Bringing education back to the land
Sol Mamakwa, Ontario NDP MPP for Kiiwetinoong, believes language is land bank. Photo by Matteo Cimellaro / Canada's National Observer
By Matteo Cimellaro
Sol Mamakwa, Ontario NDP MPP for Kiiwetinoong, an electoral district spanning the northwestern edge of the province, stands in front of a room full of teachers, parents and students who were probably expecting a speech. He delivers, instead, a speak-through-the-soul conversation that moves between storytelling and political demands.
Mamakwa is a popular leader and something like a modern-day warrior. In March, he told the Matawa Education Conference, an annual training session for educators working in the 12 nations within the Matawa Tribal Council, that he sits directly across from Premier Doug Ford at Queen’s Park so he can “always try to stare him down, eh.” The room roared.
But it’s his critique of modern education, and its failings at engaging with ancestral traditions, that brings his fighting leadership forward.