Author and Activist Pam Palmater to speak on the Challenges of Reconciliation

Posted: February 12, 2018 6:00 a.m.

Pam Palmater is a widely recognized Indigenous rights activist and has received several awards for her advocacy, including the Margaret Mead Award in Social Justice, and an Honourary Doctorate of Laws from the University of New Brunswick. Photo courtesy of Michelle Girouard

The 2018 Woodrow Lloyd Lecture at the University of Regina will feature Mi’kmaw lawyer, scholar, and author Dr. Pam Palmater, a prominent advocate for and media commentator on Indigenous issues and rights.

Palmater will present a lecture entitled Truth and Reconciliation in Canada: If It Feels Good, It’s Not Reconciliation on Thursday, February 15 at 7:00 p.m. in the Education Building Auditorium.

Her talk will examine the recommendations outlined in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action – a path toward reconciling and healing the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples – as well as critique the current approach to this crucial task.

According to Palmater, true reconciliation will not be achieved via superficial gestures such as Indigenous art installations in public buildings, for example.

“If it doesn’t feel uncomfortable, it’s not real reconciliation,” she says. “The feel good stuff tends to be superficial and doesn’t address substantive oppression and dispossession”.

Rather, Palmater argues, true reconciliation “will only be found in the discomfort that comes with the exchange of land, wealth and power”.

Palmater is a member of the Eel River Bar First Nation in New Brunswick and is Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University in Toronto.

She has been working to advance Indigenous rights for over 25years, in areas including poverty, housing, education, Aboriginal and treaty rights, and legislation affecting First Nations.

She is frequently called upon as an expert before Parliamentary and United Nations committees to discuss laws, policies and the rights of Indigenous peoples. Much of her recent focus has been in the areas of missing and murdered Indigenous women and sexualized violence in policing.

Each year, the Faculty of Arts presents a lecture in honour of the late Woodrow Stanley Lloyd, Saskatchewan’s eighth Premier (1961-1964) and longtime Minister of Education (1944-1960). Woodrow Lloyd laid the cornerstone of the first building on the Regina campus of the University of Saskatchewan – now the University of Regina. The annual lecture in his name invites a recognized scholar, writer, thinker or and/activist to speak on an issue of direct relevance to Saskatchewan.     

Event:     The 2018 Woodrow Lloyd Lecture
Date:       Thursday, February 15
Time:       7:00 pm
Location: The University of Regina, Education Auditorium

This event is free and open to the public. Free parking on campus is available in Lots 7 and 8. Refreshments will be served following the lecture.