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“Now is the time to flip the book to a new chapter and embrace the rage that is evident all across Canada today, to feel it fully… Embrace it and welcome it and use it to fuel our decolonization,” he said.

Photo by Liam Richards / Saskatoon StarPhoenix

“I believe in peace and diplomacy and I believe in healthy confrontation to organize and mobilize against the systems that oppress us,” he said in an interview Sunday.

“Canada operates under a colonial system. In this case we’re seeing the result of that,” he said.

“When Trudeau says nation to nation, they don’t mean that. They mean the ongoing assimilation of Indigenous political consciousness into a Canadian framework, to exist specifically under Canada, under the province.

“When Canada talks about reconciliation they mean colonial control, bringing in Indigenous people to exist under the Canadian flag… (as if to say) ‘We’re here. You’re under us. Deal with it.’

“Decolonization is moving away from that and going back to, ‘No. You’re visitors on our territory. We have our own nations. We have our own political practices. We have rights to land, to establish our own economies, our own ways of life.'” he said.

Photo by Liam Richards / Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Tootoosis wants nothing less than true nation-to-nation agreements based on the bedrock of the treaties, in which Indigenous people sit equal to Ottawa and design political, economic and land-based projects.

In the Stanley case, “We’re seeing colonialism do what it’s designed to do, oppress and marginalize Indigenous people and ultimately, erase us through the legal system and settler colonialism,” he said.