0:03

Hey, I'm Tom Power and a host of

0:05

the podcast Que with Tom Power where we

0:07

talked all kinds of artists, actors, writers, musicians,

0:09

painters. We had Green Day on the other

0:12

day talking about their huge album American Idiot

0:14

it called buyer, came on to talk about

0:16

a D H D and comedy and then

0:18

there's Dan Levy. While we were talking about

0:21

filmmaking, we talked about his insecurities. I sometimes

0:23

feel like I had this desire to like

0:25

perform to be a version of myself. The

0:27

people might like listen to queue with Tom

0:30

Power to hear your favorite artist as they

0:32

truly are wherever. You get your podcasts. This

0:37

is a Cbc podcast. I

0:43

realized that I'd fallen into a trap.

0:46

Welcome to ideas I'm Nala

0:48

I add. Where. I was

0:51

made to believe that indigenous people's

0:53

dreams should be nothing more than

0:55

what are already most non indigenous

0:57

people's expectations. This.

1:00

Is Riley yes now and in

1:02

a snob? a scholar, writer and

1:05

commentator from out an Attack First

1:07

Nation and Thunder Bay, Ontario. She

1:09

teaches Indigenous governance at Toronto Metropolitan

1:11

University and it's completing her Phd

1:14

in Indigenous and Canadian politics at

1:16

the University of Toronto. I'm

1:18

grateful that I found teachers who showed

1:20

me there were other ways to effect

1:22

change rather than just through votes or

1:24

boardrooms. She's. Spoken at

1:27

events around the world including

1:29

the United Nations Climate Negotiations

1:31

Conference and the Stockholm Forum

1:33

on gender equality. When.

1:35

I see land. Back when

1:37

I think of resurgence, I'm

1:39

reminded that it's Indigenous youth.

1:41

Not Justin Trudeau, not any

1:43

Canadian politician who leads indigenous

1:45

people to transform it futures.

1:48

In. November Twenty twenty three

1:50

Riley? Yes No delivered the

1:52

ninth Annual Indigenous Speakers Series

1:55

lecture at Vancouver Island University.

1:58

The series is presented by the Enough. City

2:00

and Ideas. There

2:04

were two hundred people new ideas

2:06

as well as several hundred participants.

2:08

Are mine? Many were younger

2:10

people and maybe that's not

2:12

surprising given the title of

2:14

Riley's Talk the Reconciliation Generation

2:16

in business use in the

2:19

future for indigenous. People. On

2:30

here I'm feeling very welcomed.

2:32

You are all such generous

2:34

songs. I want to

2:36

share a question that I frequently

2:38

asked my students. There's a set

2:40

up to it. And. The set up. Those like

2:43

this. And so them a

2:45

video. The. Video is from

2:47

early Twenty Twenty and it's winter

2:49

in the British Columbia interior. Early

2:52

on you see a woman. For

2:55

name is Frida Hewson and she's the matriarch,

2:57

a leader from the What so it's a

2:59

nation. Throughout. The

3:01

video see and several other

3:03

indigenous people and leaders are

3:05

conducting a ceremony. They are

3:07

drumming and singing and dancing

3:09

and ringing a bell to

3:11

call on their ancestors. Then.

3:16

Just. A short distance away. watching

3:18

them you see a group of.

3:20

Rcmp Officer stress and all

3:22

black. There. Are

3:24

helicopters and drones overhead? You

3:26

can see police dogs panting

3:29

in the distance. What?

3:32

Separates the officers from free to

3:34

use and and the others is

3:36

a makeshift gates and would keep

3:38

the gate closed. His a wooden

3:40

plank that has one single word

3:42

painted a place it reconciliation. One

3:45

by one. You. See each of

3:47

the indigenous people get taken away. By

3:49

the Rcmp. Free. He

3:51

sends his the last to be forced out

3:54

and she still singing as he leaves. You.

3:57

than see the officers take down

4:00

signs and the red dresses that the

4:02

members of the community had put up

4:04

for murdered and missing Indigenous women girls

4:06

and two-spirit people. The officers also

4:08

put out a fire that the women had lit

4:10

earlier. Burnt in

4:12

that fire was a Canadian flag with an

4:14

upside-down maple leaf on it. The

4:16

flag reads, reconciliation is dead.

4:20

The video ends by reiterating, reconciliation

4:23

is dead. But

4:25

it then adds, revolution is

4:28

alive. At

4:30

this point, I stop and I ask my students,

4:33

did we just witness a funeral or

4:35

a birth? Let me ask you

4:37

the same question. Is it a funeral

4:39

or is it a birth? I

4:42

was a teenager when I started

4:44

to have questions, difficult questions about

4:46

reconciliation. I was in high school, a

4:49

notorious teacher's pet, and

4:51

I had recently started coming into my political

4:53

consciousness. That

4:55

consciousness was insatiably curious,

4:58

habitually in tune to

5:00

injustices, and it presented

5:02

as a constant screaming in my ear.

5:06

Looking back now, none of this is surprising

5:08

to me, given the context I grew up in. I

5:11

grew up primarily in Thunder Bay, Ontario,

5:13

a city with one of the highest

5:15

urban Indigenous populations per capita in the

5:17

entire country. In fact, recent

5:20

estimates suggest that nearly 40% of the

5:22

population in Thunder Bay could be Indigenous, that

5:24

it had been undercounted for decades. While

5:28

I feel grateful for having always grown up

5:30

around my community, people who looked like me

5:32

and my parents and my grandparents, the

5:35

high Indigenous population in Thunder Bay

5:37

also resulted in very visible experiences

5:40

of anti-Indigenous racism. After

5:43

all, Thunder Bay is the city that has

5:45

become infamous in recent years, seen

5:47

as a concentrated example of the larger

5:49

issues of anti-Indigeneity that exist throughout the

5:52

country. For Example, in

5:54

2015, almost one third of reported hate

5:56

crimes in Canada in which Indigenous people

5:58

were the victims. Happened in

6:01

Thunder Bay is almost a third of them.

6:03

In. Two thousand and eighteen. An independent

6:05

review of the Thunder Bay Police

6:07

concluded that there was widespread racism

6:09

and anti indigenous racism in particular

6:11

throughout the institution and the police.

6:13

Board had to be dissolved. Apart

6:16

from growing up in Thunder Bay, I'm

6:18

also the granddaughter of to residential school

6:20

survivors, making me what we sometimes call

6:23

an intergenerational survivor of a system. My.

6:26

Grandparents haven't spoken to me much

6:28

about their experience. I imagine,

6:30

in part due to the difficulty of

6:32

reliving the experiences, and also in part

6:35

because I've been a bit nervous to

6:37

ask. Too much. Still,

6:39

I know that they attended Busing Walk

6:41

and Pelican Lake residential schools in Northern

6:43

Ontario before. They could return to the

6:46

reserve. Amazon First Nation more commonly called

6:48

for top. This is

6:50

the community where my dad to live for

6:52

my grandparents still had a house. It's where

6:54

I spent. A lot of early parts of my

6:56

childhood. My community hasn't

6:59

had clean water for longer than I've

7:01

been alive. And the houses are

7:03

almost all either falling apart, are filled

7:05

with mold, or both. Why?

7:08

Am I telling you all this? I have to

7:10

admit that it is deeply. Uncomfortable for me to

7:12

do so. I spend most of my

7:14

days these days as a commentator and so

7:16

having opinions about other people's business is usually

7:19

my bread and butter. But.

7:22

I. Feel it's important to know this backdrop

7:24

to explain why my work took the

7:26

direction that it has, where my knowledge

7:28

come from, and why only partial answers

7:31

were never going to be enough to

7:33

say she ate both screaming sessions I

7:35

said. The. Questions I

7:37

had were actually simple in one

7:39

way, but they were also seemingly

7:42

impossible to answer. I wanted to

7:44

know why. Why? All

7:46

of this injustice, how has it been

7:48

allowed to stand for so many generations,

7:50

what are we doing about it, what

7:52

can I do about? My.

7:54

High School education only gave me the

7:57

starting. Points to answer these questions. And.

8:00

Reply we had one day where we talked

8:02

about the Indian Act in residential schools. And

8:05

still, somehow I didn't know that the middle

8:07

school I went to actually just down the

8:09

road had been built on top of the

8:12

former residential school. I can however tell you

8:14

a lot about so called official history like

8:16

the uniforms that the Canadian. Soldiers were in

8:18

World War Two as me, but a Blitzkrieg know

8:20

that one. And

8:23

another class. We spent a day learning

8:25

about efforts dispossessed indigenous people from the

8:27

Lance, but I wasn't made aware of

8:29

the ongoing land defense efforts taken place

8:31

in our own back yard which actually

8:33

included efforts from my home community of

8:35

for whole. And. By the

8:37

time I graduated, land acknowledgements were becoming

8:40

the standard across all schools in Ontario,

8:42

but I still couldn't tell you. What

8:44

people's treaty obligations were, or what my

8:46

treaty rights were? So.

8:48

They were gaps in my formal education to

8:50

put it mildly, However,

8:53

I didn't know that Canada had recently

8:55

entered a suppose it era of reconciliation.

8:57

This era, I was told was brought

8:59

about by the Harper government's apology for

9:02

Canada's role in creating and maintaining residential

9:04

schools. I was told that reconciliation with

9:06

a process to be guided by the

9:08

work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,

9:11

a body which met with residential school

9:13

survivors and their families over a number

9:15

of years. I. Learned that

9:17

the survivors came from across the country

9:19

in the thousand. And they

9:21

bravely spoke the truth of

9:23

their experiences in residential schools

9:25

and the devastating consequences of

9:28

those experiences. I also

9:30

knew that from the testimonies, Canada had

9:32

been presented with Ninety Four calls to

9:34

action to act as a road map

9:36

of sorts to guide the reconciliation process

9:38

further And spite knowing all of this,

9:41

I also knew that it and majority

9:43

of cases indigenous people in my life

9:45

still found themselves living much more difficult

9:47

leaves that are non indigenous peers and

9:49

their problems in seem to be getting

9:51

any better. I.

9:53

Genuinely couldn't understand it. If

9:55

Canada is supposedly committed to

9:57

reconciliation, why did make me.

10:00

not have clean water. Why

10:02

were indigenous youth dying in Thunder Bay at

10:04

rates so alarming that journalists were flocking to

10:06

the city and that books were being written

10:08

about it? Why were Frida

10:10

Houston and the other Wet'soatan being forced off

10:13

their territory? When

10:15

I asked these questions, sometimes verbatim to my

10:17

teachers, to people online, and even to the

10:20

Prime Minister, I was

10:22

repeatedly assured of reconciliation's promise.

10:25

I was assured we know it's bad, but

10:27

times are changing and solutions are coming.

10:30

Increasingly, it felt very difficult to

10:32

trust the promise of change when

10:35

my lived experience overwhelmingly pointed towards

10:37

inaction and contradiction. So

10:39

my questions kept screaming. Reconciliation

10:43

is one of those words that I've

10:45

come to realize can mean different things

10:47

depending on who you ask. It's

10:49

sticky and it's amorphous. The

10:52

dictionary defines reconciliation as, quote,

10:55

the restoration of friendly relations.

10:58

I've heard many take issue with this

11:01

definition, saying that in the case of

11:03

indigenous people in Canada, there haven't ever

11:05

really been sufficient friendly relations to restore.

11:08

To this point, some folks like Sandlin

11:10

E. Gidd, who is an instructor of

11:12

reconciliation studies at UBC, argues

11:14

that what we should be seeing first

11:16

is a process of conciliation, which

11:19

the Oxford dictionary defines as the

11:21

action of mediating between two disputing

11:23

people or groups before we could

11:25

ever talk about reconciliation. However,

11:28

when I ask my students to define

11:30

reconciliation, they don't usually discuss about returning

11:32

to any particular relationship. They seem to

11:34

see it as a process meant to

11:36

address the harms indigenous people have faced

11:38

and are facing. In

11:41

any case, I know very

11:43

few people who seem to know of

11:45

or strictly use the definition of reconciliation

11:47

as it was described by the Truth

11:49

and Reconciliation Commission. What

11:52

is that definition? The

11:54

TRC describes reconciliation as

11:57

a process to establish and maintain

11:59

a... mutually respectful relationship between

12:01

Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in

12:04

this country. It requires

12:06

awareness of the past, accountability for

12:08

the harm that has been inflicted, atonement

12:11

for the causes, and action to

12:13

change behavior. With

12:15

this definition, I don't actually see any

12:17

assumption about a pre-existing friendship. What I

12:19

do see is the outline or a

12:22

bit of a direction of a process

12:24

to build something actionable, transformative, and new.

12:27

And yet, still, reconciliation receives different

12:29

descriptions based on who you ask.

12:32

The ambiguities and debates around the

12:34

meaning of reconciliation persist among the

12:36

public at large. And

12:39

as I and many others have pointed out,

12:41

there can be a few consequences related to

12:43

the malleability of this concept. So

12:46

first is that, as some of the most

12:48

provocative critiques from those like Glenn Coulthard or

12:50

Art Manual will argue, when

12:52

different understandings of the process are

12:54

permitted, we should always expect that

12:57

the colonial state will pursue, whether

12:59

consciously or unconsciously, the option

13:01

that best upholds the status quo. Those

13:05

who argue this point don't just theorize about

13:07

it. They point to several

13:09

of the realities of Canada's reconciliation landscape.

13:12

For example, as the Yellowhead

13:14

Institute has reported, to date, only 13

13:17

of the 94 calls to

13:19

action have been completed. There

13:21

have been zero in the realm of education,

13:24

zero in regard to health care, and

13:27

only one in the realm of justice. And

13:29

that's the creation of the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women

13:31

and Girls Inquiry, which then, of

13:33

course, created 231 more calls for action

13:35

that hadn't been completed. So

13:37

it seems at this point, Canada does love an

13:40

inquiry. And

13:42

of the ones that have actually been completed, changing

13:45

the oath of citizenship for newcomers

13:47

and creating a national statutory holiday.

13:50

These things are important. They're good. But

13:52

they also aren't too inconvenient to

13:55

implement, we might say. They

13:57

don't intervene in a foundational way into

13:59

some of the... the most criticized and

14:01

impactful institutions in the country. And

14:04

at this rate, we aren't predicted to see all

14:06

of the calls to action completed until at least

14:10

2065, when all of the survivors from residential schools

14:12

will likely have passed or be few in numbers

14:14

and quite elderly. So those

14:17

critical of reconciliation will say, Canada

14:20

might take action, but it'll likely

14:22

be minimal. It'll be slow. And

14:24

it'll be done in a way

14:26

that doesn't fundamentally challenge its power,

14:28

wealth, or any government's re-electability. Is

14:31

it really reconciliation centering indigenous demands if

14:34

it's subject to the whims of the

14:36

Canadian electoral system? More

14:39

than that, non-indigenous groups and

14:41

organizations have increasingly tried to co-opt

14:43

the symbols and the language associated

14:45

with reconciliation and distort their original

14:48

intent to their own advantage. So

14:51

for example, people may make and

14:53

sell or insurance a symbol of

14:55

solidarity with residential school survivors, and

14:57

they'll buy them through these major

14:59

capitalist entities like Walmart or Amazon.

15:02

The people who buy those shirts will get to make

15:04

their political positions visible, and it'll be Jeff Bezos, who

15:06

gets the money of the orange shirts on Amazon at

15:08

the end of the day. And

15:11

here, the only group which won't

15:13

enjoy any material gain through this interaction

15:15

will be indigenous people and survivors themselves.

15:19

So in this sense, we see that reconciliation

15:21

has become more than just a process. It's

15:23

an economy and one

15:25

that often disproportionately benefits non-indigenous

15:27

people, and in which indigenous

15:29

symbols of resistance and awareness

15:32

can easily become commodities. Citing

15:35

instances like this, skeptics say, even

15:38

if we agree, and I do, that

15:40

the TRC describes reconciliation as something transformative,

15:43

if the electorate doesn't understand or want that,

15:45

well then, the government will say it can

15:47

wait, or that it can be

15:49

done differently, differently than survivors say it should be.

15:53

Where does a process like this leave us? To

15:56

me, it's one where we can do land acknowledgments,

15:59

but we don't return. We

16:01

can have symbols and days of honor

16:03

for residential school survivors, but we still

16:05

let them live on the streets in

16:07

disproportionate numbers. We can apologize,

16:10

but we can also keep doing harm. If

16:13

we accept that reconciliation has never been a

16:15

static term, doesn't it make sense that the

16:17

concept means something different to my grandparents who

16:20

forged the idea than it does to me

16:22

who's living through the pursuit of it? Think

16:25

about it. The last federally funded

16:27

residential school, Kivalik Hall, located in

16:30

Rankin in Ludnovut, closed in 1997.

16:34

The last residential day school ended in 2000.

16:38

I was born in 1999. In

16:41

2008, when Stephen Harper apologized for

16:43

residential schools, I was in the third grade.

16:47

When the TRC's final report was released, I was

16:49

only about halfway through high school. So,

16:52

the indigenous affairs landscape I and my peers

16:54

grew up in differs radically from the one

16:56

that my parents and my grandparents grew up

16:58

in. And I hear this when I speak

17:01

to indigenous people of different generations. When

17:03

I talk to survivors about their struggle

17:05

for justice, they frequently mention how it

17:08

was a significant battle to get non-indigenous

17:10

people, never mind the government, to acknowledge

17:12

that they were even experiencing and had

17:14

experienced harm. Even if

17:16

it was bad, that was for your own good

17:18

was a standard response. Then,

17:22

people of my dad's age talk about how when

17:24

people might acknowledge, and I quote, that sure, the

17:26

Indians have had a bad, that there was still

17:28

a sense that it was their problem to fix,

17:30

that we don't do enough to help ourselves. Now,

17:33

I have heard those sentiments in my

17:35

life too. No doubt they persist in

17:37

certain places and among certain people, but

17:39

they're not seen as appropriate or standard

17:41

in the way that they once were.

17:43

They're not the main approach to indigenous

17:46

affairs. And with this

17:48

context in mind, I recognize why

17:50

the advent of a state-sponsored reconciliation

17:52

project was so revolutionary, so important.

17:55

When you spent your whole life being told that the

17:58

violence you faced Was either your fault. With

18:00

your point on to fix having the

18:02

leader of the country which caused that

18:05

harm tell you I recognize it and

18:07

I'm sorry. That is significance.

18:09

It's a moment that is undoubtedly

18:11

hard fought for, and this is

18:13

importance. My point here. Is

18:16

not to discount this moments meaning for

18:18

survivors. I'm not trying to say that

18:20

their fight for this moment or for

18:22

reconciliation generally is done. naive leader that

18:25

it's pointless. It's not to see the

18:27

Canada shouldn't be apologetic or that we

18:29

shouldn't have symbols. Instead, what I am

18:31

saying is that the context that which

18:33

my parents grew up in, my grandparents

18:35

grew up in it's not the same

18:38

as mine and I don't necessarily think

18:40

it's the experience of many indigenous youth

18:42

today and I wanna sit really consider

18:44

what that means in our. Experience with

18:46

knowledge the land we have treaty

18:48

recognition we we were orange to

18:51

spread awareness In my lifetime, Canada

18:53

has already said they're committed to

18:55

change. We. Are

18:57

the reconciliation generation not because we

18:59

created reconciliation? for because we've been

19:02

born into the country and the

19:04

indigenous affairs landscape that reconciliation has

19:06

helped to sit. We.

19:09

Have inherited the reconciliation project and are meant

19:11

to be responsible for seeing it through to

19:13

it's next. Stage. This

19:16

isn't just a personal belief, but it's something

19:18

that the data supports me on. So kept

19:20

this. According. To Statistics Canada

19:22

as a twenty six and almost

19:24

half of the indigenous population in

19:26

Canada was under the age. Of

19:28

twenty five. Young. Indigenous

19:30

people are the fastest growing

19:33

demographic in. The entire country

19:35

and we are going. To be

19:37

the people that Canada will have to

19:39

negotiate with for decades to com the

19:41

ground work we lay now and we've

19:43

already started to lay will undoubtedly influence

19:46

the. Nature of those

19:48

negotiations. With.

19:50

this in mind i'm ultimately arguing

19:52

today that we must take the

19:54

contentions and the dreams of indigenous

19:56

you seriously if we want to

19:59

truly ensure that we bill transformative

20:01

relationships as the TRC outlined, and

20:03

that Indigenous people have been fighting

20:05

for by various means for decades,

20:07

that Indigenous youth, this reconciliation generation,

20:09

must be central to our

20:11

conversations now, not when they get older. I'm

20:14

inviting you now to put yourself in

20:16

my shoes. By the age

20:19

of 16 or 17, I'd taken all

20:21

of that energy coming from the sense of

20:23

injustice I mentioned before, and I was trying

20:25

to channel it into community work. As

20:28

a result, I was identified as something of

20:30

a youth leader, and I was frequently asked

20:32

to provide a perspective on youth and Indigenous

20:34

issues. This sort of

20:36

perspective was in higher demand than I thought

20:39

it would be, and not long after I

20:41

started speaking publicly, I was being flown around

20:43

the country and the world by different organizations

20:45

on a regular basis. I

20:48

visited Calgary, Montreal, Winnipeg,

20:50

Ottawa, Regina, St. John's,

20:53

Stockholm, Katowice, and Paris.

20:56

I quickly spent just as much time in conference

20:58

rooms as I did in classrooms. My

21:01

teachers were very generous with me. In

21:04

each of these places, the other young

21:06

people at these conferences and I would

21:08

find ourselves gravitating towards one another, especially

21:11

if it was other Indigenous youth who

21:13

were primarily invited and who were around.

21:16

We soon realized that it was the same

21:18

handful of us who were often tapped on

21:20

to join these events. We even

21:22

jokingly called ourselves the regulars of

21:24

the Reconciliation Conference Circuit. I thought that

21:27

one was good. These

21:30

conferences were where the politics that

21:32

I carry with me today, conversations we

21:34

had in between and after the conference

21:36

sessions. In those informal

21:39

moments, we weren't just a bunch of young

21:41

people in a room full of adults vying

21:43

for their respect or their ear. We

21:45

weren't calculating every word to ensure that

21:47

the grown-ups in suits would take us

21:50

seriously. The way that young

21:52

people generally experience ageism and are told that

21:54

they should just be grateful for having a

21:56

seat at the table at all could be

21:58

the basis for a whole other talk. to

22:00

give, but I digress. During

22:03

those in-between moments, we were

22:05

allowed to be ourselves speaking

22:07

to each other authentically and

22:09

unguardedly. And young people say things

22:12

to one another like, did you hear what that

22:14

minister said in the last session? What

22:16

bullshit, eh? They expressed

22:19

frustration, fatigue, and skepticism, all of

22:22

which I had felt, but until

22:24

that point in my life, I

22:26

had never heard another person say

22:29

so unapologetically. Their no-esque-given attitude inspired

22:31

the little teacher's pet like me.

22:33

To be

22:35

clear, it's not that I think

22:37

that older folks weren't thinking or saying those

22:39

things, they just weren't saying them to me.

22:42

And in many cases, I have to imagine

22:44

that they did so out of a protectiveness,

22:47

a hope that by preserving the

22:49

original intent of reconciliation, that younger

22:52

people wouldn't feel the same anger and

22:54

resentment I now know can be so

22:57

pervasive amongst all generations, but older generations

22:59

especially. In any

23:01

case, it was younger people who opened

23:03

up the space for me to be

23:05

critical and the possibility of imagining something

23:08

other than the way that reconciliation has

23:10

always been presented to me. With

23:12

them, I felt seen, I felt

23:14

empowered, I felt hopeful. Their anger

23:16

matched the anger I felt, and

23:18

they too were consumed with questions

23:20

about the state of injustice and

23:22

the solutions that we'd unconvincingly been

23:24

presented with. When

23:52

faced with the complex moral questions the world

23:54

tends to throw our way, it's easy to

23:57

feel overwhelmed. My name is Willy Darley

23:59

and I'm Scott Steepe. We're the hosts

24:01

of the Mind Field, an ABC Australia podcast.

24:03

At H8, we try to navigate the moral

24:05

complexities of modern life in a way that's

24:07

unexpected, unpredictable, intellectually serious, but more than a

24:09

little fun. Along the way, we're joined by

24:12

a range of philosophers and thinkers who promise

24:14

to help you see the world and the

24:16

challenges we face in a different light. You

24:18

can listen to the Mind Field wherever you

24:20

get your podcasts. Riley

24:25

Yesno's lecture at Vancouver Island

24:28

University in Nanaimo, British Columbia

24:30

was the ninth edition of

24:32

the university's annual Indigenous Speaker

24:34

Series. It was established

24:36

in 2015 after the Truth

24:38

and Reconciliation Commission called on

24:41

educational institutions to lead the

24:43

way on reconciliation. Her

24:45

talk is called The Reconciliation

24:47

Generation, Indigenous Youth and the

24:49

Future for Indigenous People. Riley

24:59

When I was just a couple of months shy of my

25:01

18th birthday, I cut ties with

25:03

a major youth leadership initiative in Canada.

25:06

The group was new at the time and they

25:08

were tasked with providing advice to leaders in the

25:11

government on issues that matter to youth. And

25:13

spoiler alert, issues that matter to youth is

25:15

basically everything. I'd

25:19

originally applied to be a part of

25:21

that group because I'd been told my

25:23

whole life, explicitly and implicitly, that running

25:25

for office, working in the Canadian government,

25:27

and trying to change the system from

25:30

within was the ultimate way to affect

25:32

change. I fully believed that. When

25:35

people tried to be encouraging to me, they'd tell me

25:37

they were sure, quote, I'd be the prime minister one

25:39

day. And they'd tell me

25:41

that voting in Canadian elections was the best way

25:44

that I could support my communities. And

25:46

I'm sure people in this room right now have

25:48

both heard and probably said these types of sentiments

25:50

before as well. Imagine

25:52

then how incredibly destabilizing

25:54

it was when I got into

25:56

those halls of power, only

25:58

to find that they were way more hostile

26:01

than they were transformative. For

26:04

example, I'd go into meetings

26:06

with some of the most widely honored and

26:08

powerful people in the country, where they

26:10

would then express views that were

26:12

deeply problematic, deeply harmful, and there

26:14

would be no repercussions. Younger

26:17

people would frequently share their

26:19

experiences, their traumas, their dreams,

26:22

only to be shut down or walked through

26:24

the government's justification as if we disagreed with

26:26

a given policy because we just simply couldn't

26:28

understand it. On

26:31

more than one occasion, I left rooms

26:33

in tears, not because they were espousing

26:35

racist, anti-Indigenous views. Remember, I grew up

26:37

in Thunder Bay. I had heard racism

26:40

before. I

26:42

left because I felt full of grief, grief

26:45

because, as I shared, I really believed

26:47

that the way forward was to get

26:49

into these positions of power and make

26:51

them work for my people. I

26:53

didn't expect that work to be easy,

26:55

but I also didn't expect it to

26:58

feel always so hostile, on

27:00

guard, like every interaction with

27:02

a fight or interrogation. Even

27:05

if working in the system were the best

27:07

option, it increasingly felt like working in that

27:09

space would come at the cost of my

27:12

well-being, especially over time. For

27:14

how long would I have to spend

27:17

my time and my energy trying to

27:19

convince these politicians of Indigenous people's humanity,

27:21

of the need to

27:23

listen and act with urgency given our

27:25

struggles? Even

27:27

if I made the tiniest change while I

27:29

was there, how much would it have cost

27:31

me in exchange? Nowadays,

27:33

I often want to roll my eyes

27:36

when I think about teenage Riley's heartbroken

27:38

reaction to finding out that politicians can

27:40

be bad. They

27:43

can be ignorant. They can be ineffectual. But

27:46

then I fight the urge to

27:48

say duh, and instead I offer

27:50

the younger me compassion. I

27:53

was told my whole life by every adult

27:55

person I trusted to trust the system. I

27:58

was told that the country was really sorry, and

28:01

that Canada's most important relationship was with

28:03

indigenous peoples. Why

28:05

should I have not believed that? What

28:08

other truths did I have to pursue? I

28:11

no longer feel embarrassed or ashamed for

28:13

believing what every trusted person in my

28:15

life told me to believe. And

28:17

actually, I think we should all find it

28:19

tragic that on some level, we now expect

28:22

young people to accept that the institutions that

28:24

are supposed to be there to help them

28:26

may hurt them. And that's just a part

28:28

of growing up. And that we tell

28:30

them it doesn't brave to be optimistic, that it

28:32

actually makes you foolish. Instead,

28:35

now, looking back, I feel grateful

28:37

that in the fallout of this

28:39

grief, while I was trying to

28:41

reimagine what change could or should

28:44

look like, I call this my

28:46

recovering anarchist phase, other indigenous youth

28:48

gave me hope and they gave

28:50

me community. They took

28:52

me under their wing and confided

28:54

in me similar experiences, anger and

28:56

sadness. And I'm grateful that

28:58

I found teachers who showed me there were

29:00

other ways to affect change rather than just

29:02

through votes or boardrooms. In

29:06

academia, we often label these other

29:08

approaches as examples of indigenous resurgence.

29:12

Has anybody here heard about the Red Power

29:14

movement from the 60s and 70s? I

29:17

see some nods. Nice, okay. So

29:20

organizations that were around this time

29:22

were pretty radical. The

29:24

Native Alliance for Red Power, for example,

29:27

which was founded just a short bit

29:29

away in Vancouver was regarded as a

29:31

sister organization for the Black Panthers in the

29:33

US. Other groups like

29:35

the Indians of All Tribes from the US took

29:38

part in some unbelievable direct

29:40

action protests. In

29:42

1968, for instance, Indian of All

29:44

Tribes began an occupation of Alcatraz

29:46

Island, demanding the return of stolen

29:48

land and the rectification of broken

29:50

treaties across the country. The

29:53

activists lasted 19 months on

29:55

the island before President Richard Nixon had

29:58

them removed by force. These

30:00

groups from the 1960s and 70s were badass. But

30:05

I somehow hadn't heard of their work before

30:07

I started talking to radical young people, and

30:09

I have a degree in Indigenous Studies. Besides

30:13

the so-called Oka Crisis, or as

30:15

we'd call it, the Ganisotake Resistance,

30:18

most of my education on

30:20

Indigenous Resistance revolved around landmark

30:22

court cases like Delgamook, Vanderpete,

30:25

and Sparrow. I learned about

30:27

Harold Cardinal and the Indian Association

30:29

of Alberta, the people who challenged Pierre

30:31

Trudeau's proposed policy changes regarding

30:33

the infamous Indian Act in 1969. And

30:37

to be clear, I'm very glad I learned

30:39

these things. My point here is

30:42

not to say that the former badass

30:44

approaches to resistance are better than the

30:46

latter. I'm not here to lobby you. I

30:49

actually think that the work Indigenous

30:51

people and others do every day

30:53

to pursue a vision of reconciliation

30:55

that the survivors intended, the ones

30:57

who stop Canada from passing harmful

30:59

legislation, who hold powerful people accountable

31:01

on their own turf. They

31:03

are more than admirable. Where

31:05

would we be without leaders who do this

31:07

work like Cindy Blackstock or Marie Sinclair?

31:10

Yes, as an advocate and social movement

31:13

scholar, I fundamentally believe

31:15

in the social movement mantra,

31:17

all tactics, all battlefields. Instead,

31:20

what I'm trying to emphasize is

31:23

how stunning and validating it was

31:25

to learn about resurgence. This other

31:27

history of Indigenous responses to colonialism,

31:29

I got to feel the full

31:31

scope of Indigenous resistance that's always

31:33

existed. And it was especially validating

31:35

after feeling so utterly defeated by

31:37

my short stint in government. I

31:40

wanted to learn from those Indigenous people who, in

31:43

every generation, have decided that if it's going to

31:45

be an uphill battle against Canadian settler colonialism, that

31:47

at least it's going to be an uphill battle

31:49

on our terms. Those

31:51

people who don't want to change the system from within,

31:54

but who want to dismantle the system and build a

31:56

community fire with all of the pieces that the system

31:58

was made of. Similar

32:00

to reconciliation, resurgence

32:03

has also manifested along generational

32:05

lines. In the

32:07

1960s and 70s, they were an important political

32:09

movement for my grandparents, the rise of the

32:11

Red Power. And in the

32:13

90s, my parents grew up with instances

32:16

of contestation like the Gana Satake resistance.

32:18

And then in the 2010s, idle

32:20

no more came to prominence. And

32:22

that's the action that's often associated with

32:24

activating a whole new generation of indigenous

32:27

resistors. For those who might

32:29

not be familiar with idle no more, the movement began in

32:31

2012 in response to the

32:33

Harper government's proposed bill, C45, the

32:36

Jobs and Growth Act. It

32:38

was an act that would have affected over 60 pieces

32:40

of existing legislation, including those directly

32:42

affecting indigenous people like the Indian

32:44

Act. The government wanted

32:47

to make these changes without any proper

32:49

consultation or consent. The

32:52

movement sparked in response to this

32:54

legislation, but it quickly grew into

32:56

a full-on national fire, speaking to

32:58

more general conditions of oppression that

33:00

indigenous people had long been facing.

33:03

Still running today, idle no more

33:05

established a massive network of both

33:07

indigenous and non-indigenous people committed to

33:09

liberated futures for the land, the

33:11

water, and the sky under which

33:13

we all live. They

33:15

believe in pursuing these futures outside of the

33:18

state through nonviolent protest. Now,

33:21

the 2020s, indigenous

33:23

people have begun to mobilize even newer

33:25

movements and frameworks that I think encompass

33:27

that longstanding spirit of resurgence. Take,

33:30

for example, the Land Back movement. If

33:33

you aren't familiar with Land Back, it first came to

33:35

life on Instagram in 2018 when

33:38

Arnel Tailfeathers, a Blackfoot online creator

33:40

from Manitoba, made a viral meme

33:42

using the phrase. I'll never

33:44

again have meme prejudice as I once did. Quickly

33:48

after he made this, the words

33:50

Land Back began appearing throughout the

33:52

indigenous community. People made art and

33:54

crafts that incorporated Land Back and

33:56

donated often these profits from the creations to

33:58

ongoing land and work. water defenses. But

34:01

what exactly does land-backed mean? Defining

34:04

land-back is both easy and

34:06

complicated. Complicated because there's no

34:08

land-back approval board. There

34:10

isn't somebody who can say that counts as

34:12

land-back, that doesn't, but when we

34:14

look at the way that Indigenous people use the

34:16

term, we can see that there are common attributes.

34:20

Land-back centers on material

34:22

restitution, not symbolic gestures.

34:25

It's about demanding that Canada act in

34:27

accordance with our laws rather than

34:30

squeezing Indigenous nations until we find ways

34:32

to make our laws work within Canada's. With

34:35

those attributes in mind, I define

34:37

land-back as any action taken with

34:39

the goal of returning jurisdiction, authority,

34:41

and resources to Indigenous people.

34:44

This may include returning actual physical parcels

34:46

of land back to Indigenous stewardship, or

34:49

it might mean refusing to follow

34:51

laws of colonial government in favor of

34:54

those traditional laws that Indigenous people articulate

34:56

on their territories. As

34:58

the Yellowhead Institute writes, land-back

35:00

is a nod to the wave

35:02

of emerging artists and members finding

35:04

new ways to communicate old demands.

35:07

To address frequent questions about land-back

35:10

in advance, I will point out

35:12

that for a vast majority, land-back

35:14

doesn't necessitate the removal of non-Indigenous

35:16

people from their communities or properties.

35:20

Indigenous people are a people who are

35:22

deeply aware of the violence

35:24

and displacement of dispossession. We

35:27

are not looking to recreate the violence

35:29

that has been done onto us, onto

35:31

others. And actually, I

35:33

think it's a very direct and tragic

35:35

result of colonialism that so many of

35:38

us have come to believe that domination

35:40

and force are the only ways that

35:42

we can possibly acquire or express power.

35:46

Just because that's the way that colonial states

35:48

have maintained their power does not mean that

35:50

it is natural, it is inevitable, or it's

35:52

right. Instead,

35:55

Indigenous people have long expressed visions

35:57

of living together that are premised

35:59

on peace friendship and respect for

36:01

other world views. If land

36:03

back is a resurgent effort, as

36:05

Nishnawbeg scholar, Leanne Berezimoke Simpson reminds

36:07

us, resurgence is fundamentally

36:09

about solidarity and good relations.

36:13

I'd also like to point out that

36:15

just because resurgence efforts like land back

36:17

don't directly center on non-Indigenous people, that

36:19

does not mean that non-Indigenous people don't

36:21

have things to benefit from efforts like

36:23

land back. Statistics from

36:25

organizations like the World Bank of the

36:28

UN indicate that Indigenous people are the

36:30

world's best protectors of biodiversity.

36:33

According to a report from the World Bank, for

36:35

example, we make up around 5% of

36:37

the world's population, but we protect about 80%

36:40

of the world's remaining biodiversity. While

36:44

returning resources and power to Indigenous people is the

36:47

ethical and moral thing to do, it's also in

36:49

many ways the thing that may benefit us all

36:51

the most in the long run. As

36:54

an anecdote to illustrate this point, I once

36:56

had an older white gentleman ask me during

36:58

a presentation about land back, what's in it

37:00

for me? That's kind of exactly how he

37:02

said it. His

37:05

question was blunt, and so

37:07

I offered him an equally blunt response. Well,

37:09

for one, you get a livable planet. So

37:14

to return to the question I asked at

37:16

the beginning of the talk, is

37:19

reconciliation dead? Should we

37:21

witness a funeral? Should

37:23

we all simply forget it and pursue

37:25

resurgence efforts like land back instead? No,

37:28

that's not my point. I

37:30

do recognize that Indigenous people, youth in particular,

37:33

have expressed grave concerns about reconciliation, and

37:35

I'm not going to try and tell them

37:37

here that they're wrong. But

37:39

at the same time, I've argued that

37:41

reconciliation means different things to different people.

37:44

And I don't know that reconciliation actually

37:46

dies until a critical mass of us

37:48

see it as having passed away. And

37:51

even then, I have to wonder if

37:53

maybe the term has become so entrenched

37:55

in Canadian institutions and economic endeavors that

37:57

it would take a much more directive.

38:00

approach to dismantle entirely. Perhaps

38:03

we could live with a zombified

38:05

reconciliation, an idea that

38:07

has had life but has been

38:09

declared dead by the people whose

38:11

livelihood fundamentally depends upon, and yet

38:13

reconciliation persists. Maybe a

38:16

horror movie idea. In

38:18

general though, what I'm saying is this, if reconciliation

38:22

is to die, we

38:24

know it isn't because of the work of

38:27

the survivors who have advanced the concept and

38:29

who've pushed the rock up the hill, it's

38:31

because of Canada who seems to

38:34

insist on making that hill as steep

38:36

and as forbidding as possible at every

38:38

turn. I'm saying

38:40

that it's my experience that Indigenous

38:42

youth have serious and widespread criticisms

38:44

of reconciliation as they have inherited

38:47

it, and I'm saying that now

38:49

more than ever we should be

38:51

taking the contentions of them seriously.

38:53

I'm saying that I want Indigenous

38:55

youth to feel that they have options available

38:57

to them that go far beyond what even

39:00

the TRC has laid out. On

39:03

that last point, one time I

39:05

was asked to give some short remarks during a

39:07

cocktail hour of a conference in Ottawa. The

39:10

conference was about Indigenous child welfare and the

39:12

prompt they gave me to start my remarks

39:14

was the following, what is your

39:16

dream for Indigenous youth? Immediately

39:19

I thought, okay, I'm

39:21

going to be in this ballroom with a microphone and

39:24

some seriously powerful people in the country

39:27

and I need to make my point in short

39:29

order while fighting to be more interesting than the

39:32

cocktails. I thought about

39:34

my key points. If they

39:36

only hear two or three things that I think

39:38

Indigenous youth need, what should they be? Access

39:41

to education, opportunities to work in

39:43

their own communities, I made a

39:45

list. But then, as I was

39:48

trying to turn my long list into a short list, I

39:51

realized, what the hell am

39:53

I doing? Is my

39:55

wildest dream for Indigenous youth that

39:57

they have access to higher education?

40:00

My wildest dream for them is that they don't

40:02

have to worry about dying young. I

40:06

realized quickly that I'd fallen into a

40:08

trap where I was made

40:10

to believe that Indigenous people's dreams should

40:12

be nothing more than what are

40:15

already most non-Indigenous people's expectations. This

40:18

trap is a travesty, and

40:20

I think when we don't tell young people that

40:23

truly anything is possible, that they

40:25

don't have to just exist comfortably within

40:27

Canada, but they can build something better

40:29

than Canada, that we are contributing to

40:31

putting those limits on their possibility and

40:33

to all of our possibility. In

40:36

that moment, I made a commitment to myself

40:38

to never again limit my expectations to the

40:40

bare minimum of healing. I will

40:43

settle for nothing less than thriving. So again,

40:46

I bring up land back and

40:49

resurgence not because I want you to think

40:51

they're superior to the notion of reconciliation, though

40:53

I have been transparent about that

40:56

role that they played in my personal journey

40:58

and how revitalizing they've been. There

41:01

are multiple theories of change to combat

41:03

colonialism, and we need them all. In

41:06

fact, most critics of reconciliation seem

41:08

to agree with this point. Resurgence

41:11

is not automatically a disavowal of

41:13

reconciliation. Reconciliation efforts can and have

41:15

reduced the harm experienced by Indigenous

41:17

people, and thus it creates more

41:20

room for us to pursue these resurgent efforts. They

41:22

can be cooperative ideas. Most

41:25

resurgent scholars instead advocate for us to be

41:28

careful with our interactions with the state. They

41:30

tell us to be wary of Canada's

41:33

true intentions at all times and to

41:35

strategically choose our investments and moderate our

41:37

expectations of what can happen through working with

41:39

the state. But with all of this said,

41:41

I bring resurgence and land back

41:43

up today because I want you to

41:45

consider the way that youth are responsible

41:47

for increasingly creating and fostering their growth.

41:51

Young people spray paint land back in

41:53

downtown Toronto. They hashtag their

41:55

pictures with it. They get it tattooed on their

41:57

bodies. When I see land back,

41:59

I say, When I think of

42:01

resurgence, I'm reminded that it's indigenous

42:03

youth, not Justin Trudeau,

42:06

not any Canadian politician who

42:08

leads indigenous people to transformative

42:10

futures. And I'm asking

42:12

everyone, indigenous and non-indigenous,

42:15

to honor younger people's

42:17

criticisms. I want us

42:19

to feel pride when we see them protest. And

42:22

these protests, which beyond their explicit demands

42:24

tell us that indigenous youth are saying,

42:26

we are alive. We care about our

42:28

future. We are fighting like our

42:30

ancestors have. I

42:32

want you to hold their hand when they

42:34

grapple with how impossible it can feel to

42:36

change any of this. I

42:39

want you to share and critique

42:41

and refuse to uphold shallow actions

42:43

taken in the name of reconciliation

42:45

and instead demand the birth of

42:47

something truly transformative and revolutionary. I'm

42:50

asking you to learn all of

42:53

the many histories of indigenous resistance,

42:55

including and beyond the current reconciliation

42:57

model. I ask this

42:59

so you can give indigenous youth a full

43:02

sense of the brilliance that is their birthright.

43:05

They're already showing you the way forward. Will

43:08

you join them? Wally

43:30

Yeschner, delivering the 9th annual

43:33

Indigenous Speaker Series Lecture at

43:35

Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo,

43:37

British Columbia. second

44:00

time I've had COVID, which I know

44:03

for a lot of people, like I know people

44:05

on there like four through nine. No. And I

44:07

was mostly caught up. So I had like four

44:09

shots already. So I think that helped too. Yeah.

44:13

Yeah. And does Riley need headphones? No. Yeah.

44:17

Unless you feel... Nah, it's all good.

44:19

If it gives you something, it adds something

44:21

to the conversation. Yeah. Yeah. We're

44:24

good to go. Greg's talking to you in my ear. Yeah. He's

44:27

just saying we're good to go. We can go. So, for

44:29

example, and ready, we can get started. All

44:31

right. We're good. In

44:33

the lecture, you said that symbols which

44:36

aren't followed up by action are basically

44:38

empty, that they're worse than useless. What's

44:41

one of the worst examples, do you

44:44

think, of that kind of symbolic action

44:46

that really yields nothing? Oh,

44:48

okay. Two things that come to my mind.

44:50

Well, I think first is like a site of

44:52

heavy critique already in Canada, which is the

44:54

land acknowledgement, right? You get the sketch

44:56

shows about it even and all of those things.

44:59

I think people can really clearly

45:01

see the way that a land acknowledgement is

45:03

useless if we're not willing to do that

45:05

other part, like act on the acknowledgement,

45:07

give the land back. And also,

45:10

the acknowledgement itself is

45:12

sometimes frequently, I think, so poorly done,

45:14

where the names are just

45:17

like grossly mispronounced or they have the

45:19

wrong territories. I'm sad about this because

45:21

acknowledging the land, acknowledging our relations is

45:23

actually a very indigenous practice. The idea

45:25

of a land acknowledgement didn't have to

45:28

be this like neo-colonial,

45:31

like weird co-option. It

45:33

could have been like a very, I think, meaningful and

45:35

it still can be in some cases. But

45:38

it has been used, I think, in many ways

45:40

as like a check mark to be like, okay,

45:42

we're doing our thing, we're acknowledging indigenous people, yada,

45:44

yada, let's go. And so that's a

45:46

very, very obvious one. What tends

45:48

to happen when you verbalize those thoughts? I

45:53

often get

45:55

mostly just this like look

45:58

of like I feel like

46:00

people really take it into

46:03

this personal shame sphere. So

46:05

for example, I was at

46:07

the University of Toronto last year

46:09

and I was helping, they were

46:11

taking down a picture of Egerton

46:13

Ryerson and I told them, I

46:15

was like, this is great, I love not

46:18

having to look at Egerton Ryerson when I walk

46:20

the halls, but we should also note

46:22

that this is the bare minimum and you do

46:24

have to do the bare minimum maybe to get

46:26

to other things, but I don't know how long

46:28

I wanna spend and

46:31

patting ourselves on the back for this.

46:33

And you could tell they were not

46:35

expecting maybe that sort of reaction and

46:37

it just got so quiet and

46:40

they all looked at each other and almost looked

46:42

like they wanted to apologize to me. And

46:45

I can understand that there is

46:47

some time that needs

46:49

to be given to learning and correcting and

46:52

even just having grief over how

46:54

much we have to do and

46:56

how much we are imbued with

46:58

every day of colonial ideals, but

47:00

at the same time, getting stuck in that shame

47:03

place, I think really prohibits us from also

47:05

taking that action, which is the call, so

47:07

yeah. It's good to know

47:09

that there are voices that call out the

47:11

symbolism. Do you think there's enough of them? I

47:15

think if there isn't yet that they're coming.

47:18

So one of my thesis, like

47:20

the point of my thesis right now is

47:22

to look at indigenous youth who, like I

47:25

have dubbed the reconciliation generation because I

47:28

think we grew up again in

47:30

this era of recognition. And so it

47:32

doesn't feel as revolutionary as

47:34

our parents, as our grandparents. And so I think

47:37

that there is maybe that

47:39

like BS level, the

47:41

tolerance for BS is a lot lower.

47:45

And I think we see that with things

47:47

like the Land Back Movement with a whole

47:49

bunch of other social movements that I've been

47:52

studying, where young people I think

47:54

are the leading voices. And part of that,

47:56

I have to imagine whether or not they

47:58

explicitly say it is because we. have a

48:00

unique relationship with reconciliation, with symbols, with

48:03

the state. The other part

48:05

of the title of your lecture is

48:07

the future of Indigenous people. I'm curious

48:09

how you think the climate crisis affects

48:11

this conversation, but affects the value of

48:13

the land that you look to for

48:15

the future. Yeah, I mean, whenever I

48:17

think about land back and the climate

48:19

crisis, I might think about, again, a

48:21

panel I was on, and at the

48:24

end, a non-Indigenous person

48:26

said, I just don't understand how

48:29

non-Indigenous people are supposed to be

48:31

involved in land back, they said. They

48:33

were like, I feel like reconciliation is clearly

48:35

about the relationship between Indigenous people and Canadians

48:38

and the Canadian state, and I just don't

48:40

see what the benefit is for non-Indigenous people

48:42

when it comes to land back. And

48:45

so the part of Indigenous people having

48:48

land back is not because it's just the

48:50

moral thing to do, but also because I

48:52

do believe that it is our only

48:55

way to a livable future.

48:58

I think that we have spent so

49:00

much of the last 10 years or

49:02

so talking about innovating our way into a

49:04

green future, like solar panels and electric cars

49:06

are going to save us. When fundamentally,

49:08

I think it is about a

49:10

transformed relationship with land, with

49:12

labour, with consumption, with all of these things,

49:15

and the people that already know

49:17

that model and are willing to teach it

49:19

to us are Indigenous people. And

49:22

so this idea that we have

49:24

to look to big corporations

49:26

or the government or whoever to

49:28

get that, I think is actually

49:30

delaying what could be a very easy

49:32

process. And so

49:35

land back, yes, centres Indigenous people, but I do

49:37

think it's for all of us in that regard.

49:39

It's a very persuasive argument, and I'm wondering how

49:42

far you think you and others have

49:44

gone in actually persuading others

49:47

that this is the way forward. Oh,

49:49

man. I mean, I think... So

49:51

first, I think that anybody who is partial

49:53

to an Indigenous activist

49:55

stance is so because of the

49:57

work Indigenous people have done. So I know that we're...

50:00

we have seen this like major transformation

50:02

in the cultural climate around indigenous affairs

50:04

since especially, you know, 2015 in the

50:06

Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But

50:09

as Canada has really profoundly

50:11

failed to meet the urgency of those demands,

50:13

we know that anything that has

50:16

gotten done is because indigenous people

50:18

have not stopped going

50:20

into schools and writing articles and showing

50:22

up on the front lines. And so

50:25

we, any mobilization, I think is entirely

50:27

to our credit and to the credit

50:29

of like our few really strong allies.

50:31

I think also, again, looking

50:34

to youth, when you look at what is

50:36

their number one maybe goals for

50:38

the future, the things they care about most in the

50:40

elections, climate change, if it's not the top, it's in

50:42

the top like three or five. And

50:45

so from there, I think we have

50:47

an audience and perhaps, you know, a

50:49

cohort of comrades to come into this

50:52

fight with us. And

50:54

young people, in my experience also,

50:56

are way less adverse to

50:59

all the, but what do I get from

51:01

it? Questions that I get from adults, all

51:03

of these, you know, rebuttals that I have

51:06

learned to fight off have

51:08

never really come from children or from

51:10

youth. So I put a lot of hope

51:13

into there. How hopeful is this generation? I

51:18

think that we are really hopeful.

51:21

I mean, even if, you

51:23

know, you talk to them and you say, are you hopeful for the future? And

51:25

they say, like, I don't know. I think

51:27

by virtue of their actions,

51:29

they're saying, I'm investing whatever

51:31

energy, time, resources

51:34

I have into building something

51:36

for the future. There's

51:38

this like really, I think, outdated and

51:40

lazy notion that young people are apathetic.

51:43

But when you look at things like even

51:45

just like volunteer rates, young people volunteer

51:48

more than any other age demographic

51:51

in this country. And so we might not show up

51:53

to the polls in the way that some people would

51:55

like. But I think that

51:57

maybe that is a cause for reflection to

51:59

say, why have we not? created systems that

52:01

work for young people, why are we not

52:03

reaching out to young people themselves instead of

52:05

it being, you know, a knock

52:08

on young people's ability to show up?

52:10

I think if you're looking for it, you'll find

52:12

them doing that work and that work has to

52:14

be motivated by some sort of hope. I

52:17

wonder when you stood in front of that crowd

52:19

at VIU, what were you hoping to leave with

52:21

them? I think I

52:23

was hoping to leave maybe this

52:26

idea that the future isn't

52:28

settled and whether or not they were

52:30

fully convinced by my argument or not,

52:33

that it at least put like a little

52:35

question marker and asterisk in their brain. I

52:38

think that the narrative that we have about

52:40

reconciliation in the mainstream is like pretty monolithic

52:42

that if you critique it, you're against Indigenous

52:44

people, you're against survivors, you're against all of

52:47

these things, when in fact I think it's

52:49

actually a very loving gesture to say, I'm

52:51

not sure about this, I want this to

52:53

be right, I want to get it right.

52:56

And I think we only make those corrections

52:58

through critique and through discussion. They

53:01

might not have left being fully

53:03

radicalized into my reconciliation is dead

53:06

sort of narrative, but maybe it was,

53:08

it cracked something open a little bit.

53:10

I wanted to be able to leave the

53:12

stage and say, you know, I did something

53:14

at least that felt authentic and then to

53:16

say, wow, that was a very honest talk.

53:18

Yeah, it was an honest talk. Thank you

53:20

very much for bringing it to

53:22

our airwaves and I look forward to hearing

53:24

what you do next. Thank you. Riley

53:31

Yesno is an Anishinaabe scholar,

53:33

writer and commentator from Abnatung

53:35

First Nation and Thunder Bay,

53:38

Ontario. She delivered the

53:40

ninth annual Indigenous Speakers Series

53:42

lecture at Vancouver Island University

53:44

in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Her

53:52

lecture was entitled, The

53:54

Reconciliation Generation, Indigenous Youth

53:57

and the Future for Indigenous People.

54:13

If you'd like to comment on anything you heard

54:15

in this program or any other,

54:17

just go to our website

54:19

cbc.ca/ ideas. Technical

54:22

production, Danielle Duval and Laura

54:24

Antonelli. Lisa Ayoosow

54:26

is the web producer for ideas. Lisa

54:29

Godfrey is the acting senior producer.

54:32

The executive producer of ideas is

54:34

Brent Kelly and I'm now the host.

54:58

Thank you.