IN MANY CROWN-FIRST NATION TREATIES, and specifically the Numbered Treaties, there is reference to health care provisions. Referred to as a medicine chest in some cases or aid in others, this provision appears in written and oral versions of treaties.
Why then, is it absent in the conversations around the COVID-19 pandemic and First Nations, when it is needed most? This contemporary moment in Canadian time reveals much about the interpretation of treaties and how that interpretation (or mal-interpretation) matters in material ways to First Nations.
In this Yellowhead Special Report, Gina Starblanket and Dallas Hunt consider how healthcare is represented in the Numbered Treaty discussions at the time of treaty-making and into the present, illustrating contrasting visions of our collective relationship and the consequences. But in this study there is also guidance for the future of that relationship, one rooted in mutual support and a politics of life.
