Alberta should be commemorating the 150th anniversary of Treaty 6

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Roger Epp is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alberta.

Governments normally seize the chance to celebrate and frame a historic milestone, especially one that relates to a founding event. But not Alberta, not this summer.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Crown and Indigenous representatives entered into what became known as known as Treaty 6 in advance of homestead settlement. Treaty 7 came a year later. Together, those peace-and-sharing agreements encompass an area stretching from the United States border to Athabasca Landing, 150 kilometres north of Edmonton.

You might expect that public life in this province would be about commemorating those anniversaries and, at the same time, renewing the relationships they signify. But this is a province with a different, carefully curated political memory.

Treaty Six was signed 150 years ago. There is still work to be done

As a result, we will spend this time instead in a furious debate leading to a referendum vote about whether Alberta should prepare to vote a second time to declare independence from Canada and, in effect, unilaterally sever Indigenous relationships with the Crown that predate and underwrite the creation of this country. The word treaty is mostly spoken in courtrooms.

In Saskatchewan, the treaty anniversary has involved commissioned art, spoken commitments, even tourist promotion. The provincial government is an active partner. But Alberta Premier Danielle Smith – no surprise – did not attend events at Fort Carlton last weekend alongside Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe, the Governor-General, and the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Nor did Rajan Sawhney, her Indigenous Relations Minister, make it a calendar priority to attend a pipe ceremony and flag-raising in Edmonton last week. Later, Ms. Sawhney issued a statement calling for “reflection.” (Alberta’s Lieutenant-Governor, at least, was at that celebration.)

Politicians and Indigenous leaders mark the 150th anniversary of Treaty 6

Alberta has trouble with treaties. They are not part of the story we tell about the creation of the province, its fight for jurisdiction over lands and resources, and the imbalanced ledgers of Confederation ever since. This is true even when the storytellers make an effort to be inclusive.

Take the Buffalo Declaration, issued in 2021 by four Conservative members of Parliament, which counted Indigenous peoples among the first to experience the domination and indifference of a distant Dominion government. The Declaration began with strong language about “colonial power structures,” and ended with a warning (Albertans “will be equal or they will seek independence”), but in between, it avoided any mention of treaty or the real, historic experiences of Prairie Indigenous peoples: the Indian Act, hunger, residential schools, the ban on traditional ceremony, assembly, and the legal defence of collective rights.

For the sake of common cause, the Declaration might have mentioned, but did not, the defiant national Indigenous gatherings hosted in this province in the early 1920s, or the successful fight under Harold Cardinal’s leadership against Pierre Trudeau’s liberalism: the 1969 White Paper that proposed to phase out treaties, “special status,” and federal responsibilities for “Indians.” Ironically, that’s now the position of some Alberta separatists. There is colonialism, and then there is colonialism.

In 2026, the silence about treaties represents a missed opportunity in two respects. First, appropriate recognition, with ceremony, would help to repair relationships. It would disrupt the afterthought mentality that continues to afflict politicians and their business allies in a hurry to build something.

Second, silence diminishes all of us – treaty people, living where we do – when we could be affirmed in that identity, and reminded of the rights and responsibilities that follow. A milestone anniversary should come with occasions to gather across local solitudes, share food and ceremony, and fill the gaps left by school curricula and citizenship primers.

To that end, referendum campaign or not, government silence or not, this is a summer for gratitude and commemoration in Treaty 6 territory.

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This is a summer to sit in the grass at a treaty site like Fort Pitt along the North Saskatchewan; to experience powwow drumming, the smell of sweetgrass, and the teaching of an elder; and, if the history is unfamiliar, to tackle books and films that introduce the richness of Indigenous legal principles and diplomatic practices, even under duress, and complicate the conventional idea that the historic treaties in western and northern Canada were a simple, one-time surrender of land and legal authority for which the written text leaves a sufficient record.

This is not about guilt mitigation. It is about living well in a particular place. When the stakes are so high, it is also about being prepared to uphold treaty responsibilities – and call on governments to honour them.

In recent months, Indigenous governments have reminded politicians fond of words like “sovereignty” that no province has the right to make secession a ballot question, much less act on a positive vote, as if treaties are merely an inconvenience. But that vigilance should not fall to them alone. Treaties are not “their deal.” They belong to all of us. They are reason enough to vote “no” in October.