Noted Canadian author and lecturer Bill Waiser addressed a full house at the Humboldt and District Gallery on Wednesday night during a lecture entitled we are all treaty people. Drawing on years of research and his own writings, wiser took the audience through a chronology of early contact with European plain settlers, the Hudson Bay company, and indigenous peoples of the area.
Waiser recounted how the earliest pre treaty agreements were oral with the understanding that the terms would last as long as the sun shone and the rivers flowed. The agreements included provisions for education, medicine, and support with migrating to an agricultural economy.
Waiser elaborated on encounters with Canadian political leadership (complete with admonitions about Canadians not knowing how to spell leaders names such as Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier). As time went on it became evident that the treaties signed by representatives of the crown and First Nations leaders such as Chiefs Ahtahkakoop and Mistawasis would not unfold to the benefit of Indigenous peoples on the prairies.
Rather than the guaranteed education on Indigenous territories, the infamous system of residential schools was established to create a cultural, social and familial disconnect among the Indigenous peoples, the results of which are well documented.
He commented on the past system which effectively incarcerated indigenous peoples on reserves under a rigid system of oversight where any lack of compliance meant no food. He also noted how reserve lands were reduced in size by up to 20 per cent during Lauriers years of government.
Waiser also commented on an occasionally heard sentiment that treaties are a thing of the past and that people should just move on. He drew a parallel to an agreement held with Canadian Pacific Railway at its establishment that their land holdings would never be subject to tax, an agreement that continues to exist today.
Waiser concluded that any movement toward reconciliation required more than empty gestures of removing statues and changing names of landmarks. People would have to engage in real activism in order to bring about the change everyone seeks. He said in one particularly acute sign of distress is the homeless population in the city of Saskatoon with many Indigenous children on the streets.
Waiser return to his lecturer stance, being a former professor at the University of Saskatchewan for many years, making connections with some of his former students in the audience.