USask conference broadens conversation around Indigenous membership and citizenship
In May, 2025 the Office of the Vice-Provost, Indigenous Engagement (OVPIE) was host to a national conference designed to engage attendees in meaningful discussions on the creation, implementation, and impact of Indigenous membership and citizenship verification policies and processes.
By Ashley Dopko“Protection of space that is meant specifically for Indigenous folks has been needed for many decades and has come into focus over the past four years nationally,” said Dr. Angela Jaime (PhD), vice-provost, Indigenous Engagement at the University of Saskatchewan (USask).
It’s a conversation that goes beyond post-secondary.
In addition to other leaders in post-secondary, the conference welcomed government, industry representatives and community leaders. The president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Natan Obed gave the keynote speech, while other leaders including Saskatoon Tribal Chief Mark Arcand and Chief Rosanne Casimir of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc offered their thoughts on the importance of sovereignty.
The conference was also invited people beyond the Indigenous community, including non-Indigenous individuals as well.
“We believe that it was 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.”
deybwewin | taapwaywin | tapwewin, USask’s Indigenous Truth Policy on Indigenous citizenship and membership, has laid the foundation for USask to lead these conversations around verification of membership and citizenship.
“We had the opportunity to highlight aspects of our policy and the process we’ve been through,” said Jaime.
“The thing that sparked the most conversation, though, was when we shared how we built our secure internal electronic portal where all the membership and citizenship documentation lives, and verification is stored.”
“Only three people have access to the information in the portal,” said Jaime.
It was critical that what USask built would be something that ensured people felt protected.
“This work is personal, individuals are trusting us with their documents, and it’s up to us to make sure the information is secure,” said Jaime.
This conference was the first of its kind for USask. Two previous conferences for Indigenous people only were held in 2022 and 2023 by other institutions. Full details including speaker bios are available on Indigenous.usask.ca. After receiving positive feedback, OVPIE plans to host the conference again in spring 2026.