National Indigenous History Month 2025: Solidarity for shared futures

June is National Indigenous History Month – and every year, it should serve as a call to action.For millennia, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples across Turtle Island have stewarded the lands upon which we build our movements and our lives. As a white settler nation established through legacies of enduring colonial violence, Canada was built upon both the gifts freely shared by Indigenous peoples, and the tremendous wealth extracted and stolen from them by settlers: knowledge, culture, language, land, and innumerable lives.Living in a settler nation means reckoning with colonialism as a violent process of wealth transfer into the hands of the few. Over centuries, settler “progress” has borrowed from Indigenous futures.Reconciling with a shared past invites us into the responsibility to embrace and protect shared futures. As trade unionists, we look deeply within ourselves and take instruction on what we can put on the line today to protect Indigenous futures. We are at a political juncture where those futures, as well as Indigenous sovereignty and the right of self-determination, are yet again under attack by a government that holds them in absolute contempt. When the call for solidarity comes through – whether through the resurgence of grassroots work like Idle No More, spearheaded by leaders like Crystal Sinclair, or rallying against legislation that will ram through development on Indigenous territories – we need to be ready to act on our word.Reconciliation Story: a digital archive spanning decadesAt Convention this year, the OPSEU/SEFPO Indigenous Circle presented its Reconciliation Story, a chronicle of the Circle’s past, present, and future journey. This digital archive is a resource for members to understand the critical work that the Circle has undertaken over more than three decades.That work has underpinned resolutions, conferences, and efforts aimed at creating intentional space for Indigenous voices, fundamentally shaping our union’s commitments: from materially supporting First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities across Turtle Island; to organizing provincial lobbying; to creating new traditions within OPSEU/SEFPO to promote cultural connection, education, and activism.It is also work that charts the course for the kind of union we want to be: one that centers justice, truth, sovereignty, and relationships as its guiding principles.Reflecting on this roadmap, this year we can take up ongoing commitments, or those that have yet to be realized:

• Renewing the fight for National Indigenous Peoples Day to be recognized as a statutory holiday from coast to coast;
• Supporting the annual River Run in the fall (date to be announced) and the Grassy Narrows First Nation fight for justice – the vast majority of their community still experiences mercury poisoning as a result of industrial dumping on their lands. This year, First Nations communities will also come together with allies on July 4, 2025 in Thunder Bay to protest the proposed nuclear storage facility proposed for construction at Grassy Narrows First Nation’s headwaters. All members are invited to take part in making a stand – RSVP for the “No Nuclear Waste in Treaty 3” rally here.
• Pushing for the full implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) – federally and municipally;
• Putting material support behind the 94 Calls to Action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission;
• Supporting local land and water defence projects;
• And for those amongst us who are settlers, continuing to learn about the lands we occupy, the Indigenous Nations that continue to care for and protect these lands, and the Treaties that govern our own relationships to said lands.

Threatening treaty rights puts our shared future in perilLast year, we celebrated Sol Mamakwa, MPP for Kiiwetinoong, becoming the first MPP to speak an Indigenous language, Anishininiimowin, in Ontario Legislature in a historic moment of cultural reclamation. This week, MPP Mamakwa was ejected from the house for speaking out against Bill 5, legislation that will steamroll constitutionally protected treaty rights, and turn back the clock on decades of hard-fought environmental legislation.Just yesterday, the Ford government successfully rammed through Bill 5, the “Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act” – an extreme overreach of provincial power that will allow developers and mining companies to further devastate generations of long-standing stewardship protecting the lands which sustain our lives.It allows for designation of the Ring of Fire to the north and related mining plots as “special economic zones,” where certain provincial and municipal laws can be modified or suspended. This includes critical restrictions on what stays in the earth. It’s not just environmental laws affected – labour, traffic, or health and safety laws are fair game, too.Bill 5 is a blatant power grab that set a dangerous precedent for how this government plans to make decisions: cutting corners, eliminating oversight and accountability, and sidelining Indigenous communities in decisions about their own land.Decolonization is not an abstract metaphor – because colonization isn’t either, continuing to deliver violence like this on our doorsteps. Indigenous Conference 2025 – Rising of Indigenous Women: Protecting the Land & WaterThis year’s Indigenous Conference, held May 30^th through June 1^st, brought OPSEU/SEFPO members together in the spirit of learning, allyship, and building collaborative relationships that honour and centre Indigenous rights and priorities, planned with members of the Six Nations of the Grand River who hosted participants on their traditional lands.The conference connected participants with a rich spectrum of teachings from elders and knowledge keepers, land defenders, and survivors of the residential school system, as well as foregrounded pedagogical exercises illustrating the layered histories of resilience and violence on the land.Sincere thanks to Six Nations of the Grand River for the invitation to share on the land, and thank you to the Indigenous Circle, every teacher and speaker, and all our members and staff that worked tirelessly to realize this year’s event.