Join ICA’s Decolonizing Policy Webinar Series starting July 28, 2021

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In March of this year, ICA released our report Decolonizing Climate Policy in Canada. This report outlined an in-depth analysis of recent federal climate plans: the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (2016) and A Healthy Environment, A Healthy Economy (2020).  In examining these plans, we found that climate policy in Canada is: 

1. failing to drive the scale of climate action that is needed

2. including policies that may exacerbate existing economic and social inequalities

3. excluding Indigenous Peoples from policy-making tables, thereby violating Indigenous rights to free, prior, and informed consent 

Given these failures, Indigenous-led climate policy has become increasingly important. 

As part of this work we have begun phase two which is led by an Indigenous Led Climate Policy Advisory Council to explore what decolonial policies can be. As part of this work we are launching a webinar series to bring Indigenous voices to the forefronts of these discussions.

“Does My Nohkom understand what I am saying?”

Decolonizing climate policy is still a relatively new concept, we have started the conversation through the release of a joint report entitled Decolonizing Climate Policy in Canada, if you haven’t had the opportunity to read, I encourage you to do so. 

There is a term I use quite often, “Does my Nohkom understand what I am saying?” I use this term to address the inequity of the language used in policy and climate crisis conversation. This is a very real barrier used to structurally exclude folks from the conversation, especially those most affected by climate change. Part of the way we tackle this barrier  is to hear directly from the boots on the ground folks, which include our knowledge keepers, our Elders and Kohkom’s. We want to deconstruct the term “policy” so that it is inclusive to our Indigenous communities, nations and allies from an Indignous worldview. Part of that effort is to highlight the people on the ground doing that very work. 

“This work envisions a world where Indigenous-led climate solutions are the standard and where colonial structures are doing the work to figure out where their resources and knowledge can offer support to existing Indigenous systems, not the other way around. This will require a deconstruction and undoing of current systems to create space for our own independent processes and plans built around a more holistic, interconnected, balanced approach based on reciprocity and respect with the natural world.”

It is through a series of four webinars we take a glimpse at the work of Land Defenders, Elders, and Knowledge Keepers across Turtle Island putting decolonial policy work into practice. Grab your tea or coffee and join us as we are gifted their experiences, challenges, and stories in  reframing "policy" to an Indigenous worldview, which is vital for the health and safety of all of Sacred Earth’s relatives.

The discourse in so-called Canada has to include the Indigenous knowledge holders, who are the experts of their land and waters. For more information on the project and ways to support this work please email climatepolicy@indigenousclimateaction.com.

Rebecca Sinclair