By Strength, We Are Still Here: Conversations on Truth, Reconciliation, and Responsibility

Honouring the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 10th anniversary of the release of its Final Report and 94 Calls to Action, this in-person and ONLINE event invites participants to consider what meaningful reconciliation requires today.

Join Dr. Marie Wilson, former Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and Stephen Kakfwi, former Premier of the Northwest Territories and residential school Survivor, for a conversation on truth, reconciliation, and the responsibilities that remain before us. UPDATE: Due to a change in availability, Dr. Matthew Wildcat will now be moderating this conversation. The discussion will reflect on the legacy of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the ongoing impacts of residential schooling, and the possibilities for building more respectful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Grounded in lived experience, public leadership, and a commitment to justice, this event invites participants to consider what meaningful reconciliation requires today.  

For those attending in-person, a FREE community meal will be served following the presentation (while quantities last).

This event is presented by the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus in partnership with the Faculties of Native Studies and Arts.

Register here

About the Speakers:

Dr. Marie Wilson is a bilingual Canadian author, public speaker and educator. NORTH OF NOWHERE: Song of a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner is a best-selling memoir of her life within the historic TRC of Canada, preceded by decades of public service excellence. 

As an award-winning journalist Marie Wilson hosted Focus North, northern Canada’s first weekly, pan-Territorial television information program, also serving northern Quebec. As a senior executive, Wilson pioneered Northbeat and Igalaaq, the first daily TV News programs in the North, in English and Inuktitut. She developed TV specials for Truth North Concerts and Arctic Winter Games, to showcase unique northern cultures, performances and sports, nationally and internationally. As an educator, Dr. Wilson was a lecturer at Western University, a high school teacher in Burkina Faso, a trainer for South African journalists covering their first democratic election post-Apartheid, and a distinguished Professor of Practice at McGill University.
 
Marie Wilson and husband Stephen Kakfwi have three children and four grandchildren, her most treasured achievements!

The Honourable, Dr. Stephen Kakfwi is a lifelong Dene leader in Indigenous rights, environmental stewardship, and reconciliation.

He served as Premier of the Northwest Territories, and President of the Dene Nation representing Chiefs of Treaties 8 and 11. He led community consultations for the landmark Berger Inquiry into a proposed gas pipeline across the Dene homeland. He led and hosted Pope John Paul II’s visit to northern Canada on behalf of all national Indigenous organizations. As a government Minister, he pioneered Impact Benefit Agreements for North America’s first diamond mines. As an influential Dene leader, he advocated support for Inuit aspirations to divide the Northwest Territories and create Nunavut. 

A husband, father, grandfather, and acknowledged Elder, Kakfwi is also an author and singer-song writer. The residential schools, heroes and homeland that have shaped his life are captured in four CD’s and an acclaimed memoir, Stoneface: A Defiant Dene.

Dr. Matthew Wildcat is a member of Ermineskin Cree Nation. He is an Associate Professor and the Director of Indigenous Governance in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. Wildcat leads the Relational Governance Project – an Indigenous policy concept that explores the practice of how First Nations co-govern service delivery organizations. This emerges from his experience with the Maskwacis Education Schools Commission that led to the creation of a unified school system for the four Nations of Maskwacis. Wildcat is also the co-director of the partnership grant Critical Approaches to Indigenous Relationality.