CALGARY – A celebration took place in the Calgary Courts Centre Friday to mark the addition of eagle feathers to all courthouse in Alberta for the swearing of oaths.
The ceremony including a smudging as well as Indigenous drumming and singing.
Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Doug Schweitzer called the introduction of eagle feathers a "step toward reconciliation."
"Our courthouses and our justice system have to be there for all Albertans," said Schweitzer following the ceremony. "The movement that I heard from the people, the elders, in the ceremony, is the immense pride that they have that today there's eagle feathers in our courthouse.
"(It's) a meaningful step for them to acknowledge that this is their justice system. It's a justice system for all."
Schweitzer recalled how intimidated he felt when, as a young lawyer, he entered a courtroom for the first time.
"It's a powerful room. If you have your own culture represented in that room with an eagle feather, I hope that is a step toward making people comfortable in the justice system and knowing that it's there for everyone."
Former chief Leonard Bastien-Weasel Traveller of the Piikani Nation agrees the eagle feather is a step in the right direction in providing comfort to Indigenous people within the justice system.
"This would give them a connection to their heritage, to their ancestry, to their identity for reconciliation," he said.
Bastien-Weasel Traveller adds that more needs to be done to address the failings within Canada, when it comes to First Nations people, that he says are a direct result of the residential school system.
"The individuals that are in the justice system, the core of it is poverty, the violence of poverty," said Bastien-Weasel Traveller. "The residential school system took away our parenting skills and it was a foreign culture, a foreign way of being, that was forced on us. That created all the situations that are here before us."
