Irreconcilable: Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada

Review By Adam J. Barker

August 5, 2026

The concept of ‘reconciliation’ has been the sources of gallons of ink and kilometres of text since it entered the Canadian lexicon in the late. Reconciliation seems to imply that Canada, as a state and a society, needs to make amends with Indigenous peoples and nations for the harms and impacts of centuries of colonialism. Weiss’ book sits alongside several others in taking a seemingly-contrarian position, arguing that reconciliation in Canada is not possible. Weiss’ work instead argues that reconciliation, as it is promoted and practiced in official frameworks before filtering down to average Canadians, is more representative of the comfortable expectations of those settler Canadians than the needs of Indigenous communities. Reconciliation today, Weiss argues, has been rendered a “colonial technology” that is being used to “make Indigenous Nations disappear as sovereign polities… so that Canadians do not have to feel unsettled by the ever-present, constitutive violence of settler colonialism” (4). Given the massive attention given to the project of reconciliation over the past two decades, it would be easy to feel deflated and defeated by this analysis – and I did several times while reading the book – but Weiss always pairs this critical analysis with the hopeful possibilities opened up by “Indigenous refusal”. By showing how Indigenous communities are demanding their own reckoning with Canada and Canadians, Weiss demonstrates that reconciliation does not live or die on settler colonial terms.

While Weiss’ research has implications across Canada, of interest to BC Studies readers should be that his primary research is with residents of Haida Gwaii, both Indigenous and settler. The history of this region is well known – the arrival of “settler missionaries and, eventually, homesteaders, and the decimation of epidemic diseases” (54) in the late-19^th and early-20^th centuries, alongside the BC Joint Reserve Commission allocating reserve lands in the 1890s, followed by the founding of CFB Masset in the 1960s. However, rather than a linear recounting of historical events that amount to the settler takeover of Haida lands, Weiss adds a great deal of nuance by positioning the base as both an iteration of imperial outpost building, a space that was always intended to disappear, and a dynamic pivot point or “third community” that acted as a “wedge” between Indigenous and settler communities. I was especially fascinated by Weiss’ take on the late 20^th century closure of CFB Masset, though the military “remained on the island and continued to monitor the territory” (66). In a move that has clear implications for the ‘disappearance’ of colonialism throughout Canada in the current era of reconciliation, Weiss examines the impact of both the presence and departure of the military from Haida Gwaii to point out that “the performance of a disappearance, or the assumption of a ghostly quality, is not actual absence… What is durable is the maintenance of domination itself.” (66). This theme – the endurance of settler colonial domination despite actions designed to make it appear otherwise – extends through the rest of the book.

Weiss’ goal in this book is to take to task this approach to reconciliation that remains rooted in settler colonialism. He draws parallels to significant discourses such as Arendt’s ‘banality of evil,’ calling reconciliation a form of banality designed to impose unity rather than reckon with the past (or present). He labels “so-called reconciliation” an empty signifier. To wit, Weiss moves from Haida Gwaii to the actions around the Unist’ot’en land defenders and their opposition to pipelines being driven through their territory, which as Weiss points out, is in violation of domestic law, contrary to the UNDRIP, relies on the construction of Indigenous people as terrorists, and crucially parallels ongoing struggles over land, law and resource extraction across Canada. By contrast, Weiss situates the varied acts of Indigenous refusal, from the Unist’ot’en camps, to Indigenous testimony before the Enbridge Joint Review Panel, to graffiti on the ruins of the buildings of CFB Masset, as the indicators of what true reconciliation would require: the acceptance of Indigenous sovereignty, actually listening to and respecting Indigenous people, and the concerted dismantling of structures of settler colonialism.

Some key points deserve particular note. First, Weiss does not get dragged into debates about whether or not settler colonialism exists, is the right term, and so on. In this, Weiss is choosing to raise the bar for this kind of discourse. He articulates nuances and dynamics of settler colonialism, refining the concept in context, but refuses to accept any argument that denies its existence or relevance. Second, Weiss engages with law, land title, bureaucratic processes, and constitutional politics not as legitimate-if-frustrating mediums for pursuing reconciliation, but as specific examples of colonial technologies. He makes clear that Indigenous engagement with these systems may be necessary, but that the possibilities for actual change and progress towards reconciliation is not possible in these venues. Instead, Weiss situates Indigenous engagement with these colonial technologies as active refusal of the Indigenous erasure that these technologies are designed to produce. Third, erasure is situated at the heart of both forgetting and remembering, as museum collections and the repatriation of (some, select) material culture and the (official) renaming of Haida Gwaii are brought into this discourse. As Weiss argues, “the right to give is as important, if not far more so, than the content of the gift itself” (151). Weiss asks us to consider what giving “with respect” means, and how it might contrast the act of giving that actively maintains colonial domination. This is the sort of important discourse that is so lacking from most mainstream discussions of reconciliation that focus on public acts of political contrition, usually followed by reports of how much the federal government spends on Indigenous Affairs. At issue in so-called reconciliation is not simply that many things must be given back – artwork, names, land – but also that why and how these returns occur matters. Because ultimately, as Weiss demonstrates in a myriad of ways, reconciliation will not occur simply because of a transaction, an attempt to balance an account sheet, but through the establishment of respectful relations – and the reckoning of what that implies for what we think of as Canada.