‘Canada would not exist without them’: New book spotlights Treaties

Understanding the history and importance of Treaties can be difficult. U of A professor Crystal Gail Fraser explains how she's trying to change that.

In modern day, understanding or accessing the history of Treaties can be difficult. University of Alberta professor and co-author of ‘Talk Treaty To Me’ Crystal Gail Fraser joined CTV Your Morning Edmonton with more on how she’s trying to change that.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Kent Morrison: Congratulations on the book. How does it feel to have it out in the world?

Crystal Gail Fraser: It feels incredible. We are so excited for it to be officially on sale tomorrow. It has definitely been a few years in the making.

Kent: Let’s talk about this process because you and your co-author, (Sara Komarnisky) come at this from different backgrounds. Why was that important to the material?

Crystal: Sara Komarnisky and I have been working together for probably a decade. We first started with 150 acts of Reconciliation in response to Canada, so I think we were on the same page from the beginning regarding our approaches to Truth and Reconciliation.

Sara is a non-Indigenous Canadian with a Ukrainian background. I am Gwichyà Gwich’in from the Northwest Territories with a Scottish background. She’s a trained anthropologist and I’m a historian, so together we bring a unique perspective on Treaty education on Truth and Reconciliation and Indigenous issues.

Kent: Who are you hoping picks this book up and reads it?

Crystal: We are hoping everybody picks this book up. This is one of the really fun things in academia. Sometimes we don’t actually just talk to regular people. This is part of our public education campaign, where it is written in a way that everyone should be able to understand. You could use it in the classroom for older children, for undergraduate classes, for everyday people and that was one of the reasons why we also published it with HarperCollins trade paperback, so it could really be accessible, available and affordable.

Kent: Accessibility has been tough because Treaties are old, context changes, language changes and it can be a barrier for people to get into it. How were you able to take it from a long time ago and put it into the present language?

Crystal: It’s really incredible because once we start looking for these histories, they are there, they are accessible and people want to talk about them. If you think about it, even in the news today, we’re talking about Alberta separatism. So we’re talking about the Jay Treaty and cross border movement along the 49th parallel and some of those answers that we’re seeking today are in Treaties. We really try and highlight that in the book.

Kent: How much personal responsibility is it on Canadians to do the work to pick up a book like this and understand?

Crystal: I think that we all have a responsibility to think about who we are, what kind of country we want to build, how it is that we can help reframe injustices of the past. Treaties may not be for everyone, but we do need to acknowledge that Canada would not exist without them. If Treaties isn’t your calling, there is so much literature, some even by Edmontonians who are on the bookshelf today, so I would encourage everyone to read.