Land Back

As an American with a predictably (and unfortunately) low level of awareness of the specifics of how colonization played out in Canada, I deeply appreciate how these stories are being shared in this podcast. Angela Sterritt is a very gifted journalist anyway, but the way that she brings her own (Gitxsan) perspective gives the stories even more impact. I believe she will find herself with an ever larger microphone in the coming years, which will benefit many. The process of reconciliation is obviously going to be painfully slow, but work such as this will help in both obvious and subtle ways. Please keep at it.

… See for instance episode 5 - where “reclaiming the land” is a laughable euphemism for the story of a local indigenous band joining in the longer term rape and pillage of waterfront land - of which, ironically, they are the earliest victims. I SO wish indigenous development in Vancouver was instead held to the standard of environmental and social scrutiny we settlers with a conscience hold the regular old “profane” private developers in our midst. Better still would be indigenous developers modeling a new, unprecedentedly progressive vision of what it means to develop land where the human and natural worlds may together thrive in these end times. Sadly, these questions are basically ignored in this journalist’s starry-eyed treatment of this topic.