This is the preface to Yellowhead Institute’s Red Paper, Land Back. The project of land back is about reclaiming Indigenous jurisdiction: breathing life into rights and responsibilities. Our Red Paper is about how Canada dispossesses Indigenous peoples from the land, and in turn, what communities are doing to get it back.
With the 2019 federal election imminent, this Brief represents an overview of each of the major federal parties, their commitments to issues of land restitution, and a more general breakdown of investments (or lack thereof) to Indigenous communities.
Indigenous peoples in Canada are working to restore their place names and revitalize their languages after colonial policies and law sought to eradicate them. This brief offers several examples of Indigenous nations who are actively reclaiming jurisdiction to their lands, and provide recommendations for how federal and provincial/territorial governments can help to undo some of these past harms and injustices.
Based in the Faculty of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University.