Books in Print
Essays and Letters
Speeches
Poverty Fatigue
History's End (no date)
Women's Day
The Power Has Too Much Media
Colonial Futures: The Devil You Do
A $20 Blueberry
Just among the crowd
Letter to Auntie Jean
The Crutches
Social Needia
The Autonomous Nervous System
The Unauthorized Biography of Love
I suggest to you, dear reader, that roses have agency. They select us, seduce us with colour and scent and even the sound of their leaves rustling; with the exciting danger of the thorn. They appeal to our sympathy, vanity, longing, doubt. We give blood.
I suggest that we use roses to represent Love because they do what Love does. Love and roses have complicated feeding habits. They feed on us.
The Colonial Present ~ The rule of ignorance and the role of law in British Columbia
"This is history as it should be written."
Ward Churchill
“A timely, thorough, and readable exposé of the persistence of colonialism in British Columbia, the genocidal policies of Canadian settler society, and their ongoing effects on First Nations peoples. The Colonial Present integrates historical context and contemporary political and cultural dynamics into its compelling assessment of urgent questions affecting indigenous land, natural resources and sovereignty.
This fascinating study provides a template not only for understanding but transforming colonial realities throughout North America.”
Natsu Taylor Saito
Professor of International Law, Georgia State University
Witnessing the 100th anniversary
In 2010, I was working for the Lillooet Tribal Council on the monthly newspaper, The St’át’imc Runner.
In August of that year it was the centennial anniversary of the Memorial to Wilfred Laurier. I got to attend the event hosted by Nlakapa'mux at Spences Bridge, where the Memorial was signed by hundreds of Chiefs in 1910, and signed as a witness to all the original Parties' descendants reaffirming that statement.
It was during those six years at LTC that I had the opportunities to travel and report on meetings where Elders and longtime political veterans shared histories that are excluded from the colonial record. In "The Colonial Present," 2013, I juxtaposed those histories with the ongoing denial of British Columbians towards them; the mechanisms by which that denial is effected; and the colonial weaponization of its institutions - particularly the judicial branch - to maintain that denial.
Home to an Empty House
Stories
home
Big Blue Riding Hood
Ghosts of St. Mary's
Fish Rock Boy
Passport
Tattoo
Magred and the Fire Flowers
an empty house
War Chief
Coyote's Last Strategy
The Mill
The Camera
The General
the picture of intent
canadian attempts to destroy indigenous peoples
The selected articles report on Canada’s modern pursuit of the destruction of Indigenous Peoples. The “picture of intent” brings a multitude of incidents into a composite view. These articles describe the impossible, everyday situations of Indigenous Peoples - which they continue to defy at great pain and cost.
The impossible situations are not naturally occurring. They are thoughtfully designed and manufactured by agents of Canada, hand in hand with an ongoing counter-narrative of denial and dismissal in Canadian culture.
Such jargon as “reconciliation” and “new relationships” and “modern day treaties” are the velvet glove which conceals an iron fist. The situations stay the same while the settler story keeps being rewritten for posterity. The popular narrative and the actual situations should be considered together.
This book is a collection of articles originally published in The BC Treaty Negotiating Times, The St’át’imc Runner newspaper, and the Vancouver Media Co-op.
The BC treaty process
dealing in duress
After publishing three issues of The BC Treaty Negotiating Times, which I co-founded and published with Arthur Manuel, Russell Diabo, and Nicole Schabus, with David Luggi and the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, and Chief Wayne Christian of Splatsin, and the Lillooet Tribal Council, in response to the overwhelming pressure on First Nations to surrender and extinguish their internationally protected rights as Peoples (UN ICCPR 1976) in Canada's Comprehensive Claims Policy - or - the "modern day" BC treaty process,
I put out this chapbook of essential information concerning the extinguishment and release clauses instituted
by the BC Treaty Commission.
One of the most unforgivable strategies the BC government used against First Nations in the treaty process was isolation,
by non-disclosure agreements.
Small Indigenous communities were made to feel alone, and encouraged to think they were "trail blazing" towards justice by treaty, when the only purpose their isolation served was to weaken their position.
The First Nations Unity Protocol Agreement was joined by every active Indigenous treaty table negotiating through the First Nations Summit in 2007 (except one). They resisted the extinguishment, and other, clauses by uniting, and I like to think that our newspaper - which we distributed to many communities - helped to transmit an informed message.
The True Story of Santa Claws
A story to keep Christmas
Over many years, I found I needed to spin the story of Christmas for my little daughter. Santa Claus had become something you see on a can of Coca Cola and that is not quite the level of sacred that we were going for in our seasonal celebrations of family and community.
There is a lot of meaning for me in a magnanimous character who really wants to be there for kids; someone who has something to share.
In this story, the man in the red suit has a connection to the mountains, the animals and trees and streams, and all the gifts they give us.