From James Lawrance:
The Indigenous acknowledgement statement headlining the City of Yellowknife’s website home page is horrendously discriminatory, disinformative and offensive. It must come down.
The statement excludes the Tłįcho people and ignores that Yellowknife is within the Tłįcho traditional territory, overlapping and coexisting with Chief Drygeese Territory.
The idea that Chief Drygeese Territory has now become the homeland of the North Slave Métis Alliance, I would think, must be a surprise to the Yellowknives Dene First Nation.
For many months, Mayor Rebecca Alty has mulishly, without explanation or reasonable grounds, refused to immediately remove or fix the language. The mayor has been told about this by the Tłįcho Goverment publicly and privately. As an expert in these matters and out of private concern, I provided the mayor an abundance of evidence clearly demonstrating that her approach is out of line with the law and treaties. The mayor has refused to acknowledge the points I have provided and refused to talk to me, not even once by telephone.
I presented on this matter to Sheila Bassi-Kellett, the city’s senior administrator, at her reconciliation workshop at the Tree of Peace this past September.
The traditional use area of the Tłįcho — called Mowhì Gogha Dè Nįįtłèè - includes Yellowknife. It is simply and clearly drawn out in treaty, an agreement that many people worked on for over 30 years. The overarching intent of the treaty, that the Crown said it was achieving on behalf of all Canadians, was to ensure the recognition of the Tłįcho First Nation and protection of their land and other rights.
This language being broadcast to the world by the mayor disrespects the treaties and is horribly discriminatory, anti-constitutional, divisive, and hurtful to many people on many levels.
It must come down now.
Why is the mayor insisting on telling the world that the Tłįcho are not part of Yellowknife?
It is inconceivable to me that our Tłįcho brothers’ and sisters’ actual existence is not enough for the mayor to recognize them. Many Tłįcho families live in Yellowknife, many are direct kin to other city residents, many pay city taxes, almost all Tłįcho people over the last few decades were born in Yellowknife, and Tłįcho people are a boon to the city economy.
The treaties and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are not negotiable by the city. Pitting one group’s rights and interests against another is the oldest profession in the colonial world. This glaring contravention brings dishonour to the city and it casts a dark light on the city leadership’s commitment to respecting Aboriginal people and their rights.
How can we trust the city in addressing reconciliation and managing ongoing beneficial and collaborative relations? More broadly, how can any of us, in any respect, trust a municipality that plays fast and loose with its own residents’ very identities and snubs its nose at constitutional rights? Will it be your rights, or mine, or your grandmother’s that they next clumsily trample?