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I’m Indigenous, and I’m done being bullied by my own people for not parroting bullshit.

I’m Indigenous, and I’m done pretending hard conversations are violence. They’re not. What’s wrong is shutting people up the second they say something uncomfortable.

If you question leadership, money, or who’s really in charge, you don’t get an argument — you get shouted down or threatened. That isn’t reconciliation. That’s fear doing the talking.

Being Indigenous doesn’t mean I owe silence or blind agreement. I don’t owe obedience. I don’t owe fake outrage to prove I belong. Disagreeing isn’t betrayal. Asking questions isn’t hate. And speaking plainly shouldn’t put a target on your back.

None of this denies history or harm. What happened matters. But this is about dealing with reality now, instead of letting politicians and bureaucrats weaponize the past forever.

That’s why I’m writing this.

Albertans are tired. Not hateful. Just tired. Tired of being told to shut up, pay up, and carry blame for things that happened long before any of us were around. I was born into a system that already existed. Same as everyone else alive today — Indigenous and non-Indigenous. None of us signed treaties. None of us enforced them. Pretending one side owes guilt forever and the other gets
grievance forever isn’t justice. It’s a pressure cooker.

Treaties matter. They’re law. Nobody’s denying that. But they’re being twisted into something they were never meant to be. They weren’t written to freeze the country in place or give anyone a permanent veto over everything. Courts have said that again and again, whether people like it or not.

Section 35 recognizes treaty and Aboriginal rights. It doesn’t make them unlimited. It doesn’t put them above everything else. That’s not opinion — that’s settled law.

What really pisses people off isn’t treaty rights. It’s watching billions get spent while communities are still broke, still stuck, still dealing with the same problems year after year. That’s not because regular Canadians refuse to help. It’s because Ottawa wastes money and too many Chiefs and Councils never have to answer for it.

That isn’t racism. That’s accountability.

Chiefs and Councils are political leaders. They’re not sacred cows. If they’re doing a bad job, they should be called out — same as any other government. Hiding behind history while people suffer today helps nobody except the people cashing the cheque.

And no, they don’t speak for all Indigenous people. Not even close. A lot of us want work, stability, and a future that doesn’t revolve around constant fighting. The Indian Act system was imposed by Ottawa in the first place, yet it gets treated as untouchable whenever criticism becomes inconvenient. That contradiction should bother people more than it does.

Land acknowledgements don’t fix any of this. They’ve turned into forced rituals instead of education. Responsibility in a free society is individual, not inherited. Forced shame doesn’t heal anything. It just hardens people and shuts down real discussion.

Yes, trauma carries forward. Nobody’s denying that. But trauma can’t be an endless excuse that replaces agency forever. Progress doesn’t come from living in the past. It comes from fixing what’s broken now.

As for Alberta and separation — relax. A referendum is a vote, not a declaration of war. Treaties don’t ban voting. The land was ceded. That’s law. If Alberta ever went its own way, treaties wouldn’t magically disappear. They’d exist in a new legal framework, likely handled closer to the people involved instead of being used as political weapons by a federal government that’s failed everyone for generations.

Ottawa failed Alberta. Ottawa failed Indigenous people too. Both can be true.

What won’t fix anything is threats, guilt trips, or trying to scare people into shutting up. That only builds anger while politicians and bureaucrats sit safe and comfortable in the middle.

I’m not afraid to say this. And nobody else should be either.