Welcome, everyone. My name is Elizabeth Heater, and just to make sure that you know that you're in the right place, this is the Kairos Atlantic Fall Gathering. Our title for our gathering this evening and tomorrow afternoon is Good Intentions, Unintended Consequences, Acknowledging Racism in Canada and in Ourselves. I'm new to PEI. My partner and I moved here from British Columbia and we arrived here in PEI on September the 1st. And when I arrived, I decided I had been involved in Kairos and other places and decided I wanted to get involved here. So I contacted Kairos and Shannon communicated with me and said, this is happening. Do you want to be a part of it? So I said yes, and here I am. And it's been a great gift to me to be able to be part of the planning team for this particular gathering. Earlier today, someone made a note, sent a note and said this is going to be a powerful weekend. And I think she's right. I think we're going to be challenged in ways that we don't even know yet in our thinking and in our, perhaps even in our decision making around how we want to be in our world. The topic is absolutely timely. And so I know that we are going to be gifted by listening to our panel and engaging with one another in conversation. Just a couple of notes as we journey. I'm wondering if we could ask each of you to put your particular name and your location and the territory that you are living in, in the chat, so that everyone will as a means of introducing yourself to the rest of us who've gathered this evening. If you also would be so kind if it works for you to put your particular pronouns in that either where your name is or in your chat introduction to us, that would be wonderful. Just a couple of other notes for us as we journey this evening. Before we close our time together, we're going to offer us a couple of questions that we were asking that we carry overnight with us and bring back to our gathering tomorrow. And we will have opportunity as we learn and unpack what it means to be allies for and working together, we may have opportunity to share some of those thoughts with one another. So welcome, and I turn our gathering into the capable hands of, I think as Shannon is who's going to talk to us about some kairos events coming up. Thanks, Shannon. Actually, I am Diane climb and Hake and I'm part of the planning team. And in gathering such as this it's a sign of respect to recognize that we are living in and working on land across Canada, which is the traditional land of a whole host of nations. In Atlantic Canada where this gathering originates. These nations include the Willis decay, the past McQuaddy, the abanaki, nob Scott, the McMaw, the Inuit, and the in you. Here where I'm sitting is McMoggy. We try to honor the treaties of peace and friendship. And I know we're not all on treaty land, but some of us are so we honor that. We who are settlers here realize that we have not always been respectable guests on this land, or acted with justice and fairness, but we want to acknowledge with gratitude, our hosts who are the original peoples of this land. There are also grateful to our creator who has placed us here to share this land to work towards reconciliation and peace, and to be good stewards of the land which sustains us and gives us life. Thank you. Thank you very much, Diane and Elizabeth. My name is Shannon new felt you will have seen my territorial acknowledgement in the chat as well as I'm sitting here on the dish with one spoon wampum belt covenant territory, perhaps one of the few in the group who is not from the Atlantic. And as a staff person from Kyros, the member relations and network coordinator. So I thank you for your welcome into this gathering. Thank you for having some invitations to you all. I wanted you to know that there are many things going on nationally at Kyros, and I want to share a little bit of information with you. So, I'm going to first to put one note in the chat. There we go to let you know that this particular link is a great place to find out information about Kyros events. I want to share a few that are happening in November with you so I'm going to share my screen here. So I wanted to let you know that about a new, relatively new initiative called for the love of creation. It is a coming together of faith groups to work on climate justice. And for the love of creation Kyros is one of the founding members of for the love of creation. And there are many churches and church churches and religious groups and religious organizations that have come together, all to work on how we can express our love of creation and how we can advocate faithfully for creation. And I'm going to show you one more thing on the Kyros website if this will move fast enough. There is a relatively new page that is called advocacy and campaigns current actions. Here you will find a summary of current and ongoing actions. There are some petitions you can sign here some active petitions about human rights in the Philippines and full implementation of the peace accord in Columbia, and some ongoing long term work in the open for campaign work that began this summer for the migrant workers status for all and landed status now, and so on, for a number of different campaigns. So I'm going to encourage you to check out that page as well and I will just put this link in the chat. As well, and encourage you to look at those two sites and join in where you can to the various activities that Kyros as a coalition across the country is working towards. Thanks very much for your time and attention and I believe I'm passing this back to Elizabeth for a moment. Good intentions unintended consequences acknowledging racism in Canada and in ourselves. So good intentions. We all like to believe that we're not racist unintended consequences. Racism exists and non black, non indigenous, non persons of color benefit from and are complicit in this racism systems all around us are built to benefit white settler population. Without intentionally learning on covering the layers and working towards right relationship there will never be sustainable movement toward equity in the land. I do believe this is going to be a powerful weekend. The panelists who have gathered here to share their realities, their stories and their cultural histories with us are diverse in geography and an experience. They are teachers they are role models they are gracious. And there will be things shared that are difficult to hear and that are challenging to know how to respond. We ask that you sit with that discomfort, connect with others who are on this journey and allow it to move you toward action. If at any time you need to take a break to step away to gather your thoughts we encourage you to do so but please come back. Recently I saw a conversation on Twitter, where someone had said Canada is not as racist as the US. And Canadian response to that was yes we are we're just more polite about it. So we will begin our evening with a video by L Jones entitled Canada is so polite. It's our hope that this video sets the tone for open honest conversation throughout the weekend. Enjoy. Canada is so polite. It's like someone bumps into us in the Tim Hortons line and we say sorry. We're always saying sorry. Well, I mean not to the indigenous people for stealing their land and Harper only kind of apologized to residential schools while crossing the finger on his hand. And not to Angelique who we hanged and not to everyone we bombed in Afghanistan and not for the internment of the Japanese for the deaths on the railroad built by the Chinese and not for breaking the treaties or racist immigration policies but was so polite. We always say please. Well, not to our migrant workers and important nannies but they should get down on their knees because Canada is the promised land. No there was no slavery just the underground railroad. So forget about the ads for runaway slaves and the Halifax newspapers.  Just rosy cheeked white people playing in the snow in the ice. Just snowshoeing and canoeing all day and night. And okay those things were stolen from indigenous people too but we invented hockey, right? Oh wait it was black people who invented the slap shot and butterfly goal tending while we hide that all out of sight. And that's why Canada is so quiet because everyone in Canada is so nice. And let's not mention the Shellburn race riots or cross burnings or Africa Villa 1200 missing and murdered indigenous women but there's no genocide. Shhh it's rude to raise your voice in Canada. So let's just smile. Canadians aren't racist. We're peacekeepers. We're civilized. And Don Cherry's a national icon but Canadians aren't violent or bigots that's just hockey fights. Canadians are perky. Now there's no dirty secrets here. Canada is just quirky. Like we say Zed and not Z. But if you talk about racism we'll be like Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. There's no need for that here. Canada is never abusive. Canada is so inclusive. Canada is so inclusive and the proof is that we let other people be here. It's like I just stole your land and now I'm throwing a party but you can stand at the back if you show us ID. It's like, I just put you in the hospital. But here, let me start you an IV. It's like, what are you complaining for? You got six weeks of the Book of Negroes on TV. It's like, we're gonna hoard all the toys, but we might just give you one if you ask us nicely. It's like, we could acknowledge that you have things to offer us, but that's not likely. It's like, PK Soobin.  I mean, so, hockey, it's not about race. It's about character. We just don't want you to embarrass the country. It's just your attitude. We're not saying anything ugly.  There's no history of segregation here. That's why we wear Canadian flags or our backpacks when we travel abroad, because Canada has such a good reputation. Okay, we get to travel. You probably don't, but you just don't know how to teach English to those Asians. Or build houses in Africa. The country, of course, not the continent, Canadians are helpful because Canada is so tolerant, which means we know your culture is worse than ours, but we let you do all your primitive things because Canada is so confident, so confident that we know better than you because our way of doing things is just dominant. We even let you wear your hijab, unless it's Quebec. It's just unfortunate that your culture makes you so oppressed. It's not about racism. It's just about respect for our shared values. But we like your little costumes. They're so colorful because Canada is multicultural. We just wish that all you people of color could be more punctual. It's just the white culture is just more functional, but we just love diversity. And forget about how our majority of the country votes conservative. It's just amazing that so many different cultures go to our child's nursery. But then we complain when you get an affirmative action bursary. Canada's multicultural, as long as you put white people first. We like your food fun and fashion, but past that, isn't it kind of like racism in reverse?  We just wanna make sure that everyone's worthy because Canada has so much courtesy. We speak English and French. Okay, not perfectly. Okay, most people only know the French words for serials, but let's not be absurd. This is still an English country, or haven't you heard? There's no distinct societies in Canada. And that's why Canada is so bland. Nothing to see here. Just miles upon miles of stolen indigenous land. Just fishermen and farmers in fields of wheat because that's Canada's brand. Just fields of wheat in the outdoor ice rinks and all thy sons command. Now there's no guns of violence here. Just socialist healthcare plans and just ignore the environmental damage of the oil sands because Canada is so grand, so good at perpetuating this international scam. So sincere at pretending there's no blood on our hands because Canada's not like that. Canada's white as a lamb. And those other people, they're so angry, but true Canadians, just don't understand. Liv, it's your turn and we can hear you. We can't see you yet. You can hear me, good. Right now we're gonna be having our first panelist. Our first panelist, give you a second, it's Denise Cole. She says two spirit land protector, a mixed Inuit descent from Southern laboratory. Now living in Happy Valley, Gluce Bay Labrador. She is a board member of Grand River Keeper Labrador and member of the Labrador Land Protectors. Denise stands in resistance projects that threaten water, land, lives and cultures. She has been involved in the resistance to the Lower Church Hill Hydro-Progdon Labrador since 2011. This includes numerous nonviolent protection events and campaigns, which she has led to communication of court charges while performing ceremony and peaceful acts of resistance. Look for the hearing from you. All right, that's my cue. Thank you very much. And as said in the introduction that I am here in Gluce Bay Labrador, which is the traditional lands of the Inuit and the Inuit. And one of my first, I always sort of do this as my disclaimer, is that I cannot speak for all Inuit people nor indigenous people. I can only speak for myself and from my experience. And so that's what I bring this evening and I come in a humble way. And certainly with much gratitude on what we can learn and share together. So when I was asked to speak, it was, okay. So how do I capture the things that I see or have experienced being an indigenous two-spirit in this country? And that's a pretty broad, broad topic on how you narrow that down into a 10-minute conversation. So I'm gonna try by hitting on what I feel are sort of some key points within my own life. And the first one that I'm gonna, we're gonna start with, I'd like you to, I don't know if you saw it on the news, when Trudeau came to Happy Valley, Goose Bay and made a formal apology to the survivors and the families of residential schools. That was 2017, so three years ago. So he came, my mother was in that audience as a residential school survivor. And I remember as that was all happening was also, as in the introduction, I've been fighting along with many other indigenous and allies, the lower Churchill hydro project that's on our traditional lands and is flowing downstream to many more communities and basically contaminating an entire food web with methylmercury. And that we have much science and research and knowledge from our elders and knowledge keepers who tell us that that poisoning is real. And we also know that mega dams are killers to ecosystems. And so at the same time that that was happening, we had taken all formal processes to invite our prime minister and the minister of indigenous fairs, Carolyn Bennett, as well as our own federal member of parliament, Yvonne Jones, to a sharing circle with us at the same time and said, like in the spirit of truth and reconciliation, please come and sit with us and hear from us on something that's also impacting not just us for the next generations. And no matter what process we took in this diplomatic way of doing things, would they agree? We never did hear from our prime minister. We had allies in Ottawa who occupied Carolyn Bennett's office. And in that occupation, they were able to convince her to meet with us. So that was what it took to get her into the sharing circle. So at the, you know, a few hours after our prime minister shed tears and said, never again, and apologized and reminded us yet again, there's no relationship more important to him than the nation to nation with indigenous peoples that we sat with minister Bennett and with Yvonne Jones and spoke to how this project violates not only the United Nations declarations on the rights of indigenous people in numerous articles, but also the cause to action of truth and reconciliation and how the many parts were not being honored. And then the sheer fact that we are all human beings sitting here trying to talk about how we do not poison people, nor the foods or the animals that are a part of their ecosystem. You wouldn't think it's a conversation we still need to have, but it is. And the response that they gave to us after, you know, 20 or so of us shared and cried and gave voice to our stories that they said, we can't go backwards. This project has already started. And so we can't change it. Now, this project is backed by permits and federal loan guarantees and very much a political maneuvering for national energy grids. And so the idea that they couldn't stop it, they couldn't go backwards though they appreciated our hurt. I thought, what irony and sort of hypocrisy really that at the same time that they had apologized for something that they couldn't take back that they couldn't, you know? And I said to her, I said, so I wonder who it will be in 50 years or so that will come and apologize for this. And will it be with tears in their eyes too? Now, this is an ongoing thing within our country where we get lots of apologies, but very little action. So just to give a little bit of history, so the residential school systems, it also took court action to have that apology come here.  Now, we were left out because we had to prove that the five residential schools that existed on our lands for decades were really that. Even though the last residential school which was in Northwest River which is a half hour drive from me closed in 1980. So, you know, when we get this idea about, you know to take it over at those sorts of attitudes of, you know, this was long ago, this wasn't in my time very much.  And very similar to the stories that I have heard from individuals who went back home after residential school no longer feeling a part of there are still children who experienced the exact same thing right now. And as some of our indigenous groups push for inquiries as to how we have young people who are dying by suicide in group homes or how is it that we don't have the supports to make sure that kids in care can stay in community? You know, these things are happening today not hundreds of years ago. So I was talking to my mom a little bit about this and about talking tonight. And, you know, we sort of talked about all of these things that that continues to happen. And it made me think of, we talked about the Orange Shirt Day.  And while I see this is a good thing this is a part of the reconciliation work needs to happen. The fact that we need to still have a day and this is not incorporated directly into curriculum and that we don't learn about this. You know, I have a young person that I connect with who graduated last year who is learning more things from having conversations with me about the realities of colonialism and the truths of things that are happening to Indigenous peoples in Turtle Island than he ever learned in school and he graduated last year. So it's again, how do we wanna talk about this? You know, how do we want to do this work? We have 94 calls to action and truth and reconciliation yet we still have to fight tooth and nail for every one of them and they still are moving at a snail's pace. You know, we see things happening in certain areas where police show up in droves when it's Indigenous peoples who are taking a stand like we saw in 2016 with muskrat falls but when Indigenous peoples are the ones who are being victimized the response is very different. I remember with 20 of us, most of us women and elders and children standing against a wall of 150 RCMP officers which were sent from all parts of the country as part of a training for them to have an experience of what it was like to be in a protest environment. And I remember looking at people I love on their knees crying as they watch police protect heavy equipment and that those police as that heavy equipment was being pulled in on tractor trailers had their hands on their guns. I don't know exactly what they thought we were going to do but it was certainly an eye opener for me and when I had plain clothes, intelligence officers show up at my doorstep and threatened myself and my dog I was reminded things have not changed as much as I have been told they were. Quite recently, we had our own member of parliament sorry not member of parliament but our MHA so our member of House of Assembly which is our provincial representative. So he was reprimanded because he had made the comment this is his second comment of such that connected Indigenous people where he referenced an inoc homeless individual who was intoxicated as it's a shame that he chose that lifestyle with all the supports available to him. And this was in response to the fact that a town constable chose to grab that individual and forcefully and violently throw him down and handcuff him. Yeah, these are things we live with. So he hasn't been removed from office but he has now stepped down from that party and is running as an independent and the media quoted him as saying he's doing this so he can speak more freely not so he can repair the damage that he's done as a white individual in our community who is openly, blatantly making racist comments so I don't know what to speak more freely is going to look like. You know, we get lots of apologies but we still have some of the highest homelessness rates. We have incredible over the top four and five and more times the national level for suicides for violence, poverty. We still have very poor water quality. I know communities who have been decades with unboiled advisories or boil orders. But yet again, when the government wanted to move pieces of equipment for a energy project again for the Moskva Falls Hydro Dam they made a deal with the community and they fixed up their road. But it's okay for them to not have fresh water. These are things that are just realities. As I was working through this because I certainly do know people who are trying to work within policies that don't work within systemic government systems that were intended and built to fail. But they're trying to do work and I do, I work and connect with people who hearts are in the right place and I believe that that's part of the restorative justice or the reconciliation work that we need to do. But we're a long way off when we have broken systems and still decision makers who put economics ahead of people and in particular people who are marginalized. These are our lands yet we are never in a position to have any type of control or say or autonomy. They build indigenous governance systems that are meant to be colonial. And then they tell us to get over it or they tell us that we should be grateful. So there's a lot of work to do and I'm here because I wanna be a part of the team that does the work. Part of one of the things I wanted to do and I was writing up my notes and I said, well, I like, will I leave it in a positive note? Well, I say, we're strong and resilient and beautiful people, but dear God, like we've had to fight. So do I say, do I pull us up because we're so resilient when we've had a nation that's tried so hard to kill us? Like, I think I wanna highlight the fact that we have a nation that works so hard to kill us and we need to sit with that. And we need to have that uncomfortable trauma that's been carried on us for generations so that we all can carry it together. And when you carry that kind of trauma, eventually you know you have to take action. If I left you with this idea of, hey, it's all okay. It's not. So let's do better and let this be a place where we can do better. And I'm pretty sure my 10 minutes is up. So thank you, Nakamik. And I look forward to the conversation and the rest of the panelists. Thank you, Denise. That was really powerful. Told us things that haven't even thought about before. Our next presenter is Hussaini Raymond, who's a graduate of St. Thomas University in Fredrickton. He's co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Movement in Fredrickton. And advocacy is rooted in a passion for community empowerment and Black liberation. During this time at St. Thomas, he's recognized numerous inaugural Black History Month events using education advocacy as a tool to address anti-Black racism in his community. During this time with BLMF, Hussaini has led grassroots initiatives related to defunding the police and anti-oppression education advocacy for Black history to be incorporated in New Brunswick Public School curriculum. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say, Hussaini. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And thank you so much for sharing your powerful story and thoughts with us, Denise. I really resonated with a lot of what you were saying. So I'll just talk about briefly kind of the legacy of colonialism and historic barriers to Black folks here in Canada, particularly from an Atlantic perspective, and then how that translates to present day barriers and marginalization of racialized people in Canada that has often been erased as we watch that presentation, that wonderful poetry by Elle Jones talking about Canada is so polite. And a lot of these things have been deliberately erased from our history. It's not taught, it's covered up. We hear about the Underground Railroad. Everyone knows about that and how Canada rescued or slaves, free slaves. Our free people came to Canada to escape slavery from the United States, but no one learns about residential schools or the history of slavery and segregation that happened right here on this land. And that perpetuates the idea of this multicultural facade of Canada being so inclusive. And it's deliberate why these things aren't taught. And that's to maintain that national identity of being the most inclusive nation and comparing herself to the United States, which honestly is not a very high bar to set for ourselves. As human rights defenders and people who care about the inherent dignity of human beings. So I just like to touch on the experience or the historical relationship that Black people has had with this land, starting with Black loyalists that came here after the American Revolutionary War. And they were promised land here in Canada by the British crown if they fought on behalf of the British in the war. However, when it came to keeping their promise, again, the state has always been failing Black people and marginalized groups because when they came here, majority of them did not get the land that they were promised by the British crown. And the folks who did get land did not get any quality land in which they were able to sustain themselves. They often had to work for less and were paid less than their white counterparts here. And some Black folks came here as slaves with the white loyalists. So you had free Blacks who came here, but then you had Blacks who came here as slaves who still were subjected to harsh treatment here in Canada. So a lot of people don't even know that slavery existed on this land because that's deliberately not taught, but that was the experience of Black folks. And in fact, a lot of them actually had to leave Atlantic Canada because of the treatment they were receiving and the harsh realities that they were facing with housing and food insecurity. But even besides slavery, we have a history of segregation here. I know my Nova Scotia folks and Atlantic folks will know about Viola Desmond who was not able to even sit in the same area as white folks in the movie theater. And we tend to think of these things as far away, but in fact, that was only 74 years ago when Viola Desmond was refused a seat in the white area of the theater. So in the continuum of human existence, that is not that long ago. We have people here who are 74 years old. So in oral lifetime, and in those people's lifetime, we had segregation here in Canada and the last segregated school in Nova Scotia actually closed around 37 years ago. So again, we see that it's not long ago. So why don't people know about this history and legacy? And I would assert again that this is in order to continue this multicultural facade of inclusivity that L. Jones talked about and protecting the national identity as the human rights defenders and the beacon of human rights around the world when in fact we do have atrocious human rights violations happening in our own backyard. So, okay, a lot of people like to say this was so long ago, but what does that have to do with the present day realities? And I would argue that it's important to know and understand these historical barriers and marginalization of racialized people because it does affect their present day realities. For instance, black folks are face higher rates of poverty. And that's one thing. It's because there was not an equitable distribution of land or wealth from the black loyalists coming here, but then also segregation from job opportunities, Queens University's medical program did not accept black students until 60-something years ago. McGill University excluded black students. McGill's namesake actually owned slaves. So we have these social institutions that are supposed to be meritocratic, but even after slavery, we had the deliberate exclusion from participation in these institutions. Therefore, there was no or little to no way for social mobility for racialized people in this country. And that's the present day impact where you have high rates of poverty and violence. But now, because people don't know this historical context, it's easy to look at racialized communities who have trauma from colonization and have been excluded from participating in mainstream society and benefiting from the development of resources and judge and think these people are just not trying enough or working hard enough. But oftentimes black people are the hardest working people, but they're just not given the same equitable access to opportunities that white folks have often been granted. And even simple things such as the microaggressions that black folks have to experience on a daily basis. So microaggressions are kind of, someone describes them as kind of like mosquito bites. If you get one, it's okay. If you get two, all right, but if you get 10 mosquito bites per day, you're trying to have a nice evening in the summer outside and mosquitoes keep swarming you. But black folks experienced that because of the lack of education. They're seen as newcomers here. You have seventh generation black folks who have been here just as long as white folks, but they're still being asked, where are you from? As if they haven't been here for generations because there's this deliberate exclusion of the contributions of black folks to what we now know as Canada and all the positives, all the development, everything good is attributed to the contributions of white folks. Therefore, Canada is seen as the standard for citizen, a citizen or an ideal citizen of Canada is a white person. So even if your family has been here for generations, you have no accent. You're still being asked, where did you come from? As if you are an outsider to this land.  So that's another example of how the deliberate erasure of history and not teaching about the contributions and the history of black folks contributes to the further marginalization of black people in the current day. And a lot of people are just ignorant about a lot of these racial issues that I experienced firsthand on my university campus at St. Thomas University just coming here.  I've spent my life trying to carve my own identity and go outside of this box that society continuously puts me in because of stereotypes and how black folk people are portrayed in the media, in movies, like everything you consume. And I go first generation university student and the first thing I hear on campus is I was expecting you to be more gangster or more of a thug. So these are the type of microaggressions that black folks have to experience even when they're trying to defy the odds and step outside the stereotype, they're still being put inside boxes. And I see my time is about to expire, but maybe another time I'll be able to go into more details about some of the things that I touched on here. But I just wrap up to say thank you so much for having me and I look forward to the Q and A to answer any questions, particularly if anyone has any, I didn't get to really touch on the criminal justice system and the history, the racist history of the criminal justice system and policing and why it's imperative for us to reallocate police resources into communities in order to achieve true black liberation. And that's not just for black people, that would benefit everyone within our society because we need to focus and invest in communities and people rather than investing in institutions that don't work and further marginalizes and criminalizes racialized people. So that's also something that I could go into later on, but thank you so much. Thank you, Hezani, that was really powerful. Reflecting upon the whole of the microaggression, all the little things that continually irritate, that continually tear you down, very powerful. And now we're going to be hearing from, sorry, Tara Lewis. Hi, my name is Tara Lewis. I'm from Eskasoni First Nations here in Unamagi. That's in Mighamagi territory. Yeah, so I'm fighting the cold. So it's not COVID, it's a cold. I'm even grateful that I'm be able to talk this evening. I'm slowly loathing my voice. I just was on another panel, just prior to this one at the webinar, talking about the land protectors here, that's been, what's the systematic racism that's been going on here in Sonerville? On down in South Shore, Nova Scotia. So I'll just like to begin my story. You know, I, from the time I was in my mother's womb, there was a racism that was the happened to my mother. I was a twin and my mom miscarried my twin. When she was at the hospital, she was going to go for a DNC. And just what happens on the elevator, on her way to her, for her DNC, her specialist was there. And she asked her, like, why was she there that nobody told her, told her special, my mom's specialist why she was there. And she said that she had miscarriage. So the doctor had to fight with the nurses for my mother to go for an ultrasound. If they have, if they, if the specialist wasn't there at the time, my mom would have, they would have scraped me out of her womb. And that's a lot of things that happens with indigenous people here in North America that were not taken seriously in the healthcare system. And you could see that what happened, which it's a young, I'm drawing a break with her name right now, I'm just so tired. But that happens a lot in Canada. And luckily enough, I was able, I mean, you know, God for, thank God for that, the specialist to be there. But there's a lot of sterilizations that happens to a lot of Mi'kmaq women and not only Mi'kmaq, indigenous women here in Canada. And you could look through, and a lot of it is unknown because we haven't given up that form. There's a lot of shame into it, like for women, you know, that this happened and we're never believed in, with our stories. So I'd like to also say that, you know, language is also important for us indigenous people and my dad lost his language in residential school. So I'm a survivor. My parents are both survivors of residential school and they went to school in Shibinakiti in Shibinakiti. And my dad lost his language. My mom still has her language but she thought that it was important for me to have English being my first language given the fact that her own life experience having herself being first language being Mi'kma and having that broken English and looked upon as not being as educated and not having a high IQ, which is very intelligent. So she just felt like maybe that it would have been better for us to learn English. I felt it that microaggression racism in university and growing up on a reservation, I didn't have to deal with racism daily until I went to university. You know, you could tell, you know once they knew you're indigenous, you could tell just even by the look of you you were treated differently. And so, but this one story when I was in my professor's classroom, I mean, in his office I should say and we're having discussion and then there was one student younger than me came to his classroom that wanted to quit his course. She was very young. She was younger than me but intelligent. She had broken English. She quit articulate well what she was trying to say. So I spoke for her and I convinced her to stay in that classroom because I felt she can do it. And she was a friend of mine. After leaving, and she decided to stay and then once she left the office, the professor told me he was like, Tara, you're very articulate. And at the moment I thought, thank you, you know and then when I left his office, I just had this thing. What did he mean by that? It just didn't sit right. And I was thinking about it for weeks. I said, did he mean that I was articulate for an indigenous person because a lot of my people have broken English? And then at that I knew that that girl was very intelligent yet just because she had that broken English but she looked upon as though she wasn't intelligent or wouldn't she have, if I wasn't in that room wouldn't she wish she have even continued to do his course? And I think that's a lot of things that a lot of indigenous people have to face here in Canada. My time in Solnerville being a frontline woman and most people ask what are frontline women workers? What are frontline workers? And our job was to keep the peace because we were getting, it was where we were faced with terrorized action from non-indigenous fishermen and people have seen all the videos that were shared. And I was in Solnerville for maybe about a month back and forth from Escazoni to Solnerville and that was like alone seven hours and that took a lot of my time but being there and facing that racism firsthand it was very scary. I'm now two weeks home from being in from Solnerville and I believe a lot of me and a lot of frontline workers who are mostly women suffer from PTSD because we were there in the front lines, we're divided our men and the non-indigenous fishermen to keep the peace. So our men, we were there as peacekeepers and we would practice our song and our drum our ceremonies. It was very traumatic being there and just to deal with upfront racism firsthand like it was pretty scary. I never really dealt with anything like that before. There was microaggression racism but like right in your face racism where people didn't see you as human and didn't care. All they cared about was their own means and they want while we were protecting our fishermen's boats, they didn't care at what degree you could see it in their eyes. Like if we're standing their way at what length and you seen that, it was they burned buildings like and they burned, it was crazy being there. A lot of the times people ask, a lot of the questions that I guess asked like why would you even go to Solnerville?  And seeing my people being treated, how they were treated on social media broke my heart and I seen all those videos unfolded and there was this inner voice image that told me that I had to go. I had to leave my children for days on weeks, just keep on going back and forth and just trying to keep the bees and protecting our waters and our lands and our fishermen and our rights and just for us to be there to exist. And it's so disgusting that it's happening here in Canada in 2020. And I feel like there's always been racism here and but I believe that because what's going on in the US is giving people this safe thing for them to be okay with them acting the way they do so aggressively to be proud and okay with being racist and to act upon it and to do those terrorist attacks. Those were terrorist attacks that they were doing for Mi'kmaq fishermen. When I first got there that day at Solnerville, there was nobody at the wharf. Everybody at the time went to go eat except there was only four younger women who were protecting the boats. And I was one of them. And the men just came in and one by one they would wheel their wheels and just blown their wheels at us and just having these tactics trying to intimidate us. And they were drinking on top of that. And where was the RCMP? There was no RCMP. It wasn't until when more videos started towards almost the end of this month or last month I should say that more RCMP were calling. But if this was the other way around, like have they like in Bikov, in El Sebuksdok and Altingas, the other way around they got army men from when we are there fighting for our rights to save our lands when it comes to pipelines and stuff. But here we are, we're just practicing our treaty rights. It's a constitutional law and yet we have no protection. And that's just part of a lot of many systematic racism that's going on in this country. It's sad that like a lot of people like to believe that we're not like America. And I think that's so ignorant to say.  I just feel a lot of white people like to turn a blind eye and like to think that they're not racism. They're not races. And it's sad because if I feel it being, because I'm a person that's, I'm a hiker, I like I'll work paper and I love talking to people and I love my island. But yet I do feel it when I talk to people. You instantly, you could feel it when they first meet you. And once they, I can't hide that I'm not native. Looking at me, you can tell I'm indigenous. And you get that instant, that microaggression racism. And, but then I'm here bubbly talking and then you guys here. And I try not to have that stop me from having a conversation with them. And I'll end up even though if I feel it, I still talk to them. And you could feel the energy changing.  There's just such a divide. And it has to do with a lot of the times with centralization here in Nova Scotia where we're displaced from our land into these small communities. And there's this, we don't have to deal with these native people, let's just throw them to the side and we don't have to deal with them. And we weren't really allowed to leave our reservations until a certain time. We weren't even allowed to vote. And that the history of racism in Canada, which is in the indigenous people, it's, you know, it, I feel like education is the key with it all. And like these fishermen, this non-indigenous fishermen is down in Digby, you know, I felt sorry for them. I felt like they're uneducated and they didn't know about who we were. It felt like, you know, they're telling us, this is our land. And we're like, well, this is Miigamagu. This is unceded territory of the Miigma people. We never gave up our land here on our land. This is our water. This is our resources.  But yeah, but I'm gonna stop time because I am losing my voice and I feel like I'm gonna, it's breaking up bad. But yeah, I wouldn't end on that note. But yeah, thank you for having me. Thank you, Tara. That was very powerful. You may have a sore voice, but you are very articulate in telling us the truth about what you're facing. So thank you very much. Tara Lewis is from Escazoni First Nation, Unumaki, sorry, I'm having trouble reading. And during many examples of Kenonian mindset, she tells us, embrace our McMahki culture, nature, medical rights and traditions allowed me to raise seven intelligent, respectful and independent children. I'm having, sorry, I'm a hiking ambassador. I have Umaki promoting my beautiful island through social media and traveling and meeting various people across the world that's open to my eyes, heart and soul towards demonstrating the importance of our protection of McMahki treaty rights. Thank you so much. So I'll introduce Brittany Drummond is an African-Canadian born and raised in Cole Harbor, Nova Scotia. Throughout her life, Brittany has dealt with racism in its many forms. Uncertain of how to change it, she remained quiet. After recently deciding to go back to school at the age of 28 to study for a paralegal degree, her passion for equality was awakened. She has stepped up as an administrator for the anti-racism ministry of the Anglican diocese of Nova Scotia and PEI. Her hope is to eventually have some laws of the criminal code of Canada changed to better protect minorities. So Brittany, we're pleased to have you and looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you. I don't know if everybody can hear me all right or if we're good. Sounds good, Brittany. Can hear you. Thanks. Thank you. So yes, I wanna dive in to kinda give a little bit of background about myself on how I got to where I am today. As mentioned, I did grow up in Cole Harbor. It was a predominantly, still is a predominantly white neighborhood. I think through my entire life, I may have been, if not the only black kid in my class, there were less than four of us. So that just generally speaks to how white it was. I was also kind of like a victim of, I shouldn't say kind of, I was a victim of bullying because of the color of my skin. I did manage to find great friends who accepted who I was as a black person. But it did generally get worse as I made it from elementary through junior high to high school where the thing was that I was either too black for white people or too white for the black people once I got to high school. And it was generally, I was very well-spoken. I didn't speak from the streets as a lot of other black kids in my school may have. And it didn't just stop in school. Like I was, there was racism at work where I would be well overqualified for a job and I would be passed up because now they would never, I don't think they'll ever admit it was because of the color of my skin but you know it's there. I mean, I worked for, so it was for four years and was stuck in a cashier position where other employees who came after me were being promoted even though I was overqualified and ready for supervisory roles and manager positions never happened. So I unfortunately kept it to myself and I just accepted it as that's what has to happen. And I moved through my life pretty much with that in mind until recently where I have family across Canada and in the States. And you see on the news of the best way to put it is you see on the news like the police brutality and just the mentality that everybody has against blacks, not even just blacks minorities, if you're a Mexican, black, Italian, Chinese, if you're a minority, there's always a, I don't know the right word to explain it. There's always a assumption that you're supposed to behave a certain way. And so for me, it was I could never lose my temper.  And then you go to places like East Preston and they don't, they don't have that. They don't have, they have one, pretty much one main paved road, but a lot of the side streets are full of potholes or gravel, they don't have sidewalks, they don't have street lights, they don't have crosswalks and it's because they're treated as underprivileged, but to me, they're the most blossomed community, including Dartmouth and Halifax. Like that is where to me, greatness is coming from. And I know that personally because in my family, I had one cousin who came from East Preston and she showed the world that she was a great force to be reckoned with because she became a big basketball star in Halifax, not just in Halifax, she played for Team Canada and she showed that even though she came from East Preston that there was more to her than where she came from. And that's what I want. Everybody, every minority to be able to say that they come from more than what we assume that they should be able to do. And so my hope is I'm starting now to work towards getting the government to acknowledge that a lot of the laws in place now, while they are made to serve and protect everybody, there are certain loopholes that could be granted that are designed to hurt minorities. So for example, one of the things that I've been in discussion with, because I'm also an administrator for an anti-racism group for the Anglican diocese of Nova Scotia and PEI, one of the discussion was that there was no actual law against hate crimes. But the truth of the matter is there is in the criminal code of Canada, however, where it says that certain people will be prosecuted if they commit a hate crime, there's also a accept unless you fall under this category.  And that is what we need to stop. We need to take away those exceptions. If you commit a hate crime, you need to own up to it. You need to be punished for it. And that's the end of the story to me. So that is where I'm at right now. I'm trying to get in contact with whoever I can. I wanna take it as far up as Justin Trudeau if I have to, but I wanna get this changed. And I'm asking, I mean, if you guys wanna be involved, that's where we have to start is we have to start challenging the laws and challenging our government officials to say that there's too many loopholes that allow people to get off on their crimes. And I think that's really all I have to say on this. I'm just gonna bring up quickly the list of the exceptions. It's, I know most of it off my heart because I've been trying to not only get it changed but wrap my head around it myself. But one of the major exceptions is you will not get charged for hate crimes if you claim and can prove it's against your religion because I'll take the Christianity Anglican religion, for example, in the Bible, there are certain rules and expectations and especially like against gay marriage that we're still trying to interpret the right way. And so I mean, someone can make a hate crime against a gay couple and say, it was in my religion and that's why I did it. And it literally will hold up in court as I don't know the word I'm looking for, but like as the exception and that will allow them to, I'm hoping in most cases it's judge and jury but I mean, it gives them a great case to get off of whatever charge they're being charged for. I'm just trying to find the whole list. I had it bookmarked and now I can't find it. So maybe Brittany, we'll let Lyd moderate a few more questions. And if you have that, when you find a good link you could put it in the chat to share with folks. Does anyone have any questions that they would like to share? So feel free to address your question to a particular person. Elizabeth, I wonder if it would be a good moment to give people the questions before we dive deep into the Q and A. The questions we want everybody to think about for tomorrow. Sure. So how do we feel about what we've heard? What action might we take considering race relations in Canada? What does truth look like to you or to us? What does truth look like as we consider race relations in our country and in our own daily lives? So Laura Hunter asks, I'm curious what the current status of the Muscat Falls Dam is, are the land protectors still active? Denise, would you be able to speak to that? Absolutely. And well, a lot in the short of the status of the project is that it's continuing. It is not quite operational yet. There has been a few different issues but they have done a really good job using both the Supreme Court of Provincial Court to lock up a lot of individuals into court systems with civil and criminal charges for the protection work that we were doing. And most of those charges actually took close to four years and the majority of them were thrown out or found not guilty, but it was a really good tactic to make people afraid to continue in the protest work. I once the company brought the injunction in place and that was being reinforced by police, including like I said, those 150 that came in. We are active in different ways. What I'm doing right now as a part of that action is continuing to bring forward a voice. We have joined up with some like Dam Watch International and with Tiskatan out of Maritoba and we continue to work and create allies because the Lower Churchill Project is two phases. The first phase was Musgrad Falls. The second phase is Gull Island. So we're still working actively, including with Grand River Keeper Labrador. You can find us on Facebook. There's also a website for Grand River Keeper Labrador. And we're doing things like we do have an education subcommittee that's doing different webinars and speaking engagements and trying to build up momentum. We also have a training subcommittee and are looking at launching a 10-day canoe trip down the river next year. So yeah, we are still doing things because water is our lifeblood and the lifeblood of Mother Earth. So protection is not something you do just for protest. It is a way that we live. And that's the difference. So sometimes people see that the case of this is the justice cause. We're all know this is a way of life and it's our responsibility as a two-spirit indigenous person on these lands to not just bring voice to my ancestors but protection for the next generation. So we will always be active. But not gonna make good question. Thank you, Laura. Thanks, Denise. Thanks for sharing all of that work that you're doing. I'm gonna try to pass it around to the various panelists. And so there was a question for Hussoni as well. And hoping you could talk a little more about the defunding of police and what that could look like in Canada versus the US structures and systems. What could that look like in Canada? Yeah, I think first we have to acknowledge that there's police and state balance here in Canada as well. Just this year we had two indigenous folks that were murdered by police here in New Brunswick. So it's in Toronto, there's a lot of carding and even in Halifax there was reports of carding and police brutality. And I think that stems from the inherent idea that black folk and racialized folks in general are inherently more criminal or prone to criminal activity. Thus our communities are over police and then subsequently resulting in higher participation or higher rates of arrest and criminalization and over representation in the criminal justice system and prisons. So I just like to give that context and also to note that policing, a lot of these policing institutions were founded on racist ideals and actually enforce the rules of the slave owners and the colonizers, for instance, in the United States. The first form of police forces were actually used as slave patrol to capture slaves who were just trying to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and exploitation of their labor. Here here in Canada, the RCMP was founded on policing indigenous communities. When indigenous people weren't allowed to leave their reserves without official authorization, it was the RCMP that would police them. And if someone would see an indigenous person, they'd call the RCMP on them to check to see if they had permission to be off their reserves. So you have to understand that this history of policing racialized neighborhoods, there's already this inherent distrust. And again, these things aren't that long ago within a generation or two. So we have to recognize that. And also that the police have never meant safety for some communities. For some communities, racialized communities in particular, the police have always meant violence because the police have always been called on them to protect white people. If you were on social media, active on social media earlier this year, you saw the white lady in New York who's a Canadian and how she weaponized her whiteness. When she called the police, she deliberately talked about this black man is threatening me when the guy was literally just standing there and telling her to put her dog on a leash. But that's because a lot of white people know that when they call the police, the police is inherently unsafe for racialized people and will defend the interests of the white individual because they're always seen as the innocent. And even in present day examples, as Taurus pointed out and Denise, in when there's violence against racialized people, the police stay neutral and don't want to get involved or protect the perpetrate of the violence. But if racialized people stand up for their inherent rights, such as to be free from slavery or their inherent right to fish or any of these, their right to freedom of movement, police were used by the state to actually combat their liberation. So putting that history out there to contextualize what I'm about to say next that one, police have never been safety for a lot of our communities, but also police are ineffective in preventing crime. So we call police when a crime has already been committed. There's a violent crime we call the police or we call the police on the most vulnerable in our society.  And instead of investing in affordable housing, we investing the police to call the police on people who don't have somewhere to sleep. I am in conversations with the local police force and one of the guys told me that oftentimes banks call them from in Toronto and say, get this homeless person out of the ATM in the dead of winter. So again, we think police are the solutions to all their problems.  The police is not gonna solve homelessness. They're just gonna take this human with inherent dignity out and put them out in the cold to freeze or lot them up in jail and further criminalize them when we could invest that money that we're investing in this institution that's not working to investing community, investing affordable housing, investing in mental health supports, investing in adequate food services, people stealing food and we call the police lot them up, criminalize them. Why don't we think, why are people, why are we in a society with so much abundance that we have people who are going without basic food? Obviously, if you don't have food, you're not thinking long-term, you're thinking, how can I get food today? So why don't we invest in making sure that everyone has their basic needs met and research shows that investing in communities in these ways, investing in, proactive means of crime prevention, such as housing, mental health support, addiction support, food and clothing security. And when people's needs are met, they're less likely to commit crimes. So that's what defunding the police is about. Even in both the Canadian and the US context, it's about shifting from investing in the system that criminalizes people and criminalizes poor people, criminalizes racial people and see them as the enemy and a threat and that doesn't do anything but lot them up and brutalize them and subject them to violence when we could shift that money and investing it into preventative things, preventative crime prevention. So homelessness is a problem, investing homelessness, not in police to arrest the homeless. So that's the premise. And also I'd like to note that this is not just for black folks. Defunding the police won't just benefit black and indigenous communities or people of color. It will benefit everyone because these services will be made available for everyone and it's for collective liberation and freedom and everyone being able to live a life of dignity. So I think it sounds radical but when you interrogate it, it sounds like a logical solution, but sorry, is my time being finished? I'll go ahead. Okay. Just to add to that, the idea of how the RCMP are being used as corporate security like we have so many projects that are happening throughout our nation, whether it's within West Elton and the pipelines or when fracking in the Brunswick, us with Muscat Falls, it's that huge amounts of money and resources are now going into the RCMP to make them very accessible for corporations to bring in court injunctions and the first response is RCMP in massive amounts and the amount of money, like I know here there was that chup down in Muscat Falls for the 11 days or whatever it was and they put a price tag to what they said that protesters cost the company and stoppage but did not in turn tell us the millions that were spent in sending close to 500 RCMP into our communities. So there's a huge amount of money that's going into RCMP to break up blockades or railways to force pipelines to get through. So it's, and as we've seen different movements that have happened within our urban settings, it's who do we see come out in droves? It's the RCMP. So I'm with you, Hussain. That's exactly what we need to be doing. And it begs the question, who is the police serving and protecting? Is it the vulnerable? Is it us or is it whoever has the most power to tell them what to do? So I think all are civil liberties. And the last thing I'll say, I know my time is finished, but this is not to say there won't be a role in our society, for instance, for people who investigate crime, that might be a role. There might be a role for people who I'll put quotations over crime. There might be a role for people who when they're serious instances or threats, there might be a role for a certain group of a small group of people to do that. But right now we have this massive budget. City of Frederickton invests is over 20 million in policing, but less than half a million in affordable housing and police, so reducing the scope of these people to a small thing to focus on what they're actually might be good at or purpose, they might have a purpose there, but shifting most of that money back into communities. And that's what will solve issues of crime. Thank you both. And I wanna give Tara and Brittany another chance yet, but Elizabeth has something to say. Thank you all. Thank you to the panelists for sharing in your own fabulous, clear story piece. And we're gonna hang around for a few more minutes for those of you who would like to, but I also want to encourage folks to take the questions, take what you've heard. And if you need to leave the meeting, please feel free to leave the meeting. And if you want to stay and continue in conversation, let's do so for a few more minutes. And then we will all come to the time when we say, thank you, this has been fabulous, but we need to call it a night and gather again tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock. We're going to gather again and have some more conversation. So thank you. I saw a question in the chat requesting the questions to the group be emailed out, and I can do that after the end of this evening.  So in the charter of rights and freedom, it actually will say, I believe, that hate crime, no, sorry, it says everyone has the following fundamental freedoms, freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of thought, belief, opinion, expression, including the freedom of the press and other media of communication, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association. But there is a, within the government, they do allow them to enforce some limits. And hate speech, of senators and defamation are common categories of restricted speech in Canada. So if it does come to hate speech covered under the fundamental freedom or the freedom of expression. Thanks, Brittany. Are you still with us? Having a little internet connection. There's noises outside my apartment and I don't know what they are. Could I add to that just briefly, that question to hate speech? Sure. So I think in some, the idea is everyone has rights, but there are also, no right is absolute and there's also responsibilities with those rights and the repercussions that come from those. So you might have the right to say stuff, but that doesn't mean that if you go be on a certain point, the government doesn't have the authority to put certain limitations on what you're allowed to say, which is, in this case, hate speech goes beyond that reasonable limit, which is why it's a criminal or can be a criminal offense. Thanks.  It's from Meryl. I don't know if I don't know if she's still in here. Oh yeah, I see her. She asked quite a number of questions. Do you want to maybe just summarize a little bit about your experience with that group? Yeah. So believe it or not, the group that I'm a part of was actually started by a group of white people. Then they brought me on kind of just to make sure that they're not overstepping any boundaries, but our goal is to make churches in the Anglican faith a little bit more diverse. And it's not just like diverse for black people or anything, it's diverse against, or diverse for minorities. The church that I go to though is amazing. I've been going steadily for 23 years now, give or take, since 1997. And they've always have accepted and included me not just based on like my color. We have hymns, like we have a South African creed hymn that we sing once a month, almost once a month. They do recognize Black History Month. And there's, I can't even like get into it all about what they, how they made me feel included. But they also supported, I did start a second where we watch, right now we're watching a movie called The Hate You Give. And then after the movie, I lead a discussion on the movies about like police brutality against African Americans. So I lead kind of like a discussion based on like how we can change kind of like what we're doing tonight, how we can be better allies for those who have to faces on a daily basis. Not just in the States, but in Canada. And I mean, when I brought that program forward in my church, they were eager to get something started. And so like it's, it might be hard, but I guess it's just the approach on how you wanna start it. And I mean, if you do have something that you want to start within your own church, Meryl, you can email me and I'd be more than happy to like help get something started for you. That goes to anybody. I'm always, I'm not like a pro at it, but I'm always willing to at least try.  Cause sometimes it can be too much, but I wanna get that out there that, you know, there is a room for change. I hope that answers your question. Thanks, Brittany. I wanted to also direct a question to Tara. So Tara, I'm not seeing all of, there you are. You are still with us. Are you ready to take a question? I'm so there. What was the question? There was a question earlier about education. And if you were able to say a little bit more about that, but I was also thinking about the first two questions that went to Denise and Hussoni, a question of where are things currently, if you are able to say a little bit more about the current situation in Solmarville and with the fishers, what's continuing to happen, but also what's your sense of policing in that situation and what's your perspective on policing and what could make the situation better? So that's kind of three questions in one. I'll let you start where you want. The current situation in Solmarville right now is our Mi'kmaq fishermen are still fishing. There's been recent news that member two bought clear water. So that's gonna be a lot of the non-native fishermen's bosses is gonna be Mi'kmaq people. We don't know too much of it right now, so especially myself. So there's more details to come in the future about everything right now. I'm very pleased to hear about that. And it's something to refer to. It's been two weeks since I've been away from Solmarville. It has been quite down since the last time I left, especially there hasn't been that many terrorists, I call them a terrorist attacks on our Mi'kmaq fishermen, but they have, I know with the fishermen, well, with the frontliners and people who are protecting our fishermen on land, but on water, I believe that the fishermen gears are still being cut and hauled. And that's been ongoing for decades now. I've heard a lot of stories about a lot of fishermen generation after generation that it's been, this has been ongoing. It's just been more so spoken about just through social media and that we as indigenous people, we have our phones that can cover this situation that's going down in Solmarville, the racism tactics that's been going on down there. Ever since the injunction that has been placed about three weeks ago, a lot of it has quite down. So with the injunction, it made history being that indigenous people having to place injunction. Usually it's against us, especially when it comes to pipelines and stuff like that, companies place injunctions with us when we're protesting to protect our lands. This is Solmarville made history with the Mi'kmaq fishermen placing an injunction to protect the wharf and the people. So, history was being made there. And what were the other questions? Sorry, getting late, I'm tired. It is getting late and we will be wrapping up for the air. Yeah, for the hours. Education, there's education. I believe that we as indigenous people, we shouldn't have to educate people. We're busy with our lives. It's hard to just having to give that, I feel like sometimes we're placed that responsibility in our hands and it shouldn't be the case. Education should have already been established. Canada's sovereignty to protect its national image. So this is where it stems from. So we need to look on our leaders. We need to fund more programs and hire to First Nation people to educate people. I know a lot of my friend who is white told me he never learned about indigenous history or anything about indigenous people until he was 23 in university. 23 in university. I mean, to learn about First Nation people in Canada, like I couldn't believe it and we're neighbors. I'm from Escazoni, he's from across the lake in East Bay near Big Pond. So it's like, and that's only about 60 kilometers away. So he was never educated in middle school or in high school about indigenous history. And you know, but yeah, we need to look on our leaders to get the funding here across Canada and it needs to be taught early in middle school and as early as middle school. Yeah, so that's what I gotta say about that. I'm losing, I'm literally losing my voice. Thank you, Tara. Thank you so much to all the panelists. I'm not sure that we've covered all the questions but we perhaps covered as much as we can in one evening. Elizabeth, do you have some closing words for us? Well, I'm kind of feeling overwhelmed. With a whole set of feelings and emotions and pondering and like what now, what next, what to do. And so I hope that when we gather tomorrow that we will be able to come together and have further conversation about what does this mean, this conversation, what we've heard this evening, what does it mean, what does it mean for me, what does it mean for us as Canadians? And I listen to that L. Jones and it makes me mad because I've had that experience of being a polite Canadian and without any thought, just be, but I want to encourage us all to take what we've heard and let it sit and rest with us while we rest and come back if we're able tomorrow afternoon and continue the conversation and be willing to engage in what it means to be for some of us allies, what does that mean? What does that mean and how do we do that? So thank you to the panelists for your sharing so honestly and openly with us and thank you to all of you who joined us in community this evening and let's come back tomorrow. Yes, and hold on folks because we are blessed to have all of our panelists back tomorrow and Denise Cole has offered to close us in a good way. Thank you. Yes, part of my responsibilities is to hold ceremony and so as I'm listening to this happen and I know we've opened up many doors and it can be heavy, the work that we do and Tara talked about the front line, right? That's very much we hold these gifts and then we share these gifts and so with all of this when you're, because what we're doing is opening up trauma and when we open up trauma, other trauma that all of us experienced it's in our blood memory if it's not in our direct memory and so I just would like to ask, you know, creator another earth to hold us off closely this evening and to allow us to close those doors and to cleanse our hearts and cleanse our minds and to bring us tomorrow with ears open and in a way of sharing and to know that when we come into this circle it's because we all collectively want to create something better for the next generations so that we can hold the pain but we can also hold the healing. So I just ask that creator be with us and to thank everyone for their energy and their sharing and putting their hearts out in such a beautiful but powerful way and that I ask the creator holds us all closely and brings us all back again safely tomorrow. Nakamik, thank you and blessings and good energy, light and love and just very grateful to be in the circle with you all.


I'm Dan Leif. I go by Fig. And this is Figments on Reality, season one episode eight. And again, we're going to talk about matters with regard to the terrible withdrawal from Afghanistan. I want to talk about military accountability, because it's so important that we hold our leaders accountable and that we address failure in the armed forces. It seems of late we've focused on personal failure, not mission failure. But we need to address mission failure. And when somebody fails in their mission, they need to be held accountable. The usual preface for relief of somebody from command is having lost confidence in so-and-so. They're fired. Well, I have not seen anything confidence inspiring about recent weeks with regard to Afghanistan. So clearly the table has been set. But I want to take a historical look from my own experience and from history at military accountability and talk about how easy it is to do and why we should do it, how we should do it. My own introduction to accountability for mission failure came 40 years ago. I was a young captain here at Headquartered Specific Air Forces in Honolulu, Pickham Air Force Base at the time. And as a member of the standardization and evaluation team for the command, I attended mishap briefings, the out brief of a mishap investigation after an aircraft crashed. And I went to one of those and sat in the cheap seats as a young captain while the three-star got the briefing on what had happened and why. And it was fortunately not a fatal accident, but it happened to be the third accident in the same squadron at the same base within, I think, a year. So within the tenure of the end squadron commander. In this case, I don't remember who was a maintenance error or a pilot error, but there was really no culpability for the commander. It just happened. And at the end of the briefing, the three-star commander of Pacific Air Forces said to the colonel head of the accident board, okay, thanks. And Lieutenant Colonel So-and-So, the squadron commander is effectively relieved. He's fired. And the board president, who apparently knew this guy, protested and said, but wait, sir, it's not his fault. And the general lost three airplanes in a year. And the colonel said, yeah, but he's a good guy. He's just unlucky. And the three-star said, I don't care if he's unlucky or good. I don't have time to find out. He is relieved, effective immediately. And so he wasn't culpable for this, but the mission had failed. Losing three airplanes is a mission failure. And like I said, doesn't have to be fair. So he was relieved. That has stuck with me in all of my time as a commander at various levels. I've held that as the right way to look at it. If you fail at the mission, you have to be held accountable. And I'll tell more about that in a bit. But firing a military leader is not rare. And there are some high-profile cases, like General Douglas MacArthur was fired by President Truman in April of 1991. April of 1951. Thank you. Look at the statement here. With deep regret, I have concluded that General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur, is unable to give his wholehearted support to the policies of the U.S. government. And certainly, there were policy disagreements and disconnects between President Truman and General MacArthur. So he was fired. Why wasn't he fired six months earlier is my question. When he failed at the mission, we see here Marines in the chosen reservoir and MacArthur's failure to recognize and respond to, in a timely manner, the massive intervention of Chinese troops in Korea led to, first of all, a very significant defeat in the U.S. forces being pushed back south of Seoul and thousands of casualties. Okay, mission failure. And you can argue that MacArthur didn't know that his intelligence people botched the assessment, that they hid information from him. I don't care. He failed at the mission. You're fired. But that's not what happened. And I feel strongly enough about that, that one time in my own career, I applied it to myself. I wasn't yet in command, but on the same day that I was notified in March of 1990, that I would be given command of a fighter squadron, the triple nickel fighter squadron, Luke Air Force Base. I was an operations officer, the number two in command of another fighter squadron there. And an hour or so later after my wing commander gave me the good news that I'd be a squadron commander, one of our aircraft crashed. The pilot had entered an unrecoverable skit spin condition. He ejected, fortunately, he was safe and uninjured, the jet, of course, a total loss. While they appointed an interim colonel to begin the investigation, they always do that and then bring in a permanent board that takes a month or more to fully examine the cause of accidents. And the interim board president jumped to a hasty conclusion that this pilot had done something unauthorized with his flight controls, and he was at fault. This was hours into the investigation.  And I said, sir, the wing commander alluded to the fact that my opportunity to command a squadron was at risk. He said, I said, sir, first of all, I am responsible for the operations. I'm the operations officer. I'm confident that we are running a good operation and that the pilot mishap pilot was acting in accordance with regulations. And if I'm wrong, then I don't deserve to be a squadron commander. And I really felt that way. I was pretty confident that we were doing things right. But if we weren't and I was unaware, that's mission failure. So shame on me and find another squadron commander. As it turned out, he was operating in accordance with regulations. And a couple months later, I took command of the triple nickel and moved on as you can tell. But I did need to be held responsible. And I was fine with that. Now, let's ask ourselves, what do we punish these days in the military? Punish it might not be the right word. What do we relieve commanding officers for? You know, if you run your ship around, that's there's a pretty good chance you'll be relieved. It's so high profile and such high risk that the Navy is quick to punish that if you will. But generally, the big high profile cases of relief of command is related more to indiscretions or abusive behavior or disagreements with those above you, not mission failure. And I'd say a couple of examples. Navy Captain Brent Crozier was relieved of his carrier command for raising issues about COVID and the mission risk of that. He was concerned about mission risk, raised it and was relieved. Now, you can argue that he didn't raise it in proper channels, maybe. But in any case, his concern was the mission, rightly so. And he raised his concerns and got the hook. For what he said, not what he thought or what he was trying to do. There's a very high profile situation that's similar to this. Thanks, Facebook, for sharing this with the world, where a US Marine Lieutenant Colonel named Scheller was publicizing his views on Afghanistan and they were not positive. He asked a pretty good question about what's being done and how leaders are reacting. I'll read it because this is his question. I'm not saying that we've got to be in Afghanistan forever. But I am saying, did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, hey, it's a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic air base, before we evacuate everyone? Did anyone do that? And when you didn't think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, we completely messed this up? That's a fair question, I think. It doesn't take much hindsight to look back and say, that's a fair question. What is the answer? We'll get to that question later when I talk about who to relieve. And a reminder that figments on reality is non-political. And I try not to get vitriol. And I'm not going to suggest individuals who should be fired. I'm going to talk about where the responsibility should be assessed and addressed. We've been at war in Afghanistan for 20 years, 20 years. And necessarily, we haven't succeeded. You might say we succeeded early on in negating the Al Qaeda threat. But overall, we have not succeeded. Who's been fired for that mission failure? Nobody I know. There have been some disagreements, some public disagreements that got people moved on, but not, hey, you didn't do the job. And it doesn't matter that they were given a difficult job. They took it. They accepted the responsibility. Life's not fair. In fact, when I interviewed to be a squadron commander, after the incident I spoke of earlier, I had to go have a personal interview in the office of the three-star numbered Air Force commander. It was a very interesting interview. And one of the things, fortunately, I knew about it beforehand, in a little psychological warfare, the three-star pointed to a place on his wall, a blank space, and said, what does that sign say? And I knew the answer, thank heavens. I had a little intel from my friends who were squadron commanders, said, sir, it says life's not fair. Okay, it isn't fair. You took the responsibility for whatever reason you failed. Sorry, dude, or do that. Move on. The question isn't just what and how we punish, but it's also what we reward. And we reward darn near everything these days. And much of what we reward is not mission-related. And that annoys me, and I'm going to cite myself as a personal example. I've got this lovely picture, my last picture on active duty official photo. Look at me. I'm highly decorated. Okay, I guess I am highly decorated. But the truth is that more than half of those ribbons on my chest are about just being there or being part of a group. Fewer than half are my individual accomplishment. Okay, I think I should have a lot less ribbons. I don't think I should get a participation ribbon. And by the way, the ribbons on my chest, some are for operations in combat by me. But there's no V device, which signifies valor. I did my job. I think I did my job pretty well. But this over-recognition and the interest of incentivization is ridiculous. And we should do it less. Commanders are responsible for the mission and mission failure. And when you try to assess it and say, okay, who gets called on the carpet, who gets relieved, it isn't simple. I'll grant you that. There's always a web of culpability generally above and below the commander. And maybe a subordinate screwed up, as in this, that F4 accident case that I said at the start of this show. Maybe they got bad or unachievable guidance from above. Fine. But they are the commander. They're uniquely responsible. And thus must be held uniquely accountable. Now, the two things have complicated it further. And I think one is the information age, Facebook, social media, everything is in the public. It's very difficult to do things quietly. And it all has a political tone. As I look at Facebook and Instagram and everything else about the situation in Afghanistan, I find that we're asking ourselves the wrong questions. We're talking about the wrong things and we're attributing political blame, not mission failure blame. And that makes it hard to hold people accountable, but it doesn't make it impossible. And in the, along the lines of the, it isn't fair rule of thumb, people often get into, leaders often get into the people versus mission debate. What's more important than people are the mission. And frankly, I believe that because of sensitivity within sensitivity is good when used in small doses, that we tend to default to people first. And as a military leader and as a senior defense department of defense civilian here in Hawaii, I always said, that's baloney. That's not always how I said it, but it's baloney. People don't come first. The mission does all of these.  You treat them well and you do incentivize them. You meet their needs, personal and professional, mostly professional, but when push comes to shove, it's the mission. And the sensitivity to people's feelings or, well, this will look bad on Joe or Jane's records. I don't care. I'm lucky. And I've fired people as a commander for mission failure. I didn't like doing it, but I didn't hate doing it either because it was necessary because the mission came first. And I'd always sit down directly and say to them, and there are probably five significant cases where I relieved a combat commander or second in command and moved them on to something else. I would always sit down with them and say, first of all, this is my decision. And if you want to be mad at somebody, I'm the guy. But as the group or wing commander, this is my assessment. I care more about the mission so you are no longer in whatever job they were in.  And nobody likes failure. Well, I don't think anybody likes failure. One guy held a grudge to the very end. Fine. Fine. It's the mission, not his feelings. And you have to do it quickly. As I spoke to leadership audiences in sometimes in universities or military schools to commander training programs in the Air Force, I would always say if it ever enters your mind that somebody needs to be fired, relieved, moved on, then do it right now. Because if you get that firing your thought process, you have a problem. It's a mission problem. And your job is the mission. So address it. Now, I also encourage them to do an assessment about why they were failing before they reached that conclusion. Did they have the tools? Did they have the guidance? Did they have the right people, the right resources? And if they didn't help them out, you know, don't hold them only accountable. They have to have the tools to be able to achieve the mission. You can't expect people to make something out of an error. So that's my view. If somebody fails at the mission and can't succeed, move them out. And if you don't do that, you pollute the culture of the organization you're in. And if we don't do it with regard to Afghanistan, we're going to poison the culture in our military. And that's very dangerous. And I'll talk about that again a bit more. So who should be fired? You know, I'm not going to talk about politicians. That's not my intent today. But as I said in part two of the shows I've done on Afghanistan, it's not a failure of intelligence or politics or military. It's just a failure. And there is certainly addressable, there are addressable military elements of that failure. So somebody ought to be fired in the military. And it should be based on mission failure. And not just based on mission failure. Explain that way by whomever above them makes the decision to release. Georgian is a good guy, served their country honorably. I appreciate that service. But in this case, they failed. So they're gone. Because we can't tolerate failure. We can't wish away failure. They ought not be made a scapegoat. And they ought not ought not be used to shift blame from others who made mistakes. At the political level, in the civilian leadership, clearly there's a need for accountability. That has to be addressed, too. But here I'm talking about military accountability. And I think there are three key mistakes where given the authority, the time and resources, I could find out who ought to hit the bricks. And the three key mistakes are the date certain withdrawal. Now that probably wasn't said by someone in uniform. But someone in uniform had to have said we can do that. Okay, we couldn't do it. We failed. Whomever assured the secretary of defense, the president, or anybody else that we could do what was not doable, fired. The one addressed by the Marine Lieutenant Colonel, who by the way was relieved, but not for mission failure, but for disagreeing in public. And that was expected and probably appropriate. You can't just do that. Is the closure by grammar based prematurely. Whomever at the highest levels said that's a good idea was clearly wrong. Clearly wrong and should be relieved. And sorry, you failed. I need somebody who's not going to fail. And how can I have trust and confidence in you for subsequent decisions in times that are likely to only get more difficult. So you're fired. Not with personal animosity. At whatever job above them, they have to have people they can count on and they can't tolerate failure. And the final clear error that has to be addressed, clear failure, is the security of U.S. furnished military equipment. Now this one blows my mind. Even more than the other two. You don't have to go far on the worldwide web to find how much stuff we've left at risk to Taliban capture transfer perhaps. He says whatever and use against our own forces or use against those Afghans at risk because they worked with us. It had to be somebody's job to make sure that that stuff was secured and if it security broke down was destroyed. I'm not aware of any reports that that has been done. Whose job was it to do that? Find out and fire them immediately. That's a long-term failure that's going to keep on giving. And it should be addressed. Now ideally those who are responsible to these failures would own up as Lieutenant Colonel Scheller suggested, raise their hand and say, you know what? I fail.  And I'm going to step down because of it because this is too important. It's more important than I am. It's more important than my career is. We need that kind of selfless service right now. Confession is good for the soul. It's very good for the country. It would be extremely refreshing to have that at this time. And they need to provide an exemplar for people in uniform. Our folks act like their leaders act. And if people don't step up and own the blame, that will be repeated at other levels. And we can't afford that. This is really scary because of what I remember from the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Now Vietnam and Afghanistan are different in many, many ways. But the withdrawal from Vietnam and the Vietnam experience had a profound effect on the U.S. military. And I would say it was mostly good. It was mostly, well, we'll never do that again. And we did it again in terms of a long commitment without an end, without a conclusion, without a victory in Afghanistan. But that came after those who endured failure in Vietnam at the strategic level, not at the tactical level, used their lessons and applied them as the future leaders of the armed forces. They all had stepped aside by the time we got mired in Afghanistan by a march. Okay. So let's stop trying to explain, to excuse, to distract, find some accountability. Hold them, hold the responsible individuals accountable in a respectful and human way, but accountable. So we've got to focus on the big stuff. We have been focused on the small stuff for far too long. And this is big and we'll have future impact. So what would I do in addition to that? We're here at the what would fig do part of pigments on reality? First of all, I would make a concerted effort if I were a service chief or a senior leader in any of the branches of the armed forces to put emphasis, greater emphasis on mission accomplishment in performance reports and what we give ribbons for in everything. It's the mission first and the community service, the innovative ideas that help the military do better. They're all good. Not saying they're not good. I'm saying it's the mission first, foremost, always. And if we don't make that change, we won't learn our lessons here. And we'll continue to stumble forward. The world doesn't want us to stumble forward. Absent may be a couple players in the world. They want US leadership and security matters and our people do too. Now, if you're frustrated with my non political approach, make sure you're registered to vote. Share your opinion in writing online, whatever. That's not my purpose here. Doesn't mean it's not important, but that's not my purpose. And let me close out another personal story that that is how I think leaders should approach their responsibility and their accountability. During the air war over Serbia, Operation Allied Force, I had a disagreement with, I was a one star wing commander flying F-16 combat missions. And there was an Air Force two star who I didn't work directly for, but he was in the command and control mix. And he called me at Aviano air base where I stationed about something that occurred and something that we were doing that I thought was the right way to do things. And he directed me, which he couldn't do something. And I said, I'm not doing that. He got very blustered and said, probably there was probably profanity in that phone call and an attempt to bully me into doing it.  And not to give myself too much credit, but that's how I felt. The war effort was too important for me to think that my personal survival and advancement on a professional basis had anything of value over the mission. It was the mission. And if I was wrong, I should have been relieved. It worked out okay. I didn't make the change. And there you have it. But we need military leaders who think that way. I'm not perfect. I just grew up remembering the squadron command or the pack of commanders saying, I don't care if he's unlucky or I'm good, he's gone. That's the way we need to be. It's a tough business in a tough world. Our military leaders must be held accountable for mission failure. Those are my thoughts. Please share your thoughts with the think tech or on the YouTube or at info at phase minus one dot or info at phase minus one dot at four. And I hope you'll join me for the next pigments, the power of imagination. There's a date change because of the Labor Day holiday. It'll be on Wednesday the eighth at 9am. I've got a friend, friend of a friend actually who served 11 deployments, not long deployments, but as a special operations warrior in Iraq and Afghanistan, he's going to imagine his friends and what they're facing at this point. So please join me then. As always, I thank think tech Hawaii, a wonderful nonprofit organization that gives citizen journalists like me our voice. And hopefully it provides you with some thought for folk and content. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time on figments on reality. Aloha.