture, in my own knowledges, in my own worldviews I understand Mi’kmaw-ness. And my understanding of Mi’kmaw-ness means that there’s things that are different on this land and that I have to understand the protocols that exist here and where, you know, round dances and pow-wow or something that were not traditionally Mi’kma’ki, we’ve adapted as to being this evolution of Indigeneity and trying to say those conversations. So recognizing that I’m a visitor on this territory, I thank you for the introduction and my Mi’kma’ki has really grounded my understanding of treaties.

And so when coming here, it was a little bit interesting to think about those differences that exist. At the end of the day, treaties in many, many forms in Canada – there’s over 300 treaties that exist in Canada and more accounting with Modern day Treaties – have really been a conversation about, at the core of it, at the root of what a treaty is, is an agreement between two sovereign nations. And that’s really an important conversation that I think a lot of times get missed is that sovereign nation. Now, in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that was the first time a king said that First Nations people were sovereign. Of course, we knew it, we didn’t have a king, we didn’t have a queen, we had our own language, governance, and everything, we knew we were a sovereign. But it is something that was a moment in the treaty signing agreement, so the Royal proclamation says: hey, these aren’t my subjects, I can’t tell them what to do, if you want to settle in this new land, this new dominion, you’re gonna have to build relationships with the people in those areas. And, of course, they said “purchase,” but that is not anything that has happened, there is no ceding, no surrendering. But there was this idea of sharing the land together. So with that, these treaties came to be, and they were really starting in a very different space, in a very different way than intertribal treaties.

And intertribal treaties were kind of Indigenous nation to Indigenous nation, and you can see them throughout Canada. There’s the Iron Confederacy in the Prairies, there’s the Dish With One Spoon in Ontario, and those are really about the respect, the relationship, and the protocols that existed when nations were coming into lands. And you know, there are some Elders who still follow a lot of those teachings and I was around an Elder who, every time they left their treaty territory, they would put down tobacco. There’s chiefs and leaders and knowledge keepers, who, as soon as they come into a different community, they go straight to the leaders, they sit down, they bring gifts, they break bread together, and those are really a lot of the protocols that existed. Also, about knowing your place, and about being respectful and reciprocity and a lot of those conversations, but that was those intertribal treaties that were discussed – and there were many in Saskatchewan, with at least nine languages that exist for First Nations people. There was a lot of relationships and a lot of ways and protocols about what we do together on this land. Now, in Saskatchewan there’s I think 74 First Nation communities and there is a lot of conversations about how we live on this land together. So intertribal treaties were time immemorial about Indigenous nations learning and knowing how to live on this land together and passing through other people’s lands and territories and really getting to that spot.

Then we get to Peace and Friendship treaties, which are the Mi’kma’ki on the East Coast, the treaties that came before Canada. Sometimes people call them the Pre-Confederation Treaties, and these ones are a little bit more difficult to talk about in a current context, because they got renewed a lot, because new nations came. So they weren’t with Canada, they weren’t with the Queen, they weren’t with the – they were with the Holy See, but they weren’t with one specific group. And so you know, a nation like the French or British or all sorts of different groups would come. They come to this land and they’d have to build peace and they’d have to build friendship and they’d have to say: let us see the lands, we’re really interested in agriculture, we’re really interested in what’s in the middle, the Dominion of Canada. If you’ve ever been to Nova Scotia, it’s beautiful, but agriculture is not exactly abundant there. My home community, where I’m from, a lot of my family live in Eskasoni First Nations, it has a beautiful mountain and a beautiful Bras d’Or lake but it doesn’t have a lot of agricultural land. And settlers and explorers coming to this land really wanted to have this agriculture and to have big lands and to have all these different seeds and things like that.

And so that was really the excitement of the Prairie provinces, of the value of Saskatchewan in those areas and so to get through and to get to see the middle of what else was the new Dominion was, you had to build peace and friendship treaties. And there were really, in the Mi’kmaw sense of the Peace and Friendship Treaties, they were the rules and responsibilities and how they navigated was a lot of settlers built forts. And there is Fort Halifax, Fort Lewisburg, Fort Battleford is one of them. I don’t know if North Battleford existed then, but they created these forts and the Mi’kmaw, the East Coast Mi’kmaw people said: whatever you build your fort on, this is your land, you can kind of follow your own system of governance, your own system of language, you can do whatever you want, but when you leave the fort you are in Mi’kma’ki and in Mi’kma’ki there’s rules and so that’s where a lot of these forts came from about these kind of nation to nation. And so, with these forts they would have first to be the British and they’d come and they’d be in the fort and then maybe the French would come and take over the fort. Or maybe the English would come and take over the fort, and so there was a lot of renewals of those relationships so that’s why, when you’re in the East Coast, people will say, the Treaty of 1716, 1752, 1763, because it was about more nations coming or different territories.

Then the settlers, the explorers, they saw into the Prairie provinces and they’re like: yes, this is where I want generations to live, this is the money, this is where we’re going to make our mustard and canola seed and lentils and all the beautiful things that we do in this territory, and so they had to build new relationships and those are a lot called the Post-Confederation, they really were called the Numbered Treaties. And at this time, of course I told you, the Royal Proclamation happened, and they said: you have to build relationships and these treaties so that this time, through a few fights that were happening in the European states, the winner was the British Crown and so the British Crown came and they had the Queen and a representative called the Treaty Commissioner and lawyers and different diplomats who would come, and they built these relationships in these territories.

Now it’s really important conversations, because the people who were there, the Cree, the Saulteaux, the Dene, all these people were saying: okay, this is our territory, this is what we can speak to, but across the river, across that tree, across that rocky mountain that’s someone else’s land and you’re going to have to talk with them. And so that led to multiple number of treaties, 11 in total, that really talk about the conversation of territorial lands. I think there is going to be some roadways that are going to signify when you leave Treaty 4 and you come into Treaty 6, which will be a really beautiful thing to see, to really understand the land through treaty relationships, not through this kind of province, which was created after the fact [note: this road signalization is now in place on the highway between Regina and Saskatoon]. The provinces are great and all, but they cut and splice the Treaties in really weird ways and so sometimes, if you’re looking at just Saskatchewan, you’ll see Treaty 2 and 5, they look so little, but really they’re all of Manitoba. One of those things I think about is: we have to go back to the land, of thinking about those treaty territories as the spaces, not just the provinces. So those are the Numbered Treaties, they’re made with the Treaty Commissioner, and there was, of course, many Treaty Commissioners that came. But Alexander Morris was one of the more popular ones, and he made the beautiful line: as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the rivers flow.

The Treaties of the numbered variety, and Peace and Friendship as well, are also ones that cannot just be understood by the written document. That’s one of the big myths that exist about when we’re looking into treaties and we’re looking into conversations like: what does the Treaty mean? At this point in life, we all don’t know, we weren’t living during the time of treaties being signed, but we’ve had a lot of oral testimony through Elders and knowledge keepers that have been passed down. We have a lot of things from the settler side: there was lawyers, and there was newspapers of the time that looked a little different but newspapers of the time, correspondence, translations from priests and sometimes Métis leaders about what was being said. And so all of that needs to be understood with treaties, as well as the sovereignty that existed for Indigenous people, the sovereignty of First Nations people that – they didn’t give up anything, they didn’t choose to live this life of Canada as, per se, we live it now, but really was supposed to be a Two Row Wampum: it was supposed to be two canoes, two sovereign nations living on this land together and agreeing how to live on this land together. And so this Two Row Wampum or these two canoes down the river were never supposed to intersect.
And of course we know through history and probably through many other speakers today that there is a conversation around policies and assimilation and residential schools and the Indian Act that all got in the way and really hurt and destroyed the relationship between the sovereign nations, and really were destructive and they were all sorts of horrible things. And I can’t even relay the words of how bad it is, to exemplify what the Indian Act and residential schools did to our relationships.

But what the conversation around treaty is trying to get back to, and reconciliation is trying to get back to, is really about modern day implementation of treaties. And it’s really saying: how do we live on this land together? How do we understand Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada? And, of course, this isn’t just a good idea, it’s not a socialist idea or a leftist idea, whatever you want to call it, but it’s actually embedded into the very fabric of our Canadian identity.
In the 1980s, during the constitutional talks, there was Indigenous leaders who were vying and saying: how are we acknowledging the special and distinct relationship through treaties and through our sovereignty that exists in Canada? And most academics know and can cite pretty well, it came out in section 35 of the Constitution that affirms Aboriginal Treaty Rights. We now say “Indigenous,” but “Aboriginal” was in the 1980s conversation. But it is one that says that as Canadians, we actually have in our foundational documents, where we are supposed to honour Indigenous and Aboriginal Rights. In our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we have, I think, under Section 15 (that might need to be checked), but it is one that says that those are – no, sorry, 52, that says: we need to honour Indigenous Rights and freedoms before any else of the freedoms that exist in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And it goes on and on and every foundational document of Canada says that us as individuals, us as organizations, us as nations and governments need to honour Treaty Rights.

And so how do we get there, is a conversation for modern times as there’s Modern Treaties, and Modern Treaties really came about in the 1920s, 1930s. Numbered treaties settled down, and they stopped making them. I’ve asked a lot of times and a lot of people: why they stopped making them in 1920s, because there were still a lot of land? None of it in different places? And I’ve heard a few different responses, one being that maybe there wasn’t a lot of settlers that were up in the northern places, and so the Queen just didn’t feel that she had to; or two, that John A. MacDonald and his policies were so different than the ones of the Queen that it was kind of becoming really about deficit model thinking for First Nations people and that idea of our sovereignty was starting to get really confused as John A. MacDonald, the Prime Minister, really wasn’t treating us as sovereign people, he was treating us as like wards of the state, like children, and doing all these policies. And I would happily refer to someone else who has that answer in the next one [James Daschuk], but those are the conversations that kind of stopped the number of Treaties at 11.
Then, of course, with Numbered Treaties not being reflective of all of Canada, there was some spaces where there was issues arising. And one of them was Quebec in the James Bay Cree Nation, where the hydro dam was coming, and it was in conflict with the James Bay Cree Nation’s understanding of knowledge, worldview, ceremony, and was one that caused conflict, and it really began a renewal of a thing called Modern day Treaties. And Modern day Treaties are comprehensive claims, are ones that are now happening today in almost every province, every territory, that are saying: how do we come back to these spaces, knowing that the settlers aren’t leaving, knowing that First Nations absolutely aren’t leaving, as this is our territory, but how do we live on this land together?

So there’s a lot of agreements in the north, there is a few I think small agreements that are happening in Saskatchewan, but throughout Canada there is multiple Modern Treaties that are happening and they’re a little slow, so there’ll probably be a lot of Modern Treaties happening into the future, but there’s a lot of governmental conversations that have to happen.

So if we’re looking at treaties, we look at intertribal, we look at Peace and Friendship, we look at Numbered Treaties, now we’re looking at Modern day Treaties, so treaties are a huge idea, really simple in their core, but really difficult to figure out how we work in the space, as of today. And that’s why we’ve come to this idea of reconciliation as a Modern day Treaty implementation and that’s what also the Treaty Commissioner really views reconciliation is about treaty implementation. And that is important knowledge to be held, and so what is a treaty? We went through what are all the different kinds of treaties.

But then we got to get to this question of land acknowledgments. And this is, I think, really important and thoughtful question that the University of Regina has asked and said, we are now coming into spaces where it is important that we say who we are, where we’re from, who’s our family, do a little bit of a cultural protocols, but also we are now tasking settlers to also do that protocol. Where for so long, we had newcomers and then Canadians on the settler side as this kind of dichotomy or this binary that existed, now we need to ask settlers and we need to explore our own treaty relationship.
And although if you’re First Nations or settler you have a treaty relationship, the moment your family’s ancestors placed their feet on this ground started your relationship with treaty. And so we need to discuss that, and there’s a lot of times with the Office of the Treaty Commissioner, that we actually do land acknowledgments sessions. And we say: where did you come from, what generation settler are you, and where did your family come into the treaty, and how did you come into this land and what are your responsibilities? And that moves it from an organizational land acknowledgement that has become a little tokenistic, has become a little bit… a good step, but really a first step.

You know, it is something that should be done, it should be done, something that we have to be mindful of, but it’s organizational; it’s not talking about the relationship of self. And that’s really important in those conversations and so we’ve been working with the Treaty Commissioner to say: here’s organizational land acknowledgments, but where is self and where is relationship to the land in your self, in your treaty acknowledgement. And this is forcing people to think very differently with their families and their grandparents and their ancestors to say: I do need to understand how my journey of self has navigated treaty land acknowledgments.

And then we have to, of course, always in Indigenous teachings is: think of forward, think of the future, think of the ways in which we move forward. And one of those big conversations is: what is my responsibility, now and in the future for land acknowledgments. And to think about how your passion, if you’re passionate about gardening, if you’re passionate about reading, if you’re passionate about movies, how does that passion intersect with reconciliation? Because only once it becomes something solidified in your passion, in your heart, does it get to be something that you can talk about very casually.

I think that’s one of the big areas of land acknowledgement, is: one, you need to be able to fill your answer with what is self, what is your relationship to the land, have to talk about what is ancestral land and whose lands, who has been the original stewards of this land. But then, you also have to reflect on how you as an individual and you as an organization can find your space within reconciliation. And I think that’s a really hard conversation for a lot of people, because they cannot see the intersectionality of passion, of… any passion can have a reconcilatory or a treaty relationship to it. If you’re into gardening, there’s lots of different spaces about heritage, about Wanuskewin, about how this land works. If you’re into beading, there’s beautiful beads and artwork and things like that, and how it intersects with treaty: there’s just so many different ways that it intersects. But it’s really important that we think about ourselves and we’ve done a really good – we’ve done an okay job. I was going to maybe give a little bit too much praise in understanding business land acknowledgments. They’re on websites and they’re on email signatures, and I think that’s a good start – don’t get me wrong, don’t take your signature off – but what I ask you is: where is your self in it? And I think that’s where we’re moving to with organizations to say: here’s the Business 101 land acknowledgement; but what we need to say is: you need to add more, and it needs to be about self.

Conversation between Annie Battiste and Jérôme Melançon: First Questions

And I’ve just talked I think I have no idea how long I talked for without letting you ask one question, so please ask a question, we can continue forward, I’m sorry for taking up all that space.

Jérôme Melançon: That’s wonderful, that’s why you are here, we wanted to give you the space and we appreciate it, to get these foundations about what treaties are. The thing I want to bring up first was more: can you tell us a bit more about treaty responsibilities? Because it’s easy to see it, to assume that they are on the government’s side and that that’s in the past. But they were meant to be renewed, the same thing with the Peace and Friendship Treaties as well, and they haven’t been. Government hasn’t really followed up on these obligations. What can treaties mean to people now?

Annie Battiste: Yeah that’s a great question, and it is easy to just kind of say: that’s a government thing, or that’s a municipal government conversation, because they are nation to nation. But there’s actually a lot of benefits that settlers, you know as an everyday person who just works and is doing their best in life has a lot of actual benefits of treaties.
One benefit in the Numbered Treaties in this area was conversations of having no exit date or exit time for settlers to go back. They said: as long as you follow the treaties, you respect the treaties, and you are a good treaty partner, you did peace and good order, you could be here with your family for as many generations, as you would have liked. And that’s a really big one. And of course there are some immigration and emigration, but that’s on the government side, that’s not a treaty conversation. The Treaty said: as long as you follow the spirit and intent of treaties, you could be on this land, living on this land as long as you wanted.

There was also a lot in the treaties that were made with safety, and First Nations warriors and leaders that we will fight on behalf of Canada. And that’s one of the main reasons, or one of the big reasons why there was a lot of Indigenous veterans who went to World War One. We couldn’t vote, we weren’t considered people, we couldn’t be drafted, yet a whole – a really substantial number of Indigenous warriors and leaders went to fight in World War One. And one of the reasons for that was because, as a part of the treaty relationship, our warriors, our leaders, our chiefs, our council said, our headmen said that we would fight on behalf of Canada and Canada was in need. And so, that protection, that fighting for Canada, the ability to live on this land for generations and really to live, love, succeed, become a billionaire – you know there’s no rules or… that was set forth about what was the rules of settlers you could become a CEO, you could have as much as you need at that time to continue on – was part of the treaty relationship. Of course, there was reciprocity and there was respect. I’m not saying that the First Nations people wanted you to do too much, but there was a conversation that you could be the best you possibly could be as a settler on this land. And that was okay, because that was your, you know, one of the benefits.

Now First Nations perceived benefits, and I say perceived, because we have an uncomfortable conversation that as soon as the treaties were signed, the Queen allocated her authority to John A. MacDonald, and he saw the world very differently, and he saw things in a way that were detrimental and harmful and did genocide of First Nations people through Indian Act and residential schools and all these horrible policies, and so the treaty relationship was quickly kind of turned into a treaty denial period.

But the perceived benefits was: peace and good order on this land was one of the big things for this nation, said that they wanted peace and good order, and that was our responsibility as the stewards of this land was to ensure peace and good order. A few things that were offered up by the settlers were things that enrich the quality of life of First Nations people. I say enrich because it wasn’t to take away anything that was the sovereignty that existed for First Nations people, but was really about enriching.

Writing was an interesting one that First Nations leaders said: hey, okay, this is cool. Some agricultural tools, there was a few things that they said: hey we don’t use those, we want to know how you use them. Reading, different little things that would help them.

Of course, in Treaty 6, which I’m not in so I shouldn’t be talking about, but it’s good to mention a little bit, is the medicine chest clause, and the pestilence and famine clause which directly relates today to COVID and saying: if you’re in need, if there is pestilence that is happening – of course, I think, at that time it was smallpox for them, but now it’s COVID – was this idea that we would help and that we would come to the need of First Nations people. The medicine chest was really one that talked about comprehensive health care and settlers saying: we will offer up any healthcare that we have at the time that can help you in your time of need, to now we talk about health care, but you know, there’s multiple ways in which those kind of promises and provisions exist.

But if you ask me settlers got so much more offered in the Treaties, because they were coming on to this land and they were new to this land. Where First Nations people and the Métis community really already knew this land, they could already survive, they could do a lot of this stuff, so it wasn’t a need from the settler side, there was a lot of things that could enrich their lives which they were excited about.

And of course in Treaty 4 and 6, they talk about a school house on the reserve, they talk about plows, they talk about different things that they could offer up like medals and beads and things like that. So there was a lot of enriching of livelihood for First Nations, it was never supposed to be about deleting everything that is Indigeneity to join Canada, which is what happened with John A., and happened afterwards. There was this idea of enfranchisement, there was this idea of the Gradual Civilization Act, all these things. He tried to take that distinctive special relationship and to kind of turn it into this Canadian idea. But I digress because we’re talking about treaty promises and provisions.

But those are some things that we need to think about is that every day that as a settler, as a visitor on this territory and, as a First Nations person, we have responsibilities that we walk on this land with. And there has been many times when there’s been many more footprints on this land that have had these conversations. And we have to think about how we are discussing in family spaces, in community spaces, in our organizations, about how we live with those responsibilities and knowing exactly what they are. And it’s not an easy task to think about, because it goes against a lot of the history that we learned in schools.

In Saskatchewan, we have had the Office of the Treaty Commissioner and different curriculum for I think almost 20 years talking about treaties. And so now we are graduating high school students who have had K to 12 learnings on treaties and they’re far surpassing us older generations who didn’t have that in their knowledges. Just today I had a conversation about someone who was saying: oh, I want to do a land acknowledgement for younger generations. What does it look like? And I said: they actually know more than the older generations about treaties and they go through Treaty 6 and the Métis homeland conversations daily in their schools, and they have it in assemblies, and they talk about it through the social studies and all sorts of different curriculum. And so we’re coming into spaces where we understand the responsibilities. But it’s shaping our workforce and now we’re getting into the workforce is catching up to all the curriculum and all the K to 12 teachings we had. So that’s kind of an interesting thing because that hasn’t been true for a lot of provinces, provinces haven’t gone K to 12 yet with their conversations.

But I better stop let you ask a question, I have no sense of what time it is: you let me know if we’re going over, we have a five minute warning.

Jérôme: I should check that too, but we have plenty of time left.

Jérôme Melançon: One thing I did want to ask you too – because we’ll get to talk about all the unfilled promises and all the actual policies with another talk, so we can skirt around that – for now, knowing that it happened, that all those promises weren’t actually necessarily given or were transformed, let’s say, the schools on reserve for instance, but we’ll talk about that in a different talk. One thing you mentioned earlier, that I think is really important, I’d love to hear more from you about, is: these two aspects of the treaties that really go back to being nation to nation agreements, going back to being at Canada’s founding (because there would have been no Canada, no Western Canada without these Numbered Treaties), when you look at what was actually discussed, and Sheldon Krasowski’s book shows that, is that there wasn’t really, there wasn’t at all a discussion of surrendering, ceding, signing the land to Canada. We were supposed to share it. It’s a different approach to land and to sovereignty and to territory. When you look at the document that Treaty 4 Elders had put together a while back, that’s available on the Office of the Treaty Commissioner website [now on the University of Regina website], you also see that one of the things that had been clear for the Indigenous signatories to Treaty 4 at least, is that they would get to keep living in the same way, they would get to keep their governance, that nothing would change in the way that they govern themselves, in other words that they weren’t becoming Canadians subjects, they weren’t becoming subjects of the Queen. Then becoming citizens eventually wasn’t actually on the table, the laws would be different, right? So that’s something that makes sense in this framework, and what might that mean today to actually go back to these principles?

Annie Battiste: Yeah I’m gonna, I’ll get to your question, I promise, but I think there is an important part that we should talk about is that within the No. 4 Treaty and No. 6 there is these words, you see, and that might say “cede,” and they might say “surrender,” and you say: hey, how is it that it’s possible that it says it in the document but it isn’t true? And so that’s a very complicated conversation to have, but I’m going to give some clues and ideas to it.

The things that are important to think about is that: what is a treaty is not just the document. And I think that’s a big misconception that exists, and I think the government previous to this government tried to say that only what is written in the document is what we will do. They were taken to the Supreme Court, and it was ruled that’s inconsistent and that there is many things that you need to understand and look at when talking about a treaty. And one of them is, of course, Indigenous sovereignty, what First Nations people had with governance and language and culture, and all those conversations. The natural laws or Cree laws, whatever you would call them in your territory, was another one that had to be looked at. The third was the interpreters and who was interpreting the treaties, and how they possibly interpreted the treaties, as a lot of times, it was interpreters that had to interpret what was happening and what was being said. And there’s a lot of conversations: could the interpreter, sometimes it was Métis leaders, sometimes it was the priests, or it was a religious folk who learned the language, how did they relate back to?

And that’s a really important conversation because First Nations people didn’t look at the treaty like a legal document that they read and scoured word for word and said hey, and circled. They didn’t know a lot about it because their ideas of the treaty signing was the pipe, and it was going into ceremony, and it was the gift giving, and it was the relationship building, and it was the many conversations that were happening around the fire about what it would be like in the future.

The Treaty Commissioner would use analogies, and they would say things that would help them to understand, and there was an interpreter. And so, a lot of times the words that were written on the document were done by the settler side, by the lawyers, and was usually signed by an “X” or a hieroglyph because leaders and chiefs didn’t speak that language, nor did they need to, to have this conversation.

So I think about it sometimes like a marriage. And I’m not married, so you can tell me if I’m right or wrong, but there is the wedding, there’s the agreement, there’s the coming together, there’s the how you’re gonna live on this land together, there’s the courses you take, there’s… all this is the wedding and then there’s this document that you sign that, most likely, people don’t read or they look at really quick and then sign – and that’s the legal component.

That’s very much like the treaties. First Nations people saw the gathering, the coming together, the handshakes, the ceremony, the Creator coming into ceremony, as the treaty, not just the written document.

And now you look towards the Supreme Court and laws, and they say that is actually very consistent with the understanding of treaties is that, one, you have to look at how the First Nations would have looked at it at that time. You have to look at it as all the different things that were said through newspapers: there’s a Treaty Commissioner asking the Queen if they could offer up all these things. As well as just different analogies and ways of being that existed in the world view and the knowledges that First Nations people had at that time, which had no understanding of buying, which had no understanding of purchasing of the land, and view the land as animate, as living, and a responsibility to it, meaning that there was not even a comprehension of this idea of ceded or surrender. And so that’s important to know all those components to… We get to the question that you asked, that I almost don’t remember now because I’ve gone too far off, but I’m hoping it’s about the citizenship conversation.

And so, in this Two Row Wampum conversation, it was always supposed to be these two nations who exist and live on this land together. Now the First Nations said: we recognize that the Queen has her own governance, the Queen has her own language, and through the relationship of the treaty, the settler side, the Queen side could come together. However, they wanted it as not an expectation that the settlers would become First Nations where they follow First Nations governance and they follow cultural protocols – which maybe it should have been – but what they said was: we are our people, we are our nation, you are your own nation, and how you bring yourself together how, you govern yourself, how you do all that is really the Queen who signed the Treaties.

And so, when we say that the Treaties are the building blocks in the creation of Canada, that’s what we’re referring to, not that Canada bought, purchased, ceded or any of those bad words we don’t talk about. What it was really about once those nations signed those treaties, the settlers, could come together, however they wanted, and they came together as Canada. And it grew and grew, the more treaties that were signed. The Queen said: okay, now the settler side will be Canadian. And then, of course, I told you, she signed, she said: okay, I signed, all the treaties were done in 1920s, now I give this Dominion of Canada, this new creation called Canada, a space to kind of move forward on its own.

It was like a baby when it first started, and then now is ready to branch out a little on its own, so they created their own governance with John A. MacDonald, and they created different ways in which they lived and worked on this land. But then the disconnect happens, and John A. McDonald said: hey, no I don’t want this kind of two societies, two nations, I just want Canada, and I’m going to create policies and practices that make it pretty much mandatory that it becomes this one group.

The second thing that a lot of people don’t think of is like in 1876 – is that when Canada signed?

Jérôme: 1867.
Annie: Okay 1876 is the Indian Act, I always get them confused.
Jérôme: It’s the same thing, right?
[laughs]

Annie Battiste: 1867 Canada didn’t look like it did today and that’s a big thought process that a lot of people don’t understand. It was really Ontario, and it was really Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, it was a really small area and only once treaties were signed, like Treaty 1 was signed in Manitoba and then that little square was Manitoba and then Two and Three and Four, and then Canada began to get bigger and bigger. Because a lot of people ask me, why did Treaties 9, 10, 11 sign when they saw this Indian Act was created? Well, they thought, they didn’t see it as one big country they saw us like: oh yeah they must have had a bad rap over there. But we’re signing this treaty that’s beautiful and different… and didn’t realize that very quickly, it would be the same conversation.

So sometimes you’ll hear people in their negativity say: well why don’t we just get rid of treaties? Why don’t we just get rid of treaties and start from the beginning? Well, if you got rid of treaties, you would get rid of all provinces, you would have a very small group in Ontario of Upper Canada and Lower Canada, as a piece of Canada. It wouldn’t look like it does today, it would be like the district of Keewatin in the Northwest Territories, it would look very different. And we go back to that because only once signing the Treaties, agreeing to live on this land together, Canada kind of continuing on with their creation of their kind of governance as Canada, built up provinces, built up territories, built up what we understand it to be today, but yet didn’t honour the treaties that they were built on, that allowed them to have these navigations.
And that’s why there’s a very complicated relationship with people, I think. Canada Day is one of the complicated relationships that exist to say: you know, there is a very hard legacy, there is a very difficult legacy, there’s a very sad legacy: what are we honouring today? But you know, that is a conversation for another interview, so I’ll stick to treaties and positivity. In the sense to say that this was the building blocks of Canada was treaties, and that is why it is reflected in our Constitution, in UNDRIP, in the Calls to action, in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and all these foundational documents, because really to be Canadian means to honour the treaty relationship.

Jérôme Melançon: I’ll take some questions – I’ll ask those that we have here with us on Zoom, live with us, to ask questions in the chat and I’ll get to to read them out loud to you. In the meantime, I can ask you another question if you are okay with that?

Annie Battiste: Absolutely, let’s carry on.

Jérôme Melançon: What do treaties mean for First Nations people today? Is it a lever? Is it something that people believe in? Are people disillusioned with it because the promises weren’t kept up? Is it something that can be renewed? Is there hope for that kind of a renewal?

Annie Battiste: I think they’re all and can be all encompassing of all the different capacities. In my own family, in my own communities, I know people who are still in the learning journey of treaties. As, of course, they went through public education, they went through the provincial curriculum, they don’t know their treaties as well as their elders did before them. And so I think there’s a lot of First Nations, one, heard the term “Treaty Rights,” know it means something, but doesn’t necessarily know how it makes sense. And that was my childhood, where I have two prominent Indigenous parents, but they didn’t tell me every fact about treaties growing up, and so I would ask these questions and now I look back and say: Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe I asked these people these questions: but I don’t get why we have a status card; I don’t get what these Treaty Rights mean; I don’t get the difference between Treaty Right to education and Indian Right to Indian act education… There was just so many different policies of finnesses that don’t make sense unless you really dig in. And so I think there’s a lot of people still trying to understand the gravity and the intensity of our treaty relationship as First Nations people.

I know chiefs and councils and leaders have been advocating for 60, 70 [years], as long as the Treaties were signed I can’t do the math right now, about knowing the importance, knowing that relationship, that distinct relationship that exists, and have been fighting. And those advocates have been working tirelessly through the constitutional talks, through United Nations Declarations, through MMIW, through Calls to action about what does it mean and how do we ensure that that distinct and special relationship still exists today, that nation to nation relationship.

I also think that there’s a lot of people who are a little bit nihilist about the situation, saying we’re never, it’s never going to change, the government’s always going to err on their side, not for Indigenous Rights. And I think that’s also fair: is it’s been a really long legacy in Canada of policies and I do think we’re coming into new spaces and I am very hopeful and positive, the government is making these changes that can chip away and really reflect more of our treaty relationship. But I understand those people who feel the immense sadness and the immense overwhelming of the policies and the uphill battle it’ll be for Indigenous people to get to those Treaty Rights.

But I also think, as a public awareness presenter who does presentations five times a month at least around treaties, the ones that we explain in very fundamental ways people understand it. And that grassroots movement is coming and percolating about people understanding their Treaty responsibilities. And when I’m disillusioned or when I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, I’ll go to an event and I’ll hear a beautiful land acknowledgement or I’ll hear a beautiful reflection and I’ll be like: okay, we are making moves and we are making steps forward to people to understand both a personal level, of the treaty relationship, that interactional level, that institutional level, and then the ideological shifts that need to happen so that we just know we’re treaty people and that we need to move forward.

And so I think there’s a fear of talking about some pan-Indigenous or pan-First nation ideas. I think there’s a huge diversity that exists around treaties and reconciliation, I know a lot of First Nations people who don’t like that term. And I say it all the time, so I get into spaces, where we have these discussions, and I say at the end of the day, I think it’s Modern day Treaty implementation, I think then everyone is like: I get behind that, right, as a conversation. So hopefully that answered your question I’m not 100% sure.

Jérôme Melançon: Absolutely, yeah. I think it’s important to talk about that diversity, of course, between nations and within nations, and that we talked about First Nations people, because the Treaties were signed with First Nations, the Canadian state didn’t want to sign treaties with the Métis nation, the Michif nation. It’s important to also see that when we talk about “we’re all treaty people” there’s also a limit to that, because there are nations like the Dakota that didn’t sign treaties, there’s also the Métis who didn’t sign treaties. Is this something that you can address, maybe you can mention how the Métis for instance were left out of the Treaties?

Annie Battiste: Yeah absolutely and I do think of course, if I continue on with the same theme of the day, there were some policies and practices that were not very kind to both First Nations and Métis people. But that’s kind of where we’ve gotten to this evolution of the land acknowledgement. When I was at, about 10 years ago, I started at the Office of the Treaty Commissioner, and we just had Treaty 6 and we would say: we’re on Treaty 6 land, Treaty 6 territory. At that time it was great, it made sense, and then, once we began to unearth and unpack the distinct relationship of Métis people and the distinct relationship that Métis people had to the land, it became clear that that wasn’t encompassing of the realities of this land. And so, then we started saying “Treaty 6 and the Métis homeland” to honour the distinct relationship and the distinct policies and the distinct issues that were at play that forced Métis people to not have a land for a long time, and that’s where they became the road allowance people. And really how they were treated poorly, but they were treated poorly but differently than First Nations people. And so now when we’re doing land acknowledgments, we begin to reflect on that by saying “Treaty 6 territory and the Métis homeland,” or the land of the Michif or the Michif nation or Métis nation, depending on how you view it as a people, community, or land.

But the big thing is that now we’re encompassing the Dakota and you can hear that we talked about the original stewards, and the Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, as a way of also honouring the distinctness on this land. And you might say: well, oh, this land acknowledgment’s getting longer and longer. But it has to, to honour the distinct relationship that these people, and distinct policies and practices that affected the relationship with the land, and one of them was with the Métis community and of course the Dakota when they were coming back and forth, and so I think we’re getting more and more encompassing of our circle, and getting more and more holistic in our understanding. I think the land acknowledgment will probably get longer and longer the more we know and the more we hear about all these things that affected the relationship.

But the Métis community was one that was historically – the Queen was one who said we don’t recognize them as sovereign nations, they should join their brothers, the First Nations. And they said no, of course, we’re distinct, of course, we have our own language, of course, we are our own peoples, but the Queen at that time didn’t honour that and so she didn’t sign treaties with Métis. Or sometimes they would say oh, to their First Bations brothers and sisters, they say, we’ll do them next, as a way of moving along the treaty – when in reality they had no plans to do it next. And then of course the government came and said: oh, we have this answer, we’ll do scrip. So it makes it for a complicated conversation, but I hope – I’m not an expert in that topic, but I can hopefully give a more rounded understanding, so that people can understand that complicated relationship there was with the land. And the Queen really dictated who she believed to be a sovereign nation and didn’t ask First Nations or Métis people really a lot of questions that would have been very helpful in today’s day.

Jérôme Melançon: It’s important again that there was a way to bring the Métis into Confederation and that way was through the scrip, and there was also some Métis communities that were allowed to take treaty, in later treaties, so there are these different histories around treaties. Another thing that it’s important to talk about too, is the meaning of treaties in relation to the land. Now in Regina at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, we have this art installation [“Kâkikê / Forever,” by Duane Linklater], we have “As long as the grass grows, the rivers flow, and the sun shines,” I don’t have the right order – and it’s also on the Treaty 4 flag, and the buffalo is part of it. What does that phrase carry as meaning, both in terms of what the treaties were at the time and what it can be today?

Annie Battiste: Great question. I do believe Treaty Commissioner Alexander Morris is the one who said it. And he said, “as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the rivers flow” as a way of talking about the permanency of that relationship and the permanency of treaties. And you can see it in the Treaty medal that was created, you can see a sun, you can see the grass, and you can see a river flowing that designated that kind of conversation on the Treaty medal. And so those three notions really consist of that, as long as we continue with the land and the relationship to the land, so does the Treaty. And it’s funny because I do present to children and they always try to trick me. And they say things like well, what does the grass stops growing because of a tent or something, or what if the sun stops, and I say: it actually says permanent in the treaty document, this is a beautiful way of signifying the relationship to the land and the permanency, but there is, it says permanent in many documents, so it’s not just based on those conversations, but it is one that has become the catchphrase. Like “We are all treaty people,” “as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the rivers flow” has also become a part of that treaty relationship in the Numbered Treaties. You don’t hear that as much in the Peace and Friendship, or the Modern Treaties, as the Treaty Commissioner, and from I think one to six was Alexander Morris.

Jérôme Melançon: And there’s also an environmental part to this, right, whereas maybe part of our Treaty responsibilities is to ensure that the sun continues to shine, that the grass does continue to grow and also which grass, and also that the rivers flow, but that they flow in a healthy, in a clean way.

Annie Battiste: Absolutely, yes, I like that I like that, absolutely, there’s an environmental sustainability component to that as well, that we should ensure and maintain and hope that these beautiful things still exist seven future generations ahead of us.

Conversation between Annie Battiste and Jérôme Melançon: Audience Questions

Jérôme Melançon: I do have a question here for you. “According to Jean Teillet” – I never actually learned how to say the name, any French-sounding name, I have a hard time saying it in English, but – “The Manitoba Act was what the Métis understood as their treaty with Canada.” There’s also a treaty relevance for the Métis there, although it might be different and broken as early, as soon as it was signed.

Annie Battiste: Absolutely there is, I think there is an article and I don’t know who it’s written by, and maybe I’ll have to get back to you and I will, we can figure it out, but it talks about the Métis relationship to treaty, and there is, absolutely, the Manitoba Act. I don’t know as much about that as I should. But there’s also some things in Alberta that are happening about lands and Métis communities, there’s also some things happening in in Saskatchewan as well, but it’s not the same as Alberta, because Alberta actually has Métis land bases or communities, and Manitoba has a lot of different conversations, so there is a lot of relationship to treaties and so it’s not just essentially First Nations or just Métis because there is a lot of communities that were part Métis settlement, part First Nations, and the only difference between them is what they signed, on a certain day and so those are really important to think about. I thank this person for talking about that, because that is also, another encompassing as the Manitoba Act. And there’s another, there’s something else, but I can’t name it, in Alberta that also is a kind of a distinct relationship like a treaty, I don’t think they call it that, though.

Jérôme Melançon: And then talking about different relationships to treaty as well, sometimes settlers will call themselves guests on the territory; but there’s actual guests on territory, people who come here as visitors for a few days, a few weeks, a few years, and don’t see themselves as settling here or making a life here. So what can treaty mean to people who are just visiting, literally, for a few days, for a couple weeks?

Annie Battiste: That’s a great question. Thank you. I see myself as a visitor on this territory because I don’t consider this land to be my end goal. I like that I will – I shouldn’t say it that way – I don’t consider this to be the place where I’m going to settle down, have a family, you know, create roots create multi generations. I fully expect that to be in Nova Scotia. So I see myself as someone who has a short time on this land, and what are the responsibilities to that. And with that is learning the culture, the protocols, the relationships, the understanding of how ceremony and land and knowledge and culture is infused into how we do protocols and all these things.

So if you’re coming in here, and you were doing a vacation in Saskatchewan, how would you honour treaties? Well, the first thing I would say to you is just: know you’re on treaty. When I went to Florida, many moons ago now because of COVID, the first thing I said was: whose traditional lands am I on? And now there’s actually beautiful websites that are dedicated to telling you across the globe what treaty territory you’re on. But with that is when you’re coming into spaces, and it doesn’t have to be reading a big book or dossier, but saying just whose territory am I on, and what does that mean? And those are those two key components that I think, if you’re coming for a few days, you should know whose territory you’re on, who’s the original inhabitants of that, and then learning or trying to actively engage in learning or knowledge systems about these people.

And so, if you’re in Saskatoon, you should maybe go to Wanuskewin, or you should go and engage in something that tells you about the Indigenous people of this land. If you’re in Regina, there’s many spaces, including the University’s campus here that has spaces to talk about art and talk about these things. And you don’t have to do it the whole time you’re visiting, and you don’t have to…

But those are some things that you might want to think about is when you come, when you go to France, when you go to Ireland, you go and you learn about the peoples and you learn about the culture, the language, the differences. And so, when you come into this territory, you should do the same and you should say what makes Cree people’s territory different. One of the things I was always shocked by is in Nova Scotia, in Mi’kma’ki, there’s a lot of lightning and there’s a lot of rain and there’s a lot of stuff. But the level of electricity and lightning and when it’s a really hot day and it just sparks the sky really is, those beautiful differences that exist and how that must have shaped the knowledges and cultures of Cree people time immemorial. Getting these moments of hot days and seeing this beautiful light show that came to be really put impact on how you saw the world, your creation story, you know different things like that. I’m digressing here, but you know, if you go onto territory, it’s important that you learn something about the peoples of this territory. And I think that’s a big conversation of people who are here for a few days, is: try to search out something that is to do with First Nations of this territory or Métis people of this territory.

Jérôme: Thank you so much for that. I love to add the more poetic aspects of the spiritual relationship to land as well, knowing that it’s not just the soil, the dirt, but everything that we live in, a setting for us to live. It’s the same, we have to take care of it too.

Jérôme Melançon: Another question here that I can bring you, going back to treaty-making, somebody is asking if you could talk a little bit “about the agglomeration or consolidation of multiple First Nations communities to a single First Nation, in the context of treaty-making.”

Annie: In treaty-making?

Jérôme: Yes…

What I’m thinking, for instance, is the fact that you had different bands that have been brought together under one leader, somebody might have just decided not to join, not to follow their chief in signing, for instance. When First Nations communities or reserves were first established, what was the part of the Treaties in I guess settling a lot of First Nations communities and maybe separating or creating new communities at that time?

Annie Battiste: Great question, complicated question. Because there’s two things that we need to discuss. One was that there was lands that were allocated through treaty for settlement, for communities – First Nations communities, Poundmaker and different things like that, that are reflected in First Nations. But what exists today is a construct of the Indian Act through reserves, “lands reserved for Indians,” and they would have surveyors come and put pegs as to how far. And then in the 1920s and 30s built a fence around the reserve that they locked through the pass system and pass and permit system.

So I’m having a hard time breaking them up, but it’s important that Saskatchewan went through this thing called Treaty Land Entitlement (TLE), which was one that said that what was offered during treaty times, they would have surveyors or people come out and they would count communities and they’d count families and they’d count all these things, but: it was during the buffalo hunt, or it was at times when there wasn’t a lot of First Nations people who were on the community. It could have been doing harvesting or things like that, and so they counted and said: okay, this is your number, blank per acre, and this is how much land you are allocated.

Well, in the 1990s that was really come to say that was not the way to do it, and that there was actually huge numbers that was needed to be, still, for First Nations. So the Treaty Land Entitlement came to be where lands were added to First Nations and that’s where a lot of urban communities came from in Regina and Saskatoon. So there’s that component. But the treaty component was one where there was many chiefs and there was I think Chief Poundmaker and there’s different chiefs and Chief Little Pine possibly that said: survey the land and find where you want to settle. And so there was this kind of notion that First Nations Chiefs and leaders got to pick where their settlement was and where they were going to settle with their communities. But settlement was very different meaning for a lot of Cree and different people because they followed the buffalo. And so where they were in one space, they would follow the buffalo going east or west, and they would get into different territories, which is where the Iron Confederacy, as they call it, was created, because there was a little bit of friction in the Indigenous nations, to say, some people were chasing the buffalo, and some people knew the buffalo would come there, and so you get into bumps.

But there was also unfortunately policies. Like in Nova Scotia, there was a centralization policy that took three different communities and combined them into one, and so there is a lot of policies that have impacted First Nations or reserves or bands as a lot of people know them to be, that has created kind of this. There was a treaty conversation about settlement and lands per acre and family but, again, through the theme of policies, practices, assimilation, genocide, cultural genocide practices, led to a very different storyline about what lands exist today for First Nations – and it’s largely through the Indian Act, not through treaties. So I don’t know if that’s a great answer to their question and I apologize for not being more specific, but it is a little bit hard. I can tell you the intent and what was supposed to happen, but then there was a lot of things that happened that created a new idea of this thing called reserves or lands reserved for Indians, which is how it said in the Constitution, Section 91-24.

Jérôme Melançon: You’ve touched on that very briefly: can you talk a little bit about the communities who didn’t want to sign the treaties? Why was there resistance to signing at the time?

Annie Battiste: Well, I think, if you have people who explained all the different things that were happening during the time of treaties and, of course, James Daschuk’s book Clearing the Plains is one that really speaks eloquently about what was happening, that there was a lot of people who didn’t necessarily believe that the treaties were going to uplift their nations, as it was kind of said, and they were skeptical in very real terms, because there was a lot of really bad things happening with biological warfare, the killing of the buffalo, you know, in the pile of bones in Regina here, lots of different things that were happening that affected that. And so there is First Nations who said: hey we don’t think that this is a good thing.

And, of course, Big Bear a very popular one for not signing treaties, but for a lot of people, that’s where adhesions came from. So, if you think Treaty 6 has an adhesion and other places have adhesions, it’s because they didn’t sign on that day, but after a while they said: okay, we think that, with a few changes here and there, we will agree, and so there is adhesions, a lot, to the Treaty. And there’s other people who never signed treaties and that’s something of a conversation as well. I think also, in a lot of the times – I’ve been told that the Chiefs weren’t thinking about today, they were thinking about those seven generations ahead. And those seven generations ahead, they said: Okay, this might not be great right now, but for future generations with the buffalo dying, with fear of food security, with fear of a lot of different things happening, this is something we need to do. It might not have been what they wanted to do. And I think that is also something that was a diversity, also at the table, where they weren’t signing for today, they signed and they didn’t sign, because, bad things were happening in that moment they signed, because in the future, they needed to have sustainability for their families and generations.

And so there is many people who signed, who took their time in signing, who never signed, who signed right away, who maybe signed and they shouldn’t have. There’s a whole bunch of things that existed at that time of diversity, but it really is dependent on the different Numbered Treaty you signed and the adhesions. And so there’s different communities in Saskatchewan that are located in one treaty territory, say Lac La Ronge, you would think they were in Treaty 10 and I think physically they are in Treaty 10, but they signed with Treaty 6. And then White Bear is in I think Treaty 2, but they actually signed with Treaty 4. So there’s a lot of ways in which who signed, and what adhesion, really creates where they’re located in Saskatchewan.

Jérôme Melançon: That gives us a map of the relations between nations, Indigenous nations at the time, as opposed to the map that Canada imposed?

Annie Battiste: Absolutely, and the map is one, if you look at the treaties like Treaty 4, Treaty 6, it’s about two pages, maybe three pages typed. And the first page is just the boundaries: the river to this tree to this area to this rock – was to create those boundaries. And, of course, they follow a lot of the riverways, and so, if you look at the Treaties, they’re not square, they’re not straight, but really they follow the road and things like that. And so it’s important that people don’t get too caught up in the boundaries of the Treaties necessarily, as those nation to nation relationships that were existing.

Jérôme Melançon: I have a couple more questions of my own, but I do want to give people a chance to ask more questions before that so I’ll use one that I’ve got here; we still have about 20 minutes or so. “So much of B.C. [British Columbia] is non-treaty territory” – we often say unceeded territory, but of course the treaty territories also unceeded – “so much of B.C. is non-treaty territory. What is the prospect of Modern Treaty, making for establishing new relationships between First Nations in these territories and Canada?”

Annie: What is the process?
Jérôme: What is the prospect?

Annie Battiste: Well, I think, right now, British Columbia is probably in 125% of treaty negotiations, because there was a lot of nations that have overlapping areas, and so there is lots of conversations happening in British Columbia. And British Columbia is one that is very distinct in its relationship as it was an independent British colony. And lot of treaties were made in Vancouver and in those areas there is lots and lots of treaties. But – and this is kind of our colonial thinking – it didn’t just switch over to Canada when Canada became a country, it was something that was made with a certain nation, and Canada is now going through those processes of nation and nation relationship. And so, British Columbia is an interesting one, and I don’t know enough about it to get too into details about the modern day implementations, Modern day Treaty implementations, but it is one that are really having those conversations, as well as our northern communities are really having those conversations and usually it’s about the Federal Government, sometimes the territorial government, or sometimes the province, or sometimes, they’re, you know, quiet members of this conversation – but treaty government or, sorry, Federal Government and First Nations government coming and having a really hard long conversations for sometimes long periods of time until they can get to a implementation plan about what does it mean for our treaties. There’s a few that are finished, there’s many that are coming, and there’s many that are up for renewals. And really that we have to have different discussions about, with more knowledge. And the Constitution, under Section 35, I think the third point of it says: when we talk about rights, Treaty Rights, we’re inclusive of all future treaties that are coming to be, which is really important. Because a lot of people think treaties are historical, that they’re static, that they exist in a certain time, and they’re not really applicable to today. And that’s just not true. They’re dynamic, they’re future thinking, and there are going to be different iterations as we move into the land. So I think every treaty that gets made starts to change the conversation about all treaties, and kind of encompassing them into being, this understanding of, well, if B.C. is having a certain conversation, what does that mean in the territories, what does that mean in the provinces, what does it mean in East Coast to West Coast. So I think this beautiful modern iteration of treaties is also reinterpreting a little bit about this forward thinking idea of the relationship of treaties.

Jérôme Melançon: I guess that’s sort of what my other question was going to be, and this is really only from your perspective, right, like, you can only speak for yourself on this question at all, but with what kind of spirit should we embark when looking at the implementation plans, at treaty renewal, at a renewal of the treaty relationship – and the TRC called for a new Royal Proclamation, right, that would start us off in a better direction. What kind of spirit do we need to have to enter that kind of negotiation?

Annie Battiste: That’s a great question that I might not have the answer to because it is so foreign to what exists now right when it comes to government. I think, when we talk about the spirit of treaty negotiations and renewals, we need to come back to those fundamental foundational practices that we had in the first treaty signing, where we talk about our sovereignty, where we talk about our nationhood, where we only talk for our nation, where we only talk for our governance. You know, in Nova Scotia they have a Mi’kmaw Grand Council that has very different governance than in the Cree territories, that is very different than the British Columbia. When we’re talking about these new treaty relationships, and these renewals, and these things, we need to count with the distinctness of the land that we’re on; the distinctness of the original stewards of this land, and what those languages, what those protocols, what those cultures, knowledges with an ‘s’, those ways of knowing, are as the foundational practice for that relationship. And it also needs to really exemplify the sovereignty aspect of that these are two nations coming together that don’t have to listen to each other. And I think that’s been a big one: where people understand in Europe with the Treaty of Versailles that there was two nations that didn’t have to listen to each other, came to an agreement and then moved forward, that’s very similar to our treaty negotiations in that it has to be mutually beneficial for both sides, it has to be a synthesis of both understandings and worldviews, but it also has to honour those Aboriginal Treaty Rights that exist, that have been largely not honoured in our governmental past. Those would be kind of the key thoughts I would have on the spot, to what is needed in order to have authentic treaty relationships moving forward and relevant treaty relationships, because we can’t do a pan-treaty, we can’t do one that is not consistent with Indigenous peoples’ or First Nations peoples’ language, protocols, and understandings, or we’re going to get into a lot of the same issues we did before when we tried to make these kind of national ideas. And it always goes back, you have to go back to the land and the stewards of those lands and their traditions of those lands as a way of moving forward as governance, as institutions, as communities, as the basis for the work that we do.

Jérôme Melançon: The last thing I would like to ask you, which is not really a question I suppose: what question do you wish people would ask you more often about treaties? What do you think, what do we really need to wonder more about, to be more curious about?

Annie Battiste: That’s a great question. What do I wish people would ask me more about – how as a presenter you hope there’s no question, first off, as a way of… you’ve done it all! Um I think… I would… I don’t know if I haven’t answered that, but I think one of the big things that I would say is people connecting treaty and reconciliation together is really what I would love to see because people talk to me about Treaties as the past and reconciliation as the forward, but I really see treaty and reconciliation as one. So I think the question that I would maybe not ask, but the idea I would like to relay a little bit more is the notion that reconciliation is Modern day Treaty implementation. And getting to the root of reconciliation is treaty and not something new, because I think that’s a big misconception that a lot of people think is, like, we have to like recreate, renavigate, rebuild, reenvision all these different things, when we really have treaty relationships as a route and foundation to the work we do, and so that would be probably what I would hope people tied more together, maybe not necessarily a question asked well.

Jérôme Melançon: Thank you so much, and it’s really great to have you to come down and talk to us here. I want to thank the Office of the Treaty Commissioner as well for facilitating this, thank the First Nations University of Canada for hosting us in this beautiful space today, as well as SSHRC and all of our sponsors for making all this possible. Thanks again for being with us today, thanks on behalf of the audience as well to the AV department and Stephen here who is making sure that we look good, and making sure I hold my mic close enough to my mouth. I wish you a good trip back, it is really a pleasure to meet you today.

Annie Battiste: Thank you so much, and thanks for having me.