At the 2017 festival we helped to highlight some of the work that needs to be done within our own borders—including right here at home—to create spaces that shape a new relationship with Indigenous peoples, especially in the context of broadening awareness of the cultural genocide made visible by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. If you were at our 2009 event, you heard John Ralston Saul describe Canada as founded on three pillars (Aboriginal, French, and English) and the Commission reinforced this perspective, describing “an initial period of cooperative inter-reliance grounded in norms of equality and mutual dependence.” Now over 150 years later, we are only just beginning to understand the enormous blemish created by the “the ethos of exclusion and cultural annihilation” that followed our promising beginning.

We are determined to learn what we can do to advance reconciliation, knowing it will help all who live on this land now called Canada. We hope that you came away from the Festival inspired to think about how you and the organisations with which you are affiliated can join in this important effort and make our future as bright as our beginning.

View the 2017 Program PDF