I’ve been touched by people’s response to my memoir with its theme of challenging my unconsciously colonial ways of thinking to make space in my mind and heart to fully appreciate, honour and respect Indigenous ways of thinking that have prevailed here since before...
They rejected the Conservatives’ colonial-style power of naming, and chose the healing power of listening instead. Congratulations, too, to Wab Kinew. As a journalist, in 2008, he helped persuade CBC Radio to listen, and change their language policy from saying...
It's been quite the journey these past four years -- learning about my treaty heritage and the responsiblities associated with it. As part of this, I worked with some Nishnaabe members of the Stoney Point Reserve as they told their story of reclaiming their ancestral...
Writing this review of Michelle Porter's poetic memoir, Approaching Fire, taught me a lot about the distorting power of official public memory. The review was published in the Literary Review of Canada (reviewcanada.ca), March, 2021. Three underlying facts propel this...
Here's a review of A Generous Spirit: Selected Works by Beth Brant Edited by: Janice Gould (Inanna Publications, 2019) Just published in Herizons Magazine (Fall, 2020) This inspiring and important book doesn’t just bring Beth Brant (Degonwadonti, Mohawk) to new,...
printed in Literary Review of Canada Magazine in October, 2019 Read our lips: we agree to share the land, not surrender it. That, according to this fine, careful study, is what Indigenous parties were trying to say during the negotiations of Treaties One through Seven...
printed in the Watershed Sentinelon Sept 14, 2017. The river, the beauty of the valley, the treaties With the drums and chants of “Makh Chi” (by Ulali) blasting on the car stereo, we descend into the Peace River Valley – we being Rita Wong and Valeen Jules with Poets...
Published in the Ottawa Citizen on: November 27, 2017 The Hassan Diab case is beginning to reek of the late 19th-century “Dreyfus Affair “now that a fourth French judge’s order for Diab’s release for lack of evidence has been quashed at a higher level, and this...
People working to reclaim cities as habitats, especially habitats that can sustain them with healthy food, water and transportation options, are in a sense reclaiming the commons. Certainly the commons offers a useful heritage to draw on, starting with the shift of...
Occupy Habitat? Reviving the Occupy Movement, Climate Change & the Commons By Heather Menzies (author of Reclaiming the Commons for the Common Good) Oxfam’s recent report, Working for the Few, on one per cent of the world’s population controlling most of the...