Some indigenous leaders and community members say they are concerned about the progress of reconciliation with King Charles III.
Grand Chief of Treaty 8 First Nations Arthur Noskey says the Queen’s death last week did not come at the right time as First Nations made progress in working with the Crown to enforce agreements of treaty.
First Nations treaties have been a complex issue since the beginning of the agreements. Some were signed in circumstances of vulnerability, while others were implemented as peace treaties, and most were not negotiated with precision or in indigenous languages.
“It did not meet the expectations of our ancestors. Even today, there are many discrepancies,” Mr. Noskey pointed out.
According to him, the honor of the Crown is at stake if discussions with the new monarch do not continue.
“I hope we don’t have to start from scratch with King Charles,” he added.
Canada’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ralph Goodale, said the king was “perhaps a little more outgoing and a little less reserved” than his mother.
Mr. Goodale expects the new sovereign to continue to focus on issues important to Canada, including reconciliation with Indigenous communities.
Crystal Fraser, an assistant professor in the faculty of Indigenous studies at the University of Alberta, says the queen’s death marks the end of an era, but also represents a moment of reflection.
“The Queen was the representative of a colonial empire that really did a lot of harm internationally to colonial countries and especially to Indigenous Nations here in Canada,” she suggested.
Oppressive colonial policies have marred Canadian history for centuries, most recently with the residential school system, the Sixties Scoop, the forced sterilization of Indigenous women, and the forced resettlement of Inuit in the North — events that have all produced during the Queen’s reign.
“These decisions were made in part by Christian churches, by the Canadian government, by police forces like the RCMP. But at the end of the day… it’s all done in the spirit of the British Empire,” she mentioned.
Like many other members of the Indigenous community, Ms. Fraser doesn’t have high expectations for a change in the monarchy’s approach to reconciliation.
“At the end of the day, it’s still a British monarchy that has colonized much of the world and continues to profit from it,” she concluded.
In May, Charles and his wife, Camilla, visited Yellowknife and the Yellowknife Dene First Nation on the final leg of their Canadian tour for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Their visit focused on reconciliation and climate change.
During the visit, the Assembly of First Nations and the Métis National Council demanded an apology from the monarchy. In a speech before he left Yellowknife, Charles said he traveled to meet residential school survivors and acknowledged their pain and suffering, but did not apologize.
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This dispatch was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta Exchanges and The Canadian Press for the news.