Campaign Approaches to Indigenous Concerns

[Music] the agenda with steve pakin is made possible through generous philanthropic contributions from viewers like you thank you for supporting tvo's journalism you may be surprised to hear that indigenous issues rate fairly high up the list of concerns by the average canadian voter and so tonight we'll talk to three of a record number of indigenous candidates running for parliament about why they're in the race then we'll consider more broadly what this campaign has revealed about reconciliation and what some indigenous people say is needed it's wednesday september 15th and that's tonight on the agenda [Music] [Music] 77 candidates in this federal election identify as either first nation inuit or metis that's a record let's find out what prompted three of them to answer their party's call and as is our custom we'll introduce our guests from furthest away to closest to our studio starting in kempville ontario with lorraine reckman's she is running for the green party in leeds grenville thousand islands and rito lakes and it's her sixth time on the ballot in london ontario jason henry who's running for the ndp in lampton kent middlesex he is chief of the chippewas of kettle and stony point first nation although he has taken a leave from those duties during this campaign and in orillia ontario cynthia wesley eskimo she is a liberal party candidate in simcoe north she's also the chair for truth and reconciliation at lakehead university and as i welcome you three to the program tonight let me also add that we did reach out to the conservative party of canada for one of their candidates uh they didn't get back to us that is if i may say standard procedure for the conservative party they don't respond to media inquiries and that's their right not to do so but that's why we don't have a tory on the show tonight all right lorraine let's start with you because this is your sixth time running how come you keep doing it well i think what drives me really is is climate change and the fact that we have to take action on climate change but what what engaged me was actually the fact that indigenous people were being excluded from resource development decisions that impacted traditional lands do you feel you are able to have an impact by running but not winning i do i do think i'm having an impact i mean as you know as the years go by we see canadians generally wanting to discuss indigenous rights issues at the doorstep i find that an interesting answer because we do have to remember that probably upwards of 80 of the people who will run in this federal election won't win but they're running anyway because they think they've got something to say so okay hats off to you for doing so jason how about to you you are um apparently i'm told you weren't going to run and then something happened that changed your mind what happened that changed your mind well i've been considering running for a number of years because i have the ability and the voice to be able to create positive change for indigenous people on july 1st i was making my way to london ontario for the turtle island healing walk and i began seeing signs in the country that said hate has no home here and our london family and i began to get worried that i would attend this event like i've attended many others and i'd see the same 100 faces at the event and i arrived at victoria park and there was a crowd of people wearing orange shirts and i felt good it was more than 100 people and i socialized with people that were close to me um you know in my family and eventually it was time to give my opening remarks and i was called to the stage and i passed a reporter and he said to me we have more people here than blm and ireland and family that means we have more than probably 10 000 people and that sounded like amazing i got on the stage all i could see was this huge sea of orange and then we walked down rich monroe and we got to the corner of richmond and oxford and a very good friend of mine raymond d'leary said to me hey bro look back take a picture of that sea of orange send it to jug meat sing and tell them you're in because that is evidence that people are ready to change and they're supporting us and do you feel vindicated in your decision you think it was still the right thing to do i absolutely do i've had great great responses last night i was at an engagement and following the engagement one of the organizers let me know that sometime during the night somebody said i'm not gonna vote for the drunken indian guy and that tells me that i've made the right choice because i i'm not a drunken indian guy i'm an indigenous leader i am a father i am a husband i am a son and i am going to promote change and create change in this country and those old racial slurs those antiquated thoughts of indigenous people will be eradicated in this country whether i'm elected or not i will promote change and create change cynthia this is not your first run either how many times is this for you putting your name on a ballot this is the third time but uh i've been at this game i mean i've been trying to change the face of indigenous canada for the last 40 years and frankly uh as both of the candidates have already said it's working people are very interested in actually what's going on the unmarked graves raised a huge amount of of compassion and sympathy across across canada for what has happened if it made it evidence-based i suppose but i've been very interested in actually taking our voices to the table i think that as as somebody already mentioned we have not necessarily been included in conversations around environment and we need to be and i think we need to be included in conversations around what kinds of things the liberal party has put forward on their platform from digital people it's not enough to say we're going to do this we need to be there to ensure that it gets done so there's a lot of reasons why i think i i'm running and of course the liberal party itself it aligns with my values i mean i respect the green party and i respect the ndp as well for what they have to say um the conservative party not so much but but i'm running because i think it's an important thing for us to do and uh and also indigenous women need to be standing at that table and ensuring that their voices are heard as well now for whatever reason you have decided i think all three times to run as a liberal in some of the safest conservative writings in this country how come i happen to be living in those safe those safe ridings and in this riding in particular in simcoe north we have two very big and progressive first nation communities the beaujolais first nation in close to midland and of course here close to irelia is the rama first nation and both of those communities are absolutely moving forward we're not waiting for the government to save us i mean that's a long wait as we all know in it by now but they're actually moving forward very very aggressively and very confidently into the future and i'm going to help them i'm going to ensure that they get there but the rest of the riding is also having issues around housing affordability and accessibility but i'm learning very clearly that we have people in these writings that are doing an incredible work not only about sustainability but regenerative work and i think that's where we all need to go it's important i do want to ask all three of you about something that is that is a little delicate and that is you know that there are indigenous people in this country who think it is wrong for indigenous people to run in so-called colonial settler parliamentary elections that in some respects you are participating in a political process that has oppressed indigenous people in this country for hundreds of years so i want to ask lorraine whether you've run into any uh brush back or push back during the times that you have run because of your willingness to participate in this parliamentary process well steve i have to tell you that just this past week i received a letter from national chief roseanne archibald and i was really pleased to see it you know it was a real shot in the arm to me as an indigenous woman candidate uh with an understanding that we have to we are we have to inform public policy in this country if our voices aren't there uh they're not going our issues are not going to be addressed and so there's a lot of well-meaning uh you know remarks well-meaning statements that people have made about indigenous issues but i think they're missing the mark on on what you know what are the foundational things that we have to deal with uh so it it's necessary that we're there if we're if we're not there i mean policy will be made about us without us and we support and green support free prior informed consent it's a principle you know to engage and to base relationships on i mean you know the thing that's troubled me is that going back to my experience in the national aboriginal forestry association advocating for indigenous rights in forest policy it became evident to me that the decisions weren't made based on questions of sustainability or fairness or equity that the questions were and the answers were being based on political um political positions on issues so it was evident to me that in order to affect change we had to get political jason henry how about to you any awkwardness about participating in a uh colonial settler parliamentary process i'm already a federally elected official i'm an indian act chief i ran in a federal election i was elected as a member of council and uh chief i've already entered the system and as an indigenous person i i have a federally issued card that tells me what rights i have supposedly i and without without changing that because currently we are within that system there's no true nation to nation relationship right now and having many critics myself being elected official i i know that being a critic on the outside you know throwing stones so to speak in doesn't do any good we have to actually you know engage in the system and affect change i i have a very solid base in my culture my identity my spirituality i'm a member of the loon clan from the initial nation and i know that through that it that gives me the ability and the responsibility to do this work and some of us have to do that we don't have the option to sit back because if we don't embrace the changes now we're leaving that for our children to suffer the same way we did cynthia any brush back that you've received along the way for running oh yeah yes i have had many conversations over the course of time um i got i'm too busy for that i've got lots of things that i have to do i do a lot of public education i'm trying to get people to understand across canada that we have things that need to be done and that we can do we can collaborate on these things we can get this stuff done if we're working together running for the liberal party that's i don't see that as a as a wrong thing to do we live in canada we have to have a relationship with the federal government and the provincial government and the first nation governments and every everybody else and i'm all for working together i mean the maori have had uh seats at the in the in the new zealand government since the 1800s you know i think we're running a little bit behind when it comes to that because we could certainly put some designated seats there and i think it would actually start to more modernize and and normalize the process but i think we have to have our voices there we stood back for far too long and in 2015 we convinced a lot of indigenous people that they needed to vote and they did so i still remember little old ladies lining up to be able to get in the door to make sure they cast their vote so i think we've changed the picture of who should participate and who should not and i believe that if we want to have our voices heard we better stand up and make sure that we speak loud enough for them to be heard by everybody across the country now that's an interesting idea and i haven't seen it in any of the major party platforms the notion jason of having designated seats in the parliament of canada for indigenous representation what do you think of that idea i thought of it for a long time and it's interesting because will that affect the change will that be the answer i mean it's important it's important for us to have that voice and have it continually entrenched in canada but also is that is that the right thing to do because what i've considered actually is having an indigenous writing right rather than having our population split up by the area we live in geographically but actually having an indigenous set aside seats based on indigenous people across canada we have to have the election still but it'd be say like the six or eight first nations in in my area or the six or eight first nations in northern ontario and break it up that way i think it's a very good idea and i think it's very important okay let's look at that those that idea may not be in the platforms but we do have some ideas here that are on the platforms and i'm going to take a moment just to go through some of the bullet points here this is by no means an exhaustive list but it's a few of the ideas a look at a few pieces of reconciliation in the major party platforms the conservative party for example would purport to spend five billion dollars to invest in resource development as a means of enhancing reconciliation the liberal party would commit an additional 1.4 billion for a mental health and wellness strategy and invest a further two billion dollars in indigenous housing uh the new democrats would like to implement a co-developed fully funded indigenous national housing strategy and by the way we should mention the ndp is the only party to use the word genocide in its platform and the green party would end all the drinking water and boil water advisories of which there are still 52 in effect in 33 communities and as another aside the greens and the ndp promise to respect indigenous sovereignty but unlike the liberal and tory documents there's no mention of indigenous sovereignty there so uh let's go through this lorraine why do you think the greens have the best platform on offer well i i would like to say that their policy is informed um so a lot of the a lot of the policy motions that were developed for the green party of canada are based in the royal commission on aboriginal people recommendations from 1996 that talk about foundational change things like repudiating the doctrine of discovery things like repealing the indian act rebuilding uh in making the investment to rebuild in nations and that goes back to the question you asked earlier about making seats available inside parliament for indigenous people i mean the question is uh when are we going to get to the you know the foundational work of reconstituting nations so that they can negotiate on an equitable from an equitable position so you add to our cap recommendations which rcap gave us a 20-year plan forward in 1996 to reconcile with canada talked about a new royal proclamation uh talked about a new relationship recognizing the nationhood status of indigenous peoples and then we bring in the u.n declaration on the rights of indigenous people so the green platform is big the policy is based on a lot of work that canada has already done to move us forward and i think the greens are more bold and progressive in in saying things like it's time to work you know on the basis of free prior informed consent with first nations to repeal the indian act and and get out from under that oppressive sexist racist policy cynthia let me get you to speak to one of the criticisms we hear about both the leader of your party and about the party itself and that is lots of talk not necessarily lots of action you want to speak to that yeah i'm sorry that's not something that i would absolutely not i agree with i think that the the liberal party and and justin trudeau has made some huge strides for it this is a government that has said yes this is the first government that in my recollection and i'm well over 60 now that has said yes that has taken a whole of government approach that has put in every single mandate letter of every single ministry that they must deal with these issues they're about eighty six percent uh uh addressing the 94 calls to action uh they're right they're done or they're in progress they've got the water oil advisories lifted they've got like something like 68 of them so they're actually making that's in six years so they're actually doing what they said they did the missing and murdered indigenous women inquiry they have the 236 recommendations that are moving forward and they put resources into that they have done an incredible amount of work i think the problem is and i say this all the time is uh we don't get it into the public domain very quickly and i know that a lot of the negotiations that are going across the are going on across the table where jurisdiction and authorities being addressed are not in the public domain until they're resolved so you don't put negotiations as they're moving forward out there so i think a lot of people don't realize that the minister of crown relations has done an incredible job of actually lifting a lot of those conversations uh child welfare is being addressed you know the standards being accommodated the way it's funded being being changed so there's a lot going on that i guess just doesn't get really out there and i think it's been one of my sort of the over-the-side complaints about it all is like you're doing all this great work why don't you let people know about it so that they can understand that we are actually moving forward very quickly so all of those things united nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people that got royal ascent under this government there's a lot going on i think that we need to be proud of and reconciliation that's my gig i mean i do i'm the chair for the national center for truth and reconciliation at the university of manitoba i'm pushing this all the time i know what's going on we have our thumb on the pulse whether it's about putting resources into the unmarked graves and ensuring that those communities are doing the work not outside people we're ensuring that the communities themselves are lifted in governance in child welfare and in every other place that i can actually honestly think about so yeah i think justin trudeau's done a great job of it and i think he needs to continue to do his work and i think we all need to be in there actually ensuring that we're sort of pushing him along and ensuring that our voices are a part of that conversation jason the liberals think they've got a good story to tell as it relates to indigenous issues what's the good story the ndp thinks it has to tell on this well i um i'm an indigenous leader and i've worked with the current government and i would you know beg to there for a bit but that's not the time for i don't think right now the focus of the ndp i know you mentioned earlier on that we were the only party to speak about genocide and i i know we have a good understanding of that but you also mentioned that we don't talk about um sovereignty but what we do talk about is enacting true nation to nation relationships and and the approach from the ndp is not the paternalistic top-down approach that indigenous people are so accustomed to i i know the system is not working and if if it was working i wouldn't be here i would be at home still fulfilling my duties as chief but it's not working for us and i know that um from the other end of it not not from the top-down approach but from from the other end of it on the communities we're not getting the response and the bwas they have been lifted and then reinstated you know days later that that's a struggle i worked across the country training people training indigenous people to run water and wastewater facilities this isn't a turnkey solution and it takes real investment and we have to stop fighting ourselves we have to stop fighting indigenous children stop spending money fighting our people and and i'm very happy to see these two lovely indigenous ladies running and i i hope that they don't suffer the same consequences as jody wilson ray bolt or or mumalack that would be terrible terrible thing to see we have to make sure that we have an inclusive country and inclusive government that's what the ndp brings is inclusivity thank you well cynthia since jason just brought it up and and if he didn't i was going to i i can't not ask you about the fact that the first ever indigenous minister of justice in canadian history jody wilson-raybould uh just has a book out right now which uh you know dropped a bit of a bomb on this election campaign certainly in the liberal camp essentially calling justin trudeau a phony and a liar uh are how comfortable are you running for the liberals under these circumstances i'm perfectly comfortable working with the liberals under these circumstances i have actually had the i guess the privilege and the pleasure of working with many of the you know many of the inside people for about the last decade i've worked with alongside carolyn bennett i've worked alongside i've actually worked alongside minister wilson as well when we were doing the missing and murdered indigenous women's pre-inquiry process i've worked with patty hayden i think that these p the people that are in these positions are doing the very level best that they possibly can and that would be my intention as well and and i'm not go out to throw stones at anybody i think jody has her own opinion on what happened and her own story that she can tell it's not my place to actually interject anything into that story i mean she feels what she feels and she experienced what she experienced but it is not stopping us from actually moving forward and we're going to continue moving forward whether the book does well or not and i'm sure she will as well so i always wish her the best uh she's a lovely lady and i i think that we we can't just say okay this one person has had a negative experience or and i know that the inuit lady also had a very negative experience um i've had negative experience since i am an indigenous woman i know how difficult it can be i work in in an industry i work in education higher education i know that it can be challenging but that doesn't mean that we have to to drop everything give up i've been working hard with people from every walk of life for the last 40 years i'm not going to stop now all right lorraine let me put that to you is the jody wilson ray bold story a cautionary tale of what can happen when indigenous people try to engage in the i'll use the expression that i often hear indigenous people use in the canadian parliamentary colonial settler style system right so i've never i don't think that the liberal party has ever appealed to me and i i did think that the principles and values of the green party resonated with me because they're very close to the seven grandfather teachings that talk about respect for diversity wisdom courage bravery honesty uh these are foundational principles of the green party and within i think within the rejuvenation of the party in the last year there's been a commitment to look at equity and diversity in the party and make space and provide support for candidates from and they say equity seeking groups but diverse candidates lending support to them in uh in campaign and in their engagement in the party in november the greens are going to be voting on a motion to make uh three seats on federal council available for a first nation an inuit and a metis person recognizing that there's got to be space for indigenous participation in governance of the party um that and that's going to help us work towards you know achieving equity and respecting diversity with just a couple of minutes left here let me see if i can get one more question in under the wire and jason i'll start with you you know there were people in quebec many years ago who in their wisdom decided that they weren't adequately represented on parliament hill and so they set up their own party the black quebecois it represents quebec interests as they see them uh in this country they're obviously nationalists slash sovereigntist slash separatists uh but they have that representation why has uh let's just call it the indigenous people's party of canada never been created in your view it was it never really took hold but it was attempted so i i think number one everything has its time and place and there was attempts to you know work at nation to nation relationships and we haven't gotten there so i think where it leaves us is you know the 77 of us that see that this is the time now to enter the system as it stands and try and make those positive changes to move towards the place where indigenous people need it to be i would love to have an indigenous people's party of canada i i just don't see that as the time right now i don't think canada's quite ready for that i think we're ready for change and to embrace indigenous candidates but i don't know that we would be able to elect a member in the writings that we have now we have to be more inclusive and we didn't get into this problem by ourselves and we won't get out by ourselves we have to work together cynthia last word to you i know you said that it was attempted but it really did not take off yeah no exactly it they did make an attempt at it and it's really challenging you remember that this this country has done a huge amount of damage to the indigenous population we still are grappling with what we call the legacy effect whether it was about contact in the epidemics or whether it was about the indian residential school institutions or whether it was about indian hospitals which also contributed i might add to vaccine resistance in our communities we're not there yet either we have a lot of work to do i think we're doing a great job we have some amazing young people coming up and amazing leadership and you have one of those guys on right here on on the tv right now i think we have a ways to go but i think we're getting educated in two ways we have you know we're western and traditional our our ceremonies are being everything is being reconstituted our languages our cultures i think we got a little ways to go but we are going to be standing very strong very shortly and maybe it will work then or maybe we'll create designated seats or or we don't know but one of the things i can tell you for absolute certainty is that we are having a profound influence on this country we always have had the foundations are indigenous they're going to stay that way and we're looking at restorative justice and we're looking at you know new forms of governance systems we're looking we're going to be there making it happen we are happy to remind our viewers and listeners that lorraine reckmans is seeking your vote as the green party candidate in leeds grenville thousand islands and rideau lakes jason henry in lambton kent middlesex for the ndp and cynthia wesley eskimo for the liberals in simcoe north thanks to you three for joining us on tvo tonight stay safe out there on the campaign trail and good luck to you all thank you steve [Music] revelations of the unmarked remains of indigenous children buried at former residential school sites over the past several months was stunning news from coast to coast to coast it seemed to have hit this country in such a way that many expected it to put reconciliation and indigenous issues front and center and then the election was called with us for their impressions of those issues in the campaign and as is our custom we'll introduce our guests from furthest away to closest to our studio starting in thunder bay ontario with willow fiddler reporter for the globe and mail in ottawa cindy blackstock executive director first nations child and family caring society of canada and in ontario's capital city pam palmeter professor and chair in indigenous governance at what is at least for now still called ryerson university and riley yes no a phd student at the university of toronto working on questions to do with the attitudes of indigenous youth and who has plain and simply the best twitter handle i've ever seen in my life she is found at riley yes no maybe that is perfect riley i love that uh welcome everybody to this discussion tonight here on tvo i want to start by just playing a clip from steve bonspiel this is from an episode of this program six years ago on whether indigenous people should vote in canadian elections 2015 sheldon if you would my argument is that first of all it's a foreign system so we should not be participating but second of all that if we merely partake in this election it doesn't mean that we're going to get the results that we want it doesn't mean that things are going to change in terms of how the government deals with us which is very paternalistic doesn't mean that we're going to get more land back it doesn't mean that we're necessarily going to get our our point across and be equal partners at the table cindy blackstock let me start with you and i'd like to hear everybody on this do you think that still represents the majority of indigenous opinion here today it's a complicated decision to make i mean we are independent nations and we want to be respectful of our own governments uh but i personally choose to vote in the election because i want to influence how the government is relating to first nations metis and ua peoples which has been historically very colonial and still is pam pullman or how about you i think a significant number of people feel that way that you know why vote for your next oppressor your next colonizer and then there's other people who would normally not vote because of that idea but they want to vote as a form of harm reduction so not so much hey i support this party but oh my goodness let's make sure we don't get that party in and then there's a large number of people who equally valid want to vote and want to participate and try to influence the outcome of the election for good purposes or to keep bad people out are you going to vote no do you ever vote no gotcha riley how about to you are you what do you what do you think about this this view that these are elections put on by our colonial oppressors and therefore we ought not to participate i i think that that's a really valid take for a lot of indigenous people i mean i think that the clip you just showed from 2015 still resonates for many folks and i sat here you know nodding my head because the fact is is that canada you know can't exist without the continued dispossession of indigenous people of taking our lands our resources um and using those to profit and so for a lot of people it feels like why would i vote for any oppressor and for indigenous people whose key concerns are some of the things that steve mentioned in that clip you know things like sovereignty things like land back uh no no canadian party i i think at this point at least has ever presented an option that says that they will secure those things for us um and so it also feels like you're not really voting for something that's going to bring meaningful change but i also agree with what pam was saying about how we can see the vote as an act of harm reduction as well and that's sometimes what i bring in my mindset the ballot um and i have voted um in every election i've been able to for those reasons you have voted and you will vote this time as well yes i already did it fully gotcha okay uh willow you're the last one what do you say on this um i agree it's it's a complicated question um you know whether or not indigenous people participate in the in the election process um and then i'll just point out again merrick mcleod's question at the leaders debate last week another important question that indigenous voters ask is why should we trust um any government uh who makes promises after 150 years of um of oppression basically and colonial uh systems that that we've lived under do you vote in this election willow i will vote i have it yet i will though and have you voted in the past i have yes i have and then both um i've been both a voter and a non-voter i wonder if hm what should we do here cindy would you attempt to try to convince pamela why she ought to vote even though she never does no i wouldn't because i think her choice is legitimate um what we're doing is we are all of us on this panel yeah really pressing for the proper changes a vote is just one way of doing that pam spends their entire life pushing for that change and that actually is far more important we need to as a collective first nations maintenance people's push every single day for the types of solutions that are already on the books the truth and reconciliation commission's calls to action the murder of missing indigenous women and girls calls for justice the royal commission on aboriginal people's recommendations there's so many solutions and all of us need to be pushing but not just us the non-indigenous population they need to be pushing and holding their own elected leaders accountable for the lack of action they choose to perpetrate these injustices in government it isn't a failure it isn't a mistake it's a choice by this government and others before it to perpetrate these harms all right conversely pamela would you care to try to convince the other three why it's a waste of their time to vote and they should do like you and not vote no never and there's lots of reasons why because under the united nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples not only do we have the right to be self-governing sovereign and autonomous over our own territories and governments we also have the right as people who have been colonized you know occupied territories to participate in the colonizing government as we choose we have that right and it's and it's an important right and so i think you know voting is part of it but you know i agree with cindy i think if the only thing canadians ever did was vote we'd be in a lot of trouble we need to encourage canadians not just to use their numbers to vote but to also take action and push and hold governments to account that's where the real change comes in voting is like the least a citizen could do understood all right i'm going to move on here and willow why don't i start with you on this one uh we will remember how shocked non-indigenous canadians were i think it's fair to put it that way with the discovery of the gravesites unmarked near residential schools it really shook the country and then the election got called and i'd like your sense about how significant those discoveries have been throughout the course of this election campaign well it's a question i'm hearing is is why why aren't these issues kind of front and center during this campaign and you know i think the fear um the concern um of having such a quick election under these circumstances of a global pandemic i mean the third election in six years um i think really puts a lot of pressure on indigenous voters um when it comes to these uh issues that we're seeing like the the burials and all of that i mean um i think generally speaking the there's a concern and fear that indigenous issues are going to be pushed back further anyway and and there's the risk of that in an election and under these circumstances i think that's that's even more so um but but these aren't i mean the burials that i just need to point out i mean that this hasn't been forgotten by indigenous people by survivors and their families and their communities um and and it's been an opportunity for the political parties to to kind of really take hold of that and um i don't think we've been seeing a lot of that this time around well that's what i want to find out riley the opportunity has been there for this to be a much more prominent issue during the campaign than it perhaps has been do you think that the opportunity has been seized by the main mainline political parties i mean i i certainly think the the opportunity has been seized but i also think it's kind of gross right that we're framing it as this now in an election time i feel two conflicting sort of things about this and one is that you know it hasn't been talked about enough that indigenous issues generally have not been talked about enough in the election campaign um and then we see parties like say the conservative party who commit to only the trc commitments that deal with unmarked grades and burials and it effectively becomes a way for them to you know scapegoat um their lack of commitment by dealing with this thing that they think is the trendy only thing people are talking about at the time and not actually deal with many of the other meaningful things that indigenous people have been calling for for decades and centuries um and so uh it's it's uh it's interesting to see how it's playing out and i think it's very telling the way canadians only a couple months ago right were wearing their orange shirts and flying their flags half-mast and now so many people are lining up to vote for political leaders who um you know will talk about the benefits of residential schools um or who in the last few years have promised the world to indigenous people and delivered next to nothing it's really telling from an outside perspective to watch the canadian electorate pamela how about to you the momentum that we saw on these issues earlier before the election was called do you still see it happening now well here's what i see the momentum that we had of being in the media almost died overnight when the election was called but the momentum within indigenous communities and the canadian population hasn't stopped but there's a disconnect because you don't see that momentum continuing on with the federal party leaders either in the debates their platforms are what they're advocating so there's a real disconnect and think about the single most prominent issue in the media over the last two years aside from the pandemic has been indigenous issues you know cindy cindy's court case the federal government continues to litigate against first nations kids in foster care department of fisheries and oceans trying to stop migma people from fishing even now still 1492 land back lane that went on for well over a year what silent and strong protest murdered of missing indigenous women and girls i mean dominated the media this should have been the single most important issue addressed by these federal party leaders uh because canadians as we know from the recent surveys said their number one issue was indigenous issues that reconciliation was going to be a priority in how they vote how could the federal party leaders not be so connected to what canadian citizens themselves are saying well cindy blackstock i know you love to collect old reports do you have anything that might help us understand our current circumstances any better yeah one of the things that i'd like to say is that when we have 5 000 children in unmarked graves now that is 15 children for every member of parliament which you'll be running for election think about that and the survivors left the work plan for the country and the trc's calls to action but there has been tons of reports this one is from 1967. uh i would have been three years old and it was talking about the need for equity and culturally based quote indian education back then and it has a section on public opinion that i think is really relevant it says the proposals made in this study are not likely to be adopted on the scale or with the speed required unless public opinion changes too an alert and informed public will bring about the changes that are needed public indifference will result in sluggish political action low budgets and poorly conceived projects with low priorities uh that's exactly what's happening and what we need to embrace as as people is that the government serves us what they often want to do is just get our vote and then let them leave alone for four years well that can't happen on this because canada is a repeat offender when it comes to first nations metis and inuit children first through residential schools the 60s group and now in violation of 20 20 legal orders to stop discriminating against first nations children in foster care and to ensure that first nations children get adequate public services so this is not a time to turn away we need to really take hold of our power as individuals to press for change and tell the federal government whoever is in power you are only going to get in power if you're really committed to do this and if you don't follow through we're going to take you out riley i want to start this next round with you and that is there are apparently 77 indigenous candidates running in this election and that's an all-time high and it's up from 61 in 2019 so that's up a lot what do you infer from that um i think that shows just how you know how active indigenous people are the fact that we're having this conversation about to vote not to vote the benefits and why that's all part of you know our collective struggle towards liberation for indigenous people to see so many indigenous candidates running uh means that you know there are many people pursuing different theories of change within our communities um ultimately i think in many cases for the betterment of us all right and so i think that that also shows that um as much as we're saying you know voting is whatever um that there are people out there who also see this as you know a way to get voice into parliament and i often think uh when i think about indigenous representation in politics right um that where i see the most benefit that it can have is to be able to act as another uh layer of harm reduction in parliament do i think that canada or any canadian elected officials indigenous or not are ever going to again bring sovereignty land back all those things probably not but do i think that they can vote against some really harmful and regressive bills absolutely um and so i can respect that theory of change for many people all right let me put that to pamela emily you you've told us already you don't vote you've never voted and yet here are indigenous people who are actually running to serve in the parliament of canada and some of them no doubt will win uh what's your take on that i think that's great all the different ways in which native people are actively working to pursue change in the way that they feel they can using the opportunities they can i think that's fantastic i think we just have to be careful about what we expect from that so can we expect that that you know soul indigenous mp is going to be able to counter bad things in their party no they have to toe the party line so while they are indigenous candidates we just have to remember that they're members of parties they must toe the party line uh and and that and that's important to remember and it's also important to remember we have some real heroes former ndp mp romeo saginash was been so effective at speaking out at lobbying and he was part of the many indigenous people who tried to bring forward the united nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples i mean there's a force behind indigenous peoples who are there with their you know traditional cultural values and are always working forward to change so i embrace all our warriors out there trying to advocate in the best way they can yeah willow i note that in the ontario legislature when saul mamaqua gets up to ask a question he gets something that no other mpp in that chamber gets and that is he gets silence people listen they show him a level of respect that they don't show any of the other mpps so what's your view on whether a single indigenous mp in this case can make a difference yes all's been a really interesting case you know he's kind of has a reputation here in the north he's uh very community grounded grounded in his his own community in the communities and in here he's um established a a relationship uh beforehand um and i think it's part of you know what we're seeing that's we're kind of seeing that strategy playing out in the in the ndp this time around well i mean actually the couple of times anyways and when it comes to the indigenous vote um using indigenous candidates um to to garner those those votes is a strategy that could be effective and i think that's kind of what the ndp is hoping for um you know there there's there's rioting significant writings with high high first nations voters um and and those could you know have the potential to to determine outcomes um in those writings one of those is here in northwestern ontario in kenora um where we where there's an indigenous candidate for the ndp and um not only that but tanya cameron who's organizing behind the scenes there really you know is is connected established um you know knows how to do the work and if there's any chance that that um an indigenous candidate will will win it's because of that work behind the scenes and i think on the ground that that makes it happen riley let me follow up on that with you because in 2015 and in 2019 there was i think a significant push by many in the indigenous community to get people in particular young indigenous people out to vote is that push still happening this time round yeah i i think it is i i will say i don't know to what success i think that um indigenous youth obviously there's there's a real vested interest for political parties in this country to campaign to indigenous youth as poorly as they do it so we're the fastest growing population in this country for long-term party building this is a demographic that they would absolutely need to be able to convince that they are the best leaders in the best party but i think young people you know they are always on the front lines indigenous young people are always on the front lines of our resistance movements they have grown up seeing the violence that canada has enacted on our people and i think are some of the most radical community members that we have from coast to coast to coast and so i think that um perhaps more so than in my grandparents generation in my grandparents circles my colleagues um have really intense conversations about whether or not voting is worth it whether or not we want to be part of this system at all and more and more people i think identifying with their nations rather than with canadians which you know has effects come election time in which case cindy maybe you could give some advice to the non-indigenous people who are watching this right now and who when they go to the ballot box those who haven't voted in the advance polls when they do that on september 20th what you would like to have them think as they get set to mark their ex somewhere on the ballot it's not only uh asking them key questions about what they're going to do specifically to implement the trc calls to action the murder of missing indigenous women and girls calls for justice and to stop litigating against survivors and first nations kids in court it's i can't question a character there are kind of two kinds of leaders there's people who want to be someone and then there's people who want to do something that have the moral courage to stand up against their party when necessary to put the people first that's the kind of leader that i want to vote for i don't want someone like i have currently in my riding who won't even respond to constituents emails when they uh disagree with her platform that's not the type of leadership that we should be voting for under any circumstances so that question of moral courage is important and i think jody wilson raped uh jane philpot show that even when you are morally courageous and you stand up for good governance that that means that you might be tossed out but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it you have to act with integrity and you have to take on those difficult issues if we're not going to have kind of a government that is just democracy in name only you're going to forgive this follow-up question but it seems pretty obvious do you want to tell us who you're voting for or who you think other people should vote for well i can't tell you who i'm voting for i actually already voted but i voted for the party that had the most uh in terms of the campaign on first nations maintaining any people and also on the on the environment which i also care a lot about um and i also voted for the leader that i felt had the most integrity and um i'm hoping other people will do that too i'm not going to leave it to myself to infer what that meant so do you want to fill in the blanks uh no i think people can go and look at those platforms um i try to be um a non-partisan i think people have to vote with their hearts not vote because cindy blackstock is voting in a certain way i think that when we demand change we have to push for it um and so i and i do that not only on voting day but of course um in courtrooms and in public uh across the other 365 days a year indeed you do uh all right pamela do you want to offer our viewers and listeners any advice on who you think's got the best platform out there as it relates to indigenous people uh let's say it's not the conservatives it's not the people's party of canada so you know you can look at the other platforms but we have to be careful what i would want people to do is not necessarily look at individual candidates because literally your best friend could be running in the election your mom could be running in the election but what does the platform stand for and does it stand for human rights does it stand for indigenous reconciliation climate change social equality ending systemic racism if you can answer yes to all of that then you've got a several platforms to choose from however if you've got a platform like the conservatives that is attacking human rights and want to reinstate you know get rid of the gun ban and you know roll back women's rights on abortion i mean these are very regressive policies so i wouldn't tell them which one to vote for but i'd say definitely not the conservatives or the people's party even though there are indigenous people who are running for the conservative party alleged indigenous people so of the 77 it's important to remember some of them are only declaring or identifying as indigenous during this election so we we have to assume these are the 77 self-identified people we don't know that they're actually indigenous that's another thing to be careful for okay riley how about to you any advice for those watching or listening yeah i mean i will say having having analyzed all the platforms i would say that i think you know just reading from the top that the ndp have the strongest platform when it comes to indigenous issues but i say this with you know the caveat and it's a big one right when we think back to say 2015 uh election justin trudeau also had you know at that time the best platform i had seen for indigenous people ever he made so many pretty promises and here we are six years later um with so little to show for it so you know also also that platform doesn't necessarily mean anything uh when we see what what uh impact we want what actually matters is what meaningful day-to-day changes indigenous people see and feel on the ground and that's something that's gonna take a lot more than just a vote to get uh but i will echo that probably not the conservative party the liberal party who i've seen throughout this campaign actively try and rewrite uh the relationship with indigenous people you know if you watch the debate you saw justin trudeau just straight up lie about taking indigenous kids to court uh you saw aaron o'toole say that canada has always been a country that stood against apartheid as if the indian act is not on the books right now um and so that off the hop you know shows that those are parties that are so out of touch with the reality of this country and of indigenous people and are not somebody that i would say could get my vote and steve if i can just say one of the things that i think we need to really watch out for is when they when any party says oh the reason we haven't made any progress is because we're talking to first nations metis or inuit people that's ridiculous we have been calling for change for decades and hundreds of years it is uh inappropriate to voice responsibility for government's lack of action and accountability on to first nations maintain inuit peoples that's disgusting to me riley you did something there what was that i was snaps like like when you see a good slam poem or something gotcha okay uh willow i got a feeling given that you're with the globe and mail and you're a journalist covering the stuff that i shouldn't ask you who you think people should vote for so i'll give you a pass on that one but maybe i can turn it to this in our remaining moments here if the as you call it the colonial parliamentary system has been unable to deliver justice to indigenous people for more than a century and a half in this country what is the next option indigenous people are thinking about uh good question you know i think there's there's so much work being done by by first nations and indigenous communities you know non-partisan work that really addresses um addresses a lot of these issues when it comes to you know clean drinking water i think in a scanica for example and and their ongoing troubles of of getting their boil water advisory lifted um and and you know this this and the one thing i'm hearing is um you know enough of this kind of ottawa uh ottawa knows best approach um ottawa you know top down and it doesn't work like that it has to start from the community it starts from there and and um i'll just echoing what others have said in that you know that they they they have the solutions um and and they just need to be to be listened to i mean we've got reports reports of reports uh that outline all of this work um you know we don't need another political party to come in and and start fresh um that's not what indigenous and first nations communities and people need um you know a lot of these issues they don't see them as partisan issues and they're not when it comes to clean drinking water that's not a reconciliation issue that's a human rights issue we know that and we have to act on that and um and and you know i i don't i i don't have anything optimistic to say in terms of how that that work is is going to get done um at this point let me give the last minute then to pamela on that question if the parliamentary system of this country hasn't delivered justice for indigenous people what next well i think it brings the country system into disrepute we already know that policing uh on a wide scale has already been brought into disrepute canadians are well aware of systemic racism brutality and corruption and it'll be the same thing with this government so oftentimes people fear oh what will indigenous peoples do i think they need to be thinking about what will canadians do what will canadians think how will they react what is going to be the path forward with canadians if canadians no longer see themselves as part of a legitimate government you can't say you're a world champion defender of human rights and then continue to commit atrocious human rights abuses and not even address the ongoing genocide so i think we really need to be saying um what's this going to mean for canada moving forward if they start thinking they don't have a legitimate government as you for always do when you appear on this program you give us so much to think about so thank you for coming here tonight willow fiddler cindy blackstock pam palmeter riley yes no be well everybody thank you so much thank you congratulations and that is the agenda for wednesday september 15 2021 tomorrow what the parties have to say about confronting climate change and ndp leader jug meat singh joins us with his pitch to ontario voters i'm steve pakin thanks for watching tvo for joining us online at tvo.org and we'll see you again tomorrow the agenda with steve pakin is made possible through generous philanthropic contributions from viewers like you thank you for supporting tvo's journalism [Music] art can be mysterious so what have we got here especially when you don't know who the artist is and there are a few things that make my 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Channel: The Agenda with Steve Paikin

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Keywords: Agenda, Canada, current affairs, Nam Kiwanuka, News, Ontario, Ontario politics, politics, Steve Paikin, The Agenda, TVO, Queen’s Park

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Length: 59min 15sec (3555 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021