Dr. Niigaan Sinclair delivers timely and essential conversation during Veritas Lecture

“The only way we’re going to survive is if we commit to each other. We need community,” says Dr. Niigaan Sinclair, award-winning writer and professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba. 

Dr. Sinclair’s presentation, “Not the Right Thing to Do. The Only Thing to Do: How Indigenous Education Will Save the World,” opened this year’s 2025-2026 Veritas Lecture Series with the President’s Lecture, generously sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph, on September 22, 2025, in the Kenny Theatre.

Dr. Sinclair’s presentation explored how Indigenous education is vital for reconciliation and for building a more just and hopeful future. Part of the larger Pilgrims of Hope series, which invites our community to reflect on how faith and resilience guide us through pressing questions of our time, Dr. Sinclair provided the audience with an Indigenous perspective on hope, responsibility, and community and delivered a powerful reminder that reconciliation is not abstract. It is lived, it is practiced, and it begins with listening.

As part of his presentation, Dr. Sinclair spoke about the history of Canadian and Indigenous relations. He asked his audience to think deeply about the future of Canada and adopt the Indigenous practice of “and” not “or”, which means to include multiple viewpoints, not one over the other.   

In his opening remarks, Dr. Robert Ventresca, King’s President (Interim) and Professor, said that Dr. Sinclair’s presentation was “a conversation that was not just timely but essential – a conversation that speaks to the heart of who we are as a Catholic institution committed to truth, justice and reconciliation. It is deeply meaningful to have (Dr. Sinclair) here with us, almost six years to the day his father, Senator Murray Sinclair, honoured us with his presence to open the Veritas Series in 2019.”

“It is really important to our commitment to reconciliation that we have someone like (Dr. Sinclair) on our campus. He is such a strong, insightful voice for reconciliation,” says Dr. Allyson Larkin, Department Chair and Associate Professor of Social Justice and Peace Studies.

Prior to his presentation, Dr. Sinclair spent time on King’s and Western’s campuses, visiting the Wampum Lodge and speaking to students. “It was incredible to watch him with our students. I know it was transformative for them,” says Dr. Larkin.

Many King's students were in the audience as Dr. Sinclair gave his Veritas Lecture presentation. “We have raised the most competent generation in history,” he said. While giving the students advice on how including Indigenous teaching will help us as a society, Dr. Sinclair used his father’s phrase of “Get up,” challenging them to think differently, act with courage and commit to the work of reconciliation. “We can be accountable, but we can also be kind," he told them.

An Anishinaabe from Peguis First Nation, Dr. Sinclair was named one of Canada's most influential people by Maclean's in 2022. He co-hosts the podcast, Niigaan and the Lone Ranger, and is the author of the bestselling Winipek: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre, winner of the 2024 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. Dr. Sinclair is the son of the late Senator Murray Sinclair, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Dr. Sinclair’s work builds on that legacy, offering both challenge and hope for our shared future.

The Veritas Lecture Series invites speakers from diverse backgrounds to explore the depth of human experience and articulate the truth - the fullness of personhood - to which we each aspire. The Catholic Intellectual Tradition welcomes and embraces this exploration as a means of seeking the common good that enhances this world we share.

Other speakers in the Series will include:

• November 25, 2025 - The Feast of Christ the King Lecture

Dr. Cory Labrecque, Professor and Vice-Dean of Studies, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at Laval University, will present “Walking Together in The Age of Artificial Intelligence: Relationality, Community and the Culture of Encounter.”

• February 26, 2026 - Winter Term Lecture

Dr. Allyson Larkin, Associate Professor and Department Chair, Social Justice and Peace Studies, and Dr. Benjamin Muller, Professor and Interdisciplinary Scholar (both of King’s University College), will present “Catholic Social Responsibilities to Refugees: A Global Research Perspective.”

All lectures take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Joanne and Peter Kenny Theatre in the King Student Life Centre.