USask to host national Indigenous membership and citizenship conference
A national conference to engage in meaningful discussions on the creation, implementation, and impact of Indigenous membership and citizenship verification policies and processes in post-secondary education will be hosted by the University of Saskatchewan (USask).
The Indigenous Membership and Citizenship conference, organized by USask’s Office of the Vice-Provost Indigenous Engagement, will include speakers, panels from institutions and government agencies at various stages of policy and implementation development, as well as a final workshop.
“deybwewin | taapwaywin | tapwewin, our Indigenous Truth Policy on Indigenous citizenship and membership, has laid the foundation for USask to lead these conversations around verification of membership and citizenship,” said USask Vice-Provost Indigenous Engagement Dr. Angela Jaime (PhD). “We’ll have the opportunity to highlight aspects of our policy and the process we’ve been through.”
This year’s conference keynote speaker will be Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) with whom USask signed an historic MOU in 2024 in a combined effort to protect Inuit rights on campus. Obed has devoted his career to working with Inuit representational organizations to improve the well-being of Inuit in Canada.
The conference will take place on May 7-9, 2025, at TCU Place. Registration is now open with an early bird deadline of March 31, 2025. Everyone – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – engaged in the conversation is welcome to attend, whether they are in the process of putting together a policy or just beginning.
“Previous conferences have been open to Indigenous members only. We believe that it is time to open the conversation to everyone involved in the work,” said Jaime. “We need to start having these conversations with non-Indigenous folks in the room because we know that they are participating in creating these policies and procedures. In some cases, they are making the decisions without Indigenous people in the room.”
For more details of the Indigenous membership and citizenship conference, click here.