RAIC Indigenous Task Force. Left to right: Alfred Waugh, MRAIC, Wanda Dalla Costa, Harriett Burdett-Moulton, FRAIC, Rachelle Lemieux, MRAIC, Patrick Stewart, MRAIC, Ouri Scott, MRAIC, Eladia Smoke, MRAIC, Jason Surkan, Ray Gos-selin, MRAIC.
The former United States embassy building in Ottawa is not a culturally appropriate space for an Indigenous Centre, says the Indigenous Task Force of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC).
?Indigenous people always get the hand-me-downs, the buildings, and land that settlers no longer have a use for,? says the task force, composed of about 30 mostly Indigenous architects, architectural students, interns and academics. ?Canada’s Indigenous communities have, for too long, been forced into leftover spaces that fail to connect in any meaningful way to their cultures and unique connectivity to place. ?Adding to the frustration, sacred sites and disputed lands, such as the islands in the Ottawa River between Ontario and Quebec which acted as an Indigenous gathering place for thousands of years, are being developed without adequate consensus from the Indigenous community.?
Media outlets have reported that the federal government plans to announce in June that the former embassy will become a space dedicated to Inuit, Metis and First Nations communities. National Aboriginal Day is celebrated on June 21. ?Once again, a lack of consultation precedes the decision,? says task force chair Dr. Patrick Stewart, of the Nisga?a Nation.
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