Colonization Road

The path of reconciliation is long and winding

“Since Europeans arrived on these shores, roads have been built to bring settlers across the country, connect them with resources to create industry and ultimately to establish a nation. Many of these interconnecting networks are called Colonization Road. For Indigenous peoples, these roads embody a powerful and ironic reality; colonization is still so powerful, we name our roads after it. Join Anishinaabe comedian, Ryan McMahon as he travels across Ontario learning about Colonization Road, the ways in which they have dispossessed Indigenous people of land and access to traditional territories while creating space for settlers in the colonial experiment that has become Canada.”

“With his brand of hard-hitting comedy, Ryan speaks with well respected Indigenous and settler lawyers, historians, researchers and policy makers who provide history, context and solutions for colonization roads and their impact. Ryan will look at the history of the roads, from the first settlers lured by Free Land Grant advertisements to the treaties signed in the name of Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood with the newcomers.”

“Ryan learns from historians and lawyers how treaties are the foundation of Canadian law and how they articulate the relationship between Indigenous peoples and settlers. These agreements have been repeatedly broken by the state. The breaking of treaties has displaced and disenfranchised First Nations throughout what we now call Canada. While the term “reconciliation” is often bandied about, the people Ryan meets with shine light on just how difficult the realization of reconciliation can be.”