Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in town Sunday and today to mark the 50th anniversary of a Yukon document that laid the groundwork for modern land claims treaties in Canada. It was his first visit to the territory since Canada Day 2018.

As the Yukon began celebrations of half a century of Together Today for Our Children Tomorrow, Trudeau helped mark the occasion by stopping in at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre on Sunday afternoon. He took in a hand games tournament, greeted Yukoners and met with First Nations elders.

Trudeau spoke to a room full of First Nations elders at the cultural centre after watching some of the hand games tournament with his son Hadrien, as part of the anniversary celebrations.

Trudeau was received warmly at the anniversary festivities, taking selfies and shaking hands with a mob of Yukoners, many of them First Nations people enjoying or taking part in the games.

He then drank tea and had supper with a number of elders from First Nations communities, some of whom were involved in the drafting of Together Today, where he received applause as he took the stage for a short speech.

“It was wonderful and important for me to be able to come here to the Yukon tonight and somewhat fitting because 50 years ago, you came to visit my father (prime minister Pierre Trudeau) in Ottawa,” he noted.

Tuesday marks the anniversary of the document that a number of First Nations Yukoners, led by the late Elijah Smith, delivered to Pierre Trudeau to demand compensation for the harmful impacts of colonialism, and for the First Nations’ right to self-government.

Fittingly, Justin Trudeau was introduced by Council of Yukon First Nations Grand Chief Peter Johnston.

His own father, Sam Johnston, was among the group that brought Together Today for our Children Tomorrow to Ottawa on Feb. 1, 1973.

Elijah Smith’s son, Steve Smith, was also there to hear the prime minister’s words.

“The importance of that gesture, which led to the successful negotiation of modern treaties, goes so far beyond what you accomplished here for Yukon,” Trudeau said.

“It set the path for so much of what we refer to as reconciliation today.”

The document laid out a list of grievances First Nations Yukoners had with a rapidly developing territory which they felt increasingly powerless to shape – and ways the federal government could atone and provide governing power to the First Nations people of the territory.

At the heart of Together Today was the demand that First Nations have a say in what happened to their people, their communities and to the land they’d lived on for millenia.

It ultimately led to the Umbrella Final Agreement in 1993, which in turn resulted in final agreements with 11 of the Yukon’s 14 First Nations.

Current land use negotiations and co-developed mining legislation, for example, would not have happened without Together Today.

The 1973 meeting “set the path for so much of what we refer to as reconciliation today,” Trudeau said.

“That vision that they had shapes not just the Yukon, it shapes our whole country. That meeting helped lay the foundations for modern treaties that have benefited First Nations across the country,” he added.

“Five decades later, modern treaties have provided Indigenous ownership of 600,000 square kilometres of land – that’s about the size of Manitoba – capital transfers of about $3.2 billion, participation in land and resource management decisions, self-government rights, political recognition, and of course protection of traditional ways of life.”

Grand Chief Johnston thanked Trudeau for coming north on the anniversary, and for his continued dedication to the vision of Together Today.

“It’s very important that we not only honour the agreements that we signed many years ago,” Johnston said, “but more importantly, that we look towards tomorrow with not only vision, but inspiration for, especially, the next generation.”

Betsy Jackson of the Ta’an Kwach’an First Nation was one of the elders invited to take tea Sunday with the prime minister.

She said there’s still more work to do to fully realize the vision Elijah Smith laid out in Together Today. However, she’s been encouraged by the progress of the last 50 years and was happy to see Pierre Trudeau’s son make the trip to them this time around.

She told the Star she helped Smith type the document more than 50 years ago, becoming convinced of its necessity after Smith told her of his time in England after the Second World War.

“He said, ‘I saw the land, and I saw every inch of land was taken up,’” Jackson said.

“I did not want to see that happen in the Yukon. Not without the Yukon First Nation people being a part of it.”

After dinner, Trudeau ventured down Front Street to a $250-a-plate Liberal party fundraiser at the MacBride Museum.

There, dozens of protestors outside the entrance gave him a much harsher reception than he’d received at the cultural centre.

Some signs and banners were peppered with expletives. Those who attended the fundraiser heard profane chants as they entered.

“You’re having dinner with a criminal!” one protester shouted.

The rally was similar to a regular protest that forms at Rotary Peace Park in Whitehorse every weekend, which itself echoes grievances protestors voiced in the rallies that shut down part of Ottawa in eary 2022.

Trudeau spoke at the fundraiser along with Yukon MP Brendan Hanley and federal Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu.

The PM acknowledged the protesters outside were exercising their democratic right, but he’s become wary of a political sphere increasingly full of angry and hateful rhetoric.

“Once you’ve gotten people really, really angry at the government and each other,” he said, commenting on populist politics and media coverage, “it becomes really hard to solve the challenges that are making them angry.”

Trudeau remains in Whitehorse today. He met with Premier Ranj Pillai, who attended last night’s fundraiser, this morning, and the duo held a morning news conference in a hangar that covered several major subjects, including Saturday’s shooting-down of an unknown object over central Yukon.

The premier, along with his counterparts from the other provinces and territories, met with the prime minister in Ottawa last Tuesday to discuss federal health care funding.

The premiers met by conference call this afternoon (eastern time) to discuss whether to accept, reject or make a counteroffer to the federal proposal of nearly $200 billion in health care funding over the next decade.

Pillai also spoke with Trudeau and the minister of Defence on Sunday about the foreign object Trudeau ordered shot down over the territory.

The premier said Sunday he hadn’t been told exactly what the object was, but has been assured there is no present threat to the territory or country.

He flew out of Whitehorse in the swirling snow at mid-day today.