As the land back movement at 1492 Land Back Lane goes on, so do the threats and intimidations faced by Indigenous Peoples. This open letter from the Williams family was written at the request of three daughters to address the intimidation directed at their family by Ken Hewitt but also the Haldimand Police Services Board, and the Ontario Provincial Police.
This statement was released by Yellowhead Institute and Indigenous faculty members at Ryerson University in response to the arrest of Courtney Skye, Yellowhead Research Fellow. Courtney was charged with disobeying a court order and mischief in relation to 1492 Land Back Lane.
This statement was released the morning Haldimand County sought to make an interim injunction against land defenders permanent. Concerned Haudenosaunee women responded, calling for an end to the criminalization of their community.
Amid the ongoing conflict between Western and Indigenous philosophies of relating to and with the land, the reflections here engage with Yellowhead’s Red Paper and offer an Inuk perspective on the challenges and hope of “Land Back” in Inuit Nunangat.
After reviewing over 100 cases of injunctions filed by and against First Nations, we believe that this legal tool reinforces the impossible position of First Nation parties when they appear before Canadian courts. This brief provides a summary of just a slim subset of data collected in the largest national research project that exists to date on the use of injunctive relief by and against First Nations in Canada.
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.
Based in the Faculty of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University.