Settler-Indigenous Issues
SHEILLA: My engagement in Settler-Indigenous issues in Canada goes back some thirty years, with the publication of Rotten to the Core: The Politics of the Manitoba Métis Federation in 1995. It was a dramatic introduction in my role as an investigative journalist, and I would not have predicted that my story of the MMF’s turbulent years would still be selling three decades later.
My approach to contemporary Settler-Indigenous issues has evolved over time from multiple perspectives—investigative journalist, author, academic researcher, grassroots advocate, and peacebuilder. This is reflected in the publications, book reviews, media events, and books that I am sharing on this page.
You are welcome to download and share my publications, with the proviso that material used in publications be appropriately credited. You are also welcome to share thoughtful comments via the Contact form.
Settler-Indigenous Issues
on this page
Publications
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UN submission: A Numbers Game: The value of Indigenous annuities in CANZUS states. Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, 60th Session Human Rights Council Report, March 2025. Modernized Annuity Working Group.
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Review: Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future: The Legacy of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Katherine Graham (Editor), David Newhouse (Editor), University of Manitoba Press. Prairie History, Vol. 8, 2022. Reviewed by Sheilla Jones.
Presentations
Speaker: "The original two solitudes and the rise of anti-Indigenous hate." Global Forum on Bigotry and Hate, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, September 12-13, 2025, Winnipeg.
Panelist: “First Nations Modern Annuities: A Guaranteed Income for FN People,” Indigenous Perspectives on Governance and Basic Income, with co-panelist Wayne Helgason. The BIG Forum on Basic Income Guarantee, May 25, 2024, University of Ottawa, Ottawa.
Media
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Op-ed: Precedent-setting Treaty 1 case wraps up. Winnipeg Free Press. March 4, 2026.
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Op-ed: The purpose of the ‘10th man rule’ (for advancing First Nations sovereignty). Winnipeg Free Press. March 14, 2025.
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Interview: Indigenous community in Manitoba react to $5 treaty payment agreement that hasn’t increased since 1871, Global TV News, June 13, 2023
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Interview: Long lineups for treaty annuities at The Forks spark discussion about 'insulting' $5 payment, CBC Radio Manitoba, June 10, 2023
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Op-ed: Time to re-examine treaty annuities and the land, by Sheilla Jones, Wayne Helgason, and Gregory Mason, Winnipeg Free Press, December 29, 2021.
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Op-ed: Modern Annuity a game-changer for First Nations families, by Sheilla Jones and Sheila North, Toronto Star, December 23, 2019.
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Interview: Sheilla Jones and Sheila North on if the treaty annuity were turned on its head, interviewed by host Melissa Ridgen, APTN National News, September 6, 2019.
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Interview: Re-direct money from Indigenous Affairs departments and into the pockets of status Indians: researcher, interviewed by host Melissa Ridgen, inFocus, APTN, April 18, 2019.
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Op-ed: Indigenous Affairs portfolio is democratically flawed, Ottawa Sun, Vancouver Sun, Winnipeg Sun, and Hamilton Spectator, January 12, 2019.
Books
Let the People Speak: Oppression in a Time of Reconciliation
By Sheilla Jones
Foreword by Sheilla North
2019
Since Indigenous Affairs (IA) became a stand-alone Canadian government department in 1966, it has mushroomed into a federal department unlike any other. IA has jurisdictional reach over 90 percent of Canada’s land mass, authorities that reach into every single federal government department and...
Rotten to the Core: The Politics of the Manitoba Métis Federation
By Sheila Jones Morrison
Rotten to the Core examines the troubled early years of the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) from 1967 to 1995. It was the most powerful of the provincial Métis organizations funded by the federal and provincial governments. The people the MMF was supposed to represent feared the organization, yet neither the federal or provincial governments seemed willing...
Book Reviews
21 Things You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Governance by Bob Joseph, Indigenous Relations Press. Winnipeg Free Press, September 13, 2025.
After the Indian Act
Author argues path to First Nations self-determination dependent on dismantling oppressive legislation
By Sheilla Jones
Next year marks the 150th anniversary of the Crown’s imposition of the colonial Indian Act of 1867, federal legislation that consolidated earlier state efforts to reframe valued military and economic First Nations allies into child-like wards of the state. It raises some interesting questions. Why is the racist Indian Act still, today, the backbone of Canadian federal policy governing Indigenous people? Why are Indigenous leaders... read more.
Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey Toward Personal and Ecological Healing by Dr. Jennifer Grenz, Alfred A. Knopf. Winnipeg Free Press, May 25, 2024.
The head and the heart
Medicine wheel proves pivotal for tackling today’s complex ecological issues
By Sheilla Jones
Somewhere in my scientific studies, I recall engineering being defined as “the art of arranging the world so you don’t have to directly experience it.” That would be the diametric opposite of the Indigenous approach to science and ecology, which requires that we directly experience the world around us. The Indigenous view places us within the environment as... read more.
The Medicine Chest: A Physician’s Journey Towards Reconciliation by Dr. Jarol Boan, University of Regina Press, Winnipeg Free Press, March 29, 2024.
Urgent care
Regina physician chronicles the medical system’s built-in racism towards Indigenous people
by Sheilla Jones
When she was growing up in Regina, medical doctor Jarol Boan could not remember seeing any Indigenous people. Upon her return to her hometown after 20 years practising internal medicine in the U.S., as well as being a faculty member in an American university medical program, she saw a very different city. Her new position as a doctor of internal medicine at the Regina General Hospital brought her into immediate contact with Indigenous people in... read more.
Inventing the Thrifty Gene: The Science of Settler Colonialism by Travis Hay, University of Manitoba Press. Winnipeg Free Press, November 27, 2021.
A dangerous myth
Author explains disproven links between genetics, Indigenous communities and diabetes
by Sheilla Jones
Zombie theories are hypotheses and ideas that have long since been disproven but just will not die. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, in his 2020 book Arguing With Zombies, called them ideas “that should have been killed by contrary evidence, but instead keep shambling along, eating people’s brains.”... The “thrifty gene” in Travis Hay’s Inventing the Thrifty Gene: The Science of Settler Colonialism is another damaging zombie theory... read more.
Shifting race
Claims of Indigenous ancestry by non-Indigenous Canadians on the rise
by Sheilla Jones
Writing about identity politics is fraught with political landmines. People tend to be highly sensitive to any challenge to how they identify themselves. It’s personal. It is therefore intriguing that author Darryl Leroux has walked purposely right into the minefield. It’s political.
In Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity, Leroux describes the obsessive search by some heretofore non-Indigenous Canadians for long-ago Indigenous ancestors who can justify them identifying as... read more.
From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a Stronger Future by Jody Wilson-Raybould, Purich Books/UBC Press. Winnipeg Free Press, October 19, 2019.
An insider’s insight
Wilson-Raybould's collection of speeches ponders the path forward on Indigenous issues
by Sheilla Jones
Canadians who snapped up Jody Wilson-Raybould’s new book looking for scandalous tidbits on the SNC-Lavalin issue — the one that led to her expulsion from the federal cabinet and from the Liberal Party of Canada — will be disappointed. When Wilson-Raybould does mention party leader Justin Trudeau in From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a Stronger Canada, it is most often complimentary. That’s because the book is a collection of speeches Wilson-Raybould gave throughout her 10-year political career... read more.
No Surrender: The Land Remains Indigenous by Sheldon Krasowski, foreword by Winona Wheeler, University of Regina Press. Winnipeg Free Press, March 9, 2019.
A hard bargain
Comprehensive history of treaty negotiations reframes many Indigenous issues
by Sheilla Jones
Canada is, without question, a land of historic treaties, particularly in the West.
There were treaties between the Hudson’s Bay Company and Indigenous communities in Rupert’s Land for building trading posts and using waterways.
The Métis of the Red River Settlement and the Dakotas had peace and trade treaties. Treaties between the Cree and Dene demarked territories and set protocols for travelling in shared areas.
All of these and many more pre-dated the more familiar numbered treaties... read more.