🎬 Fighting for DRIPA: Countering the colonial backlash to recent Supreme Court Decisions

June 15th marked the 180th anniversary of the Treaty of Oregon signed in 1846. The treaty is mentioned 143 times in the recent BC Supreme Court ruling in Cowichan Tribes v. Canada and is the basis for the Crown’s claim to sovereignty over the lands we now call British Columbia—yet most settler residents of the province have never heard of this treaty.

Hear from Dr. Lorna Wanosts’a7 Williams and Dr. John Price—authors of a forthcoming report that provides an accessible summary of the legal issues, reveals the colonial nature of the 1846 Treaty and outlines how a just settlement of land issues will largely depend on fostering stronger settler-Indigenous relations.

Given its legal importance, the controversies that have arisen in response to the Cowichan and Gitxaala court decisions and the BC government’s threat to suspend the 2019 Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), this is a critical time to understand how we got here, what’s on the line and how we can defend Indigenous rights and title.

Panelists

Dr. Lorna Wanosts’a7 Williams is an esteemed member of the Lil’wat First Nation and a pillar of Indigenous elementary-to-university education.

She is Professor Emerita of Indigenous Education, Curriculum and Instruction and the first Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge and Learning at the University of Victoria. She is also the first director of the school’s Indigenous education program. She developed authoritative curricula in Indigenous language revitalization with traditional teaching and learning practices. Her courses were revolutionary for their inclusion of Indigenous pedagogy, spiritual leaders and knowledge keepers. Dr. Williams is a recipient of the Order of Canada.

Dr. John Price is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Victoria and Associate Fellow at the Centre for Global Studies. He is a public historian with a current focus on Canada-China relations and Indigenous-settler relations in the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Price is a co-author of Challenging Racist “British Columbia”: 150 Years and Counting (2021) and co-editor of a special volume of BC Studies, Unsettling the Islands: Race, Indigeneity, and the Transpacific (204, Winter 2019/20). With University of Victoria faculty members Nicholas XEMŦOLTW̱ Claxton and Christine O’Bonsawin, he was awarded a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant to promote Indigenous Ecological Knowledge with the environmental organization Dogwood.

Resources