Mi'kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre 2021 Peace and Friendship Treaties Days -FR and SJ

Event Details:

The theme of MWC’s sixth annual Peace and FriendshipTreaty Days Symposium, “Reinvigorating Peace and Friendship Treaties: Remedies and Responses to Systemic Racism in the Criminal Justice System,” took shape from a plea for answers from the family of Rodney Levi.

Four months after an RCMP officer shot and killed Rodney Levi on June 12 ,2020, in the Signigtog District, the RCMP stood by and watched while the Mi’kmaq of Sipekne’katik were met with violence and destruction of property for asserting their treaty right to fish. The connection between these acts of violence point to the root of systemic racism in the criminal justice system: 

Our Peace and Friendship treaties, as nation-to-nation agreements based on principles of mutual co-existence, are not being honoured, contributing to dispossession and a history of criminalizing Wabanaki relations to the land, resources and to one another.

The MWC Treaty Days Online Symposium offers a platform for Indigenous scholars, students, community members, and organizations to discuss recentering the Peace and Friendship Treaties in our relations with the settler society.  The recognition and implementation of Peace and Friendship Treaties should be the foundation of responses and remedies to systemic racism in the criminal justice system.  

Conference Program

March 16 - Keynote, 6:30 p.m.: Sákéj Henderson, Research Fellow, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan

March 17 - Panel 1, 6:30 p.m.: Criminal Justice, Systemic Racism, and Nation-to-Nation Relations: The Imperative of an Inquiry into the Shootings of Rodney Levi and Chantel Moore

March 18 - Panel 2, 6:30 p.m.:  Honouring (not Criminalizing) Nation-to-Nation Treaty Rights: The Mi’kmaq of Sipekne’katik and the Right to Fish

With this virtual gathering of Indigenous scholars and representatives from Wabanaki communities and organizations, it is our hope that we may discuss our responses to these tragedies and challenges.  While they need to be considered on their own terms, they are also indicative of processes of dispossession including but not limited to Aboriginal title cases, treaty federalism, the call for a justice inquiry and the assertion of the Mi’kmaq Treaty right to fish.  

In hosting this conference, we may begin to answer the questions posed by Rodney Levi’s family: why did this happen and what should we do? 

Building: Online