2. Populism and Empty Signifiers in the Thought of Laclau and Mouffe

The theories of populism and empty signifiers of Laclau and Mouffe have not been used in a dedicated way in any major study of Indigenous issues in Canada. Here, I introduce those ideas, while later in the article I examine in detail how those ideas might be used in Indigenous studies in Canada. Laclau (Reference Laclau2005) and Mouffe (Reference Mouffe2013, Reference Mouffe2022) have defined populism in terms of two principal components: (1) creating an “equivalential bond” between unmet social demands/grievances of different groups or struggles in society, and (2) the development of a “frontier” in society, which involves identifying an “Other.” The Other (Laclau, Reference Laclau2005) would be an opponent/entity (such as “the regime” or “colonialism”) that is not meeting the demands of those various social groups/struggles. Through this process, the politics of a society is divided into two antagonistic groups (Smith, Reference Smith1998). The equivalential bond is the process whereby different groups opposing the Other become unified as a “people” in a populist struggle, what Antonio Gramsci (Reference Gramsci and Hoare1971) called a “historic bloc.”Footnote ² Because various unmet demands all commonly oppose the Other, they come to see themselves as equivalent/substitutable for one another.Footnote ³ The identity (self-conception) of the populist struggle emerges from opposing this Other that antagonizes it, which means that the Other can be considered a “constitutive outside” for its identity (Laclau, Reference Laclau1990; Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2009; Smith, Reference Smith1998). In a Derridean sense, the constitutive outside means that identity and subjectivityFootnote ⁴ do not have self-presence but instead emerge in relation to an Other; they are constituted in opposition to this Other (Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2020, p. 141). Laclau and Mouffe (Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2020, p. 141; Torfing, Reference Torfing1999, pp. 39–45) follow the Derridean tradition in seeing the subject (an agent with identity and subjectivity) as not first residing in its identity and subjectivity present to itself; instead, the subject can only emerge in response to the Other, who is there initially and who exists prior to the subject emerging.

An example of the process through which a historic bloc forms can help to facilitate understanding. If a reactionary government continually denies the demands of different groups such as feminists, environmentalists, Indigenous peoples, workers, and others, the different groups may begin to see there being a common threat (the government) and perceive there to be something being equally present in all of their demands — namely, their common opposition to the regime and the demand for a new social order (Torfing, Reference Torfing1999). It is in this way that Indigenous peoples sometimes become engaged in broader Leftist popular struggles against a regime. In Canada, Poilievre is arguably building a right-wing populist frontier in Canada with “elites” seen as the Other (Wherry, Reference Wherry2022; Zimonjic, Reference Zimonjic2022).

We will see that populist movements led by non-Indigenous actors can misrepresent Indigenous priorities, thereby marginalizing Indigenous peoples. This is why Indigenous resistance movements may need to consider forms of struggle outside of historic blocs involving many non-Indigenous groups. I will also demonstrate how, over the long term, Indigenous peoples in Canada could seek to become the dominant actor in a populist historic bloc through the use of empty signifiers.

3. Lacan and Subject Positions

Lacan (Reference Lacan1977) is known for arguing that there the “lack” in each subject.Footnote ⁵ Laclau and Mouffe apply this theory to society and argue that political subjects identify with different “subject positions” in an attempt to fill their lack/achieve “fullness,” and do so because they “want to be.”Footnote ⁶ Subject positions can be seen as unmet demands/grievances or social identities that people use to interpret and respond to their positions within society (Butler et al., Reference Butler, Laclau and Žižek2000, p. 209; Smith, Reference Smith1998).Footnote ⁷ Examples of these subject positions are “liberal” (having a demand for liberty), “anti-colonial” (having a demand for decolonization), or “democrat” (with a demand for democracy).Footnote ⁸ The process of identification with subject positions leads to subjectivity (Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2018). Each of these subject positions require an Other to emerge (for instance, a democrat’s Other would be authoritarianism).

Subject positions can be understood as symbols that represent subjects within language, to other subjects and in the wider symbolic order.Footnote ⁹ In this sense, subject positions are “signifiers,” which can have different meanings or signifieds (Smith, Reference Smith1998; Torfing, Reference Torfing1999, pp. 52–53, 149–150). A sign consists of two parts: a signifier, which is the sound it makes, the written symbol or a word; and a signified, which is the meaning that comes to mind when the signifier is encountered (Derrida, Reference Derrida and Spivak1997; de Saussure, Reference de Saussure1959; Torfing, Reference Torfing1999). This means that subject positions can have different signifieds. For example, being a “democrat” can signify advocating for mere political representation in one enunciation, while in a more radical enunciation, it signifies opposing diverse forms of subordination (Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2018). I argue below that within “discourse,” empty signifiers can help to provide a temporary signified to social identities.

The lack in each subject can never be filled because each subject position that is pursued will always prove to disappoint or be found to inadequately represent the subject; and so the subject will continually seek to identify with new subject positions.Footnote ¹⁰ Politics is driven by new identifications with political subject positions (Laclau & Zac, Reference Laclau and Zac1994, pp. 35–37; Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2022).

4. Floating Signifiers, Articulation, and Nodal Points

Here, I introduce terminology that will be used related to Indigenous resistance movements. A “floating signifier” can be understood as a signifier that does not have a stabilized signified. “Articulation” is where floating signifiers become “moments” of a discourse; moments are signifiers that have a signified that becomes temporarily stabilized by the discourse. A floating signifier’s signified is stabilized by its differential relation to the discourse’s other signifiers (Laclau & Mouffe, Reference Laclau and Mouffe2001; Torfing, Reference Torfing1999). For example, “justice” is a floating signifier whose signified becomes stabilized differently when articulated in relation to other signifiers in divergent discourses such as (1) anti-colonialism, where when articulated in relation to signifiers such as the “colonial state,” “land theft,” and “white supremacy,” its signified emerges as being against those signifiers; and (2) Marxism, where when articulated in relation to “capitalism,” the “capitalist state,” and the “bourgeoisie,” its signified emerges as being opposed to those other signifiers.

Discourses have centres or “nodal points.” A nodal point is a Lacanian (Lacan, Reference Lacan1993) term for a central sign/“master signifier” within a discourse around which floating signifiers are placed and whose signified emerge in relation to it (Laclau & Mouffe, Reference Laclau and Mouffe2001). Nodal points temporarily attach/suture a signified to a floating signifier (Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2018; Torfing, Reference Torfing1999; Žižek, Reference Žižek1989, pp. 113–126). For instance, in liberal discourse, “freedom” plays the role of a nodal point, which can temporarily fix the signified of floating signifiers such as “state,” “society,” and “individual.” Another example would be in discourses of nationalism, where “nation” is the master signifier that gives other signifiers, such as “land,” “culture,” “state,” “democracy,” and “freedom” their meanings (Robertson, Reference Robertson2023, p. 58). Below, I will illustrate how empty signifiers are examples of nodal points in populist struggles that can stabilize the signified of floating signifiers.

The unmet demands/subject positions in society can be seen as floating signifiers that become articulated together in a discourseFootnote ¹¹ that identifies or articulates the Other that is not meeting those demands. The identity (signified) of the subject positions (signifiers) in a discourse emerges in relation to one another and by those signifiers being relationally opposed to the Other.Footnote ¹² Such a discourse will contain a chain of equivalential unmet demands and is therefore a “chain of equivalence” (Laclau, Reference Laclau2018; Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2022; Smith, Reference Smith1998). Through this discursive articulation, the identity and subjectivity of a people emerges with a common understanding of the world or “common sense” (Gramsci, Reference Gramsci and Hoare1971; Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2018). The identity of the different groups with unmet demands therefore changes as they enter the chain of equivalence, becoming a historic bloc — a people with a “collective will” (Butler et al., Reference Butler, Laclau and Žižek2000; Gramsci, Reference Gramsci and Hoare1971; Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2013). This means that a “people” is not some pre-existing essence, but rather is constituted through discourse.Footnote ¹³ For instance, Trumpism in the United States can be considered a people that emerged following the enunciations of Trump’s discourse that unified various groups with migrants articulated as their Other (Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2022). I will now consider the key role that empty signifiers play in historic blocs.

5. Empty Signifiers

In a populist movement, one demand will become more central (Laclau, Reference Laclau2005, Reference Laclau2018). This is because a particular demand of one of the groups will come to signify the total chain of equivalential demands. The group that has the most ability to overthrow the regime at issue will likely be the “hegemonic” group whose demand comes to play that function (Butler et al., Reference Butler, Laclau and Žižek2000; Laclau, Reference Laclau1990, Reference Laclau2007).Footnote ¹⁴ That demand is able to represent all of the unmet demands as a common cause (Carassai, Reference Carassai2007; Laclau, Reference Laclau2018; Torfing, Reference Torfing1999). This takes place in part because the identity of a people must be able to be represented in the symbolic order and a signifier does so. However, for a signifier to be able to do so, it must be sufficiently empty or vague (Hook & Vanheule, Reference Hook and Vanheule2015; Zeemann, Reference Zeemann2019). It must not have a single signified, as several unmet demands have to be able to perceive it as somehow representing them (Butler et al., Reference Butler, Laclau and Žižek2000; Laclau, Reference Laclau2018). In this way, one of the demands becomes an empty signifier (for example, a demand for “freedom” or “decolonization,” which can mean different things to different people) that can hold together the different groups — who were previously dispersed and perhaps divided — with unmet demands in a struggle (Kioupkiolis, Reference Kioupkiolis2019; Laclau, Reference Laclau2018). The groups become unified because they all see themselves as somehow represented by the empty signifier, and because all commonly oppose the Other that is not meeting their demands. As we will see, empty signifiers are important for Indigenous resistance because they help to build their movements.

Because political subjects have a lack, society in general also has a lack or a missing fullness that stems from the lack within its members. Revolutionary movements are driven by the search for that fullness (Laclau & Zac, Reference Laclau and Zac1994, p. 36). For members of a populist movement, the empty signifier would be an attempt to name or represent the lack in society, and subjects in a populist movement seeking to fill their lack come to identify with that empty signifier.Footnote ¹⁵ This means that the popular identity of the people would be expressed in an empty signifier (Butler et al., Reference Butler, Laclau and Žižek2000; Laclau, Reference Laclau2007).

The “universal” can be understood as the new social order for which the different groups in the chain of equivalence are fighting. However, this universality can only be attempted to be represented by an empty signifier or an “imaginary,” with examples being “decoloniality,” “Make America Great Again,” or “revolution” (Laclau, Reference Laclau1990; Torfing, Reference Torfing1999, pp. 176, 301; Zeemann, Reference Zeemann2019; Žižek, Reference Žižek1989). However, the empty signifier can also be a leader, as Nelson Mandela or Hugo Chávez have been in populist movements in South Africa and Venezuela, respectively (Butler et al., Reference Butler, Laclau and Žižek2000; Kioupkiolis, Reference Kioupkiolis2019).

The empty signifier plays the role of a discursive nodal point for the unmet demands in society (Kioupkiolis, Reference Kioupkiolis2019; Laclau, Reference Laclau2018). If unmet demands/subject positions of social groups can be seen as floating signifiers that receive a temporary signified in discourse (Laclau & Mouffe, Reference Laclau and Mouffe2001), then the empty signifier is the entity that temporarily discursively stabilizes their signified. An example can help to illustrate this role of the empty signifier: let us consider a populist movement where “communism” emerges as the empty signifier that temporarily fixes the meaning of various subject positions in a discourse.Footnote ¹⁶ “Communism” would be able to provide the signified of subject positions such as those of feminists, environmentalists, peace activists, and advocates for democracy. Through this process, “feminist” might acquire the meaning of opposing capitalism because of perceived links between capitalism and patriarchy (Laclau & Mouffe, Reference Laclau and Mouffe2001, p. 178; Torfing, Reference Torfing1999, pp. 98–99), while “environmentalist” with a demand for environmental protection may acquire the signification of being against the capitalist destruction of the environment. Similarly, a “peace activist” demanding peace might come to signify being against capitalist imperialism, with the latter being seen as the biggest threat to peace. Lastly, when discursively articulated in relation to the nodal point of communism, the demand for “democracy” of a “democrat” comes to mean in part workers controlling production in a communist society (Torfing, Reference Torfing1999). These demands/floating signifiers therefore enter a discursive chain of equivalence where they all become seen as equivalent in their opposition to capitalism (“the Other” in this populist movement). In this sense, the nodal point of “communism” temporarily fixes the identity of the different subject positions within a discourse of being opposed to capitalism (Torfing, Reference Torfing1999).Footnote ¹⁷

To summarize, unmet demands in a body politic are floating signifiers that become articulated in the discourses of different social groups that enunciate empty signifiers/nodal points. Those empty signifiers help to partially fix the meaning/identity of those floating signifiers (Laclau, Reference Laclau2018). In a discourse, empty signifiers can unite heterogeneous unmet demands in a chain of equivalence. In so doing, the empty signifiers give meaning to the floating signifiers in the chain of equivalence, thereby creating a people/historic bloc with a common identity (Laclau, Reference Laclau2018). This common identity would not exist without the different demands commonly opposing an Other (the Other of the chain of equivalence), nor would it exist without having an empty signifier that gives each of the demands a common and temporary meaning or signified. The common signified of those demands emerges from their enunciation in relation to the empty signifier and opposing the Other. An empty signifier therefore unites the demands, giving them their identity (they identify with the empty signifier and opposing the Other), and therefore representing them (Laclau, Reference Laclau2018). This means that this identity does not precede their discursive representation; it is in this way that hegemonic projects create identity (Torfing, Reference Torfing1999).

However, the contents of the empty signifier eventually need to become filled. The empty signifier cannot forever remain empty in a populist movement that gains control of the state (or overcomes whatever its Other is); it must come to have a signified. All of the demands that exist on a chain of equivalence cannot be met equally once that control is achieved (Laclau, Reference Laclau2018). In a populist movement, the group that becomes hegemonic comes to provide the empty signifier with a single signified: its various demands come to largely signify that for which the empty signifier stands (Torfing, Reference Torfing1999, p. 180). This is where the populist model of struggle begins to present problems for Indigenous resistance, to which the discussion now turns.

6. Populist Movements and Indigenous Struggle in Canada

In a populist movement, for one group to emerge that can represent its aims as being the meaning of the empty signifier, it has to be in a stronger position than other groups (Butler et al., Reference Butler, Laclau and Žižek2000, p. 208). Indigenous peoples may be unlikely to become that actor in Canada because they are only 5% of the population (Statistics Canada, 2022). This means that Indigenous interests may be neglected in populist movements. Indeed, the demands of Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups may be inadequately represented by the hegemonic empty signifier of a populist movement, and they can therefore feel excluded by or within a historic bloc (Thomassen, Reference Thomassen2019). As an example, some radical/Leftist social movements erase Indigenous presence and resort to forms of colonial imposition on Indigenous peoples by refusing to address “settler colonialism” in their demands (Barker, Reference Barker2015; Fortier, Reference Fortier2017; Lewis, Reference Lewis2017). Settler colonialism is a structure of society that is based on the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous land (Coulthard, Reference Coulthard2014; Patel, Reference Patel2015; Wolfe, Reference Wolfe2006). It is fuelled by settler efforts to remove Indigenous presence in an effort to facilitate continued land dispossession to promote settler wealth accumulation (Patel, Reference Patel2015). The Canadian state has a relationship with Indigenous peoples that remains settler colonial because the former continues to dispossess Indigenous peoples in order to promote settlement and capital accumulation on Indigenous lands. Leftist social movements also at times refuse to take direction from or simply cooperate with Indigenous actors, with many in the Left not seeing the compatibility of their struggles with Indigenous nationhood movements (Barker, Reference Barker2015). When settlers from Leftist social movements do try to cooperate with Indigenous resistance movements, there are examples of them trying to act as leaders vis-à-vis the Indigenous actors and being disruptive towards or even undermining the Indigenous resistance movements as a whole. All too often, Indigenous people do not see settlers from Leftist social movements as natural allies, but rather as colonizers under seemingly progressive labels (Barker & Battell Lowman, Reference Barker and Battell Lowman2022).Footnote ¹⁸ This is problematic because those resistance movements are clearly commonly taking place on Indigenous lands.

An example can help to illustrate these Leftist-Indigenous relationship challenges. The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) social movement emerged during 2011 and led to occupations of public spaces in thousands of communities worldwide (Worth, Reference Worth2013) to protest prevailing forms of inequality, austerity, and oligarchical control of wealth and power (what the movement called the “1%”) (Clover, Reference Clover2019). OWS was a populist movement of sorts that united various struggles with the OWS empty signifier and that articulated the Other in the form of the 1% that was opposed by the “99%” (Thomassen, Reference Thomassen2019). Indigenous peoples perceived OWS occupations to be quite colonial in that they failed to see the land that they were occupying as being Indigenous land. They noted that OWS lacked engagement with their priorities, including addressing settler colonialism and decolonial conceptions of struggle (Barker, Reference Barker2021; Lewis, Reference Lewis2017). They were therefore inadequately represented by the OWS empty signifier.

A struggle to return to the nation-to-nation treaty relationship with the Crown has been central to many Indigenous resistance movements in Canada. The numbered treaties entered into by both the Crown and First Nations were international agreements engaged in by sovereigns (Alfred, Reference Alfred2009b; Asch, Reference Asch2014; Barker, Reference Barker2015; Gaudry, Reference Gaudry2013). First Nations did not perceive themselves as being subsumed within Canadian sovereignty through those treaties, yet the Crown has interpreted the treaties to mean just that (Asch, Reference Asch2014). First Nations saw the treaties as building an alliance between two sovereign nations who would share the land but not subjugate one another.Footnote ¹⁹

This nation-to-nation model does not neatly fit into existing populist models of social change. Many of the most recent Indigenous struggles in Canada can be seen as movements to revive the nation-to-nation relationship of rekindling their sovereignty.Footnote ²⁰ They have therefore not been movements that could be subsumed within a larger Leftist populist movement in which another (more powerful) group may become hegemonic, potentially reducing Indigenous peoples’ chances of attaining sovereignty. Audra Simpson (Reference Simpson2014) argues that Indigenous peoples are not commonly seen in the eyes of settlers the way they want to be recognized — namely, as nationals with sovereign authority. Settlers and the settler state instead misrecognize them as mere cultural minorities or races. This has led Indigenous peoples to engage in a “politics of refusal,” whereby they refuse and disengage from these settler colonial forms of recognition and insist on being more than what the settler state can recognize (Simpson, Reference Simpson2014). This refusal is also about refusing colonial state authority, pursuing the nation-to-nation relationship of the treaties, and insisting on asserting sovereignty. There is a risk that if Indigenous peoples seeking sovereignty are included in a historic bloc that is led by non-Indigenous groups, they may be misrecognized by others within that bloc as not being sovereigns; they may need to then refuse to participate in that historic bloc and assert their sovereignty in other ways.

Given these insights into the problematic relationship between Leftist populist movements and Indigenous struggle, it is important to explore non-populist and alternative conceptions of struggle for Indigenous resistance movements in Canada. It is also crucial to consider how empty signifiers produced by Indigenous peoples themselves could potentially become the hegemonic empty signifiers of a broader populist movement.

Here, I will discuss INM and Land Back as examples of movements for Indigenous sovereignty that might not have been well incorporated into Leftist historic blocs because of their insistence on sovereignty. I will also consider their use of empty signifiers. I will then reflect on potential forms that Indigenous resistance may assume in the future.

7. Idle No More

In 2012, the resistance movement known as “Idle No More” came to fruition as a result of the enunciations on social media of both the INM discourse as well as the hashtag of #IdleNoMore by a group of Indigenous women and their supporters.Footnote ²¹ The enunciations were initially in response to the conservative legislative policies of then Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Pasternak & Dafnos, Reference Pasternak and Dafnos2018), but INM soon became the most significant modern mobilization of Indigenous peoples in Canada (Simpson, Reference Simpson2018). It involved countless country-wide demonstrations and blockades of transport infrastructure.

INM must be understood in relation to reconciliation. Reconciliation as practiced in Canada is commonly about state recognition of Indigenous rights,Footnote ²² and that recognition ultimately attempts to bring Indigenous peoples to reconcile with state sovereignty (Coulthard, Reference Coulthard2014, pp. 150–160; Robertson, Reference Robertson2023). Gerald Taiaiake Alfred problematizes reconciliation since it consists of reconciling with both ongoing Canadian settler colonialism and the settler colonial state (Alfred, Reference Alfred2009a, Reference Alfred2009b, Reference Alfred2015, Reference Alfred2016). This reconciliation is not offering Indigenous peoples any meaningful land restitution (Alfred, Reference Alfred2022; Palmater, Reference Palmater2020c), and so Alfred argues that “until the land becomes central to the discussion reconciliation will remain a smokescreen for recolonization” (Alfred, Reference Alfred2022, p. 80).

Alfred argues that “resurgence” should replace the practices of reconciliation in Canada (Alfred, Reference Alfred2015, Reference Alfred2015, Reference Alfred2018, Reference Alfred2022, pp. 80–81; see also Coburn, Reference Coburn2016). Resurgence consists of (1) ending settler colonialism and promoting decolonization (through land restitution), (2) living Indigenous forms nationhood and lifeways on Indigenous lands, where Indigenous peoples have sovereign or autonomous control through use of Indigenous governance principles, (3) the creation of Indigenous economies, and (4) Indigenous autonomy being defended against any disruptive efforts by settlers. For many, INM was understood to be a grassroots movement for resurgence.Footnote ²³

INM was seen by many participants as not being a movement of protest for greater participation of Indigenous peoples in colonial state institutions (Barker, Reference Barker2015; Melançon, Reference Melançon2018). Rather, they saw it as a movement of resurgence seeking the original nation-to-nation treaty relationship (Barker, Reference Barker2015; Melançon, Reference Melançon2018). However, because INM was a somewhat vague term, it had a different meaning for many of those involved in the movement, and therefore could be understood as an empty signifier through which the demands of different groups — some of whom previously had seemingly antithetical aims — in the struggle felt represented (Barker, Reference Barker2015; Kaba et al., Reference Kaba, Ritchie, Maynard and Simpson2022). Some saw in INM an opportunity to advance state policy and rights recognition to ameliorate Indigenous peoples, while others were involved for more radical demands/subject positions. Among the various demands that were brought together under the INM empty signifier were those seeking:Footnote ²⁴

• an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls;

• an end to the Harper government;Footnote ²⁵

• improved funding for Indigenous social programs;

• recognition of the right to the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples;

• improved environmental protection or even an end to various forms of resource extraction and related infrastructure;

• respect for the treaties; and

• an end to capitalism and corporate globalization.

In this sense, “INM” became a rallying-cry for divergent groups, including many settlers (McParland, Reference McParland2013), and it therefore helped to unify a struggle and build a “people” of sorts (Martineau, Reference Martineau2015; Schweitzer et al., Reference Schweitzer, Mix and Fleming2023). Through this process, the different demands within the movement came to see one another as equivalent. However, most settlers opposed INM (Barker, Reference Barker2015; Denis, Reference Denis2015, p. 255), and the type of a people that the INM empty signifier helped to build was insufficiently broad to be considered a people in a populist sense.

INM can be understood as a discourse, whereby it gave certain floating signifiers a more stable meaning in relation to its empty signifier of “INM.” The floating signifiers it articulated included the different demands/subject positions within the discourse, such as struggles for “decolonization” and “the treaty relationship.” In the years leading up to INM, the struggle for decolonization (including among some Indigenous people) was often understood to have the meaning of rights recognition by the state (that is, reconciliation). Similarly, reconciliation (rights recognition) similarly commonly signified decolonization (Coulthard, Reference Coulthard2014; Robertson, Reference Robertson2023, p. 63). Whereas, in the INM discourse, decolonization commonly came to mean the return of lands and political power. Similarly, the struggle for the treaty relationship often came to mean not something akin to an improved incorporation into the Canadian state (which is what it unfortunately means for some Indigenous people), but rather signified a relationship between sovereigns, where Indigenous peoples would have full powers of self-government.

However, INM as a social movement waned in mid-2013 (Barker, Reference Barker2015). Many of its actors became interested in reconciliation (rights recognition) because of the promises of Justin Trudeau, who in 2013 became leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Soon after the “94 Calls to Action” of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada were released (in June 2015), Trudeau promised to implement in full all 94 within his first term in office (Jewell & Mosby, Reference Jewell and Mosby2019). Moreover, during his 2015 electoral campaign and later as prime minister, Trudeau has commonly stated that his most important relationship is with Canada’s Indigenous peoples.Footnote ²⁶ As a result, many Indigenous people became interested in participating in and supporting the reconciliatory politics of the settler colonial state. Many seemed to come to adopt reconciliatory subject positions, with their demand for decolonization having a signified of mere rights recognition (and rights recognition/reconciliation also signifying decolonization) in a similar way to the years leading up to INM (Robertson, Reference Robertson2023, p. 71). Large numbers of Indigenous people secured membership in the Liberal Party of Canada between 2012 and 2018. Moreover, compared to previous elections, there was a significant increase in Indigenous support for the Liberals in the 2015 federal election (Grenier, Reference Grenier2020; Martens, Reference Martens2019).

8. The Discourse of “Land Back”

As Trudeau’s time in power has extended, Indigenous people have identified less and less with subject positions in the reconciliation discourse of Trudeau that sees reconciliation as rights recognition (and not something like resurgence). In 2020, it was revealed that his government spent $100M fighting First Nation rights in court during his first years in power (Forester, Reference Forester2020). This level of expense was comparable to the amount that Harper had spent on similar court battles, making it clear that Trudeau’s commitment to reconciliation was not much stronger (Forester, Reference Forester2020). Furthermore, at the time of writing in early 2025, Trudeau has fully implemented only 13 of the 94 Calls to Action of the TRC, nearly 10 years after coming into officeFootnote ²⁷ (Jewell, Reference Jewell2024). Those Calls to Action that have been implemented are largely symbolic initiatives that do not require major structural change (Harp Reference Harp2019, Reference Harp2021; Jewell, Reference Jewell2024). The overall lack of change under Trudeau’s term in office (Kassam & Leyland, Reference Kassam and Leyland2025) may explain why on-reserve voter support for the Liberals fell to 32.5% in the 2019 federal election (Grenier, Reference Grenier2020).

Marin Lukacs noted in 2019 that despite the various Liberal government enunciations of a reconciliation discourse, “there was one word that always went unmentioned: land. There was no talk of power sharing, of access to resources, and certainly none of land restitution” (Lukacs, Reference Lukacs2019). In October 2021, it seemed like this was possibly changing, with then-Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller giving a speech where he articulated that there had been “land theft” by the Crown and that it was time to “give land back” (Forester & Needham, Reference Forester and Needham2021). However, in the years since, no new important land reform processes have been implemented (The Breach, 2025). On 21 June 2021, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act received Royal Assent and immediately came into force. While it is intended to implement the United Nations Declaration, it has not resulted in any land being returned to Indigenous peoples (Deer, Reference Deer2023). Moreover, in May 2022, Trudeau dodged questions from a reporter who had asked if Canada exists on stolen land. It seems that the prime minister disagrees with Miller regarding perceptions of land theft, making land reform highly unlikely under his settler colonial government (McSheffrey, Reference McSheffrey2022). The lack of commitment to land reform is also evidenced in how none of Trudeau’s mandate letters to his cabinet ministers for Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada mention land reform, making Miller’s discussion of it to be mere rhetoric (The Breach, 2022). In fact, the Trudeau government is doing everything it can to continue to take land from Indigenous peoples — for instance, Canada’s modern treaties (signed since 1975) continue to be used to extinguish Aboriginal title to approximately 95% of the traditional territory of those Indigenous peoples who sign such treaties (The Breach, 2025). Through such a process, First Nations receive some financial compensation and very small amounts of land (Lukacs & Pasternak, Reference Lukacs and Pasternak2020). Moreover, the Trudeau government continues to battle Indigenous claims to land in the courts, making discussion of giving land back by his government to appear to be more symbolic than anything else (CBC News, 2022c, 2022d). Ironically, in a December 2022 interview with CBC News, Minister Miller alluded to there being real and documented results of “land back” occurring in Canada. One example he gave was the highly colonial modern treaty process (CBC News, 2022d; The Breach, 2022). In September 2024, the leadership of the three national Indigenous organizations stated that Trudeau’s commitment to reconciliation has declined since his 2015 election (Passafiume, Reference Passafiume2024). In January 2025, Member of Parliament Jaime Battiste, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, engaged in a discussion with reporters of what he sees reconciliation as consisting of, and did not mention that it should involve land restitution (Pugliese, Reference Pugliese2025). The same can be said for the leading contenders in the 2025 Liberal Party of Canada leadership race, whose winner will replace Trudeau as prime minister (Pugliese, Reference Pugliese2025).

Because Crown policies of dispossession remain largely unaltered under Trudeau (Lukacs, Reference Lukacs2021), it has become clear to many Indigenous people that a truer form of reconciliation (involving land transfer and decolonization) is not happening — it is in fact a lie (Palmater, Reference Palmater2020e). The disappointment with Trudeau led former Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief RoseAnne Archibald to refer to him as a “performative reconciliationist” (Forester, Reference Forester2023). In June 2023, the AFN published a document stating that “[t]he path to reconciliation begins with Canada returning First Nations lands” (Assembly of First Nations, 2023, p. 2).

In late 2018, Indigenous resistance against Trudeau’s false promises of a changed relationship based on reconciliation started to become commonplace (King, Reference King2018). In early 2020, one particular event emerged to represent the hollowness of reconciliation: that of the Coastal Gas Link (CGL) pipeline, which was being planned to be built through the territory of the Wet’suwet’en people in northern British Columbia. Peaceful Wet’suwet’en community members were arrested by heavily armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers for defending their unceded homelands from the pipeline. In this event, the Trudeau government could have intervened in different ways through an approach of de-escalation or mediation; however, it did not. This led to an outpouring of public support for the Wet’suwet’en, with the hashtag #SHUTDOWNCANADA circulating on Twitter and Indigenous peoples and settler allies blocking railways and other key infrastructure and engaging in other forms of direct action with the aim of removing the RCMP and the CGL company from Wet’suwet’en lands (Corntassel, Reference Corntassel2021; Lukacs, Reference Lukacs2019, Reference Lukacs2021). Settler support for this new Indigenous-led movement was arguably stronger than for INM (Palmater, Reference Palmater2020b, Reference Palmater2020d), with 40% of settlers found to be supportive of the blockades (Lukacs, Reference Lukacs2021). This horrific event led many young Indigenous youth and prominent intellectuals such as Pamela Palmater to articulate that “reconciliation is dead” (Corntassel, Reference Corntassel2021, p. 16; Palmater, Reference Palmater2020a), while Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs proclaimed that “reconciliation cannot be achieved at gunpoint” (CBC Radio, 2020).

Because of the disappointment of and failures of reconciliation in Canada to bring about a truly changed relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples, a new discourse has emerged, which I refer to as “Land Back.” It has been articulated as involving resurgence (Corntassel, Reference Corntassel2021, p. 16; Hopkins, Reference Hopkins2021; Yellowhead Institute, 2019), and therefore has some similarities to the INM discourse of 2012–2013. However, because Land Back can mean different things to different people (Redeye Collective, 2021), it is an empty signifier. Some of the many statements about what “Land Back” is signify that it is about:Footnote ²⁸

• recognizing that Indigenous peoples never surrendered their land, Indigenous peoples reclaiming stolen land and struggling to keep the land, and seeking reparations for lands taken;

• rejecting amelioration through mere state rights recognition;

• Indigenous peoples being able to consent to activities taking place on their lands;

• Indigenous access to natural resources and the royalties derived from extraction of resources;

• recreating thriving Indigenous polities and rejecting Indigenous peoples receiving the mere municipal (non-sovereign) powers of government that are typically offered through self-government agreements and modern treaties that the federal government signs with Indigenous peoples;

• being able to live Indigenous lifeways on Indigenous lands;

• requiring the Crown and police to remove themselves both from Indigenous territories and the decision-making about what happens on those territories;

• respecting the land and opposing industrial activities on traditional Indigenous territories;

• ending both the genocide of Indigenous women and girls in Canada and Indigenous children being taken from Indigenous families and placed into the child welfare system; and

• gender justice and “reclaiming the freedom to be on the land in safety” (CBC News, 2022b).

Moreover, because the Land Back discourse resists fossil fuel extractivism and deforestation on Indigenous lands, it preserves biodiversity, and promotes both environmental protection and climate justice (Corntassel, Reference Corntassel2021, p. 21; Hopkins, Reference Hopkins2021; Palmater, Reference Palmatern.d.). Given the number of demands that see themselves as represented by “Land Back,” a “people” has become unified through this empty signifier.

In this discourse, “Land Back” is a new discursive nodal point that is temporarily suturing the meaning of subject positions/demands. The demand for “reconciliation” of reconciliatory subjects comes to signify the return of land and decolonizationFootnote ²⁹ and not mere rights recognition. Similarly, in this discourse, the demand for “self-government”Footnote ³⁰ of advocates for self-determination has come to signify sovereignty, while the demand for “environmental protection” of environmentalists signifies Indigenous care for the land.

It becomes clear that the common demands for Indigenous sovereignty and resurgence in INM and Land Back may not have been adequately represented in a historic bloc where an empty signifier emerges from non-Indigenous components of that bloc. That would bring with it the risk of Indigenous marginalization in the bloc.

9. Future Indigenous Resistance Movements

I will now examine future Indigenous resistance movements in relation to the previous discussion of populism and empty signifiers. I will provide some insights into how the risks of Indigenous involvement in settler-led populist movements might be overcome. I will also consider the strategic use of empty signifiers in new Indigenous resistance movements.

The “people” that INM and Land Back have constituted were not broad populisms. However, that does not mean that an empty signifier emerging from Indigenous struggle could not become the hegemonic empty signifier in a broader populist struggle. For that to happen, the Indigenous groups within that struggle would likely need to become a hegemonic actor. That would require more sections of Canadian society becoming aware of Indigenous issues and seeing themselves more represented by Indigenous conceptions of social change. In a populist movement of that variety, Indigenous peoples may be able to rekindle the nation-to-nation relationship based on sovereignty that they have often pursued. They would also not be marginalized by other groups in the struggle.

For a broad array of actors to mobilize to form a historic bloc in support of an Indigenous-constituted empty signifier, they would of course need to come identify with it (Mouffe, Reference Mouffe2022, pp. 62-63). While this does not seem to be something that could happen in the near future, it could potentially emerge through a Gramscian “war of position” — a process whereby a social force can slowly work to build up consent and a support base in civil society, leading to a new counter-hegemonic common sense among social forces that are able to challenge the prevailing hegemonic order (Gramsci, Reference Gramsci and Hoare1971). Decolonial movements used such wars of position in the wars of liberation in the Third World (Cox, Reference Cox1987). The construction of a frontier (discussed earlier in this article) can be considered the same as a war of position (Laclau & Mouffe, Reference Laclau and Mouffe2001).

This is not to say that Indigenous struggle should become populist in character and attempt to hegemonically identity an empty signifier for a historic bloc. Indeed, some North American models of Indigenous struggle seek autonomy rather than grand-scale populist forms of change. For instance, Alfred (Reference Alfred2015) argues against a populist revolution that seeks to overthrow the state, and instead advocates for Indigenous peoples seeking autonomy within the political space of the nation-state. He sees this as involving a return of lands and embracing a true nation-to-nation relationship. He notes that this is the model that has been pursued by the Zapatistas, a Mayan Indigenous guerrilla movement in Southern Mexico. The Zapatistas have seized territory and achieved autonomy in social, political, and economic life, while not destroying or replacing the state. As Holloway puts it, they have built “the world [in which] they want to live” (Holloway, Reference Holloway2015, p. 16). They have resisted cooperation with the state, including rejecting state funding, government projects, and aid; in this way, they have avoided cooptation by the state (Alfred, Reference Alfred2015). Dylan Miner (Reference Miner2015) also argues in favour of a Zapatista-inspired struggle in North America involving Indigenous peoples living as if the state is not in control. This form of struggle avoids a Fanonian attempt to take control of the state that is perhaps more aligned with Indigenous traditions of non-domination (Aguirre, Reference Aguirre2015). In Canada, empty signifiers in the spirit of INM and Land Back could help to build Zapatista types of Indigenous polities.

Adam Gary Lewis (Reference Lewis2017) argues that Indigenous struggles should be somewhat separate and autonomous from settler resistance movements. Because of the risks of settler control in broad social movements that incorporate Indigenous struggles, this model of struggle does have many strengths. In this model, Leftist social movements might then come to engage or coordinate with self-determined Indigenous resistance movements, nations, and confederacies through negotiations or a form of federalism that is outside of state control (Lewis, Reference Lewis2017). Such negotiations would preserve Indigenous jurisdiction and control of lands. Corey Snelgrove (Reference Snelgrove2021), suggests that one form of resistance might involve Indigenous peoples having their own unique struggles and signing new treaties with other social movements involved in anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and environmental struggles so as to advance “unity-in-separation” (Snelgrove, Reference Snelgrove2021, p. 279), working together to end settler colonialism. There is certainly an opportunity for Indigenous resistance movements and others to cooperate and support one another insofar as they do not reproduce colonial domination (Snelgrove et al., Reference Snelgrove, Dhamoon and Corntassel2014). Similarly, Adam J. Barker and Emma Battell Lowman (Reference Barker and Battell Lowman2022) argue that Indigenous and Leftist settler social movements might benefit from separate actions, while simultaneously working towards ending settler colonialism. I would argue that Snelgrove’s idea of a treaty-based movement is one model for decolonization that would require Indigenous actors to cooperate with other struggles; treaties could ensure that the other struggles do not become hegemonic and marginalize the ends of Indigenous struggle.

10. Analytical Conclusion

This article has examined populist struggle and empty signifiers in relation to Indigenous resistance in Canada. It has found that there may be risks such as marginalization that come with Indigenous inclusion in broader populist historic blocs, including Indigenous peoples feeling misrepresented by some empty signifiers that emerge from other struggles.

Laclau (Butler et al., Reference Butler, Laclau and Žižek2000, p. 79) argues that empty signifiers are the very condition of politics and political change. He thinks that human freedom is defined by the ability to produce empty signifiers to attempt to represent the missing fullness in society. Political subjects would not have freedom if the name of the missing fullness was already given to them. In this article, I have shown how Indigenous peoples have used their freedom to articulate the empty signifiers of “INM” and “Land Back” to represent the missing fullness. I have also demonstrated that those two social movements would not be well represented in a historic bloc led by non-Indigenous groups, particularly because of their struggles for sovereignty and the nation-to-nation relationship. Indigenous participants may be misrecognized as mere cultural minorities (and not as sovereigns) by other groups in historic blocs. These examples illustrate why Indigenous resistance movements in Canada may need to consider forms of struggle outside of historic blocs involving many non-Indigenous groups.

I have demonstrated how Indigenous peoples in Canada could seek to become the hegemonic or leading faction in a populist historic bloc through articulating empty signifiers, and I have pointed-out that this is not something that is likely to happen in the near future and would require a long-term Gramscian war of position. Another model of Indigenous struggle would be to use empty signifiers to unite a movement seeking to build autonomous political spaces in Canada akin to those developed by the Zapatistas. While I do not advocate any particular model of Indigenous struggle in Canada, I do think that Indigenous peoples need to be able to strategize carefully when developing solidarity with Leftist and other forms of radical struggle because of the risks outlined in this article. Any future Indigenous-based war of position or struggle for a “Canadian Zapatismo” may require Indigenous peoples to build treaty or similar governance documents with other social movements in Canada so as to ensure that they do not become marginalized and misrepresented in the empty signifiers that emerge from other struggles. The enunciation of strategic empty signifiers in the spirit of INM and Land Back will likely help to build such polities.