First Nations and Canada: Seeking True Reconciliation
This panel will discuss the issues that Canada must face honestly and critically as First Nations move forward from the process of truth and reconciliation. How do we create an economic future for First Nations and revitalize their cultural practices and languages? What are the legal issues that need to be addressed? How do we engage the violence that floods indigenous communities? What does the future of First Nations and Canada look like? Join our speakers as they engage us in conversation and help us to face what inhibits fruitful discussion and what will lead to relationships of justice.
John Borrows
John Borrows is Anishinaabe/Ojibway and a member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, Canada. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria Law School. His publications include: Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law (Donald Smiley Award for the best book in Canadian Political Science, 2002); Canada's Indigenous Constitution (Canadian Law and Society Best Book Award 2011); Drawing Out Law: A Spirit's Guide (2010); Freedom and Indigenous Constitutionalism (forthcoming), all from the University of Toronto Press. Dr. Borrows is a recipient of an Aboriginal Achievement Award in Law and Justice, a Fellow of the Trudeau Foundation, and a Fellow of the Academy of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (R.S.C.), Canada's highest academic honour.
Leah Gazan
Leah Gazan is a member of the Wood Mountain Lakota Nation, located in Treaty number 4 in the Province of Saskatchewan. She holds a M.Ed. degree and teaches in the Faculty of Education at the University of Winnipeg. Professor Gazan is active in a number of organizations and programs that promote social justice, including the Idle No More Movement. She serves as President of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, a member of the Board of Governors at Red River College, and a council member on the Manitoba Lotteries Research Council. Professor Gazan is also the co-founder of the #WeCare campaign, aimed at engaging the broader public to stand in solidarity with indigenous communities to address the violence against indigenous women and girls in Canada.
Niigaan Sinclair
Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe, originally from St. Peter’s (Little Peguis) Indian Settlement near Selkirk, Manitoba, and is currently Associate Professor and Acting Head of the Department of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba. He is an international commentator on Indigenous issues for outlets like Al-Jazeera, The Guardian, and national broadcasters like APTN, CTV, CBC, and The Globe and Mail. Dr. Sinclair is an award winning writer, editor of such books as The Winter We Danced: Voices of the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement (Arbeiter Ring Press, 2014), and was named one of CBC Manitoba's "Top 40 under 40" in 2015.