Nuanced. - 114. Bruce McIvor: Reconciliation, Land Acknowledgements & Pretendians

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Bruce McIver, author of "Stand Off: Why Reconciliation Fails Indigenous People and How to Fix It," as we explore the question of whether land acknowledgments silence Indigenous voices. Delving into the power of humor in challenging the status quo, we discuss meaningful advocacy for Indigenous communities and the delicate balance of supporting well-intentioned allies. Highlighting the tendency to overlook real-world issues faced by Indigenous people, we unmask the ongoing effects of colonization and emphasize accountability for institutions and individuals.In addition, Aaron Pete and Bruce McIvor examine the harm caused by "pretendians" and the role of status cards in perpetuating discrimination against Indigenous people. Navigating the complex matter of former judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond's actions and their impact on Indigenous communities, we invite you to tune in for an honest, informative, and thought-provoking discussion on the road to true reconciliation.Dr. Bruce McIvor is a renowned lawyer, historian, and author specializing in Aboriginal law and advocating for Indigenous rights. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia and actively involved in organizations such as the Manitoba Métis Federation and Amnesty International Canada.Buy his book: https://brucemcivor.com/Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

This is the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here's your host, Aaron Pete. Has reconciliation failed indigenous people? Today I'm diving into land acknowledgments, pretendians, pipelines to understand better where we're at in Canada. Are we making progress or are we saying things that sound good that aren't doing a whole heck of a lot? My conversation today is with the author of Standoff. Why reconciliation fails indigenous people and how to fix it. Today's guest is Bruce. Bruce McIver. Bruce McIver, it is such a privilege to sit down with you today.

I am fascinated by your work going through law school. You're one of the pillars to learn from and to enjoy reading your books. Would you mind giving listeners a brief introduction of yourself? Well, first of all, thank you very much for inviting me on the show, Aaron. Thanks for your kind words. I'm really excited to talk to you today. just a bit of background where I come from. I always tell people I come from a place where there's a lot of rocks and swamp.

That's where I grew up in Manitoba. I grew up with rocks and swamp because we were part of the Red River Métis that were displaced out of St. Peter's. And so we were moved up north and picked a lot of rocks when I was a kid. And I decided I needed to do something else. That's what ultimately led me to being a lawyer. So I'm the senior partner at First People's Law, and we're fortunate enough to work with First Nations all across Canada,

coast to coast, on defending their title rights. And it's a fantastic work. I just feel so honored every day to show up and to do this work. just to be part of that effort that indigenous people have been making for generations all across the country. What called you into this line of work? There's lots of different directions you can go when you go to law school. What pulled you in this direction?

I was intending to be a university professor. I did my PhD in Aboriginal and environmental history. And just by pure luck, like a lot of people do developing their career, I ended up working with Louise Mandel and Stuart Rush and other lawyers that had worked on some of the most important Aboriginal law cases. And I really need to thank them because they saw that, you know, maybe I had a little bit of potential here. And they invited me in and got me working.

on different cases. I think the first case that I worked on was years ago, was the old man river dam case in Treaty 7. And they were kind enough to introduce me to what's possible working in the law and working for indigenous people. So that's ultimately what led me into going back to university and getting a law degree and where I am now. interesting one thing that you hear at the beginning of a lot of conversations political dialogues email signatures is land acknowledgments and one of the things i landed on when i was listening to your interview with dan george was your kindred spirits in this regard and it felt like it gave me voice to share my opinions on land acknowledgments more openly because i had a lot of the same trepidations i think you have and dan george reflected which is that this is form of tokenism. It's a, it's a concerning thing that it makes people feel like they've done something when no work has been accomplished. I've heard many compare it to the idea of like, I took your food or I took your cookie, and then I'm acknowledging that I did in fact take that,

and there's no plan in place to address that. And so would you mind sharing your perspective on land acknowledgments? Thanks, I have one of my clients. They describe it as someone stealing your truck and as they're driving away they lean out the window and say thank and drive off that was pretty funny there's a really good sketch people can watch on YouTube the Baroness Vaughan's sketch she's got a really funny piece on land acknowledgement and how they are not all the time that can be really performative And that's not just a lost opportunity, I think. I think it's more than that.

I think it can be a way to silence indigenous people. We see that a lot. And for me, it's part of this wider tendency with some segments of non-Indigenous society to weaponize apologies. And you'll see that. And the basic response is, well, we apologize. What are you still complaining about? And you see that with land acknowledgements.

We gave our land acknowledgement. So now you don't have a right to voice your concerns and to make us feel uncomfortable. This is one of the things I think you're good at addressing. But it feels when I tell people how I feel about it, I feel like a controversial. person because they're so widespread, they're so commonplace now to say that it doesn't feel productive or

maybe there's different ways to get about going about this. It feels like I'm I'm the bad person in the room. I'm raining on everybody's parade and I'm wondering how you feel because what your book does so eloquently is it points out the challenges with tokenism

with this idea of surface level action without deep rooted action and so I'm just curious is this something challenging for you to carry when you're kind of the spoiler at the party, you're the one saying, hey, maybe this isn't as productive as everybody would like to think it is? That's a great question. I think I was talking to a friend of mine about this, and you'll know this better than most. One of the ways you deal with that is through humor. So you start off and one of the ways to do is when you know you're going to make someone uncomfortable,

Start with telling you. Make them feel comfortable. You're open, welcoming. They lead in. They're laughing. They make themselves vulnerable. And then you hit them with the truth. And I don't have a problem doing that.

Maybe it's just I've gotten to a certain point. I have such support of my clients and indigenous colleagues all across the country. Maybe I just don't have a shelter or have less of a shelter these days. I gave a talk in Ottawa last week, I think it was. One of the things I felt comfortable getting up and saying is this, I don't like all this talk about settlers. I don't like people getting up. And this is very same thing with landagnosians, right,

identifying as being settlers. I don't like that binary because what that does, me is it triggers this whole idea of indigenous people as being part of wilderness, of being savages, of being nomads on the land, of being unsettled. And the settlers come in and introduce civilization, everything else, which there are problems. But I just have a problem with that binary. I don't like getting into that.

I think it's important for us to be aware, and I might be totally wrong, right? But I'm not shy about saying it. I know I said it at a conference in Ottawa last week, and I could see something feeling a little bit uncomfortable because that's how they always introduce themselves. But I think we should have that conversation. I like that because it's,

It's often how I bring up how this all started. So when we look back and when we talk about the basics of history, we often look at it like two people who are on different pages. But how it started was indigenous people being open to working collaboratively. And that's how we have, Métis people like yourself, is that there was a willingness to collaborate and then that was betrayed. But it didn't start there. And so indigenous people have always been open to people coming to this land

and to utilizing and to working collaboratively, but that shifted when we were betrayed and when we were undermined, that sentiment was modified, but it doesn't mean that this started from an adversarial place to begin with. That's such a good point. I give my couch surfing analogy

all the time. I don't know if you've heard that one before, but I talk about it. Same thing just to make non-enus feel comfortable to start with about, you know, what is reconciliation? about, at least as the courts in Canada have said, it's like someone showing up at your door,

knocking, like to sleep on your Tulsa for the night, and you're welcoming. You don't want to leave someone out there in the cold without food, so they can come in, they sleep on your sofa. They're there for a couple of days, three days. You come home, they're taking a shower. They're like, they made themselves comfortable. You come home again.

They're in your fridge. You know, oh, wow, they're really comfortable. You come home again. They're building a house in your backyard. And then they say, hey, let's sit down and talk about reconciliation. And you're like, what do you mean reconciliation? It's my own. I just invited you in to help take care of you and make you safe.

And now you're saying, we need to recognize that. Yeah, you know. that's you mentioned humor and one person you reference in your book is this individual Ryan McMahon I might get his name wrong but he's a person who points to many of the problems with this idea of reconciliation and you sort of just joasted at it there are you able to talk a bit about him maybe how you connected with him as a comedian yeah I wish I was that funny but he's very good he's he's he's he's got some very good bits.

He did a piece on reconciliation and all the problems with reconciliation. And he's a Nishinaabe from Northern Ontario. He's a very good way of introducing it in true humor, but they're not pulling punches. And I think that's really important, you know. I really think it's unfair when indigenous people are expected to pull punches. It's not fair.

Indicions people have good reason to be fed up. I'm surprised more of my clients aren't even more, you know, overtly angry about it all the time. So not pulling punches in a respectful way. I don't think we have to make it about individuals. I always tell people, try not to attack the person, you know, attack the underlying problem. But doing it through humor, Ryan, and so many indigenous people have been doing that for generations. I spend so much time with my clients laughing. we sit around laughing so much it's great I was out in in meeting with Mohawk clients a couple of months ago and they were talking about yeah Bruce you know laughter is a form of medicine and I think it's important and it's one of the gifts that indigenous people give on a regular basis to non-indigenous people over

over again. That's beautiful. I really like your perspective because you have the academic understanding and you operate within a university, but then you actually go to the real world where real indigenous communities exist. And I often think about the separation coming from my community and understanding their circumstances and then seeing the issues that people think are really important in universities are vastly different. They almost don't communicate with each other. And Many of the individuals, as you talk about these allies, actually don't know what it's like to live in one of these communities. And so what they seem to prioritize is somewhat different than the real problems members want addressed. As a council member, my community members want more economic opportunities, more business opportunities, better housing, higher end facilities for the community, all of these things that are everyday problems that they face.

And then what I see in an academic institution is somewhat more surface level, not at the root of the day-to-date problems members face. And I'm wondering how you approach that. How do you make sure that you have that balance of both worlds? Yeah, I see that so often, both with academics and with a lot of lawyers, a lot of lawyers can get focused on advancements in the law. and in a way they're acting like academics to a large extent. It's one of the reasons I was keen to forge a career in the law and not academia because I always had a love-hate relationship with the university. There are a lot of fantastic people,

but I also saw a lot of people putting the best of themselves into just developing their own careers. that's what they were doing and whereas if you have those skills can you sure have a good career make a good living but give back help other people that have been disadvantaged for such a long time help them and to do that you need to think beyond your own career just academics and lawyers You need to be a listener. And so many aren't listeners, they're tellers. They're always out there telling people, telling people this, telling people that. And I encourage all the law students that I work with, the junior lawyers that I work with.

One of the things you need to work at your entire career, whether you're an academic or whether you're a lawyer, is being a good listener because if you listen to First Nation communities, they will tell you what their priorities are. They will tell you. And you need

to listen. And if you don't, it ends up being all about yourself and not about helping them get into a better position. One area I'd like your advice on, because I

see it often, these individuals who have sympathy, it's clear that they care, but it's also clear that the steps that they think are going to work are not going to work. We've discussed land acknowledgments as one such example. I'm trying to find that balance between not discouraging them, because maybe to some people's point, that's a first step. Maybe that's their first step with the idea that a lot of it is surface level and not meaningful. And there's this idea of performance-based allieship, that it's not substantive, that it actually feels better for the person. I've interviewed other indigenous people who talk about individuals who've never experienced any Indian residential schools or have any family come into their community and cry at the idea

of what they went through and go, well, we actually went through it. How are you showing more emotion than we are? And we're the ones who endured it. So there's this, the sense of sympathy and empathy that's positive, but maybe it's not being used correctly. Is there a any tools or how do you think about this kind of complex issue? That's a really good point. I see a lot of, I have a piece in my book and standoff on the, I think I call it the problem with allies because you can get situations where they might have the best tensions, but somehow it still all becomes about them. How did this happen? That it all became about you and your journey.

And indigenous people see allies turning it into that all the time. In some ways, it's kind of non-indigenous people, colonizing indigenous people all over again through allyship. And I think the first step is to be aware of it. So many well-intentioned non-indigenous people aren't aware of it. They aren't aware of how they're turning it into all about themselves. they aren't aware that they're expecting so much from indigenous people all the time. I give, give, give.

I give the example every September when it comes around to National Reconciliation Day. That whole week, how hard it is for indigenous people all across country for lots of reasons. It really triggers so much of that personal and intergenerational pain. At the same times, a lot of indigenous people get asked, the demands on their time from non-Indigenous people, right? Or just escalate. And yet, without the recognition of what it means to put indigenous people in that position, what it means for them and how they're not. Non-Indigenous people can turn it into all about them.

I had this example last year. I give up my time freely, and I got asked to speak to a charity, a non-profit in Van Hoover. Okay, I'll come down and spend two or three hours talking about these things. I don't expect anything, but it really hurt me when they did give me something. They gave me a cold cup of coffee. that really hurt like it really bothered me not personally as much but how that was symbolic and reflected the reception that indigenous people my indigenous colleagues get all the time a cold cup of coffee really and how ironic it is when people are doing this because they think

they're going to feel good participating in their reconciliation the journey, but that's what it's actually comes down to. I can't imagine what that's like. And I'm actually curious as to what your thoughts are on that day because there's some arguments I hear, well, now we're just giving people a day off like Labor Day. And we're moving in that direction where federal, provincial employees just get to stay home. There's no educational curriculum required.

There's no expectations. of people being able to take this day off. They might go spend it with their family. They might go enjoy the sun. Obviously, Mr. Trudeau had his issues with the day going off to Tafino. So there's that argument and the fears around that. And then there's the counter argument, well, business owners, entrepreneurs, communities can come together on this day and hear from indigenous voices

begin to understand the issues in a deeper way. But to your point, now we're asking them on this day to present. present, to perform, to deliver, to drum, to entertain, to keep our attention. And so how do you think about this day? Was it a positive step forward in your opinion? Or does it come with a whole host of new challenges? I have really mixed feelings about it. I am very explicit when I'm talking to people. It is not a holiday. And it really does upset me when I see non-Indigenous people treating it as a holiday, oh-hoo, I'm going to go off and golf or have a barbecue or whatever in it. It's not supposed to be a holiday. I think that would worse if it treated as a holiday

in that sense. No, it's a day to reflect, it's a day to do something. I think it's really important. It's a day to step back, understand, so not all, but for so many nogenous people, non-Indigenous people in Canada, where their wealth and privilege comes from. You know, it comes on the back of indigenous people. And that to understand this is not historical, this is something that's going on and they are participating in every day of here. And to reflect about that and what does that mean for them personally? and what can they do to ensure that that's not perpetuated into the future?

In your book, you talk about the idea that some people don't understand and that those people are often easier for you to perhaps go back and forth with or explain your side to then individuals who think they're on the right side of history but are not actually contributing. I'm just wondering from your perspective, do you think it is okay that some people aren't like I often give people like maybe it's an off the hook but that everybody has an issue that they're going to be passionate about some it's what's going on in Ukraine some it's what's going on with the environment some it's what's going on with the Uyghurs in China that people are going to have a array of interests that they want to dive into in a deeper way and indigenous and reconciliation maybe one topic that some are passionate about but others they're just working to pay the bills with inflation they're not going to be focused on the do you take that same mindset or do you think that this is a something everybody needs to learn about and understand in a deep way. I think everyone has that responsibility.

It may not be able to participate the same way as everyone else. Sure, there are people in places of privilege. They have the time. They have the resources. They can participate more. But I think being aware of it, that's where it really starts. Everyone can do that. It doesn't matter what your position is.

Everyone can call it out when they hear their friends and family perpetuating these racist stereotypes of indigenous people. I don't care who you are. You have a responsibility to step up. You can do it in a respectful way. You don't have to be confrontational. But remaining silent is not acceptable. I don't care who you are. So I think everyone has a responsibility to participate in any way they can.

And that starts with being aware and that starts with speaking out. I talk about this all the time. You know, people have a responsibility to speak out. It really is. People have a responsibility to tell the truth, learn the truth. But then secondly, tell the truth. and hold others to account. I think we can all do that.

Interesting. Can you talk to us a bit about the doctrine of discovery? It was repudiated by the Pope. I'm sure with the next book, you're going to be able to dive more into that topic. But I'm just curious, is this a sign of evolution? Were you expecting this?

Were you optimistic? What effects, if any, does it have? Well, it was funny because I've been on the CBC show, whatever it is the it's a popular with Galway I can't remember the name of the show

no my wife's laugh because I don't really follow the CBC very much but I was I'd been on there a few times and I was on there talking about this so-called repudiation about a month ago

and I asked my wife after did I sound cranky She was, it's not a little cranky. I am Frankie. That's not a repudiation. It really frustrated me. One, because, you know, come on, it's not the Pope saying it here on indigenous land. It's not the same thing.

It comes out as kind of a statement from the Vatican. But worse than that, the way I read that, they weren't repudiating it. They were basically saying, this has never been part of our Roman kind. athlete teachings. We've never thought this. And it's those bad colonizer governments who misinterpreted and misapplied for teachings for their own self-interest. They're the problem. I am not buying that. Not at all. That frustrates me even more because it's not someone else's problem. It's something that they were complicit in. They continue to be complicit in

because they continue to benefit from the doctorate. You have diocese all across country. They think they own indigenous land. They're redeveloping these lands and benefiting from these lands. I don't think it sets a good example for Catholics. And I don't think it sets a good example. example for colonizer

governments around the world. I think it's important that the church should have stepped up and said we take responsibility and this is what we're doing to make it right. We're doing something instead of pointing the finger at someone else.

Do you think that one of the challenges is how big these organizations are and how long they're history is, that it's challenging for one individual as part of a whole history to take responsibility for the thoughts and the ideas of past people. And so it's hard to get someone kind of cornered to be able to take that kind of responsibility. I just think about how many churches, how many different popes, how many different ideas over those years that this person coming out, no matter if it was exactly how you said or if it was somebody else, that it's never

going to be genuine because that person, that individual, had nothing to do with what happened back then, and we're trying to catch somebody and make sure that they take responsibility for what happened. And they don't want to do that because they don't see themselves being the person who started this to begin with. So they don't want to take that ownership. But they're part of this institution that needs to take some responsibility. So it's this, it's almost this weird trying to catch somebody to be able to take that kind of accountability. Yeah, I don't let them off the hook for that, right? They're wielding the power of the institution.

If they're going to wield the power of the institution, they have to take the responsibility. Now, it's not personally, I don't know, but on behalf of the institution, I think it's important to take responsibility and to set an example. And the same applies to any individuals. I hear from non-Indigenous people sometimes,

well, I didn't do their call. colonizing someone else did it centuries ago, generations ago. What are you being upset with me about it for? And what I think they don't understand it is you are benefiting from it. To begin with, second, you are part of a colonizing state right now in 2023. You are supporting it. The policies of provincial and federal governments largely, are based on a modern form of colonization.

To a large extent, is there really a difference between Justin Trudeau and John A. MacDonald? I don't think so. Justin Trudeau has his own national policy. It's still, it's a kinder, gentler form. I'll accept that. But still, the underlying objective is to remove indigenous people from their land. so non-Indigenous people can exploit it. And it's not just a governmental problem.

Non-Indigenous people all across the country are benefiting from that. That's what they're doing. So they really need to acknowledge it at a personal level and not simply say, this isn't my responsibility. This is part of the past. This is a wrong that was done in the past. I'm not responsible. At most, I'll say, it's hard.

and then I'll get on with the hard work of call annexation. This leads beautifully into the TMX pipeline. This leads really nicely into where the rubber hits the road with some of these policies running through the Wetsawin Territory, their community's positions on this. The piece that really stands out to me and it's hard for me to square is how many police officers, RC&P officers, were sending up to the north. to support this economic initiative in the guise that this is going to help our economy as a whole and what I often try and remind people is I hear that argument our GDP may go up as a consequence

but the subway worker the McDonald's worker the average Canadian is unlikely to see any of the economic prosperity of that pipeline and so when we lack our CMP officers in British Columbia in our in our municipalities and we're sending them up there paying them far more to go up there to defend infrastructure rather than Canadians. That really concerns me as a mixed message about who this government actually serves. And this is not anything new. This is like I've been saying. It's been going on for 150 years.

This is what the Northwest Mounted Police was set up to do, 1873, marking across the prairies, right? it was part of that. The RCMP, they're celebrating their 150th. They're doing the same thing. Now, they do it in such a way that mining company, pipeline companies don't need to necessarily go out and hire their own private police force, where if they were operating in other countries around the world, that's what a lot of those same companies do. They have their own private police force. police force to suppress indigenous resistance in Canada, in a very Canadian way, institutionalized it has. Now it works through the government, through the RC&P, but it's important that non-Indigenous people know, this is what is happening. This is what happens. Does this fit with your idea? of what Canada stands for, when they see these militarized RCMD arresting indigenous land defenders, unarmed indigenous land defenders, usually women? Usually arresting these beautiful, powerful indigenous women that are doing what their mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers did, stand up for the land. they're being arrested by the RCMP on behalf of the state that supports resource extraction

companies. That's the reality. And I think people don't understand this. Now, if they know it, then step back and think, is this what you think Canada is about? Is this where we should be going? and have that conversation. One of the things I thought about when I was entering Peter A. Allard School of Law was, what is admirable about our current system? There's this idea that we hear a lot about about decolonizing, but personally I felt like it was important to understand at least what are the pieces that our previous systems lacked.

And one is that indigenous communities were never intended to scale upwards. They were never meant to serve 35 million people. And so looking at the Western system, you have tools like innocent until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt. The idea that a person can be arrested, charged, and go to a courthouse and not know the judge, the probation officer, the crown, the defense lawyer, and still, in many cases, have a fair trial. I'm just curious from your perspective, is it challenging to be a proud Canadian? Are you a proud Canadian? How do you think about that? Yeah. No, I do not describe myself as a proud Canadian. I think there are a lot of admirable things that can be on a surface what we think Canada stands for.

But what we have to understand is the disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality. we get caught up with all the rhetoric, understanding that there's a disconnect there and that it's often used then to silence indigenous people. We often see this in the context of the rule of law. Canadian courts will come down hard on indigenous land defenders on the principle that we have to respect the rule of law. And so it's weaponized against indigenous people, whereas you would think, oh, well, that sounds reasonable.

We all want to respect the rule of law until you start to question it more. And you go, wait a minute, you know, why aren't Canadian governments respecting their own laws? And this is what I see I hear from my clients all across country. I think the number one thing that I'll hear is my clients will say, why don't the non-Indigenous people respect their own laws? Instead, they'll disregard them. We'll see it in the situations of land defenders, indigenous people standing up to defend their title lands.

That is actually an expression of Aboriginal title, showing that you can exclude others from your land. That's what comes with title is the right to exclude them from their land. Yet that will be disregarded. So many non-Indigenous Canadians will ignore that and then we'll try to address indigenous people by say, wait a minute, you're offside because you're not respecting the rule of law. lot. That one for me is a pretty hard pill to swallow.

One more big question is around this idea of what does it mean to be Aboriginal? It's one of the chapters in your book. And we're hearing this idea of pretendians. We're hearing this idea that what it means to be indigenous. Some people are saying it and they aren't it. And it brings to mind for me this question about people who are connected to my culture in a deeper way than I am. They're connected to the traditions, the language, the practices, the hunting, but may not have a status card. There's this complex relationship, I would say, between what it means to be indigenous legally and in reality. So there are many practices that are indigenous that are somewhat unique to that community. And somebody could become an expert

in it, but not have a status card or a MAT card or any credentials around that. Yet, in my opinion, are indigenous by cultural practice, by faith, by the religious approach to treating those with respect. And then there's the status cards, blood quantum, measurements, who's your parents? And that approach has always troubled indigenous communities because somebody else is deciding who it is, who's indigenous. And I'm just curious as to what your thoughts are on what it means to be indigenous in Canada. Well, it's been really, it's so regrettable.

seeing what's happened in the last few years around pretend scenes and the violence they do to indigenous people. I had a conversation with a student of mine at UBC a few weeks ago and just how difficult it had been because of these kinds of accusations coming out. And you get so many indigenous people have been stolen away from their families. from their roots, and trying to find their way back in a meaningful, respectful way, whether they're 60s, coup, or there's so many ways that indigenous people through colonization have been disconnected from who they are. And they're trying to find their way back again.

And what, unfortunately, I think one of the real significant violence, and acts of pretendians is that then they sow these seeds of doubt around indigenous people that's more vulnerable to begin with. And they get lateral violence against them. I think that is, it's so regrettable to see that happening. And then to see indigenous people relying on colonizer categories to discriminate against other indigenous people.

I see it all the time around status cards, and I understand why so many people hang on to that status card, because it is comforting. It does give you that security by that the same time when it ends up being weaponized against other indigenous people. You don't have a status card. Therefore, we're not sure. Maybe you're a pretend. And I talk to people about, wait a minute, don't you have cousins, nephews, nieces, don't have status cards? Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. And you do realize the sexist and racist basis of those status cards, right? Or I'll talk to them about what about six ones and six tattoos because under the Indian Act, right? you can be a 6-2 under the Indianette,

you're hanging on by your fingernail. All depending who you marry, your children might not be entitled to be registered. And just how important it is to be aware of it and not to allow this pretendian cancer undermine those relationships. And then a second point on this, there and that I think about is that it's important that non-indigenous people can naturalize

people themselves. You know, I hear the story all the time. People talk about gray owl, who is, you know, that infamous example, early, 20, et cetera, a real pretend, so yet, and they'll give examples. Oh, that person's just another gray owl. Well, I've talked to indigenous people that have said, wait a minute, we naturalized him. But we exercised our own laws. We brought him in. We taught him what it was to be an indigenous person. There's a perspective on that to say that, wait a minute, whether he had a status

score or not, or he, okay, maybe he did act like he was from somewhere else. But from our perspective, what we were doing was naturalized. him into the community. And don't underline that. Don't disempower us to say that we don't have the ability to do it. My final question on that note is just around former judge Mary Ellen Trappell LaFond. It's a tough one. She reviewed your book.

I personally believe she's still an admirable person. I think she's done a lot for indigenous people. She utilized her position to try and advance positive causes. Past people I've interviewed have had glowing recommendations of her character and the quality of person she is. How do you think about that issue? I've known Mary Ellen for a long time, and I was thankful that she did read my book. But whether she intended it or not, the result of what's happened is the type of violence against indigenous people. That's been the result of it.

And I think that's important for everyone to recognize this has caused huge harm. Not just Mary Ellen, others, but she's an example of the harm that it's caused, individuals, the positions that have been denied other indigenous people, indigenous women. For someone that maybe you shouldn't have been stepping into those shoes, you shouldn't have been representing yourself in that way. I know it's a difficult one. It's a difficult one for a lot of people that have supported Mary Allen because, like you say, they know that she was doing things at least from their perspective for the right reasons. really importantly had a lot of positive attacks and that should be acknowledged. And like I say, there is the argument from indigenous people, which I think is important

to keep in mind, we can decide who our members are. We can decide who's part of the community. Don't disempower us from that. But at the same time, whether it was intended or not, I think it's important to recognize the harm that it's caused, the harm that it's caused indigenous people. And like I say, I had a conversation with a former student of mine a few weeks ago. She was in tears because of the harm that's been the outcome of that situation. And I really think that's where we need to look is recognize that.

everyone needs to recognize that harm and indigenous and non-Indigenous and ensure that it's not replicated. We can't have that. We can't have people that are so vulnerable to start with through no fault of their own. Then being undermined, being displaced, being ridiculed, being questioned in such a way that's very unfair to them personally. Brilliant. Can you please tell people how they can get your book stand off? Oh, it's available at, I think, a lot of books are still. It's available online, lots of places. One of the things that I love is that Lauren Cardinal was gracious enough. to narrate the book for the audio book.

I tell you, Aaron, he's such a, just wonderful. So when I tell people, it's also available as an audio book, and don't worry, I'm not reading it. Lauren is reading it. He did such a wonderful, wonderful job. So I really encourage people, if you can't find the paperback, and you like an audio book, Lauren is I just give my thanks to him for being willing to take it on.

I couldn't agree more. I grew up with Lauren on Corner Gas, a huge fan of all of his different work. He's got a fantastic voice. Stand off, go find it. Thank you so much, Bruce, for being willing to do this. I really appreciate it. I feel like we covered so many complex things.

deep topics in such a short period of time. So I can't thank you enough for that. Great. Thank you very much. So Bruce was a professor of yours? He wasn't a professor of mine, but he was pretty infamous within the school. First People's Law is one of the large law firms serving indigenous communities. So I was aware of him from the beginning, but didn't have the chance he has, he's not an every semester professor. So the times just didn't line up, but I've heard amazing things and was excited. I tried to invite him on a year ago or a year and a half ago, and that was before we were doing these amazing Zoom interviews. Got it. You made my dreams come true, Tim. I'm a dream maker. Make a wish. That's great. Anything else? Go check out the next episode. Make sure you

subscribe, review, check out the website. I'm always updating it and making sure we're on top of that. Big things are coming soon, so stay tuned. Thank you.