“The beginning of true reconciliation is education,” said Justice Harry LaForme, before a 500-seat UTM lecture hall packed with elders, teachers, scholars and students.

LaForme’s keynote address was one of the many highlights at the Dec. 7 Symposium on the Importance of Indigenous Education in Ontario Classrooms. He argued that Indigenous content--and people--have a place in the K-12 curriculum and beyond. “When you add an Indigenous person to the discussion, it changes everything,” he said.

The dire warnings are everywhere these days about catastrophic climate change, particularly the perils of overpopulation and the burning of fossil fuels.

UTM’s Pierre Desrochers and Joanna Szurmak see it another way. In a new book, Desrochers, an associate professor of geography, and Szurmak, a research services librarian, caution that “population alarmism” and campaigns against carbon will stifle development, innovation and the creativity necessary to solve global problems.