Mac symposium examines Indigenous political and social issues
As he spoke, Leroy Hill held up a traditional Two Row Wampum belt.
Its significance, he explained, was to show that the ships of European settlers and the canoes of the Haudenosaunee people would always travel in parallel but separate paths, living side by side under an agreement built on peace, mutual respect and what he called “good-mindedness.”
But that doesn’t seem to be happening these days, he added.
“They can never accept who we are,” said Hill, a sub-chief representing the traditional Six Nations Confederacy Council.
“The Royal Family got wealthy off the avails of the treaty and they’re still getting wealthy,” said Hill.
“But we’re still struggling to survive as a people.”
Hill was Thursday evening’s keynote speaker to wrap up the opening day of a two-day symposium at McMaster University titled Indigenous Governance and Settler Aboriginal Policy in an Era of Real Change.
The symposium, which continues Friday, is being jointly hosted by McMaster’s Indigenous Research Institute and Ryerson University’s Centre for Indigenous Governance.
The opening day focused on contemporary political and legal issues, as well as the consideration of Indigenous alternatives.
Following his involvement in negotiations more than decade ago over the Douglas Creek Estates land claims in Caledonia, Hill claims his mail is now regularly opened and taped back up before he receives it.
“That kind of makes me feel good in a sick way,” Hill said with a smile.
“I don’t know what they do with it, maybe they make copies or whatever,” he added. “I guess they’re afraid of guys like me.”
Just before Hill’s talk, an elder from the Algonquins of Barriere Lake First Nation in northwestern Quebec gave an emotional first-person account of the physical and sexual abuse he suffered during three years spent in a residential school.
Friday’s session will focus on social policy areas, including a discussion about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry.