‘It was a wake-up call’
At the end of May, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 First Nation discovered the grave site of around 215 children at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. Like many people, Jim Shantz, former Indigenous Neighbours coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Alberta says, “It was shocking but not surprising.” Shantz, who retired from MCC…
Raising reconciliation from the dead
“Reconciliation is dead.” I saw that stark message on a sign at the Landback Camp in Victoria Park in Kitchener, Ont., in June 2020. Local Indigenous people established the camp as part of a larger effort to assert their presence and reclaim their space on the Haldimand Tract in Ontario. As chair of the Truth…
Colleagues, friends remember Menno Wiebe
Menno Wiebe, who died on Jan. 5 at his home in Winnipeg, was highly respected in Mennonite circles and beyond for his work and relationships with Indigenous Peoples. While reporting for his tribute to Wiebe, senior writer Will Braun collected the following remembrances from a handful of the people who knew him. Edgy attire I…
‘Be It Resolved’ released
A new anthology published by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada and Mennonite Church Canada hit the press this fall. Be it Resolved: Anabaptists & Partner Coalitions Advocate for Indigenous Justice, 1966-2020 is a collection of more than 90 documents detailing commitments Anabaptists have made to Indigenous justice and decolonization since the 1960s. “I was aware of…
Leon’s Island
After 20 years of negotiations, planning and construction, the water has gone up behind Manitoba Hydro’s $8.7-billion Keeyask dam about 725 km. north of Winnipeg. The troubled project on the province’s largest river now floods 45 square kilometres. Manitoba Hydro says that is a small area for a 695-megawatt dam, but there is nothing small…
Dishonoured treaties are ‘the ghost of our history’
Myeengun Henry, Indigenous elder, says treaty relationships should be tended. “We need to shine those up every year so we don’t forget how important they are.” Henry was the first speaker in a seven-month, online storytelling series called “Treaty as Sacred Covenant: Stories of Indigenous-Mennonite Relations,” that centres on covenants made, broken and renewed. A…
Evangelical path to truth and reconciliation
I started out by digging into the commitments recently made by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) in relation to Indigenous peoples, commitments that include renouncing “white supremacy” and “unsettling” evangelical theology. I finished off by having candid conversations with three friends from three different First Nations about how churches can make things better. The commitments…
The perfect complexity of Coastal GasLink protests
In 2012, I spent two memorable hours in Smithers, B.C., with Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’Moks (John Ridsdale), one of the chiefs at the centre of the Coastal GasLink crisis now confounding our nation. I also spent time with the chief and other members of the Haisla Nation, which supports the pipeline. Back home in Manitoba,…
Who do you support when a community is divided?
“The province of British Columbia alongside Coastal GasLink are continuing their plans to build a pipeline through the unceded territories of the Wet’suwet’en. The five hereditary chiefs and land defenders of Wet’suwet’en have denied access to Coastal GasLink, fearing the pipeline will cause irrevocable ecological damage,” states a call to action for faith communities and…
An incessant demand
“Where are you, Mennonites?” A colleague and I are in a Winnipeg café discussing the current land struggles of many Indigenous peoples. I listen intently as she speaks of the Unist’ot’en, Muskrat Falls and the Tiny House Warriors. I nod my head in understanding and offer affirming murmurs. But then, halfway through tea, she looks…
