Justice
Justice is a quality of relationships relating to fairness, right dealing, integrity, and recognizing when wrong has been done. It calls for us to take responsibility for wrong doings and take steps towards restoring their destructive consequences. Justice is essential for establishing true peace and right relationships. True justice includes many aspects of individual and collective relationship: meeting basic needs — food, water, housing, health care etc. — that are needed for good life; economic rights; political rights; rights of movement and of association; religious/faith and communication rights; and sexual and family rights. Three principles to guide struggles for justice are: that access to the basic needs of life takes priority over the wants of those who have more than enough; that freedom of the oppressed takes priority over the liberty of the powerful; and that the participation of the marginalized takes priority over maintaining an order which excludes them.
Respect for the Sacredness of Land
The land provides for each of us, including food, water, resources, medicines, and livelihoods. For those of us whose ancestors came from other parts of the world to settle on this Indigenous land, it was the land that sustained them and allowed them to flourish. We continue to benefit from the abundance of the land. Thus, the land is sacred as it cares for us, and it is our responsibility to care for her. Share the Gifts – Honour the Treaties encourages each person to appreciate these gifts from the land, ensure they are shared equitably, and be mindful of ways to harvest her resources responsibly and sustainably. We also respect the understanding that Indigenous law and spirituality are intertwined with the land, the people and creation, and this forms their culture and sovereignty.
Right Relationships
We see right relationships as bringing together Indigenous and Settler people in a search for justice for Indigenous Peoples and a recognition that injustices brought on Indigenous peoples impact all of us in Canada today. This calls Settler people to create relationships of mutual honour and respect and to seek to heal relationships that have been broken between Indigenous Peoples and Settlers. Part of this requires Settler society to honour each Indigenous cultural territory and community, as well as their agency and own decision-making processes. This includes respecting each Indigenous community’s particular conditions for right relationships. Settlers must also work to honour the legacy of Indigenous communities and respect their right to determine what living in right relationship means. For guidance in the pursuit of right relationships, we look to and affirm the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We aim to intentionally nurture this in interpersonal, community, and nation to nation relationships.
Reparations Not Charity
Reparations is the making of amends for a wrong that one has done, or from which one has benefitted, by paying money or otherwise helping those wronged. The usual assumption behind charitable giving is that our choice to give is a noble act of altruism above and beyond expectations. In contrast, reparation is a choice arising from our own awareness of our complicity in a harm done and an intentional choice to act responsibly towards repairing that harm—in this case the violence that has been done to Indigenous peoples through settler colonialism and genocide. This responsibility is articulated for Settlers (in Article 28, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) as the responsibility to redress Indigenous peoples for “the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used, and which have been confiscated, taken, occupied, used or damaged without their free, prior and informed consent.” Read more about our “Relationship to money.”
Responsibility & Accountability
When we, as Settlers, are honest with ourselves about the truths of history and our places of privilege in the economic and social structures that have been made through that history, we then acknowledge our responsibility to make things right and be accountable to each other. Share the Gifts – Honour the Treaties seeks to re-engage with the spirit and intent of the British Crown-First Nation Treaties, which created an ongoing binding relationship ensuring each Treaty party is responsible and responsive to the well-being of the others. These Treaties are sacred agreements without time limits—as long as the sun shines and the grass grows. We have inherited them from those who settled on this land before we arrived. Therefore, the responsibility for honouring these agreements rests with current and future generations.
Empathy & Compassion
As we work towards understanding and appreciating the experiences of those different from ourselves, we will increasingly respond from a place of genuine appreciation and concern for others, rather than a place of sympathy, pity, or disdain. Share the Gifts – Honour the Treaties encourages the types of genuine human connections that embrace each individual and their group identity as valuable and endowed with rights as articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Generosity & Reciprocity
Share the Gifts – Honour the Treaties honours Indigenous knowledge which asserts that the spirit and intent of Treaties agreed upon by the Crown with First Nations entailed ongoing kinship principles such as loving maternal protection, familial sharing and equal opportunity (Aimée Craft). Settlers given the right (through Treaty) to establish homes in Indigenous territories, were expected to learn and respect these principles of taking only what is needed, giving back from (or passing forward) the benefits the land provides, sharing generously with those who are considered kin, and caring for the land for future generations.
Abundance
Operating from a mindset of abundance rather than scarcity reminds us to trust that when we care effectively for the land there will be enough for all. It invites us to understand that the land is for all and helps free us from holding tightly to our “property”—to what we think we own. As we let go of our ownership-based attachments to land and material wealth, generosity and compassion arises, allowing for the possibility of equity and sufficiency for all.
Liberation
Oppressive structures and institutions, shaped by colonization and racism that marginalize Indigenous communities and destroy Indigenous livelihoods, are a form of violence. Share the Gifts – Honour the Treaties works towards honouring the Treaties as one way to challenge these structural forms of bondage and open the liberating possibilities of transformed relationships, new economies, and healthier institutions. Share the Gifts – Honour the Treaties seeks the flourishing of Indigenous communities alongside healing Settler cultures and peoples.
Self-Determination
Share the Gifts – Honour the Treaties values the Indigenous kinship principle of noninterference, invoked in the Two-Row Wampum Treaty and subsequent numbered Treaties—encouraging each individual and group to make their own decisions about how they wish to live and govern themselves (as articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, particularly Articles 3, 4, & 32). Share the Gifts – Honour the Treaties seeks to embody this value by ensuring decisions about the use and distribution of reparation funds will be determined fully by Indigenous groups chosen and directed by Indigenous Elders and communities.