A night to remember, a history we must not forget

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/02/2024 (582 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Wab Kinew, Manitoba’s first First Nations premier, and his wife, Dr. Lisa Monkman, an Ojibwa physician who practises medicine at an inner-city clinic, were at the Winnipeg Jets game at Canada Life Centre Sunday.

A smiling Kinew, still enjoying his honeymoon period as a fledgling premier, got a warm round of applause from the crowd when the couple appeared on the big screen.

Earlier in the evening, Rhonda Head, an international award-winning singer from Opaskwayak Cree Nation, sang a powerful rendition of O Canada in Cree. I had goosebumps.

Métis singer Krista Rey, Aboriginal Music Hall of Fame member Errol “C-Weed” Ranville, round dance singer Darryl Buck and Inuit throat singers Nikki Komaksiutiksak and her daughters were among the cultural performers. DJ Uncle Craig played Indigenous-inspired music in the concourse.

The North End Band and the Norman Chief Memorial Dancers, celebrating Métis culture, performed all evening in the lower bowl of the rink. Murray Sinclair, Manitoba’s first Indigenous judge, who became a Canadian senator and headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was honoured.

This was the sixth-annual Winnipeg Jets WASAC Night, the acronym for the Winnipeg Aboriginal Sport Achievement Centre. It’s a celebration of Indigenous youth, families and culture and it’s a spectacular event on so many different levels.

The singing, the guitar playing, the drumming, the dancing, the rich colours – the Indigenous Winnipeg Jets logo designed by artist Leticia Spence from Pimicikamak First Nation (Cross Lake) that adorned the jerseys, hoodies and shirts of thousands throughout the venue — alone were out of this world. But it was the message of WASAC Night that really hit home for me.

It’s important to hear the stories of trauma endured by Indigenous people at the hands of colonial governments and colonial settlers over the past 150 years. But it’s equally important to celebrate the achievement and resiliency that exists within the Indigenous community. That’s what WASAC Night is all about: highlighting the talent and accomplishments of Indigenous people.

But it’s even more than that. As I sat through the ceremonies and the Indigenous performances, I realized what I was witnessing is precisely what the numbered treaties and the Manitoba Act (passed in 1870, which recognizes Métis rights) were originally intended to be: for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to live together as equals in a spirit of mutual respect. It was a powerful symbolic message.

It made me think of what it must have been like to witness the opening ceremonies of Treaty 1 negotiations in July 1871 at Lower Fort Garry, where Indigenous performers marked the beginning of the historic talks with traditional song and dance. What followed were nine days of negotiations between First Nations chiefs and Crown representatives on how they planned to live together in peaceful coexistence.

Of course, history didn’t unfold that way. No sooner was the ink dry on the written versions of the numbered treaties and the Manitoba Act that the politicians of the day began to renege on them.

Reserve land promised in treaties came late or not at all, supplies such as farm implements were withheld, and the solemn pledge that Indigenous people could continue to hunt and fish on the lands they had lived on for thousands of years was quickly broken.

In their place came the federal Indian Act and all the coercive assimilative policies that formed part of that apartheid-like legislation: Indigenous cultural rituals were banned, a pass system on reserves was introduced preventing the free movement of First Nations people, Indigenous children were taken from their families and placed in residential schools (where government and church officials attempted to rid them of their language and culture), and Indigenous people could not vote, own land or trade with non-Indigenous people. Many faced starvation.

Land legally owed to Métis people under the Manitoba Act was withheld. Shortly after Manitoba joined Canada, the Métis were assaulted and abused in their own homeland in what became known as the “reign of terror.” Many were forced to flee.

Indigenous people were treated, at best, as second-class citizens and told they should live more like white people if they want to get ahead in life. They were marginalized and dehumanized. It’s not at all what the treaties and the Manitoba Act promised.

Despite the abuse, the assimilative policies and the severe social and economic harm they caused, Indigenous culture, language and way of life survived, thanks to knowledge keepers and elders over the past century-and-a-half.

WASAC Night reminds us of that. It tells the story not just of survival but of success, ambition, talent and pride. It underscores the true objective of treaties and the Manitoba Act: to live together in a spirit of mutual respect and equality, where human dignity is applied to all. That’s what it means to live on treaty territory and the traditional homeland of the Red River Métis.

We need more WASAC nights, not just at NHL hockey games, but elsewhere in our communities. They are powerful symbols of what we should be striving for.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca