Truth and Reconciliation | Kevin Lamoureux | TEDxUniversityofWinnipeg

when I was nine years old my mom married the man that I called dad and I ended up being part of a wonderful french-canadian made tea family and that's how I end up with the last name lamoureux that's how I ended up with the last name as a canadian member of parliament so if you're googling this in the future and you come across this video you're watching on youtube and you were looking for that kevin lamoureux i'm not him and it's it's easy to tell us apart there's an easy way to tell us apart one of us is devilishly charming charismatic good-looking reasonably intelligent the others a politician so let's get that record straight moving forward that's that's the difference now of course I say that with jest and with all love in my heart and there was nothing partisan about that now when I think back on that time in my life when I became a lamb Roo when I became part of this new family one of the things that stands out in my memory is how hard my father's family my Ojibwe family tried to keep in touch with me over the years they still do to this day they still reach out and try to keep in touch with me just so that we're in each other's lives one of the things that we talk about in education is the importance of belonging for children I'm very lucky that I never had to question where I belong that's a wonderful gift that I've been born with now one of the reasons that they put this effort in is because they were afraid that over the years I was gonna forget about where I come from that I would lose my heritage that I would lose my culture and there's a very good reason for this historically of course as we know Canada has not always been friendly for indigenous identity and far too many young people far too many children even today find themselves in a situation where they either never have the opportunity to learn or forget about what it means to be indigenous now I was very angry about this as a teenager as a young person I was very frustrated about this and without having any knowledge about how we came to be inside of this broken relationship I just realized that there was something wrong with Canada when the outward beauty of Canada there was something wrong underneath this without understanding how we came to be inside of these broken relationships oftentimes I blamed indigenous communities for not having the answers and so I gravitated towards anger I identified with rage and I grew up in an age where and many Canadians will be able to relate to this I grew up in an age where I was surrounded by some pretty confused ideas about what it meant to be a to be manly I grew up in an environment where I was designed and raised to be a blunt instrument of aggression in my continuing effort to try and prove my masculinity and maintain my masculinity and so when I was a teenager the group of people reached out to my family and they asked if they would be able to take me hunting and they wanted to reach out to me and and include me in this invent and bring me out hunting because again they were confused and worried they were worried that I was gonna forget how to be an indigenous person so they asked my family if I could join with them and I was I was thrilled I was happy about this because for me this seemed like a great way to once again be a part of something manly with manly men I love the idea of carrying a gun I love the idea of going out and doing manly things and so I jumped on the opportunity to be a part of this now the day came to go with my family it was around November of course because it was hunting season and they picked me up and I don't know if you know anything about indigenous communities but if you've ever had the opportunity to be with indigenous people you know that we like to tease that's one of the things it's pretty standard in fact we love to tease in fact it's really a sense of belonging when you realize that you're being teased and you're part of that in-group but if you're not familiar with it if you're not used to it it can be somewhat unsettling to say the least and the teasing began right away and I'm not gonna lie to you but it's done it's stung but I wasn't gonna let on that I hadn't heard feelings or that I was feeling uncomfortable because again I wanted to prove how tough I was that I was a part of this community and so we got to where we were going and we unloaded and they put a rifle in my hand and they began to give me a tutorial on how to behave how to hold a gun safely how to aim down the scope how to be aware of where the other hunters were and I paid attention because again I wanted to prove to them that I fit in that I was a part of this and we set out and I was so excited about this exciting opportunity to be a part of something so masculine as hunting know I don't know if you've ever been hunting but the defining characteristic is not excitement in fact it was really boring so we set off and for a number of hours there was really nothing going on except me and these thoughts wandering when the manliness was gonna happen all that really happened was I got cold so a couple hours into the event I was leaning up against the tree and and my mind was wandering and I was starting to be frustrated with this whole event and I caught glimpse of movement about 200 250 yards out in the distance and I looked in that direction and there was a deer and I quietly unslung the rifle from my shoulder and I raised it up too but against my my arm and looked down the scope at this animal and all of a sudden this animal that was way out there was right here in front of me I could see it up close now I don't know if you've ever seen a deer up close but they're beautiful and all of a sudden I could see this beautiful creature so up close in my imagination it was like I could reach out and touch it if you've ever heard the saying do--like eyes there's a reason for that because they have big beautiful black eyes and I was looking at this creatures beautiful black eyes and I could see its hide and I could see the muscles underneath its hide and I was just mesmerized by the shape of it it was had steam coming out of its nostrils I could see its ear twitching which each movement and it was looking around and it was absolutely adorable and in this moment where I was admiring the beauty of this animal it dawned on me I'm supposed to kill this creature that's why I'm here and so I began to recount the tutorial I got and on how to use my weapon and so I took a deep breath and you know if you've ever been hunting the ideas that you do the inhale you start to exhale you pull the trigger on the exhale and you're looking for that moment in between heartbeats when your body is at its stillest and so I took in my breath and I exhaled and I got all the way through my exhale and nothing had happened I was still too caught up with how beautiful this creature was but immediately what happened is I started to feel ashamed I started to realize if I don't pull this trigger this trigger and shoot this animal they're all gonna laugh at me I'm gonna be ashamed they're not going to invite me out again I'm gonna be embarrassed and I started to feel frustrated with myself I wasn't living up to my own idea of what it was supposed to be to be a man and so I took that inhale again determined resolute that this time I was gonna pull the trigger and I started the exhale and I got all the way through and nothing happened and now I'm really angry and I'm really starting to get frustrated but at the same time I'm starting to feel panicky because I really don't want to have to shoot this animal I really don't want to have to end this creatures life and I feel like I'm trapped in the situation where I either continue to enjoy this beautiful creature I do something that I don't want to do but I'll be Mille eight and I'm frustrated I to heck with it this time I'm gonna do it I no matter what happens no matter what the consequence I'm here I don't want to be made fun of I don't want to be not included anymore and so I decided this time no matter what I was gonna pull the trigger and I took my breath and I started to exhale and I heard that thunderous clap of a rifle shot and I saw the animal rock and then I saw it start to stagger it wasn't me that had taken the shot it was one of my uncle's had sawed off in the distance I hadn't realized and he called for us to come over and I started to run over to where he was and I I ran up to him I arrived in just a couple of seconds after him and as I approached this animal and I saw it lying on its ground I could see that it was still alive because his body was moving and I started to cry uncontrollably and I got up a little bit closer and I knelt down beside where this animal was lying and I put my hand on it and I could feel its body and I started to cry even harder and I realized now not then I realized now looking back on it that for all the teasing that went on that day no one laughed at me for crying in that moment no one made me feel silly for showing emotion at the loss of this animal's life no one made me feel like less of a human being because I was so sad about the finality of death in the situation for this animal that had given its life so that we could have food and I realize now not then that in that moment that's the man that they were trying to teach me to be that's the indigenous person they were trying to remind me was my duty now this story is important to me because I work in the area of reconciliation and in an age where that word has become so politicized to become so complex it's become so misused it's become so controversy I need to remember stories like that so that I can don't get lost in all of that controversy for instance it's my belief that we wouldn't be talking about reconciliation at all I don't believe that we would be having conversations about reconciliation in Canada if it was not for the courage and the bravery and the dignity of residential school survivors if it hadn't been for residential school survivors having the courage and having the dignity to stand up and recount and hold the government to account for that history we wouldn't be talking about residential schools at all this history would still be as lost at an invisible today as it was 20 years we wouldn't have just come across this and started to have these conversations and so I believe that reconciliation is a gift and because of the Indian Residential school settlement agreement of 2005 which created space for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission we have this gift to be able to talk about reconciliation it's incredible to me it's incredible to me to think that residential school survivors and if you know nothing else about residential schools understand this they were very bad and it's incredible to me that as children these people could have experienced the very very worse that Canada has been guilty of and yet somehow inside of themselves they found the courage and the strength and the wisdom to grow to be the kind of people that could extend their hand in friendship back to that very same country to me is incredible what that tells me is that indigenous communities are very very strong very strong what that tells me is that inside of indigenous communities inside of the teachings of the ancestors and the elders and inside of the people is the courage and the strength to overcome anything the other thing that I have to be reminded of is that reconciliation is not something that we're now doing and we in this context being Canada it's not something that we're doing out of pity for indigenous people I think that's an entirely untrue statement I think that that's a falsehood instead I believe that reconciliation is something that was given to Canada by residential school survivors so that our country could have an opportunity to heal itself I believe that reconciliation is an opportunity for Canada to accomplish being the country that it is always intended to be for example I'm gonna tell you a story about one of the best days I've ever had in my life now if we were going around the room and we were to talk about the best days that we've ever had in our lives I can count on certain answers there's certain examples that are gonna be pretty typical around the room for many of us it's gonna be what the day we got married and if that's the case congratulations Mazel Tov for that that's fantastic but listen I'm also of an age I'm also of a demographic where maybe the best day of your life was the day you got divorced and if that's the case congratulations for that - fantastic maybe the best day of your life was a day your kids were born I'm a daddy I understand that I'm also told it's a pretty great day when your kids move out if they ever move out maybe that's the best day of your life well I got to enjoy one of the best days of my life very very recently it was actually June 2nd 2015 I got to be in Ottawa Ontario for the release of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and what was it happen that day when we were given that final report I was at that public gathering that was outside and I got to hear the beautiful words of people talking about Canada reclaiming its dignity about healing from a difficult past I got to see people that were wearing bright red t-shirts that said survivor and not be ashamed of that not be locked in the past I saw these incredible gestures of beauty and friendship and love and possibility the idea of leaving behind a better country for our children than the one that we inherited and what happened that day that was so wonderful for me was that we were given a gift and I want to be very clear about who I mean when I say we I'm looking each of you in the eyes and the audience as brothers and sisters and I'm saying you and I were given a gift that day and the gift that we were given that day by my estimation are the 94 calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission these calls to action that I've been referring to ever since as our road map home this is our way back to the country that should have been there for us when we were born or when we came to this country it's our way back to the country that we would want to leave behind for our children and so what I've been asking all Canadians do and what I'm asking of you and even into the future if you found this video online is to read the calls to action if you haven't yet they're available online you can find them for free but as you read through the 94 calls to action this roadmap that we've been given I'm asking all Canadians to think about two very simple questions and I'm gonna share them with you here today the first question very simple without being simplistic why is this being asked of us and I think if we can answer that question for ourselves satisfactorily for every one of the 94 that that's going to serve as the truth part of truth and reconciliation and I think I don't know if this is true for your and up but I think that for many of us it's going to expose us to stories of Canada that we didn't grow up with and if that's true if this journey exposes you to truths that you've never heard before I want you to understand that that's not your fault and you need not feel guilty about that but if you do hear these stories for the first time there may be many moments where you feel very frustrated and there may be many moments where you feel very angry I'll give you an example there is a very very important Canadian by the name of Cindy Blackstock and if you don't know who's Cindy Blackstock is I've strongly encourage you to learn about her she's one of the most important Canadians alive today and she talks a lot about call to action number three and it reads like this we call upon all levels of government to fully implement Jordans principle now if we're gonna answer that first question about that call-to-action we would have to know what Jordan's principle is and we would have to know who Jordan was and we would have to know what happened to him when he was born in 1999 in a community called Norway house very very ill airlifted from that community and brought to Winnipeg where he was stabilized at the Children's Hospital at the Health Sciences Centre brought to a point where he could return home so long as he was to receive ongoing care a service that would be provided for most of us in Canada almost immediately but because he was First Nations living in a First Nations community and because our First Nations brothers and sisters are governed by a different healthcare system than you and I the government argued on who was going to pay the bill and they argued and argued and argued for five years well this kid lay in a hospital bed able to go home ready to go home watching kids come in and out of that hospital allowed to go home because they were born a different race in this country until he died and after he died in 2005 every level of government took a look at that and said we will never let that happen again and they called that commitment Jordan's principle but of course our government has failed to live up to that commitment almost every opportunity it's had to do so there's a community on the East Coast and I just met a young man that came from that area talked to me about the legacy of this that almost bankrupted itself taken the government to court to fight for something that was already promised to them and then you would have to learn that our federal government today spends more money litigating against First Nations than any other group on the face of the planet including corporations that poison our water and destroy our land now if you hear that story for the first time my friends you may feel angry or you may feel sad but I think it's time that we all heard Jordans story and so the second question I'm going to ask you to think about is this with our society what our community would Canada be better or worse if this call to action were fulfilled now you can imagine that I have a certain bias in this regard I'm not going to try to shove an opinion down your throat and instead I'm going to invite you to consider your own truth because if you believe that we would be better for the implementation of these calls to action then you have an opportunity and the opportunity is this even though you didn't create the problem you get to be part of the solution and that's the gift that's been given to us through the calls to action we've inherited a very unhealthy country we live in a country where it's still possible to hear people say things like this why don't they just get over it that is not the symptom of a healthy society that's the symptom of a very unhealthy Society so many of these calls to action are about education and the reason for that is because many Canadians have either forgotten or have never had the opportunity to learn that Canada is the story of a coming together to people that's what it means to be Canadian now this is important for me to remember because I hear a lot of people say that reconciliation is impossible because there has never been conciliation now that may be true in our own lifetimes but historically that is simply just not true that ignores the fact that our entire European visitors that came to this part of the land were completely dependent on their indigenous host their partners a nation-building that there was so much cooperation and intermarrying that we created a whole new culture and language of people as the maytee can attest to right and so together through treaty making we laid down the spirit and intent that was supposed to be something beautiful but because of the Indian Act and the mindset that created and the mindset that allows it to continue even to this day we were robbed of an opportunity to reach our full potential we were left with these wreckages of broken relationships now for me I've been told many times that reconciliation is dead and it's very very disheartening to hear that I've heard a lot of people say that in the face of ongoing frustrations when it comes to true freedom and true equitable opportunity in Canada I felt it when we heard the verdict of Gerald Stanley who had murdered Colton bushi I felt it again when Cormier was set free who had been accused of the murder of Tina Fontaine I felt it just recently when I read the report of the last 48 hours of Tina Fontaine's life was last seen just outside the University of Winnipeg before she disappeared forever that sense of being completely defeated but then I remember that I come from people who as children could have experienced the very very worst the Canada has been guilty of and yet still found some way to grow to be the kind of people that could extend their hand in friendship back to Canada I remember the water protectors who stood in defense of your living planet at Standing Rock I remember the land defenders I remember the strength and the teaching of the wisdoms of elders in this community I remember all of the efforts that we've made to try and contribute to a healthy country and I think about that deer that got shot all of those years ago and I can't help but wonder if Canada would be different if we had that kind of a relationship with the living world I can't help but wonder if we would be better off of every loss of life that we experienced came with a sense of grief and a sense of loss and a sense of responsibility and duty I wonder if we would still be so eager to Chris cost our country with pipelines or I wonder if maybe because of the teaching of elders maybe through this may be the last opportunity we have to really engage in the relationship that should have been our birthright that maybe we can accomplish something beautiful together finally that we can accomplish being that country that is truly worth standing on guard for and so I say to you thank you minguk gigawatt woman miiniwaa I wish you all the best [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 30,454

Rating: 4.9289341 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Humanities, Activism, Change, Children, Community, Recovery, Truth

Id: 9FG8SXalxTg

Length: 19min 11sec (1151 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 03 2020