“Honouring the Declaration: Church Commitments to Reconciliation and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”
Edited by Don Schweitzer and Paul L.
Gareau
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$39.95
ISBN 9-780889-778320
Honouring the Declaration: Church
Commitments to Reconciliation and the UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), a collection of diverse scholarly
essays edited by Don Schweitzer (McDougald Professor of Theology at St.
Andrew’s College, Saskatoon, and an ordained member of the United Church of
Canada) and Paul L. Gareau (Métis associate professor in the Faculty of Native
Studies at the University of Alberta) is aptly titled. Over ten chapters, the
contributing Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars and theologians examine the
UNDRIP from many angles as it pertains to the United Church and other Christian
denominations, and they weigh in on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls
to Action. In this gathering of learned minds, the contributors discuss
what true reconciliation means, why it’s integral, steps to achieving it, and
some of the challenges facing reconciliation.
In her lived-experience essay “Restructured Feelings: Pitfalls of Settler-Christian Turns to Education,” Lynn Caldwell questions education’s role in non-Indigenous and Indigenous relations, making “an argument against overstating what education about difference, about injustice and oppression, or about reconciliation and justice can achieve.” The former longtime faculty member at St. Andrew’s College contends that “settler-Christian education” is “preliminary and foundational,” and she writes that the residential school system is an example of “̒education.’” Caldwell effectively uses an anatomy metaphor to make her point: “Learning about oppression, power, culture, whiteness, race, and privilege is [akin to] learning an anatomy … Such learning certainly can be a part of a path to health, but in and of itself the outcome of learning anatomy in the ways I am conceiving of it here, is just that—the knowledge of anatomy.” This knowledge is important, but as lawyer/educator Sa’ke’j Henderson and Don Schweitzer state in their Afterword, “reconciliation requires concrete structural change and material reparations.”
Henderson’s own chapter concerns “the principle of inherent human dignity,” which is critical because “[Indigenous Peoples] have suffered through constant and unabashed violations of [their] inherent dignity.” He cites “cognitive justice” as integral to transcending European knowledge systems and ensuring an “inclusive education and society” for Indigenous Peoples. “Seminaries should collaborate with Indigenous people in an evaluation of their ethos and their efforts at reform, and to avoid repeating the failures of the past,” he writes.
Biblical scholar Christine Mitchell queries the Old Testament commands of “colonization and extermination” and asks “How are the biblical conquest narratives applicable to my experience and the experience of other settler Canadians?” She contends that “we are called now more than ever to contextualize these texts as fantasies, and to resist any attempts to use them to justify an actuality.”
There’s much to learn and digest in these learned essays. As Christianity has been historically complicit in the oppression of Indigenous Peoples, it’s only fitting that “the Church” play a leading role in doing everything possible to right the wrongs. In adopting the Declaration as a framework for reconciliation, the United Church of Canada avows that “A new relationship is waiting, and we turn our faces towards it.”
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
“On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Relations and Resistances”
Edited by Emily Grafton and David B. A.
MacDonald
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$36.95
ISBN 9-781779-400680
In 2025, editors and political
scientists Emily Grafton and David B. A. MacDonald released On Settler
Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples, which considered the 2015 Truth
and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report and its outcomes. They’ve now followed
up with On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Relations and Resistances. This
important new work consists of a “collection of conversations” which address
the question: “What does meaning change look like amid ongoing settlerism and
resulting inequalities and violence?”
Even the definition of colonialism is sometimes debated. Contributor Joyce Green—professor emerita of Political Science at the University of Regina and a citizen of the Ktunaxa Nation—explains that “At its core, colonialism is about profit acquired by stealing someone else’s land and resources while denying the sovereignty and humanity of those oppressed.”
Anishinaabe law scholar Leo Baskatawang points out that “treaties” have also had different interpretations. He writes that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report, which included ninety-four Calls to Action, has not been properly addressed: “The Government of Canada’s approach to dealing with the Calls to Action has been to itemize each one, as if it were a list of goods that can be bought at the supermarket and checked off as done.”
Heena B. Mistry writes about anti-Asian racism and posits that colonialism exercised a “’divide and rule’” strategy to “disrupt solidarity between racialized migrants and Indigenous communities.” She suggests that “efforts to address anti-Asian racism on campus must be in collaboration and solidarity with efforts to decolonize and Indigenize the campus.” Kurtis Boyer argues that education (about colonialism) is not enough, as it can lead to “resentment, and limitations of student engagement.” He writes “To truly achieve reconciliation, education must centre Indigenous ways of knowing, reflecting the diversity of Indigenous thought and practice, and offering relational approaches that foster deeper understanding and learning.”
I enjoyed Enakshi Dua and Elaine Coburn’s discussion on land acknowledgments, which Cree scholar Michelle Daigle has suggested “are more often part of a “̒spectacle of reconciliation’” that serves only to assuage “̒white guilt.’” Dua and Coburn assert that “we must move from land acknowledgements to Land Back, raising questions about compensation and resources.”
On the prairies, treaty’s being honoured in the creation of the Treaty Land Sharing Network: “… mainly white settler farmers, ranchers and other landholders who have come together to offer safe land access for Indigenous Peoples to practise their ways of life in Treaty 4 and 6 areas of Saskatchewan and Alberta.” Co-authors Naomi Beingessner, Emily Eaton, and Martha Jane Robbins were “inspired by the oral histories and the growing awareness about Indigenous understandings of treaties,” and “[their] network attempts to practise their true spirit and intent.”
Other acts of decolonization include orchestrating a home-birth (as opposed to a cold and racist hospital experience); the proposed creation of “a mandatory grade 11 course focused on Indigenous voices” in Toronto; and “the rise in Indigenous narratives in arts, literature, and media.” Promising, but it appears there’s still a long way to go.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
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