High school students from across Prince Albert Grand Council territory are getting a treaty education this week.
Schools in Sturgeon Lake, Black Lake, Lac La Ronge, James Smith, and Montreal Lake bands are among those who sent their students to the Treaty Relations Forum in Prince Albert.
Sturgeon Lake Central School student Shaheah Bird said she is learning that First Nations can look inwards to fix the many issues going on in their communities, and that non-First Nations people could benefit from this lesson.
“We don’t get a lot of respect from other people,” she said.
“They don’t give me much respect because of where I come from… and we have a lot of history in our First Nations community, and they’re just not educated. They should actually come down and see what we actually do in our communities because we do a lot of things. We help people, we come together, we have sweats.”
Other students said they felt respect for Elders and for their peers were important points made at the forum.
Elder Billy Joe Sandypoint from Black Lake speaks. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
Elsa Roberts was responsible for lessons on the treaty right to government, which she said consists of legislating, making laws, and getting together to decide what is going to happen in a First Nation or in the community.
She spoke of the traditional Cree way of governing.
Both Red Earth and James Smith have done this, where the “ones that were selected by their family would sit in council. They were the ones that made the legislature,” she said.
“I beg your pardon if I hurt your feelings: we have no government, we have no First Nations government. What we do have are administrations.”
Elsa Roberts at the forum. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
Roberts encouraged the hundred or so people at the forum to seek ways to use these methods in modern times because “the basic principles, the basic foundation does not change. We still have to learn how to get along with each other and we still have to practice those values that we say are Cree and Dene.”
The agenda for the rest of the week includes creating a PAGC task team on fiscal relations between First Nations and the feds.
The forum started on Monday and is running until Thursday.