Ideas - Attacking our biggest fear — political polarization

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Canadians’ biggest fear for the country’s future is “growing political and ideological polarization,” according to a 2023 EKOS poll. As part of our series, IDEAS for a Better Canada, host Nahlah Ayed headed to the fast-growing city of Edmonton to talk about the creative ways local residents are working to find common ground. From video games to an engagement technique called “deep canvassing” used to bridge gaps across differences, we can learn a lot from Edmontonians on how to build a better democracy for Canada. 

When they predict we'll fall, we rise to the challenge. When they say we're not a country, we stand on guard. This land taught us to be brave and caring, to protect our values, to leave no one behind. Canada is on the line, and it's time to vote as though our country depends on it, because like never before, it does. I'm Jonathan Pedneau, co-leader of the Green Party of Canada.

This election, each vote makes a difference. Authorized by the Registeredleader of the Green Party of Canada. This election, each vote makes a difference. Authorized by the registered agent of the Green Party of Canada. This is a CBC podcast. Welcome to Ideas and to our series, Ideas for a Better Canada, coming to you this evening from Edmonton, Alberta. I'm very concerned with the state of democracy right now. I would have to say that I have a lot of concern and I'm afraid, I guess, of the polarization. How do we as a country revitalize our democracy?

How should we navigate the tension over competing versions of who we are and who we want to be? In our series Ideas for a Better Canada, we're travelling to four cities across the country in search of local ideas that can inspire national change. We start in Edmonton. I would say it's shocking the level of polarization that we're seeing. It's becoming the norm, which is really what's frightening, I think, for a lot of people. A recent study by the Public Policy Forum revealed that 70% of people between the ages of 18 and 35 believe that Canada is moderately to severely polarized, and nearly half of

them expect it to get worse. A couple of years ago, an ECOS poll asked Canadians to disclose their deepest fears about the future. The number one answer was growing political and ideological polarization. Misinformation is a huge thing right now, so I think the polarization only feeds into that and it becomes almost like the cycle of misinformation which further divides us and then it just becomes a vicious cycle. We came to Edmonton because it is a city whose citizens are coming up with creative ways

to balance so many needs and expectations at a time when political polarization is a top concern for those interested in the long-term health of our democracy. But we are not here this evening to wallow in the problems, at least not for very long. We're bringing together Edmontonians who are working to help us understand the inevitable divides in our society, but also how to bridge them and how the rest of us can learn from those experiences here in Edmonton to build a better democracy and a better Canada. Over the course of this next hour, I'm joined on stage with University of Alberta political science professor Jared Wesley and the executive director of Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Centre, Cheryl Whiskeyjack.

Welcome to both of you. Let's start at the very, very most basic point, Jared. I'd like to start with you. What do you think is at the root of polarization? I know that's a big question, but what's kind of at the very essence of it? Where does it come from? Yeah, I think there are large swaths of our population that feel like they're being left behind. Right. And, and that's creating a bit of polarization with folks that feel like they're not getting enough attention, feeling like political parties and

leaders aren't addressing their concerns. Um, but then other folks on the other side who are saying, get over it. Right. We all have to go through transition at some point or another. And this is creating marginalization on the part of some folks who have never felt marginalized before. And they feel like they're being left out and leaders are capitalizing on that. And they're raising divisive language that pits us versus them in a way we haven't experienced in Canada a very long time. So what is behind that urge for people to band together into an us and a them?

Yeah, I think if you had an anthropologist here, they would probably tell you that it's innate in human nature, right? Dating all the way back to when we first formed civilizations, right? Or communities. People tend to want to band together with people that talk like them, that look like them, that eat like them, and so on. So we have to acknowledge that in part, telling people not to polarize, not to have conflict, according to a lot of mainstream academic theories, is actually against human nature. We need to find the right balance, though,

and stop treating each other as enemies. The great thing about you being here is that that is the reason you're here, is because you're trying to override this innate thing that we all have and help us all understand how we can bridge divides. You have a tool that you use with crowds like this to try to sort of start the conversation about difference and about division. Can you walk us through that? Yeah so our common ground team has been in the field doing focus groups and surveys for the last five years and one

of our signature activities is a pretty simple one. So if you'll join with me here, if you'll indulge me, if you would just close your eyes for just a moment. Not if you're driving, if you're listening to this in your car, please don't. But if you're able, please close your eyes. And all I want you to do is just picture a blank piece of paper. This is the same kind of piece of paper that we provide to our focus group participants. And all I want you to do is take a Sharpie marker in your mind and draw the first thing that comes to mind when I ask you to draw me an Albertan. Again, the

first thing that comes to mind, draw me an Albertan. I want you to think about what that person might be wearing or holding, what they might be standing next to and standing in front of. We lead them through this activity and folks can open their eyes now if they will. And now I just wanted to see whether our audience here takes this question the same way that a lot of our participants do. So hands up and when I ask you to raise your hand, just keep your hand up for me if you would.

How many folks when I ask you to picture an Albertan pictured a cowboy? Okay, lots of hands. Keep those hands up. Keep those hands up. That's a lot of hands. It is. Yeah. And one hat. Yeah. And one hat. Yeah. How many people pictured a farmer and keep your hands up? Right. How many people pictured somebody who works on an oil rig? Right. How many people pictured somebody who was a man? How many pictured somebody who was white? Right. Nearly everybody.

And this is what we found was we've toured her. Thank you very much. Um, this is what we found as we toured around Alberta. It doesn't matter where we go, who's in the room. People tend to picture somebody who fits that characteristic of a middle aged white blue collar worker who worker who is a man and that stereotype is found throughout Alberta society. I imagine some of your listeners from the rest of Canada probably had the same image in mind too. So it's incredibly stark because

all these hands are up you know kind of confirming what you're saying but what does it reveal to us? What does it tell us? I think it tells us something about Alberta politics right now Because the person that most people picture when they think of an Albert and we ask our participants to name that Albertan Joe is the most common name. So we've taken to calling the average Joe Albertan But average Joe Albertan is not going through good times right now He's one of those folks that I mentioned is feels like they're behind. And what we're finding is that there's a community psychology involved here where even if you don't look like Joe, even if you don't really know a Joe in your

life, you feel like Joe represents what it means to be Albertan. And if Joe is going through hard times, then you feel like you're going through hard times. And this gets a lot of people's backs up. So in terms of polarization, what this means is we have one small group of people who would like to remake Alberta in Joe's image, make Alberta great again. Another small group of people on the other side that want to cancel Joe, right? They want to remove Joe from the discourse to focus on other people. But the vast majority of Albertans are caught in the middle of this polarization. And that's the kind of thing that we're studying through Common Ground. That's a wonderful explanation explanation but I do want to ask you one last thing before I move on to Cheryl which is how much is stereotyping of this type behind the polarization?

I think it is it's a big factor here in Alberta again because of this this collective psychology that Joe who works in agriculture or Joe who works in in the oil sands is finding that his way of life and his livelihood are being threatened and his way of life is really being challenged for the first time. What used to be honorable professions are now being openly questioned as being backward. And that gets a lot of people's backs up. And we see that not just here in Canada,

but in the United States and in the UK as well. Okay, thank you, Jared. We'll come back to you in a moment. Cheryl, thank you for being here first of all, but I'm curious, I didn't look over at you when we were asking the question, but what did you imagine when you closed your eyes and thought of what an Elberton looks like? I pictured actually an Indigenous person on the prairie,

I pictured a Bison, these are the things that I conjured up. Okay, so thinking about what Jared was talking about and the source of this polarization How much do you think in your experience that has to do with stereotyping of the kind we're talking about? You know just when we were we were talking before the show started I talked about how Language is really important and I think stereotyping has sort of a negative connotation to it. And one of the ways that we speak about these things in our shop at Bente Aero is we talk about the narrative. We talk about the narrative that people carry around the story to your point of what an Albertan is and what they look like, what they value, all of those things.

And so when we're talking from our point of view, from the Indigenous communities point of view, we want to talk about that narrative. And it's a very different narrative that I hold, just when I told you what I think in Albertan looks like. But it's a very different narrative when you look at what sort of Canada looks at Indigenous people. And it's not a really good narrative. It's not a great narrative. And it's punctuated by things you see in print. It's punctuated by what you see in the media. It's punctuated by what you see as soon as you leave this library.

People are struggling. Maybe for those who aren't here, when you leave this library, can you just describe what you're talking about? There's lots of houseless Indigenous people that are using the library as a place to get warm, using the library as a place to use the bathroom, using the library as a place to connect with their peers, all of those things and their support in the library to help folks who are facing those issues, right? As you say, there is no doubt that when we are talking about Indigenous people, that there are narratives or stereotypes, and more often than not, they are negative among Canadians. And I wonder if you could speak to what effect that has on the Indigenous community, and

not just that question, but on its ability to express itself and its needs to the rest of society. So, one of the things that we, one of the methods we use to speak about that narrative at Ben Taro's, we call people into the conversation. So we don't wanna call people out for the narratives that they hold. We wanna call people into really what's happening.

I have a relative who's in the entertainment industry, June award-winning artist. Yeah, and she's my cousin. And she performs all over the place. And we have this conversation and she talks about how she performed at a law society conference in Washington, DC. She was the entertainment at this gathering.

She said, Cheryl, there were a thousand Indigenous lawyers at this conference for this law society, Indigenous Law Society in Washington. She said, and that's not even all of them. Wow. You know? So talk about something like that challenging a narrative that people hold about Indigenous people. We're neither wolf nor dog, you know? We're all those things that are in between. And there's so many people in our community that still hold those teachings, still hold those values,

still hold their languages, still hold their ways, but we don't hear about them. We don't hear about them. And yet I'm thinking about what Jared was talking about, that polarization leaves people behind. It happens when people are left behind. How do you see how that, again, that narrative and that stereotyping basically determines

who has a say and who doesn't? I prefer not to look at it that way. One of the things that we've done is we've looked for, we've looked for allies in the community and they're not the allies that you think. So one of the biggest allies we found in our community is newcomer community. The newcomer community here, we would sit with them and tell them about who we are. We did these welcomeings when Syrians were coming here en masse and then when they started coming in in a trickle we were doing welcomeings with them and

when we were doing them en masse we were sharing music, we were sharing food, we were sharing culture, worldview, all of those things. And one of the things we found by spending time with them was that they were saying like, that's what we think. We do something like that, but we call it this. So we found so much common ground with the newcomer community that we deliberately started finding ways

to spend time with each other. They told us one time that they loved our Indigenous Day celebration because we had them there at Bantaro for it. And they said, we want to see a real powwow. Right? How many people in this room have been to a real powwow? Right? Okay. Oh, more than I thought. That's awesome. But what I hear sometimes from people in, you know, who aren't indigenous is like, I've always wanted to go, but I feel like, you know, I will stick out, right? Well, these folks were like, we wanna go.

And so we took 75 newcomers to Enoch Powell, which is right outside of Edmonton in a bus. And they were sitting there in, I think, three sections of the arbor in tunics and hijabs and they obviously weren't from there right Mayor Iveson was was invited to be a part of the grand entry remarks and he was like this is fantastic you know can I can I talk about you guys in my remarks he wanted to know like how this happened and so we told him and so he shared with the community and his opening remarks that Enoch you have this wonderful opportunity to share your

stories, to share your songs, to share your your dress and what the songs mean with these newcomers to Canada. You have this great opportunity right here today so grab them in and bring them down to the big drum. Grab those women and show your regalia and show them, you know, what your songs are about and what they mean. And they did, you know, so they went and grabbed those men, took them down to the big drum, the women were showing their regalia off. It was like one of those really beautiful moments. Try and tell a newcomer something negative about Indigenous people after that, and they will be hard pressed to believe it.

But there is polarization that is deliberate in the newcomer community and the Indigenous community to each other. How is it deliberate? Well, there is a narrative that's spun about newcomers that they get everything. They don't pay taxes, they get free housing, they get all these benefits from the government. This is what I hear in my community. And so I will sit there and dispel those rumors because I know it's not true.

Then there's this narrative about indigenous people about how the government pays for everything for them and they still are struggling, right? That's the narrative that I'm talking about. You've brought us to a very important part of the conversation where, I mean, and we kind of touched on this earlier, Jared, is that these points of difference,

these divisions in a big city like Edmonton and elsewhere in Canada have different front lines. So there's the stereotyping, there's the divide across race, there's a divide across class, and there is a divide on the immigration front where old versus new, newcomers versus you know people who have been here for old stock we can use that expression but to explore kind of that idea actually

one of our the people who are joining us is it's a perfect time for him to come up now if I can ask you to come up Kw Kwame, please. He's our first audience guest. He's going to talk about some of the factors driving, like what I'm describing as the immigration divide between newcomers and the existing population. Kwame Owuso-Offori came to Canada as a teenager from Ghana, and for the past decade, he's been working with the Edmonton Newcomers' Centre, helping support immigrants and refugees, and he's now a co-manager of their employment services. Please welcome Kwame.

Thank you, Nela. Thank you for being here, Kwame. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the Newcomers Centre and just what kind of demand you've seen at the Centre over the past five years. Thank you. So the Newcomers Centre supports newcomers with settlement things. So we have language support, we have employment support, just making sure people are resettling in a smoother way. I'm in employment sector so I can share a bit more on that. So for

10 years I've been in this sector, there hasn't been any shortage of people wanting help with employment. However, the last couple of years there's been in this sector, there hasn't been any shortage of people wanting help with employment. However, the last couple of years there's been a bit of a higher demand. What is it that gets in the way of people who are newcomers getting jobs? Just give me a sense of that. What's the biggest hurdle? Well, there are a lot Nala, but I will try and be brief. I'm sure there are. We have just some of the common ones, obvious ones, like credential recognition. So people with foreign education are not seen the same way with education in Canada. You have language barriers and also some level of discrimination in some instances.

So these are some examples basically coming from my experience and some personal stories when I talk about discrimination. I have some other clients who tell us that they've gone to places for interview and when they saw their name on the resume versus their face, things changed. So this person had a name that appeared to be a French last name, but he's actually not a French individual. And so when he got there and they were very kind of shocked by his, who he was, there's been places where he's not very welcoming at all.

So let me ask you this, how much of that trouble that people have to find work, to find their place in society, how much does that affect their ability to integrate into the society and also participate in the conversations that are going on about our collective future? I think it contributes tremendously. First of all, most of these folks, not all of them, of course, everyone is coming here

under different circumstances, but the ones that come to us, a lot of them have gone through, first of all, they've left their families and everything back home to come here. So they've done the hard part to be here. So trying to integrate is another hurdle, a step for them. So not being able to get the education recognized, struggling to find a job, which most of them really just want to work and earn. That's also a challenge. Also, just feeling like they are not welcomed is something that will make anybody feel discouraged

and almost rethink why they're here. So, I think all these things just, and there's so many other factors, so many other things that they have to face and go through just to become accepted and feel like they are contributing and participating into the Canadian society. So again, it's so hard to cover so much terrain in such a short interview, but I do as a last question want to ask you how, what is the best way to ensure that newcomers are included in like kind of the important conversations that we're having, even if they might have

very different points of view than, I'm gonna say the average Canadian, but there's no such thing, than other people in this society. I think Sheryl touched on one of them when she said they had allies in the community where they are also connecting with newcomers. So I think we just have to change our narrative

because there are stereotypes that are not so that are not glorifying newcomers. There are things about newcomers that makes them look like the enemy. I think some of the things that are happening now, we blame a lot on newcomers. And so perhaps seeing the value that newcomers bring to the Canadian economy or society is one. And also just being welcoming and understanding that even from a humanitarian standpoint, some of these people are leaving areas where there's wars and there's, you know, persecution. So just trying to find a home.

Of course in Canada, we feel quite safe, but who knows tomorrow. So we will also want to be accepted somewhere if something like this happened to us. So I think just being open-minded, being welcoming, being accepting, and just changing that narrative. So even, I don't like to talk about the challenges they face, I want us to start talking about some of the positive contributions and values they can bring.

And maybe those stories can start to change just the mentality or what people think about newcomers. That's so beautifully put. Thank you so much, Kwame. Really appreciate your insight. Thank you. It's so interesting to hear Kwame just in this minute talk about the importance of having allies and you talked about that Cheryl. I just wonder if you could expand a bit more about the importance of finding allies as you say who, I mean you work for this organization that has been dedicated to serving the indigenous community which has been here for generations and it isn't intuitive to think that you know that there are there are actually similar reactions to the challenges in society to the polarization of society

Can you just talk some more about when it was what was the moment you realize that there is actually a lot of synergy between the newcomer and Indigenous people it's actually quite it's actually quite common sense when you think about it. This is the land that Indigenous people have been on for millennia. We've been here a long, long time, very connected to the land, to the water, to the air, to the animals, all of that stuff. And we knew how to live and thrive on this land. And through no fault of their own, newcomers come to this land because something's going on in their homelands.

But they come here with their land-based teachings very close to their hearts. Their ceremonies very close to their practice. And that is the way that we found connection. Yeah. Jared, I wonder if you could expand a bit more on what you think, you know, the degree to which the challenges that Kwame talked about and that Cheryl talked about that are faced by newcomers, how much that plays into preventing them from participating in political conversations and not being the object, I guess, of criticism from people who have been

here longer? Yeah. I was drawn to what, when Kwame was talking about some of the challenges and barriers and there are many and there aren't any simple solutions to this. But what draws newcomers together with some of the folks that I spoke about earlier who feel like that their expectations of themselves and their livelihoods is not being met, they're not as far ahead as their parents were, for newcomers, a lot of them, a lot of folks that I've talked to have said I don't

Feel like I'm getting what I was promised and I don't think I'm meeting my own Expectations for what this experience is and what we're getting at and this is part of the Canadian political culture more generally we're rule followers We actually are we're known for this, right? We're quite deferential to rules and what we're seeing in this particular point in time Is that a lot of people whether they're newcomers or been here for many generations are feeling like they're playing by the rules But they're not getting ahead and they're feeling like they're doing everything right and it must be because Somebody else is cheating the system and so that that kind of sentiment again not unique to Alberta not unique to Canada But it provides a lot of ammunition for populist politicians and movements

to access that with simple solutions, saying it's not your fault. You are playing by the rules. And if you support our movement, if you support our political party or our candidates, then we'll fix the system for you because it's not your fault. And the reality is that politics and policy solutions

are far more complex than that. But in the meantime, that's part of the polarization that we were talking about before. People who are offering complex solutions that may take some time and folks that have an easy answer. And that's the kind of time that we find ourselves in today. That's University of Alberta, political science professor Jared Wesley.

He's also the lead for Common Ground, a research group at the university focused on understanding political culture in Western Canada. You're listening to the first episode of our series Ideas for a Better Canada, recorded at the Stanley A. Milner Library in downtown Edmonton, Alberta. Ideas is a broadcast on CBC Radio One in Canada, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, in France on World Radio Paris,

and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. We're also a podcast. Subscribe and follow us on Spotify and Apple podcasts. I'm Nala Ayad. When they predict we'll fall, we rise to the challenge. When they say we're not a country, we stand on guard. This land taught us to be brave and caring, to protect our values, to leave no one behind. Canada is on the line, and it's time to vote as though our country depends on it, because like never before, it does.

I'm Jonathan Pedneau, co-leader of the Green Party of Canada. This election, each vote, makes a difference. Authorized by the Registered Agent of the Green Party of Canada. In the fall of 2001, while Americans were still grappling with the horror of September 11th, envelopes started showing up at media outlets and government buildings filled with a white lethal powder, anthrax.

But what's strange is if you ask people now what happened with that story, almost no one knows. It's like the whole thing just disappeared. Who mailed those letters? Do you know? From Wolf Entertainment, USG Audio, and CBC podcasts, this is Aftermath, the hunt for the anthrax killer. Available now. In our series, Ideas for a Better Canada, we're traveling across the country for inspiration,

finding out what local communities are doing to strengthen the health of our democracy. In this episode, at a time when political polarization is a top concern for many Canadians, we're finding out what Edmontonians are doing to help bridge the divides. Here's Cheryl Whiskeyjack, executive director of Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Centre. So we found those ways to be allies to one another

with the newcomer community and us. But one time I was having a sister weekend in the mountains. One of my sisters goes out for a hike all by herself. Probably shouldn't have done that. But she goes out for a hike and she falls and she breaks her wrist. And she calls me and thank goodness for technology because I could find her paying. I got her to a hospital. And this was during COVID.

So at this hospital, we had to wear masks and I couldn't go back in the treatment room with her. So I'm sitting in the waiting room and this is sort of rural Alberta, you know? So the picture of an Albertan that we went through, this is what I was sitting with in the waiting room. And so there was this, um, you know, don't be offended, but you know, there was this like crotchety old guy sitting in the waiting room with me

and he was talking with his other crotchety old friend and he was saying, you know, this Trudeau is ruining this country. And they were just having this sort of political conversation. And so there's a picture in Alberta of what a rural Albertan holds high, what they value, all of those things. And I'm sitting there listening to them and I used to be on Twitter, I'm not anymore.

But at that time I sent out a tweet and I said, you know, there's these two guys in this rural hospital complaining about Trudeau all while enjoying free healthcare. Ha ha ha. And immediately I got a response from that tweet, like in seconds, because my location was on the tweet. Oh, wow. And so this woman tweeted back to me, she said, she said, I think that's my dad. And I was like, uh-oh, I'm in trouble.

And but no... So many lessons in this story. Yeah. So no sooner did she reply to me, but this older woman comes out of the treatment area with an IV pole and a piece of paper and she's like wayfinding, looking up, looking for something. And that same guy got up and with the crook of his arm, he said, how can I help you, dear? Right? And my heart softened right away, because he was like my dad.

He's like your dad. He's like everybody's dad. And he was just a really helpful person who wanted to help this woman get to where she needed to go, and he knew how to help her do that. And so I'm talking to his daughter on Twitter, and I told her what he just did. And she said, Cheryl, she said, he calls me a socialist lefty, but he literally taught me everything I know about how to be a good human. So that for me painted the picture of a rural Albertan, right?

That's what they are. And so you wanna talk about allies, I live in a province full of them because we built this province together. We're done here tonight. We can all go home now. What a beautiful story. Thank you. And it gets to the sum of...

It's true. It is true. And it gets to what we want to get to, which is familiarization and meeting your neighbors and getting to know people is at the heart of the solutions to polarization and a whole bunch of other issues. So we'll talk a bit more about that, but to help us tell part of this story, I want to spend actually a bit of time talking about... We're talking about all these different kinds of divides.

This is about the class divide. There's of course the urban and rural divide. There's the political divide, which we're going to get to at the very end, just to keep you all here. But we're going to talk about class divide. And to do that, I'd like to now invite up our next audience guest, Punita McBrien. Punita is the executive director of the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. had a major impact on small businesses. And downtown, as we've discussed already, has seen an increase in homelessness, and there has been a lot more drug use, so many issues to deal with, like many downtown cores right across this country and this whole continent. Can you talk first just quickly about what your mission was when you first started at the organization? Yeah, thank you so much.

And that's actually why it's important to note that it was 2020, because it was December of that year. I just had so many friends that were business owners that were saying things like, I don't know, I don't know how we come back from this. I don't know if I'm going to survive this. This level of uncertainty and fear, just wanting to be a part of trying to help solve some of that, trying to help figure out how to get people back into our downtown in a safe way. At that time it was COVID.

So we were thinking, even as I was applying for the job, I was thinking of all the great outdoor stuff we could do to try and get people back and around. And so it really felt like an inflection point in our, in our city. Yeah. I'm really curious how you envision the place of people who are experiencing homelessness being part of the picture that you're describing there. That was easily one of the most immediate and, and terrifying moments when I started this job, because sitting at home, watching the world through my phone,

I hadn't fully realized what was happening in our city and what was happening across North America. Our number of people who were, who had maybe had unstable housing prior to the pandemic, who maybe had access to services, were in a somewhat stable situation of some kind, all of that fell away. Like the floor just fell out from under people.

And so the number of people who were struggling in a really big way on our streets was staggering. And so, you know, all these perceptions that, you know, started bubbling up very quickly, people saying things like, and we're still battling this to this day, downtown isn't safe. these perceptions that started bubbling up very quickly, people saying things like, and we're still battling this to this day, downtown isn't safe, I don't like going downtown anymore. All these things all came from this reality that, yeah, often it is a downtown or a main street where you're confronted by all of the gaps in our social safety net and all of the

problems that have been under the surface for many years that have all kind of bubbled up and this is what we're grappling with. So that was apparent from the beginning. What I wasn't prepared for was the level of compassion from our business community. Like I guess I, like anyone else, you know, sitting at home looking at the world through my phone in 2020 was expecting a lot more polarization. I was expecting to have to convince business owners that, you know, we needed to do something more compassionate, but that was not the situation at all. So there wasn't just compassion, but you went further than that by offering, you know, by actually working within this community

and offering some services that were required by people who are on the streets who needed help. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. We've done everything from, we do deescalation training for anyone who'd like to join. We've had everyone from police officers and peace officers to library workers.

We actually do them here at the library. Business owners, staff at businesses, City of Edmonton staff come and join these sessions that we do with a wonderful group called the Imagine Institute. But we just bring everyone together and it's a really great moment. The first time I walked in was such a really great moment

to see all these different people who are a part of our downtown community coming together to just figure out how do we better connect with people who we don't understand? How do we, if we see someone in a crisis situation, mental health episode, rather than feeling fear and immediately wanting to call the police,

what are the other approaches that we can take to help this person and to see them as the human that they are? So that has been incredible. The response from the business community and wanting to do those trainings was really heartening. We have a really strong partnership with a local social enterprise called Hiregood.

And so we do a night patrol with them, where they do wellness checks on people that are on the streets all night. And everyone that they employ themselves are very recently housed, if not still experiencing homelessness, and usually have been struggling with addictions as well. So that's a very local illustration of what could be done to stop the othering, to stop the terrier stereotyping, to bring people together.

Can you, as a last question, kind of scale that up? And if you could imagine one thing that we can take away from this experience that could be kind of applied on a national level, what would you say, how would you say, imagine that? I would think about the things that make you feel the most sort of discomfort and maybe the things that scare you about our society today and find ways to walk towards those things instead of walking away from them and

figure out how to make space for that in your life. It's great advice. Thank you very much, Panita. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for sharing with us. Sheryl, back to what you were talking about a bit earlier about the disproportionate number of indigenous people who've experienced homelessness.

When you listen to what Panita was talking about, does that vision and that way of thinking seem realistic given what you see on the streets? Yeah, I think if we have people who show us the way, who show us how, who model that kind of way of relating to people, I think it is possible. You know, we attended during that time a downtown safety summit that they put up and we talked a bit about Bent Arrow at that at that summit, pardon me, and afterwards we

were reached out to by a number of businesses that today we're still talking to and the conversation continues. You've been working with the Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society for nearly three decades and you've been the head of it for about 20 years, is that right? That's right. You oversee almost two dozen programs that support Indigenous people who are in need of shelter, job support and childcare. But embedded in the core values of your organization is also building bridges across society and promoting kind of that expanded view that Puneeta is

talking about and that Jared was talking about. And I'm wondering, you know, it's a huge job that you have. It's a big challenge that you're taking on. What is at stake if you don't make those kinds of connections of thinking that big when you're dealing with a very specific problem like when you're dealing with? Oh that sounds so dire, what's at stake? Well, but I mean, why is it important? You know, I guess, you know, if I think about things like in that frame, it can feel very daunting and it can feel like, you know, are we ever going to get there, wherever there is.

And I think what gets my, what makes me swing my legs out of bed every day is that if we move it a little bit every day, every opportunity, like this opportunity, if we have a chance to sort of move the story forward in a good way, then we're making progress. And I have been very lucky to have been raised in my culture, raised in my language, raised in my teachings, all of those things, and I know what an impact that's had on my life. Right? We have people in this country who've been systematically disconnected from all of those things, and we see the result of that. We see the result of that. And so that's the mission. The mission is to help our community step afoot in that world and I've even evolved from that and now I'm asking the rest of you

to come and step afoot in this world as well because it's universal. Love is universal. You know, the values that we hold are universal. Jared, do you want to add something? Yeah, I think what both Cheryl and Panita are talking about, what they're both saying in different ways, in complimentary ways, is expanding the we and the us and shrinking the them and the other.

And that is really the antidote to polarization, right? Because folks that are bent on dividing us wanna try to separate us, right? But if we can expand the we and the us, then it becomes more difficult to do that. So that's a great segue to the last segment here, which is about political polarization specifically. And that could take us hours to untangle.

But we started off this conversation talking about the roots of polarization. And of course, it's no secret to the rest of the country that there is a very unique political situation here in Alberta. I mean, I understand that there are more card carrying party members in this province than anywhere else in Canada. Is that true? Combined. More than anywhere else in Canada, is that true? Combined. Combined. More than anywhere else combined. More provincial party members in the New Democratic Party alone than all of the other provincial parties across Canada combined.

And the same is true for the UCP. Interesting. And there are some fairly polarizing events that have happened recently, whether it's the premier going visiting with divisive figures in the States, or whether it's policies here in Canada or in, you know, on the ground, there's been quite a bit to, to find people polarized over. Although at the same time, your own work and the work of the Samara Center

suggests that this polarization isn't as simple as we see it, that in fact, online, for example, the people who are stirring up the polarization tend to be fewer numbers than we think. Can you just talk about that nuance and why it's important for us to understand that maybe things are not as bad as they might seem from the outside?

Yeah, I think the most encouraging piece from a lot of research that we're seeing across North America is that people don't like to be polarized right and they don't like to be forced into single identities they don't like being in Alberta's case we know from our own common ground work that Albertans don't like being forced to choose between being an Albertan or being a Canadian. They're both, right? They don't like being asked. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. They don't like being asked to choose between being progressive and conservative. They check both boxes in our Viewpoint Alberta surveys all the time, which freaks Americans out because that doesn't make a lot of sense to them. But a lot of what we're talking about here is the tendency among Canadians and Albertans

are no different than the mainstream Canadian as well, is that they place themselves somewhere in the center of the political spectrum and they like to go along to get along. Now there are problems with that because it means that we, we ignore a lot and we, we unplug from politics because we find it being too divisive. But if we're going to get out of this polarization, there's got to be some kind of radicalization of that center to push back and realize that you're in the majority. The vast majority of Canadians, the vast majority of Albertans don't like this kind of polarized politics.

But I just want to understand, does talk of polarization fuel polarization? That's meta. It is a bit. Look, what we know is that Albertans, like you were citing some studies earlier, like the rest of Canadians, think that we're more polarized now than we ever have been before. So to an extent, yes, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But what we're trying to do at Common Ground is to expose that to folks and show that the reality is most people don't like this. So I'm going to bring up somebody who's going to help us understand some of this as well.

She's our final audience guest. Melanie Hoffman is the Associate Director of Alberta Talks. Please welcome Melanie. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Just to explain, Alberta Talks is a branch of an environmental NGO and it deploys a technique called deep canvassing to help bridge ideological divides. Sounds interesting, doesn't it?

So what exactly is deep canvassing? Well, what we do is we bravely go and knock on our neighbours' doors in neighbourhoods across the province and invite them into a vulnerable conversation about our life stories. And we look for what has come up before, which is this idea that we all hold values dear that we have in common. We build a connection and that opens up the opportunity to have a conversation about a

polarizing topic in a non-judgmental, emotionally uncharged space that many of us have never experienced in that way and allows us to think it through. It's so incredibly brave. How often do they let you in? Well, we tend to not go in. It's a safety thing. But they do quite often invite us into conversation. You can imagine that the conversation starts off...

I've noticed my own approach to people knocking on my door has changed since doing the work. Because you all probably relate to the like, who's knocking on my door and what are they trying to sell me. So we very quickly try to let people know we're not there to ask for money, we're not trying to sell anything and they're very confused because we're just there to have a conversation and that's not a common thing to experience. But yeah depending on the topic that we're talking about the closer it is to home the more likely they certainly are to have a conversation. Can you just think back to a recent encounter and just give us an example of how this works?

Like what you go up, knock the door, the person actually opens, like just paint the picture. Yeah. A story that I want to share in that context is one from our canvasser, Molly. So imagine a warm spring day, there's a retired couple sitting on the porch outside their front door. Molly walks up to their door to invite them into this conversation and Sandy and Heidi are curious who this young person on their porch is, but answer enthusiastically when she asks what they like about living in Alberta, that they really enjoy the mountains and the landscapes, and they connect very quickly over their shared enjoyment of our spaces in this gorgeous province.

And then Molly goes on to ask them, on a scale of zero to 10, how much do you want your provincial government to end tax breaks to oil and gas corporations? Randy closes off and says he would be a zero on that scale. And Heidi adds in that she would be a five. And so Molly wants to know why. Why is that the right number for you? And so they unpack a little bit about why they think it's important for our government to provide supports to our industry. And Molly listens and asks some curious follow-up questions and shares that she's grateful to be able to hear that. And then shares with them also that we hear in this particular context from our neighbours that there's a lot that our families have benefited from

with the oil and gas industry in our province and whether that feels true for them. And they start to soften up a little and share about how that feels true for them and so Molly shares back that for her that feels really true too. She's a multi-generational Albertan and at the same time though this she would be a 10 on that scale and then we get into the the juicy part of the deep canvassing which is sharing our personal life stories and so in this particular context what we're connecting on is around cost of living difficulties. And so Molly shares her story of having to move back in with her parents after separating because almost 30.

She has, what did you say, Jared, played by the rules and not gotten ahead. And so, you know, she went to university, she did the things she's supposed to do. She got a good job and she cannot afford rent in Calgary and has to move in with her parents. That's embarrassing as a young person when you feel like you have done everything right and you're supposed to be an adult and you're supposed to have a down payment for a house and you're not there. And so she shares her frustration, she lays it out on the table and she asks if Randy and Heidi can relate to this. And it turns out that as they're listening to Molly, they see their grandchildren in Molly's story and really relate to what she's sharing

and start to consider what this ask is that we're talking about. And so at that point, we're ready to share a little bit more information about why we think that our government ought to make choices that better benefit Albertans than giving tax breaks to profitable corporations. And at the end of the conversation, we ask the scale question again, and Randy is now a five out of 10, and Heidi is now a 10 out of 10. Extraordinary. Wow. Why aren't we all doing this? Well... It's not an easy job.

Actually, it's a serious question. Clearly it takes a lot of effort and resources to deploy that kind of... You did a ton of people to really move the needle on an opinion. Why engage in it anyway? I mean, what does it matter if you say you change 10 people's minds or 100 people's minds? Yeah. Well, one person at a time, I think, is how this change ends up being made. And that's, I think, what we see in the context of working for an environmental organization. You know, for decades decades we have done work talking to the people who already agree with us.

We need to talk to the people that agree with us. That's really important, absolutely. But we're never going to come together and overcome those divisions that take away our power if we're not going to be willing to talk to the people that aren't coming out to our events and if we're not willing to meet people where they are. And so that's part of why we go door to door. We meet people where they're at, and we meet people where they're at

in their own journey of learning and unlearning. That's wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing with us. Really. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very inspiring. Thank you very much for sharing. I'm wondering, I want to hear your reaction, both of you, maybe Jared, just what you think of that kind of approach and how realistic it is to use that kind of approach, again, to bridge divide and try to mitigate some of the polarization that we see. Yeah, the goal of deep canvassing, as we heard, is not necessarily to change people's minds.

And that was a good example of where you could change somebody's mind. But the goal is to understand where they're coming from. And with Common Ground, with my teammate Fios Snagovski and Gillian Harvey and P.B. Burge, we've developed a game that helps people to take those kinds of perspectives. We call it perspective taking in political science, right? It's a means of not trying to persuade somebody to alter their worldview, but rather to challenge yourself to think, where are they coming from? And how might I develop some commonality with that?

Cheryl, just back to Melanie's comments, just what do you think of the approach? Like, how does it align with what you do? 100%. I mean, that's calling in. That's calling in people into the conversation, to the story. It's a safe place to talk about things that are hard to talk about. And I sing from the same songbook as her, 100%. When you look back at this conversation that we've had, I wonder if you could pick one or two things, both of you, just to wrap it up, of what you would kind of transmit across this country as being your best advice, because it is a question, it is a concern for many Canadians, this idea that we're so polarized and divided. What's the

most, what's the first step? So Jared first and then Cheryl. Yeah, the main antidote to polarization is more voices and more stories, not fewer. And that's the challenge really right now is that the situation is so polarized that a lot of people are reticent to even engage in conversations, right? How hard would it be to walk up and talk to a stranger about a polarizing issue? Most people don't feel equipped to do so, but this is a time when we need to. And so, you know, getting back to the idea of what is the typical Albertan, we talk with a lot of people in forums like this, and I often ask people, do you consider yourself to be Albertan? What I hear more often than not is, well, I'm from Alberta.

And I said, that's not my question. I said, do you consider yourself to be Albertan? Well, no, because they don't see themselves in that stereotype. And a lot of these folks are well-meaning. They're like folks that we've talked to tonight that are out there championing the causes of marginalized Albertans. But one of the best things that they can do is to start speaking of themselves as being Albertan. Because expanding what we think of it, what do we think it means to be

part of our communities is a way to tamp down polarization. I agree. I agree with Jared. You know, it's that whole notion of neither wolf nor dog and the majority live in the middle, right in the middle. I also think about the power of story and we all have story in us and I think the beautiful thing about story is you can find yourself in it, you can relate to it and stories evolve as we evolve and so that's why I like sharing stories because people will walk home and remember about me at the hospital somewhere and tweeting out. They'll remember that, right?

I'm definitely going to remember that story. Those things sort of stay with you. And I think going back to Indigenous communities, we didn't write stuff down. We told stories and we're still telling stories. Great stories. Yeah. Thank you both for answering my questions. So I would like to once again thank our guests, panelists Cheryl Whiskeyjack from Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society and Jared Wesley, political scientist at the University of Alberta and our guests Kwame Ouso-Afore from the Newcomers Centre, Puneeta McBrien from the Downtown

Edmonton Business Association and Melanie Hoffman from Alberta Talks. And thank you, all of you, the audience, for joining us in this discussion. This episode is part of our series, Ideas for a Better Canada, in partnership with the Samara Centre for Democracy. For more details, you can go to our website cbc.ca slash better Canada. Here at Edmonton Stanley A Milner Library I would like to specifically thank Miranda Koscielak and the entire team for your help in making

this evening happen. And a very big thank you as well to CBC Edmonton technician Corey Haberstock, also to Emily Williams and Emily Sanger, and the entire CBC Edmonton team for all your assistance in hosting us here. Thank you so much. Thank you to all the volunteers who are here, both from the library and from the CBC, and also thank you to the CBC Collab Library Partnerships Program for making this series possible. Our technical producer for ideas is Danielle Duval. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our senior producer and the producer of the series

is Nikola Lukcic. Thank you. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of ideas. And I'm Nala Ayed. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Really appreciate it. Thank you. You guys are wonderful. Wonderful. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.