The election of Canada’s first First Nations provincial premier in Manitoba last week is a “momentous” step on the path to reconciliation, the country’s first Indigenous attorney general says — but there’s a lot more to do.
Jody Wilson-Raybould says she expects Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew to bring a “collective communitarian” worldview to government, reflecting Indigenous teachings that will bring different voices to the table and ensure each of them is heard.
That worldview stands in contrast to the federal government’s approach to reconciliation, she says, which she calls “performative” rather than “transformative.”
“I think it’s momentous to see an Indigenous person as the first First Nations premier,” she told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block.
“I know that he is strongly rooted in his culture, and from what I’ve heard of him in terms of his leadership and the campaign, that he is going to be very strongly rooted in representing all Manitobans. And in doing that, I wish him all of the best of luck for the challenges that he will most definitely face in the future.”
Wilson-Raybould said she also supports Kinew’s commitment that his government will conduct a search of a Winnipeg-area landfill where the remains of two murdered Indigenous women, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, are believed to be.
The defeated Progressive Conservatives had doubled down on opposing such a search during the campaign, citing safety concerns.
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Ottawa has voiced support for a search but has also said more research is needed to ensure such an operation is conducted safely and within an appropriate budget and timeframe.
The federal government last week committed another $740,000 toward further assessing the scope of a search, which Wilson-Raybould welcomed, but added more federal support is needed.
“Just imagine if they were your loved ones’ remains in the landfill,” she said.
Jeremy Skibicki has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Harris, Myran and two other women: Rebecca Contois, whose partial remains were found in a different landfill last year, and an unidentified woman Indigenous leaders are calling Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman.
Overall, Wilson-Raybould — whose latest book True Reconciliation: How to Be a Force for Change attempts to highlight how real actions can better advance Indigenous wellbeing — said she has yet to see the transformative changes committed to by the federal Liberal government she was once a member of.
While she noted there has been some “constructive change” thanks to the advocacy and actions of Indigenous people themselves, she added that “we have a long way to go in terms of true reconciliation in this country.”
“We need to have a follow-through with the commitment that the prime minister has made publicly in the House of Commons to change the laws, policies and practices of the Canadian government,” she said.
“To do the hard work, the necessary work that will meet the litmus test, my litmus test, which is actual substantive change on the ground in Indigenous communities and improved wellbeing — that hasn’t happened in any measurable way to this point.”
In her book, Wilson-Raybould acknowledges the more “performative” steps toward reconciliation, like orange shirts and commemorative events, are important in changing the dialogue around how Indigenous people and their concerns are viewed and talked about. But she says such displays mean little without real actions to back them up.
She told Stephenson that governments, including Ottawa, can no longer sit back and say it’s too difficult or complicated to address laws and practices that deny Indigenous people their right to wellbeing and self-governance.
“Those pieces need to be set aside,” she said, adding enough studies and commissions have highlighted the ways that governments can act.
“What needs to happen is the federal government needs to recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples and create the space for the implementation of those rights,” she said.
“Honouring treaties, ensuring that Indigenous peoples can be self-determining, including self-governing, (creating) the space for proper nation-to-nation relationships with our governments and the implementation of Indigenous laws and traditions in parallel with other governments — this is where the transformative change will happen, and this is what is, in my view, true reconciliation, not the easy and symbolic realities that seem to be the focus of a lot of governments.”