Urban reserve created for education a first of its kind
Star Blanket Cree Nation designates 32 acres around Fnuniv campus
REGINA The Star Blanket Cree Nation has become the first in Canada to create an urban reserve dedicated to the advancement of education — the culmination of a journey that began in 2002.
“It means so much,” said Chief Michael Starr. “The journey’s been so long.”
The reserve is named atim kâ-mihkosit (Red Dog in English), after a former chief of Star Blanket Cree Nation and encompasses 32 acres surrounding the Regina campus of the First Nations University of Canada.
A long list of signatories gathered at the university Wednesday to make it official and celebrate a historic moment.
“(It’s) the only time this has ever happened in … Canada, where an urban reserve specifically for the advancement of education has been created,” said Fnuniv president Mark Dockstator. “What that means concretely for the university is we will now have the opportunity to start developing this land and achieving that original vision.”
The university’s founders dreamt of building onto the university with things like student residences, daycares and other support facilities, said Dockstator.
It also symbolizes bringing the treaty right to land and the treaty right to education together for the first time.
“That’s why we’re here. To witness treaty being fulfilled, treaty being honoured,” said Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde.
The process was started by former Star Blanket chief Cliff Starr in 2002, and has been carried forward by current Chief Michael Starr.
The agreement was negotiated between several parties, including Star Blanket Cree Nation, the Fnuniv, the University of Regina, the provincial and federal governments, CIBC and the City of Regina.
Without any one of those partners, the agreement would not have been possible.
Dockstator hopes that as the founders of the Fnuniv were leaders in Indigenous-based education — owned, operated and managed by Indigenous peoples — the university will be leaders again in this new era of urban reserves for the purpose of education.
“The leaders … when they created this institution, always said that it’s great that we do this, but we shouldn’t be the only ones,” he said. “We hope to be leaders again by showing others that yes, you can do this too, and you can have more than what exists currently.”
The designation of urban reserve status also has tax and other financial advantages, said Dockstator.
The agreement was made possible through the Treaty Land Entitlement Framework Agreement signed by the Government of Canada, the province and 25 First Nations Chiefs in 1992.
The framework provides First Nations monetary compensation to purchase land on a “willing seller/willing buyer basis.”
First Nations must negotiate agreements with urban municipalities and school divisions that address tax-loss compensation before Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada will transfer land to reserve status.
“Treaty Land Entitlement (TLE) is aimed at resolving outstanding obligations to First Nations, which did not receive all of the reserve land they are entitled to under treaty,” said a Fnuniv news release. “It’s a Crown obligation that’s owed to First Nations people,” said Bellegarde.
“Treaty land entitlement is a debt owed.”
For Michael Starr, the agreement is symbolic of the First Nation’s deeply ingrained commitment to education, referred to by some during the announcement as “the new buffalo” of future generations.
“We ate buffalo,” said Starr. “That was our main sustenance of life.”
The creation of the urban reserve symbolizes education as a new form of sustenance for Indigenous peoples.
Moving forward, the partners will work together to decide how the land around the Fnuniv is developed.
“It’s an educational institution and we’ll honour that,” said Starr.
The reserve was officially recognized by the federal government on Sept. 17.