Nuanced. - 51. Pepita E. McKee: Overcoming Adversity & Making a Difference

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

Pepita Elena McKee shares how she overcame adversity, makes a difference in her career, and how she became the CEO of Impact Resolutions. Aaron and Pepita talk about mediating between corporations and Indigenous communities regarding developments, her personal background, attending university and founding Impact Resolutions.  Pepita Elena McKee is the CEO of Impact Resolutions, an award–winning researcher, engagement specialist, and social strategist. Pepita attended Langara College for Aboriginal Studies, Simon Fraser University for a bachelors and masters degree in sociology and anthropology. She has worked as a social and health consultant, socio-economic analyst, and now acts as a human environment regulatory and monitoring and evaluation specialist with Impact Resolutions. She  acts as a director for the Enrichment League, a Community Liaison with the First Nation Education Foundation and works on a sub-committee with Women in Mining BC. Pepita is the Co-Chair for the Technical Advisory Committee of the Indigenous Centre for Cumulative Effects. Chapters: 0:00:00 Introduction 0:02:14 Mediating Between Corporations & Indigenous Communities  0:24:58 First Nations Economic Development 0:33:52 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People 1:01:08 Overcoming Adversity 1:53:20 Starting Impact Resolutions 2:08:51 Reconciliation in BC 2:18:56 Working with Impact ResolutionsSend us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

My name is Papita Elena McKee. I am CEO and founder of Impact Resolutions, and I'm a sociologist and anthropologist by trade. So the work that really drives me or I feel gives me purpose is working with people and being able to share their stories in a way that is co-collaborated and informs things that might affect them. So that's mainly the work that I do now. Amazing. Could you tell us a little bit about the work you do? I think if you are trying to understand this topic, I think it's a little bit intimidating for people. I think that it plays an important role and perhaps it's a role that people don't get to see that often because it is important to have someone kind of as an intermediary being able to build bridges along both sides.

And I think that highlighting your work is so valuable because we can all perhaps learn from building bridges between two sides. And I think as we might disagree more with people, not able to see their opinion or their viewpoints, it's important to try and understand. It's trying to build those connections. So could you tell us perhaps about the work that you do? Yeah, thank you. As a sociologist and anthropologist, that was later in my career. I think very early, it was really important for me to live. with communities and to live with people and really understand their day to day as a way to

understand how policies are implemented in practice. So I have a real discomfort reading something and signing off on something without having a firsthand knowledge or a real clear picture around how information was collected, who was collected from, and ensuring that it's not only elected leadership or those who hold sort of authoritative positions but grandma and grandpa the youth the elders the aunties and uncles how are they included and were they provided a safe space to share their stories in a way that they felt comfortable right yeah could you give us like an example of when when you come in what is it sort of look like um you have perhaps a big industry trying to work with the community, what does it sort of look like for you to be brought into a circumstance?

I've been pretty lucky in terms of where I'm brought in. In my earlier in my career, I worked mostly internationally and had been given this really unique opportunity to live with communities who were involuntarily resettled by a large dam. And this is seven years after construction, the proponent or the client still required monitoring and evaluation to ensure the agreements at time of construction or resettlement were still being followed through. And this is a context where, you know, going back, I had developed a real, she's my mentor now, and, you know, she really loved the approach that I take to live with communities as a way to understand how policies are implemented in practice

and had convinced her client that you should hire myself. Because they were having a real problem understanding while on paper everything looked great. But as an example of my approach or my method in this context was to live with them. And these were two communities and close to 7,000 people were relocated involuntarily. and these two communities in particular had really protested against the construction of the dam

and as they were going ahead anyway had decided to agree to negotiations, a memorandum of understanding and a resettlement action plan. So this is seven years after and, you know, they were relocated and unbeknownst to me, there were still a lot of struggles, and that came out with community members shooting at proponents like myself. So I didn't know that at the time. I had been given the opportunity to live with them. And, you know, I was early in my career, and it was really important for me to live with them, but also to earn their trust. So it was, you know, I was given that opportunity to develop a meaningful relationship by demonstrating that I'm here not just a parachute in. And I think that's a really important component.

They, you know, people need to see there's some investment. I'm not just coming in and leaving, which often is the case. You're going in for a meeting and then they leave. And here my offer or my proposal, this is something they've never done. before was to live with them. So my first year, and I ended up there close to six years, was only for a couple months, but it was important in that two months to have permission to come back. So, you know, that experience really gave me an insight into what's important, especially when you're dealing with large-scale and voluntary resettlement or large-scale

impacts due to development, a development of infrastructure. So it gave me the insight that I'm on the right path, and I was able to learn really quickly where things had gone sideways. Interesting. So these corporations go, we're working with an indigenous or a native population to the area, and maybe we're not getting what we need, maybe we're not getting the agreements that we were hoping for, and then they call you or they call an organization to come in and sort of be an intermediary between the two. Is this a new approach? Yeah, I think, and this was a special case. That experience, usually I'm hired when they're in the environmental assessment application process and internationally, especially when involuntary resettlement is involved. There's

great effort to really understand and scope a cross-section of the community. So it's at least the effort is there. And that's after doing it wrong for many, many years. They've established these international guidelines, whether they're operating under World Bank and Voluntary Resettlement Guidelines or International Finance Corporation Performance Standards. There are requirements that are involved with bilateral loaning and sort of applications for funding. And so that international experience gave me the breadth of understanding of what pre-construction, pre-sort of agreements, what was involved in terms of moving towards consent, you know, ensuring or the bank being happy with the way the,

the proponent may have collected that information, understood impacts for either avoiding or mitigating or compensating for any negative consequences. Wow. So when they contact you, are you agreeing to, you moved there for two months at first? What is that agreement like? Like, what is the expectations of you? Is it just to go kind of live a day in the life and understand or are you gathering? What, what does that sort of experience look like or that agreement, at least with on the side of the corporation. Well, it was, it was interesting, I think a really unique circumstance because Dr. Helen Cruz, who had essentially recruited me on a project she was already working on, you know, and this was before I'd completed my BA. So I was still in school at this time and, you know, was really thinking

about what my next steps might be and had discovered with some of my early work in, in BC, the importance of living with these communities, and a lot of the information was being able to identify, you had spoken to this person who you thought was your broker. But in reality, that person actually doesn't live in the communities. So really just trying to pivot and work with the Indigenous People's Organization that was created who were supposed to represent community members and strengthen that relationship, at least that communication between the proponent, the dam proponent people and the indigenous people's organization who were representative of the wider community.

And it was through that, developing that, I guess, those relationships living with these communities really day to day. And these are areas which sadly you would expect their living situations to be better than maybe before they were resettled with no running water, no electricity, and in one community that was relocated to the top of a mountain, potentially in five to ten years with no source of water because of where they were. So there was some things that were coming ahead that were outside of the control of the dam, but for the community themselves were of great concerns. Right. And what is it like to build relationships with the community? When you're heading in, do you have a mindset, a approach on who you'd like to connect with first, to build perhaps stronger relationships, perhaps knowing that in a certain community elders are really important? So building connections with them first will perhaps pay dividends and being able to build relationships with other people. How do you go approaching that?

In this case, it was already predetermined for me and the community were really open and enthusiastic about welcoming, welcome me in. In other circumstances, when it's involved in an environmental assessment application or impact assessment, it really is about, like, each community will have different protocols and ensuring that I'm respecting local context. So it would be, well, who should I talk to? And usually that if it's here in Canada, it would be a call to the band office, understanding, you know, do you have a protocol officer? And then working with that protocol officer, understanding, well, this is sort of the plans. And then working through talking to the right people. When I was working in Central B.C. in the Woodsoitin territory, I was coming on with the proponent already supposedly having established relationships. And, you know, in a similar way, it's about developing that relationship with those that we were delegated to or who were delegated to working with me.

And then, you know, in my way, it's about giving as much as you're taking. taking. So being able to demonstrate that I'm really here to listen and to share. And certainly, whether that's here in Canada or working internationally, you know, you're tested. You know, how authentic are you really, right? And I think that takes some time. In Canada, I was lucky because when I was thrown into projects or placed onto project, there wasn't much expectation for me to do much. Internationally, though, my work has been different. I've been really blessed to work with some really great proponents who wanted to do the best possible effort in order to collect the right information. So it really depends on the client and it depends on

the political will or maybe the pressure for a financial investment decision on whether that project might go ahead. In that first case that I was talking about, that's a project that's already been built. And they were looking for ongoing funding. So, you know, I'd love to say these people want to do the right thing, or these companies want to do the right thing. But really, there's some political will or sort of tension behind it that they have to do that kind of work. So I've been, again, really blessed to kind of sit in that context where people need my skills. And that is, you know, as a social scientist, to be able to collect a lot of qualitative information of very short period of time and then quantify it into themes or concepts that, you know,

lawyers and accountants and, you know, business developers will understand. And that really is the role that, you know, I didn't think, you know, as a young person, never thought, that's what I want to be. but that's what I've been able to really flourish in. Yeah, like you're like a community translator for the needs and the desires and the aspirations of that community into what lawyers, accountants and financial workers and these people are able, the languages they speak, the numbers that they're looking at in terms of what do they need, how much funding do we allocate to X, Y, and Z.

I'm just interested to know because it seems like you're perhaps one of the only people trying to balance that scale. We hear about inequities when corporations are dealing with vulnerable communities that don't have, like, even thinking of my community, they don't have like an expert financial person to look at potential agreements. And then some people might argue, well, any opportunity would be fantastic for them because they don't have any right now. But once they take on that agreement, then they're not open to any other agreements. And so perhaps the next proponent would have been more kind or generous or more supportive. And so when you're in a business situation, you're kind of going, this is what we're willing to give up.

This is what we'll give them if they ask for it. But if they don't ask for it, we're not going to give anything. And so there is a difference in relationship because often the communities have no idea what they should be asking for, what questions they should ask. And if they're not in that position, they won't know what to ask for those things, and you're kind of sent in to kind of evaluate what should they be asking for. So could you elaborate on that? Yeah, I think that was certainly much the case 2006, 2007. And in BC, I can speak to. And I'm really thinking around, you know, the regulatory environment on what a proponent or an industry or government is supposed to do internationally that conversation. I love the way you frame it. You're

right. You know, this is the needs of an industry over government who needs information to pass X, Y, and C. But this might be the first time a community has even had to think about these things. And so how do you contend with that? And, you know, I find it's really trying to push the timeline on the needs of, you know, that industry. proponent or government proponent with the reality of communities they you know there's there's a whole life that they're living that is not following their timeline and and that's kind of the pressure between the two and again if if you have a right a strong regulatory environment requiring you to do meaningful engagement then you know for the proponent they're going to build that into

their operational plans and their budgets. And that makes it easier for someone like me to being able to build a business case in terms of why we need to spend some time in communities versus a regulatory environment that really looks to validate what the community is saying to you quite late in the stages of an environmental application process. Well, if the industry is not required to do that, then they've done just enough. And that's where you see the tensions and I think changes in the regulatory environment in Canada, which is really exciting. What seems to be, you know, I was really surprised working internationally and coming back here to Canada, how much I took for granted of what it took to do an impact assessment.

And, you know, I'll just give you one example, and I was so impressed. I was working for a potential hydro project that was going to involuntarily relocate 13 communities in the Parri River Delta in a very remote region of Papua New Guinea. And the CEO had just, you know, there was a requirement, but he went above and beyond that to develop, you know, in addition to the work that the impact assessment team were, you know, attempting to do, he developed a third-party auditor made up of Oxfam and other NGOs to audit the work that we were doing. But he would go ahead in advance of our team who spent months there to collect this information in terms of what their lives were like now to ensure

that all the right people were there. So it really depends on, you know, the regulatory environment, you know, the sort of the hindsight of a CEO to understand that doing all this really meaningful engagement up front will sort of develop the right mechanisms for successful construction and operations. It's rare, but I feel very lucky to have worked with a few people like that. That's really interesting that you say that, because it's how I felt about being a native court worker was just that there were these amazing people doing such good work, but we don't put them on the front page of a newspaper. They don't really get the credit of the impact that they're trying to have or the everyday, like there were some Crown Counsel that would call me and

say, we have a client in cells, we need you to go see them, like we want you to help them, try and get them connected with treatment. Nobody's talking about that. And then we talk about systemic racism or we talk about the evils of the criminal justice system. And we don't talk about the good work. And I think the thing that I experienced was there was such a sense of perhaps discouragement of doing good work because no matter how hard you try, that's not going to make the news. It's going to be that one case where somebody did do something wrong that interests everybody. And it's not those good, kind leaders who aren't looking for the fame or recognition for it. Yeah, it's troubling because, you know, in my career as it's a voluble.

I know sort of where my heart sits. And again, it was just pure luck that I'm working with, you know, CEOs like I did in Papua New Guinea or in other projects in Western Australia. And even in this damn project who knew, sorry, in the Philippines, who understood that they weren't getting the right information and weren't willing to take a leap to do something different with me. And, you know, and then how, you know, it's a whole group of people, it's a community of people doing these things. And I think people don't generally want to do bad things, but they

aren't given the space to do good things. And so it's pressure for them just to produce on a timeline that is so unreasonable because ultimately it wasn't scoped well. So I feel like that's kind of been my charge is to ensure that whatever the project, however big or small, the upfront work to scope it well and be able to properly, you know, place a budget, which within each line item, if you will really make a difference for people to do either good work or bad work. And or, you know, does it sort of nurture that culture of competition, which is, you know, and bullying and harassment? because, you know, if scoped well, people won't feel like they're, you know, that they'll have the time and that they're all the work and the work that they're doing has some meaning in terms of the greater goal of whatever that is. So you're like saying that if you're in Vancouver during rush hour traffic, you're going to make worse decisions in terms of your ability to, you have to get somewhere by 5 p.m., and it's 448 and you're rushing through.

I'm guilty of that. Done it. I've made bad decisions because I felt rushed. And if you remove or create space not to feel like you're going to make a bad decision or put yourself in a high-risk situation. And I think that's for most parts of our lives. It's really dehumanize it. And I think some companies do that really well,

and they're learning on that it's more than the engineering aspects of a project. There are non-engineering or non-technical aspects of a project that are, equally important that could create a sort of the life cycle in a really healthy way of that project. That's interesting. I've never really thought about that. So would that be something if you could wave a magic wand and change one aspect of this industry and the relationships, it would be to flush out and make sure that you have a better sense of what the process is going to be and have better expectations so that those everyday employees who are looking to go up the corporate ladder and be like put in as management and then climb that that they're not incentivized to be bad

actors because then they have the time to go okay like let's make sure that everything makes sense here and we're happy are you having the right people in the right places to do the right work you're not just building an organization based on nothing or just assumptions if it's evidence-based, you're going to have a better idea of having the right people in the room to do the right work. I think that's one aspect. I don't think that's going to solve everything because I think people have a lot of, you know, in terms of how we work with each other, we need to practice that more in terms of creating a more human place to work. But I think we can remove a lot of the tensions that create or sort of foster negative behavior.

And then I think there's another component where, you know, and I feel really grateful to be involved in the Indigenous Center for Cumulative Effects, which is trying, it's a national organization and nonprofit that understanding cumulative effects and all that happens in our community, you know, we're trying to develop the conversation that those conversations about development aren't triggered by development, that we're giving communities or, we hope that we're giving communities an opportunity develop their own understanding of what is valuable, you know, from a sort of a whole centered approach. And then if a community or developer comes, they already have that information. They've been working on it. They've already been practicing that conversation and know where their boundaries are and who is sort of set up to speak with the right people. Who needs to be consulted with? Because that's it, and I can say really easily when I first came back to Canada, the understanding of who should we talk to, especially in a hereditary elected system in most communities, was not only confusing for proponents, but also for community members. And that's sort of the work that we're trying to do at that national levels give, you know, that opportunity we hope, or at least that's what we started with.

And like, well, regardless of what's happening out there, what they need, what do you need? And let's start that conversation with the elders, with the youth, because that, that's really the people who should be driving these conversations or those, those members who live in those communities. That's so interesting. I'm writing a paper on First Nations economic development. And community consultation was not something I expected to be the cornerstone of my paper, but developing community plans, economic plans, it sounds like that's what you're talking about as well,

is having an understanding of what does community mean? Where do we want to see ourselves? Because one of the problems you can have is you bring in a great development. But then none of the community members saw them doing the jobs that the organization was offering and saying like, oh, we're going to give you pipeline jobs. And then the community is like, I don't want that job. That's right. That might not be for them or being able to say yes or no to opportunities because it came from them first, but not to forget the religious and spiritual component of that. And that's one thing of a practitioner where, you know, you see development go really sideways is not taking really, again, that human heart-centered approach that it's more than the economics that

makes up our well-being, our whole selves. It's more than, you know, housing. It's sort of the our spiritual time, you know, that is well. And I think that's what's really exciting about a cumulative effects approach. It sort of helps why, I think for me to understand potentially who are the right people to talk to, right? Who are the real decision makers? Because we know it's not always those who are elected, you know, or even those who are who claim to be hereditary or who are hereditary, right?

There's other people in those communities that are influential. and for other reasons outside of economic ones. Interesting. So the spiritual and perhaps the wellness side is likely the religious elements are going to be the hardest for a corporation to quantify, to understand. And when I had Keith Carlson on and Sunny McKelsey, and they are very interested in indigenous locations here in the Fraser Valley and place names. Yes. One of the comments they've made is that we've destroyed some sacred spots. for indigenous people here by putting in pipelines, getting rid of burial grounds, just kind of running them over.

And then their comment was kind of like, well, you wouldn't tear down the Eiffel Tower to put a pipeline through it. Absolutely. And so could you share? Yeah, no, thank you. And it's exciting because, again, I just assume this was done everywhere. And in involuntary settlement context, it's about understanding your sense of place. For those reasons that you just identified, graveyard sites, spiritual site, sacred site. It's really about understanding a sense of place and understanding for that community in a voluntary resettlement context how far that sense of place goes.

Because if you're relocating a whole home, a whole community, then that needs to be identified and in order to either avoid those spaces or be able to properly compensate it. So the method or the approach is it's really in the process versus the outcome. You're creating that safe space for those members to feel safe to share with you. And then you're validating the information that you're interpreting to make sure, well, did I get that right? But at the same time, impressing upon the people, I'm taking this information because it could mean something. And it could mean something really great. It could mean something really horrible, but whatever that choice is, I want it, you know, so it's really a sharing of information in terms of what engagement and consultation looks like. So for me, it's like understanding a sense of place, which in impact assessment work, I think it's more and more acceptable because it gives you that greater sense outside of just, you know, the cost of living, those socioeconomic aspects.

Do you feel like that's the hardest part to portray? because even for me, I get like, oh, there's the woo-woo. Like, I struggle with that in my own. I've been told. I've been told, well, you know, we all need a socialist in the room. I never thought of myself as one. But that's how maybe a client would see me because I feel that's where I really shine. And I didn't really discover that about myself, that I'm really good at taking those really

complicated concepts and being able to quantify them really quickly. And that's where I went back to school to do graduate work was really to sort of hone those skills further. So after working internationally, I decided to pursue graduate work, which, you know, again, I was going in with purpose. I was like, okay, I know, you know, I want to make socioeconomic impact assessments or impact assessments easy for people. That was kind of my mission. And I really, I was very fortunate to have, you know, been trained through a medical, sociological, anthropological lens, which takes emergent information and then, and then focus on, with a focus on quantifying that information. So whether it's on a sort of a small scale or through a large sort of national data set, you know, that was all what I did with my graduate. work in that regard. So for me, it's pretty easy. And again, but it really goes down to

creating that space, ensuring you have the right people in the room, that people in the community have endorsed to be with you. So there's a whole approach before, you know, in terms of consultation and engagement, this idea around moving towards consent, you know, it does take a little bit of time, but once you get there, it's like, zoom, you know, it's like, you know, you have that trust, you have that sort of permission from, you know, the leadership, which, you know, in my mind, is a cross-section of people in that community to work with them, to develop that information that you need to understand what we would call a value component, to understand not only the relationship with between people and environment or people with things.

or a sense of place, but all those things that might be required for a later regulatory application. Right. One thing I feel like that often gets left out of the conversation is that these developments in many circumstances are beneficial to the community, as long as things are done obviously equitably, but that for many First Nations communities here in BC or Canada, we're facing severe amounts of poverty. We have a lack of development based on where we've been located, the size of the reserves,

these things played a role in us not being able to develop well economically. And so this is a potential space for improvements, for communities to gain capacity and to feel confident in their own communities and to be able to make sure that everybody's taking care of. So there is benefit. There's an opportunity. There absolutely is. But I think where developers have made the mistake is around the timelines and the pressure that they need. need to sort of push forward, you know, their timelines versus the communities. I think there's a real opportunity when there's a political will and I've seen that where negotiated well, you know, you see a lot of benefits coming back into those communities that can be used for multiple

purposes. And that's the thing. You're collecting, you know, you would hope, and I think that's where a developer does really well. You're collecting information for your project. It's also the community's information that they can use for multiple purposes. So I think there are opportunities and benefits that could be generated, and I've seen that when there's political will to do so because of the client or the proponent who needs something, right? I think for those others, you know, it hasn't been done well because it's really rushed. You know, there's no validation.

of is that the right person that you're actually talking to? And, you know, however big or small that project might be, the benefits are really funneling into one person. And that's a problem because that's what people remember in terms of development. And I think people wouldn't mind opportunities coming back to that community, but I believe and I think it's becoming more commonplace, they should decide what those benefits are. And they should be included in those conversations.

Interesting. So for Canada, we're looking at Undrip, which is the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People's Act. It's a long word. And then BC's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People's Act as well, so DRIPA, which BC just came out with an action plan for implementation. And then, so there, which is really exciting. I think when I first started this work in the 90s, you know, even creating awareness that there were land claim issues was a big issue. And, you know, even the idea around the legacy, the horrible legacy of residential schools was not discussed. And so you see this, I think, in BC a really unique situation looking at that a majority of British Columbia hasn't been officially treated yet.

there's a political will for the province to do this. Because, you know, you look through sort of the Supreme Court cases that are on the side of rights and title, it would be in the province's best interest to really implement some of the, you know, identified action items in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Murder to a Missing Indigenous Women and Girls report, calls to justice. And then DRIPA just really formalizing that, well, in theory, to be mainstream throughout sort of all, I guess, civil approaches, civil projects. So do you have optimism? Because I've heard it on both sides. I've heard comments from professors go, we've had commissions done all since

the 1900s, and we've had new commissions that say basically the same thing. And today it's got a new name, it's got a flashy title, people are keeping it in mind, but that it hasn't really done that much, or that there's no teeth in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission requiring it to be implemented by X state or something along those lines. So do you feel like we're moving in the right direction? I know that in the last, I think it was the last election, a big question was, are we going to bring in, undrip into our Canadian legislation? And then what does that mean for I think it's consent or there's there was a piece of it that was being discussed. Free and prior informed consent.

Yes. And that goes back to, you know, the Calder case, which, you know, you need to consult with, you know, Aboriginal or indigenous peoples. It's sort of, it's all kind of built on from that, you know, considering that these efforts to negotiate, you know, really, you know, you know, exist. in 1887 and continues. So I think it's moving in the right direction. I do have a bit of spirit of optimism around it.

As a practitioner, the more legislation that supports meaningful engagement, you know, is the better. And I think the more and more practitioners that, you know, and I think there are who are really hungry for the legislation to support that the work that they want to do, whether it's in government, whether it's an industry, industry, we have something now to say, well, there's a business case. It's not a nice thing and a thing that we know will be the right thing to do, but you're required to do it now. So whatever that looks like, I think we're moving in the right directions, and now it's just sort of regulating that space. And I think in terms of, well, what meaningful engagement, what does that look like? And that's really not determined by me. But what is determined by the legislation is that time has to be scoped in for those activities. Interesting. So the right

leaning perspective that I think Andrew Shear tried to lay out was basically that you've got this pipeline that needs to go from A to B and it's going to go through 15 different indigenous communities and if 14 of them are all on board and they all agree and they consent. I'm done. And then there's one, what do we do with that one? And so that's the question around. around free prior and informed consent. Well, and I think it goes back to, okay, sure, you have that, but then it's not only what you have, it's how you got there. Right.

So I think that's where F-PIC becomes, has utility. It kind of provides us a bit of a diagnostic tool to sort of say, okay, well, we know what F-PIC looks like, you know, with all these other case studies across the globe, we know why FPEC exists. Well, how has it been applied here? So there will be that, I think, an analysis on more than, well, you have those 11 elected band councils who agree to the project. But it's more than that. It's more about, I don't think in BC, especially with rights and title, it's for those who live on an off reserve. Interesting. Can you tell us perhaps some of it is confidential, but would you be able to walk us through what happened with the

Wetsuan community. Just perhaps a historical layout of what went wrong because I think that that's the indigenous community that stands out the most. And as I'm working on this First Nations Economic Development Plan, many people believe that indigenous people are actually anti-development.

And I think that that's a consequence of how the wettoin community's covered and how all the projects that go forward that are peaceful and there's no issues, they don't get covered. But when there is a disagreement, that's what makes the news of indigenous people standing in the way and protesting. So would you be able to perhaps share what you kind of saw play out?

Yeah, I, you know, and I feel really grateful to continue to work in the territories and with people. And my approach has been, and, you know, even the work that I've done in the Philippines and elsewhere internationally, I still have a connection with those people. So that's always been my approach. And when I first started there, you know, I, I, I, I, I, had inherited a project where my predecessor had been trying to develop relationships for a number of years and wasn't successful. And, you know, there's no blame on why that happens. So when I first, I guess, came on the scene, you know, I was still using that hat of my international hat,

which is, you know, develop meaningful relationships. And I think, you know, I feel really grateful for coming on to a project that had the political will to want to pass an environmental assessment application process. And that was coming up in the following year. So there was an interest, or at least, I had the support of the project leadership to live with those communities, develop their relationships,

and only because quite quickly in a matter of months, I was able to develop a relationship, relationship with those who lived on and off reserve quickly enough where we had a memorandum of understanding to do environmental work together. And my approach has always been, you know, this environmental data collection doesn't mean that you consent to this project. It just means that you're auditing the work that we're doing and whatever your decision it's informed.

And again, I thank goodness for that CEO in Papua New Guinea who taught me that. Like, that's what's important here, that people understand that if this project goes ahead or if it doesn't, at least they're involved and they're included to be able to make that decision. So I felt really blessed again to have, and at the time, 10 of the 11 hereditary chiefs, accompany us in the field to collect environmental information and understand that sense of place. But that was a lot of me living there, me developing the relationships. And again, it wasn't, I love that work. It's sort of like, I could live with communities, you know, share stories and, but be really clear but why I'm using their information. I could, I could have done that work

for the rest of my life if that was, you know, if I was allowed to do that. But in that short period of time, yeah, it was, it was an intense couple of years because, you know, and we were competing with 18 other industries who were looking to operate there that included LNG and mining and forestry. So I felt really grateful to have the attention of the hereditary chiefs in the office of Witsowiton. And don't get me wrong. It wasn't, you know, it was an authentic, I felt, relationship where I could reach out and they could reach to me. And we had developed a relationship of trust.

And I think my, the hard work wasn't with communities. It wasn't with the Witsowton people. It wasn't with the office of the Witsowton. It was with my client or with the proposed proponent. And again, it's because they had an operational budget and a scope in mind and needs and a timeline that didn't match the reality of the communities. And so, and thank goodness, I had the executive leadership on the team to support me and be able to sort of fend off the needs of the larger mothership who needed things, right? But that's why we were successful in getting our application, environmental application, because I was given that space. to do the work and to live there and to, you know, build a community office.

And, you know, when that, when we did receive environmental application approval, you know, I was told essentially they don't do that across the rest of the company. So we won't be doing that anymore. So that's, that was the context of that time and that work because, again, there was a political will and a desire to do, do what I thought was meaning. full engagement in collaboration with community members, but it was because there was an environmental assessment application that needed approving at that time. One question I have is like, we often hear about this.

The Wet Salatin is not in Vancouver. They're not, they're not in a busy area. How do we land on who to talk to? Yeah. Why do we go through these communities is often what I hear that we could just, we could develop the pipeline to go and avoid these communities. So how do we end up having that we need to go through this community and 17 different proposals on one community that's out,

like it's not in a metropolis, it's not a busy place? I think it's changing. Again, you have a regulatory environment that collected years of biophysical and environmental and geotechnical data to understand what would be the best right of way through a territory that disconnected or didn't validate that information with the people. who live there and who use the land until quite a bit later.

And I think with the new regulatory environment in BC since 2018, 2019, and federally, that's changing where you wouldn't collect five years of, you know, that kind of information without really validating that with the people. That's all sort of turned upside down. So I think, you know, those decisions on where people will build in that regulatory environment at that time weren't required to validate their plans with the people who live there and that, you know, those decisions on who they should talk to, you know, in that regulatory context, it was only with the elected leadership. So that's, you know, and with my

work, it was really those who lived on an officer. It was a more of a hereditary approach versus, because that's the way it was trained. You learned, you know, in an involuntary resettlement context, not only those who have, you know, sort of the authority, I guess, you know, in air quotes there, but also who have the informal or the hereditary governance systems. How are those frameworks that operate within communities? And so my natural approach would be to understand that.

And so that, you know, again, that came quite late when, you know, they had already been collecting five to six years of environmental information, and we're only kind of missing that piece in that territory. Interesting. So were you still working with the community? I know you still have relationships there, but when I want to call it like a debacle with the Wetuen, like it sounds like ties were cut, issues were created, and then it sort of started to make international headlines, what did you see play out? Or what was the circumstance of you watching

that kind of come about? Unfold with NDAs, I can't speak too much, in too much detail. I was sitting, you know, this is probably post-2016. And I think with Ethpick, you know, kind of going back to that, it is, you know, you're developing meaningful consultation engagement, not just for when you need it, but for a life cycle. And I'm not sure if the same method or approach was kept up. I'd say I'm not confident after they won environmental application approval. So that, I think, changes the dynamic and you lose those relationships when, you know, that method or momentum isn't being kept up. And I think that's for most companies in that particular context.

But what might have amplified distrust or maybe, you know, sort of that, I would say, protest against, you know, what was happening was able to flourish because of, in a sense, an abandonment, right? Because they don't, you know, that group, while it gains international attention, you know, there was a large majority who weren't, who didn't have a voice or who, who, who, who weren't talking. And rightly so, whether they were agreeing to the, you know, sort of what was happening or not agreeing to it, there was this big middle who, you know, really have lives to live, want to, I'm sure, take advantage of opportunities that were happening in their community and were involved in. So there was many, I guess, sides to that equation that the one that got the international attention

were the protesters, of course, and that only escalated, you know, and very well organized. It was quite an impressive campaign. And continues to be today. I think what worries me still continuing to work in that territory is around, regardless of what their opinion is, that's kind of besides the point,

is it a safe space for people in that territory now? And I would say no. It's not. You know, people aren't able to enjoy their territory in the way that they did pre to all these developments in the territory because of these tensions and these conflicts I haven't been addressed. Right. The one part I'd like your thoughts on because I don't have a well-flushed-out viewpoint, but it worries me when you have protesters coming from communities that are completely disconnected going all the way up to a community and then picking its side and not they're not consulting that well and that's it right it should be the same approach and same lens should be

applied evenly equitably and and that's what it was you know we when we when i say we had the hereditary chiefs with us in the field it was really you know eye opening for protesters from California telling the hereditary chief of that territory to get off First Nations land and having that hereditary chief say, well, actually, we've given them permission to collect environmental information was quite eye-opening. And that's, you know, that's something that dynamic had been operating there for a while. And I can see both sides. I'd been on that side as well, but I think it goes back to we can't be blindsided, we can't have tunnel vision,

and there's some responsibility for those people who are coming from those communities to talk in a similar way that I did because to the grandma and grandpas and develop those broad relationships. That's just as important for either side, whether you're on the right or the left, but that viewpoint needs to be discovered and explored

and can't be blind sort of, you know, tunnel vision, I guess, is the best way to describe it. And it seems like you're caught in, but you're always in between those two worlds. I just saw somebody make a post basically saying, well, why don't we, like, we had the floods here in the Fraser Valley. One person just posted, well, why aren't we considering just letting the lake come back? And it's like, are you, like, do you know that, like, what they're trying to basically argue is that this is how it was prior to colonizers being here or Europeans being here?

And so wouldn't it just be great if we went to. back to the not realizing there's an indigenous school there. That's right. There's a whole community that's evolved since that time. Yeah. So it's easy to make the claim. Oh, why don't we just go back to the way things were 120 years ago? But that's simply like that's not what the First Nations community, like you're just saying

something that sounds like you're being anti-colonization or something, but it's not rooted in like a logical analysis. You're just recolonizing. You're sort of recolonizing a space that's not yours. And it kind of goes back to, you know, living with communities to understand anything. Policies implemented in practice, you know, truth to story that you read in the news. For me, I'm not, I've never been satisfied with picking up the paper and going, oh, yeah, that's the way it is. And, you know, for me, and I've done that, I think that's what led me to the people I've interacted with, who've been my mentors.

I pick up the phone. I call these people. If I see a story, I'm like, I really want to know. what's the harm in that? And most times, people are really excited to share their stories. And, you know, so for me, I'm always very cautious of people who, you know, have these great causes. But the thing is, have you talked to the people that you're having a cause about? Have you spent time there?

And I think for anything that we do in life, that's so important. And it can be easily done, right? There's a business case behind that, especially if you're building your career. On a platform of other people's, well, you know, it looks, it ends up looking like success on the backs of those who are disadvantaged and, you know, underserved. You know, you kind of have to think a little more clearly is that, you know, am I, do I really know what's happening there? And really, again, living with community or spending time there, you know, picking up the phone, talking to people. Yeah, I would say that you act as a way of depoliticizing both sides, which not easy. Even when you think of like, you go on Facebook and you've got a really close friend and it turns out they're like supporting Republican viewpoints and then you go with your next page and they're Democrats.

You're pulling them together. So could you tell us about what that journey has been like to be between both sides to sit down with a corporation and understand the real challenges they're facing? and then to be in an indigenous community and see the very real challenges they're facing and try and articulate that. I think when I was younger, I had, you know, I would just take it all in and then not reserve enough time for the healing, right?

And I'm very, I feel very grateful for having friends who are adamantly against that pipeline. I mean, fiercely protesting against, but I still call them my brothers and sisters, who I get to go to their high school graduations for their, for their kids. And then I have those folks who want work with the pipeline, who get it, who, you know, worked with me for so many years to understand at least what the potential could be if the right circumstances happen to continue to exist.

And I think for me what, where I've been successful or, I guess, happy with my approach is that I feel like I've been consistent with what I can do and what I can bring to the table. And definitely, as I've matured in my career, being able to say or being able to identify really quickly what I can't do. But I know sort of on a human level what it's like to develop a good friendship. And I've been able to be consistent for those people who know me. And in the work, you know, that's why as a social scientist or a sociologist and anthropologists, using, you know, grounded theory and adapting to an impact assessment, context was so important for me

because I knew people would be always challenging me on what I know and how I know it. And I just feel really grateful that the legislation finally is caught up to matching or being able to need the kind of information that I've gotten really good at collecting. So it's that kind of interpersonal consistency and then again also professional consistency that I develop a methodology that can be easily replicated. It really can. And that's what I want it to be. I don't want it just to sit with me.

It needs to be shared. And there are requirements. But you're not always going to have a perfect situation. So how do you develop a method and a method? approach that kind of takes that into consideration. I think I have. That's that sort of what I feel really proud being able to share that with our team and impact resolutions and the kind of work that we do that can, you know, really help people make evidence-based decisions, being secure and the kind of information that's being presented. That's really important. That's amazing. And I think that

it's so motivational to hear that because I feel like we're in a time where it's really easy to delete people you disagree with to decide this isn't this isn't a person that aligns with my values but you're constantly put in a position where there's both sides and you can you can at least understand where they're coming from even if you don't conclude that their viewpoints right and so I'm interested to know what that that healing journey is like for you how did you go about developing that because that's that's a tolling thing even when you're trying to I've been in a room with people I disagree with and trying to reason it out and hear their viewpoints and trying to Okay, we're going to, I'm going to try and get you to see this perspective.

It's draining personally. So how do you handle that? You know, I think I, again, for all the pain that I experienced as a child, in my youth, as an adult, I was able. And I think the healing at the time when I was younger was turning it into purpose. So the purpose of being able to manage really complicated, you know, conversations or being able to overcome, you know, some great, you know, distrust or conflict, that was the purpose that was also healing on a personal level. And then it caught up to me in my 40s where it's like, oh yeah, I got to deal with my own trauma. And it happened to coincide as I exited the Coastal Gas Link project as well to go, whoa, what happened there? I'd been so focused on, you know, turning pain into purpose sort of individually what's next.

And I, you know, having worked for in these contexts for most of my career, it was really impact resolutions that healed me. and that and in starting a company that I've been able to feel safe in and create a safe space for all the team members to flourish in is kind of another aspect of that healing for me because I know people say it's important to separate your professional from your personal but I can't I think it should all be complementary and energizing and people. people ask, where do you get your energy from? It's from that. It's being able to, you know, create an environment where people feel safe to be awesome

and to, like, not be bullied, not be harassed, not feel questioned. And being able to take any additional profits, I'm not saying, you know, we're growing in the right direction to test things that people who will usually say, well, we've not done that before. I wouldn't be able to say, well, we tried it. and it works like and here it is right and because it's not my ideas this is sort of a collaboration of all of our ideas so really that healing has been in a professional space for for me because my identity was so crushed at such a early age that I kind of had to

find out what that look like and and again it was about putting that pain towards a purpose but really kind of later in my life, it was in impact resolutions and I finally have a safe space. And it's not only because I'm a CEO and the founder of the company, it's that's an aspect of it, but it's because of the people I get to work with and the projects that we get to work on. It's like, that's right. I'm doing the right thing. I keep going. That's amazing. Can you tell us about your personal background growing up? You said you had to go through some healing journey there. Can you tell us about what it was like growing up and some of the challenges you face?

Yeah, thank you for asking. I was born in Indonesia. I was adopted as a baby. What I do know about my biological parents is that or my biological family, my mother's side, they were Bouganese and Muslim and fairly sort of high in that community at the time. and my biological mother was very young and gave me a way to a Canadian family, a Canadian Irishman and a Chinese Malay woman. Unfortunately, that childhood wasn't at all, you know, having gone through, you know, years of, you know,

physical and sexual and emotional violence, you build up a bit of a, I guess, a thick skin. And, you know, I've been able to work through that, again, really quite late in my life, but it led me to some interesting places at the same time because I think as a very young child I knew I didn't have to stay to feel validated. And so I think it was just in my nature to run away, which I did. And I ended up living in an informal foster system in my early teens and ended up living on my own in sort of my middle. to late teens and, you know, in that, again, sort of healing and sort of finding myself wasn't great at high school. I, you know, you also being, or for myself, being a, you know, a person of color and minority in sort of a predominantly white Christian community, that also had another dynamic, which again, I see that as gifts. Like, I see that as giving me perspectives and an empathy

that has given me the insight to work with the people I do today. And not to say that, you know, I need to be anybody's savior. But again, it gives me that I get it. You know, I get what hurt looks like. I get what misunderstanding looks like. And I was able to turn that into something, again, purposeful for me. And that was, you know, really that healing. And I ended up how I ended up in, you know, working in indigenous relations.

I ended up hitchhiking. I don't recommend this for anybody else. But at the time, it seemed like a good idea. And I traveled to the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and I was living on reserves. At the time, this was in the 90s. You could work in bars and no one who carded you. And really understanding, like, what's going on here?

You know, high rates of poverty, no electricity, no running water. And I'm in Canada. It just kind of confused me more, and the more time I spent there, the more questions I have. So that really drove me to search for that better understanding. It's when I came back to the mainland after a few stops and starts. I was living in Alberta for a while. And I went back to school to really understand that relationship between indigenous peoples in Canada and Canada. And there was this new program at Langer College, the Aboriginal Studies program, where, again, that was a huge part of my healing.

Like, I was nurtured by some of the best practitioners, like, who, again, was really focused on, you know, it's not how much you're memorizing. We were graded on how much we were giving back to the community. And I just flourished there. I loved it. like some of my biggest mentors who really encouraged me, you know, to, to further my studies in sociology and anthropology at SFU and said, SFU will be perfect for you. And yeah, it's, it was there that, you know, with my sort of early years, I feel like I was able to find my, my calling, although it wasn't a straight path to get there. That's amazing. Can we go back a little bit? Like,

what was it like to not have a connection with your with your family like was that a really challenging to process how did you kind of overcome that yeah i i didn't probably overcome that or process that too well i was younger um and that came into you know a sort of a larger search to understand other people's stories and and meet people um You know, the hitchhiking really helps being able to create the space to daydream and to imagine a different kind of life. I was really into music. I'm a hand percussionist. I like, you know, really having a lot of time on my own as well. So, you know, I camped in the bush for close to nine months kind of as a, as I needed to at that time. So, you know, I think it gave me the insight and kind of the space.

If I was in my community still, I think I would be a very different person. And I might not be here today. I would have a very different life. But I had this nature to search for something better. Music is one of those things that I feel like it helps us process something. Like, you go somewhere else, and I don't know, I don't know why we don't talk about it more. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, dancing, music, like, you know, I think I'm a happy hippie heart.

So I was really attracted to those kinds of people, artists, writers. I wrote a lot, too, as a young person. I sort of spent a lot of time roaming and wandering. You could say quite a bit of a walkabout for my team. I think that really helped and not having the sort of social or familial control telling me what I am because what people were telling me felt really different from how I felt. Can you tell us about that? What did you feel like other people thought you were in comparison to who you are?

Because I think we all fall into that. Yeah, and I see that with youth I work with today. And, you know, and it was really powerful to learn, you know, in sociology and anthropology that our lives are constructed by our external influences, but we can reconstruct them. And that's a really powerful thought. And, you know, in my early sort of education, and this is where I get really, you know, energized by anti-racism work, especially in sort of education systems or in that. other organizations, you know, when when you're young and you're told, well, you're not white enough to, you know, to be in that school play or to do this or to do that, you know, I didn't have, maybe there's something in my brain that wouldn't accept that kind of criticism or being called stupid, you know, by teachers and authorities or even having your sort of that trust by authorities broken through other forms of, you know, sort of abuse. Like, I, I don't know where

I just had this nature not to accept that reality. And that's sort of what kind of propelled me to move on to find my community. And I don't think everyone, you know, I feel myself as really grateful because I know that's not everybody's story. And I remember seeing someone who I grew up with, you know, a mother who lived next door and she said, I am so surprised you're not drug addicted or a prostitute. Like, that was a real thing she said when she met me again at 18. Like, she was just so impressed that I had overcome that. And at the time, it was sort of like a backhanded compliment, right? It's like, okay, yeah, you're right, actually. I am. But that that was kind of, you know, the environment or the context that's thrown at you, that you don't

really, you know, I didn't really take too seriously, but was only able to reflect on kind of later. And, you know, didn't let it penetrate my soul at the time, right? It only kind of energized me and gave me the confidence that I don't need to be here. And I moved five different high schools. I lived in Pender Harbor and then I moved to Vancouver Island. with a family because I felt safe with them. That didn't end up, you know, being, you know, that's kind of where I ended up moving on in a number of different high schools

and sort of ended up living on my own. But, you know, thank goodness. You know, I had a family who felt sorry for me to take me in. Otherwise, being in that situation, like, is so toxic. So I, you know, the work that I do with youth now, I get all that they're going through. I know how, you know, it, feels and how important it is to sort of remind ourselves that's one construction, one reality

that can be reconstructed. And we can do that by creating a space or focusing on creating a space in our minds that allows us to feel that potential again. Yeah, it sounds like you're disagreeable in like a healthy way. Like I did a personality test and I scored really high on disagreeableness because for me like when teachers would tell my mom your kid doesn't look like they're going on the right track like they're probably going to join a gang like they're not going to graduate my mindset was like you don't know me you're not my friend like you don't understand what my home circumstances like who I am why I'm like this at school you're just assuming yeah yeah and so I was not I didn't take that what they said to heart I didn't it made me

want to prove them wrong and even now spite that's right out of spite I think become successful. Yeah. Because it's sort of, yeah, no, I feel you there. It's, and that's it. It's sort of, I was really curious about, you know, especially when I was confronted by that adult who knew me when I met them again at 18. Well, why am I like that?

That's kind of where that human interests sort of, you know, resilience, understanding in people became really important. And in the development work that I've done, why I understand, why it's important. for people to feel included and to feel safe, like in sharing their information, how precious those stories are to be, to really feel and, and protect them. And then being able to communicate it in a way where people get it. You know, that, that's really the sort of where things shine for me because of, I know what it's like when people spread things about you that aren't true or that you're not able to defend yourself because, you know, some mothers think of

you of this way. So I get what all that means when you feel like everything is working against you. Yeah. And it seems like one of the benefits you had, perhaps benefit and con, was that you were able to leave relationships when they weren't respecting your boundaries or something. So could you Tell us about that. Yeah, and I think it's, you know, at the time, it's really good when you're surviving. But it's not really great when you're looking to develop a meaningful interpersonal relationship. So, you know, my familial, my institutional circumstances, the community circumstances, you know, I don't look back with any regret on abandoning toxic relationships. Was that scary, though, at the time?

No, it was, it was like when you kind of like being able to step out, and it's a fishbowl, right? And the sort of the energy that comes back to you when you're able to step out of that fishbow and look at it from that perspective, it's like, oh, what's next? Right. And I didn't have the tools yet to develop good relationships. So it was a lot of trial and error in trusting the wrong people and trusting the right people and screwing up that relationship. and, you know, the unconditional love that people have shown me after me screwing up relationships, I am just in awe and so grateful for because, yeah, that that's it. That unconditional love that is the missing quotient, I think.

That's important. But again, I don't think you need, you know, like, I don't think you need to be like myself where you need to constantly move to find it. And I only found it later in life. But, and then it took a lot of practice to develop good friendships that weren't professional, right? That's the thing. And I think I've found that now. But, and I'm still practicing.

I know I'm really messy on some days, but, and again, I'm, I feel really safe at impact resolutions because I can, you know, there's forgiveness on being, you know, not perfect, I guess. And that's what I try to say. It's not about being perfect. It's about being able to screw up and being okay with that, right? Yeah, I really think that that's such an important example that you're setting because, like, so many people have bad relationships with their family. And there's different stories that you're going to find, but there's this sense of, like, this is who I am, I guess, and this is my family. And I think the biggest growing part, and I know that it's perhaps cliche to say, but family isn't just in the blood. that you can have strong familial relationships.

Like my grandmother, who's not my biological grandmother, is why I started this. And I think that being able to appreciate what she did, adopting my mother and raising her was such a benefit. And now it's like, how do I build on that legacy? But I really appreciate your willingness to admit that, like, you perhaps pushed boundaries in those early stages. Because I think that that's what people do when they've been hurt is they want to see, are you going to be here if I screw up? Or are you only here because it's the good time? You said it. That's exactly it.

You're constantly testing relationships because you're used to being disappointed. You're just waiting for that other ball to drop where or that, you know, people want just to be my friend because they want to sexualize me or treat me horribly or think that I'm, you know, you kind of integrate that into testing relationships. And, you know, you do that when you're young. As you age, again, that's where I took that pain into purpose by applying it into schools and, you know, or into my education because that gave me a space where I was an equal ground and people can evaluate me on what I produced versus, you know, what I looked like. I shaved my head a couple of times when I was just like really trying to minimize myself physically or sort of externally because I wanted people to see the inside. That's one thing that always stands out to me. I'll see people walking down the road with blue hair or red hair. And I don't, like, I know that the common trope is to, like, judge them and be like, what are you doing?

But for me, it's like, this is what they have control over or what they feel like they have control over in their life is just, that's all I've got is my hair. And that's all that I feel like people are judging me here, here and here. So the only thing I get to decide on is what color my hair is. And I sympathize with that because there is a sense of your life is predetermined by other people's perceptions of who you can go become. And often people don't leave their community to go figure out who am I without these people's a viewpoint of me kind of influencing how I see myself. Well, and you said it like, so these are the communities and circumstances of which I'm entering as a proponent. like I'm coming out and triggering conversations and asking people to test their identities and their relationships based on things that they didn't really ask for. And that I always keep, you're right, it's what do people feel like they have control of?

And we need to consider that when we're developing policies for people, supposedly, like it's more than just the things that we need to feed ourselves and survive on. And it's the, like, how much power, how empowered do people feel or not feel? Yeah, I look at people with blue hair. I'm like, you know, like, kind of like this. And I remember telling a colleague, I can't wait to dye my hair, like pink now that I have my own company. And then I had a friend. No, no, no, no.

Just a way to build up your reputation first before, you know, before you start meeting clients with a shaved, you know, Mohawk. Yeah, but it's a weird relationship we have, though. right because we're lucky and I think that this is a growing conversation of like we're happy and I'm happy to see more women running organizations and leading the way and so we're trying to break down some of these perceptions on what's correct business practices and what's incorrect what's good etiquette not good etiquette and it really you just wish and you desire and I think people like you and me to us to see sort of being evaluated on what we what we do versus of what

we look like, right? And it's, yeah, I mean, I'm excited and I see that going in the right direction too. I just hope it doesn't fall into the direction of forgetting about those, you know, our emotional aspects or spiritual aspects. Because I think once we do, we fall back into the status quo. Yeah. And I think it's easy to do those types of things, dye your hair and stuff for the wrong reasons. And I say that's probably the predominant, like if it's an 80-20 rule, it's probably 80% of people doing it for the, like, feeling like they don't have control. And so when you see it, you, there is an assumption maybe this person's got something

going on in their life that's not going right. And this is what they're doing to kind of try and handle that. But what was that kind of development into going to school? Was that a tough transition from being able to be so free? Oh, my gosh. It was incredible. Like I, but again, it was this weird needing to prove. myself that I'm worth it

and that I can do this because having been told throughout my whole education that I'm not good enough or smart enough became fueled by this really wanting to understand that relationship between indigenous peoples and Canada

and you know I had some really great mentors and you know who you know again I found that purpose and I was struggling I had to learn how to write again and I went to Douglas College first actually had to kind of upgrade yourself as a mature student to be qualified to be able to apply and passing that first year was such a huge like oh like I you know I did that you know

and and oh yeah like the struggles but also the it was able to feel back sort of um something that I wasn't getting outside like I was able to produce that for myself and I was the kind of student where, you know, I was obsessed about doing the right thing, about doing it well. And I'm so glad I did because I was able to build that muscle memory after really struggling that, you know, by the time I reached my graduate work, I was just such a better writer. And even now, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm such a great right compared to what I was. Like, writing is all, like, I love writing journals, but technical writing, like, that's something that I'm really proud of myself. I've been able to sort of build into muscle memory

versus, yeah, having when I started out half, you know, starting school again. That was a real challenge. Right. You've mentioned mentors a few times. Who were some of those people and what, like, people impact us in ways that perhaps we don't expect or we don't see in the moment. So who were some of those people? And hopefully people can hear this and see how they can perhaps set a better example for the people around them. So who were some of those people? And what did they do that made them put you in such, made you see them in such high esteem?

Yeah, I, you know, again, I think, you know, I'm so grateful for those who, you know, continue to love me. I think even, you know, in my early years where I was just such a screw up and, you know, really screwed up a number of times. So my uncle who's now passed, Like he was a big influence on my life. And, you know, he knew there were rough times would bring me out fishing.

And that's where we wouldn't talk, but he knew that's the space I needed. You know, the other mentors. Sorry, what were those fishing trips like? How did that come over that? Oh, well, he's a prawn fisherman in Pender Harbor. And he would just take me out in the boat early in the morning, and we would be out in the boat all day. And this is sort of after like collecting me from being just, you know, a bad kid in the streets like at the middle of the night and then kind of like my punishment would be let's go take, you know, let's go fishing and just kind of having that one-on-one time with him. So was this, was this, was your biological uncle?

No, he was this sort of like your grab, he was really good friends of my mom, my aunt, my uncle Dwight and my auntie Winita. They were from the Yukon, diamond miners, had five kids, the majority of their kids were still there. And, you know, he was just one of those really great, solid guys who also did not have a great sort of youth and maybe early years and saw, I don't know, something special in me and just felt that he knew I didn't have anybody. And sort of when I was still at home before I ran away,

that he always kept me kind of in high regard. still and was always kind of there not to punish me in a way where I'm not going to hear it, he would just kind of just take me away from the space and the anger I was feeling and go out fishing all the time. So, yeah, I have really fond memories. And I spent my whole childhood, like a really young kid fishing. Like, I was a big tomboy. So that's kind of where... Do you still fish at all? I do, actually. Yeah. I ended up working at a fishing lodge between semesters not two miles 15 years ago now but then I still fish when I can I don't enough I tried fly fishing when I was living in Telqua horribly so different from ocean fishing so yeah I love the

water I like being able to sort of yeah you know being able to think like I'm feeding myself in that way but yeah that you know he was a big mentor and Helen you know you know, Dr. Helen Cruz, who actually it was in an effort to try to meet more Indonesian people in Vancouver because I had known, I didn't know anybody. I just ended up picking up the phone book when phone books were more available and, you know, searching for Indonesian people or who I thought were Indonesian people. I'd, oh, my name is Pepe and I really want to learn more about the Indonesian culture and can you introduce me to anyone? Would you like to meet with me? And the consular general of the Indonesian consular general here in Vancouver,

he took pity on me and he invited me over to break fast with them during Ramadan as it is today. And that's where I met Dr. Helen Cruz, who is a sociologist trained in Cornell. And she's Filipino, but she had lived in Indonesia for a decade more. It actually had really helped me try to find more information on my biological parents. we felt in love. I mean, like, she's the kind of lady, and she's 84. We see, like, she's like my mom, basically. She, you know, sells to dances.

She drinks beer. She walks up mountains. And, like, she's been doing that until COVID, right? Like, she's just, and the person who gave me my first international opportunity. So, you know, really taught me a lot about what's important in my field. Like she's the first woman in international development doing what I do. She worked in the 60s and 70s in Afghanistan, in Pakistan. I've later done work in these areas too, but she, you know, she was the only woman at the table at that time and was always fierce about where are the women.

Where are the women? That was her first question. And, you know, she really impressed upon me. It's not how much you know. it's how much you're sharing, how much you're giving away, how much you're passing on this knowledge because it doesn't mean anything if it sits inside you. So that, you know, she's in terms of family, she's my family. Was that hard to reach out to the Indonesian community or exciting? I was excited. Like I kind of always done that. Like if I saw an interesting, I kind of just pick up the phone

and just wanting to learn more. How can I help? And so it wasn't at the time. Maybe in reflection if I was doing it now, it might be. But no, it was really lovely. And I continue to interact with the Indonesian community here. Certainly discovering my religion more, just sort of the more about the immigrant experience here as well. So yeah, I continue to work with them. Can you tell us about the religious elements? Because one of my passions that's come since my grandmother has passed is she was a Catholic and now I'm interested in the indigenous culture, but I'm interested in where they overlap. So like a quick example would be like grace and salmon ceremonies. There's an overlap between the two. And so I enjoy hearing that. And I think that

right now it's it's an unpopular time to be believing that religion has some sort of value. But I think the tenants of how to live a good life exists there. And so I'm interested to know. Yeah. I totally agree. I think for me it's about, you know, in terms of the Muslim religion, I see five-time praying, you know, five times a day as making that space for you to focus. It's your time of meditation, like to fast-date. Like there are all these elements of religion that we can take it to be what you want it to be. And for me and my adulthood, I've really embraced sort of my roots and and working in areas that are largely Muslim populated. That's where I've really sort of discovered my religion in that regard and taken them as sort of instruction on

sort of and giving me that space to really focus on healing and that connection with God. But it's, you know, and I think with as it might be for someone who's Catholic in the same way, it's just sort of making that time to give thanks. to pay respect and gosh I'll take any instruction and structure around that because it's not something I can like I can do and I've maybe always tried to meditate or create that space but I really enjoy sharing those rituals with people and being able to celebrate things with people and have that sense of belonging I think is really important and you can find it in religion but or you can find it elsewhere but for me it's important to find it somewhere yeah I

I just feel like right now we have it better than I think we've ever had it in human history in terms of resources and being able to, like, if you think of when you were growing up, there wasn't like resources for counseling that were just super accessible. And so the world's so different now that we can address. But yet it seems like we've never been worse that like when we look at the depression rates or the anxiety rates and we look at these things, it feels like we're always looking to perhaps be more productive. or get something more done, and it's never enough. And then you think of being grateful for what we have in slowing down and going, wow, like I have this incredible avocado that had to travel from this whole other country. Supply change, exactly. Like, when you start to look at that, it's like, wow, like you just see how everything is connected.

And you're right. It's sort of the spirituality component, the religious component is something, you know, I was really hopeful with COVID, if you're going to see a silver lining, is finally people could slow down and take the space they might have used for travel to get to work for something in themselves. And that's certainly the approach I took. And I don't know if the timing is right where people are more sensitive to that or at least more accepting that we can have different kinds of beliefs

and interests that might not be professionally driven. Right? Our success is not the dollars that we make. It's really the time and how we're able to use that time. I don't know if that's cliche, but it feels really important to me. And, you know, my idea of success is sort of like, can I travel at certain points that you're, can I travel anywhere in work? Like, those are things that, you know, I'd really like to explore and make possible. Yeah, I love that your mindset regarding, like, finding a way for your work to be also your passion and your life. I always think it's strange when people are seeking to completely separate the two and put one into one category and one in the other. And I think that that's sort of what you have to do if you're doing a job like McDonald's, where you don't care about like what the outcome's going to be. But you still come home at the end of the day and you're frustrated by what happened to work. So your personal life isn't allowed to leak into your professional work, but your professional

work absolutely leaks into your personal life. And that's where like when I was growing up, I'd see people like parents abuse their children because they hate their job. And so it's like you can't pretend that you're separating the two, at least in my opinion. No, and for that reason alone, because, you know, we, if we don't feel, if we separate them, then we're, yeah, we're just going to project that anger without context, right? And it's, yeah, I've seen that too. And I'm also guilty of leaking that, you know, the professional. stress is seeping into how I might treat my partner because I feel like what's happening in

my mind is more important than what's happening right here. And that's where, again, the healing and impact resolutions has given me that safety, that space. Again, I keep repeating space, but it's really important for me that I can really, I don't know, I guess, sort of explore what that possibility might look like and for everybody like on the team because it it almost killed me to separate that too where the professional was just all that there was especially when you're doing community work but where are you in that you're you're hidden you're diminished and that that wasn't healthy either particularly because you're going into communities and it's who you are that they're connecting with and when that's not

able to be replenished or be noticed or valued and when it's because it sounds like it's toxic you start self-medicating it gets nasty and and that's sort of that's not healthy either right it's sort of again it's quick fixes and that's where i think the spiritual the religious component has really forced me to slow down and you know when i i was speaking about roxy and suki like that was the moment where I made a decision for myself that I don't have to always leave. Sorry, could you say who Roxanne's my two chit-sues? But it was really that decision. Like, I've always wanted dogs. And, but that was always a symbol that my life is going to be really changing because my career, I was always away. And right now, like, I can be away, but I want

to be able to bring them. And if I can't, I'm not going to take that contract. It's, it kind of, it needs to fit. So that was really symbolic for me to make that decision. And it sounds like it grounded you a little bit to something, to an area, to a spot that you might not have had previously. Oh, absolutely. And like I was saying earlier, I love the Fraser Valley. And I, you know, I'm feeling really honored that we're here because we get to sort of, I get to work. And then there's some really great dog walks everywhere. It's just, it's really exciting. So I feel like all the things that I've been able to reflect on the past while messy at times. And, you know, I, for anybody who's listening and who's known me, and I love you, I care about you,

and thank you for being part of my journey. And I hope I was able to share, and that was reciprocal that you got something from me too. Right. That is absolutely beautiful. And I think we're lucky that you're willing to share that part of the journey because it's so easy to get caught up in the work life and getting, oh, I need to get here. And I see that a lot with law students, is that we're always looking for the next step and that, oh, where are we going to go now?

And how are we going to go succeed there? And then how are we going to climb that ladder? Absolutely. It becomes so strategic that you forget about the moments that kind of that are grounding and that are important because it's not sustainable to, because I did that up until my 40s. It was like that. It was like, and then you hit a wall and your body tells you you can't work anymore. Yeah.

Your body will tell you before your mind will tell you. So for me, you know, as I reach, you know, I'm 45 this year, I think. And I'm really excited about that that I'm finally like really thinking about how work fits into me versus the other way around. I really admire that because the thing that silently breaks my heart the most is when people like, I don't want to date myself and it's like I have a lot of guests who have said that and it's like oh I'm why is that a bad thing like your like my mindset is that and I'm having on a nurse who's an expert in aging shortly here because I think we look at aging the wrong we look at it as like you're devaluing yourself over time and I don't agree with that I don't agree with that either

I love aging and you know I I forget my age quite often I and this is from Dr. Helen Cruz She's 84 and just didn't know her age until her body told her, yeah, you're 84 and you can't, you know, but it was that frame of mind that it was so intoxicating. And I feel, I feel really blessed about having known her for so long since my early 20s, right? So, yeah, it's, it really starts here, but getting there is, you know, don't, you know, I don't want to give any impression that this journey was easy to get to that frame of mind. where I'm not concerned about my age because I know that took a lot of work to get there, like a lot of work. Can you tell us just about some of the things you hope somebody else? If you were to give advice to somebody who's going through, maybe they're thinking of leaving home,

what would your advice to them be to kind of get through those times? Yeah, you know, going back to, you know, who we think we are and we have a constructed identity. And again, the beauty in that we can reconstruct that. But getting our minds and our energy and ourselves out of bed is to find that purpose, whatever that is to do it. And it's, you know, sometimes it's minute by minute, that, you know, you pass that minute and you're okay.

And then, you know, it's every 15 minutes until it's every hour. That's okay. And, you know, don't rush yourself that you know, need to be perfect or anything until you find it inside. And I think that's what saved me for sure. That's beautiful. So then you take this course at Langara. Right. Yeah, yeah. And then you move on to go to SFU. What was that? Was that intimidating at all? Like SFU's got a strong brand name, the little intimidating. It wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. Like grad school was intimidating, for sure. But my BA, I was just really coming off that,

Yay, let's change the world. And I found, like, you know, looking at the, or social construction of reality through sort of a class lens and could really find some understanding around, you know, some of the issues in sort of the indigenous rights and title sphere. Like, I was coming off of that, like, on land claims and understanding how people are. disadvantage and economic and political systems. So I was really excited to SFU to sort of be

immersed in another way of looking at the world that we live in and a way to reframe it to make it better. So yeah, I was really energized by it and I was just, you know, I was fell into a really great, amazing group of people that became, you know, really close during those years of university. Yeah, I just got really involved in a lot of different kind of social activities. And I, yeah, I really flourished at that time. And that's sort of where I got the energy and this light to sort of explore more about myself and my Indonesian heritage. And another mentor, Marilyn Gates and others, John Bogartis, like Marilyn Gates, like her first, my first class is she's an anthropologist, like really this fierce, amazing woman who's very grounded in a heart-centered

approach, right? And taught us that, you know, anthropologists are going through their own identity crisis and really imparted upon us. It's not how much you're taking. It's how much you're giving back, like this spirit of reciprocity, this mutual benefit in research. And she scolded us. She's like, your success is not your own. You're success is because of the group, the community of people, whether they're related to you or not, who helped to bring you here. And it was just like, wow, this woman was just like so inspiring and gave me that sort of room to really grow with some really crazy ideas. Like she was just like, go for it. Like she was really excited about my thinking at that time and John Bogartis as well.

and I already started working in the Philippines too. So I was just so busy and really enjoying my education. So in indigenous culture, we have this idea of seven generations that we're supposed to look back on those seven generations of people and what their hopes were, their dreams, their aspirations. Like I think of particularly like with Indian residential schools, what would have been the hopes, prayers, and dreams of the people attending those schools and how can my generation play those dreams and hopes out? What was that like for you? Because that's sort of what it sounds like she was saying,

was that like what can you take from their story and the community around you and how they've built you up? What can you build upon in regards to that? Yeah, I, you know, when I started the work in the Philippines and the involuntary of resettlement context and living with them, how I interpreted that was actually founding the Enrichment League, which, you know, for me, you know, permission to be invited back. But I started a nonprofit in 2007, and it was this collective effort from university students.

And it was really, and then I was also putting myself through uni. I was an onboard supervisor at this local cruise ship company. So I would hold, like, fundraising, you know, sort of efforts with live local musicians and sort of like being able to bring people together to share. share the stories of why we were raising money because $3,000 would put three schools for 12 months, you know, their teacher salaries, education supplies. So for me it was like, of course I would do that. So it was around, you know, the nonprofit and we still continue it today was really giving opportunities for communities to develop independent economies

from industry and government, whatever that looks like. Today it looks like, and we're doing through impact resolutions in the form of sustainable ecocultural tourism in Pakistan and Turkey and Lebanon around the same principles about sort of creating economies that are independent from government and industry. But at the time in 2007, I was holding a lot of sort of live local fundraising music sort of endeavors. How did you have the confidence to do something?

You think of people... I just did it. I don't even know. I was just, I just, again, was surrounded by a great group of people who really were just, like, really motivated by the cause. And then, like, you just decided one day, or did this take time to build up? It was one day. I ended up sort of, again, picking up the phone book and going, oh, there's other nonprofits out there and ended up partnering with Eco de Saloro, I'm saying this really wrong, but it was a nonprofit doing similar kinds of things in the Okanagan.

And it was my first actually introduction to consensus-based decision-making. And they were actually just going through their AGM, and I was on the, you know, so whether they would accept my proposal, but they were making some decisions in a consensus format that took two days. I was like, it was my first, like, I'd all always sort of promoted consensus-based decision-making, but to really be in it. And that's where I spent, I was only planning to be there for an afternoon,

but I ended up being there for three days. And they accepted me. And I was able to use their charitable tax status to then raise the money. And yeah, it just kind of grew from there. And it was my work with Harbor Cruises and the work that I did with the student union

that I was able to again to sort of leverage those other spheres in my life to then raise money. And when I used to love, I love dancing. And, of course, you know, an opportunity to meet live local musicians and invite them into the cause. You know, people were really great about donating their time or at least partial their time. Was it hard to organize or was it, did it come pretty easy? I've been in the food and beverage industry since I was nine. I started out as a dishwasher and I've moved my way up through.

So at Harbor Cruises, I was organizing huge events. So I kind of, I'm really, actually, and then I, in my early 20s, I had my own bartending business for, for like kind of other events. But I'm used to organizing events that way. So, yeah. And then you did that traveling and you were working with communities. When did it become more official? When did it? Yeah.

I think at the time when I did my graduate, even though I was working while I was doing my BA, I would only go there when I had time off, of course, and then it increased when I started, you know, I had permission to use that work that I was doing in the Philippines as part of my graduate work as well. So I continued on at SFU to do my sociology and anthropology graduate work, and that was there. I did, you know, nine months of field work. It was a PhD packed into a master's thesis, but I should have done a PhD. But at the time, I was like, another mentor of mine kind of suggested, you know, if you love doing this work, you know, stay in it by just getting your master's. And I agreed. I said I just want to continue doing the great work.

So it was after my graduate work, then I was hired. Sorry, what was your master's work on? Sorry, yeah. Okay, yeah, it's a sociology and anthropology graduate work. through a medical sociological lens, trying to understand the psychosocial impacts of involuntary resettlement in the San Roque Dam case. And really, again, I was really keen on developing

a socioeconomic impact assessment tool that would be easily replicated and that would give the information that a proponent would need very early on to develop the information requirements for proper description. So that's where I think, you know, most development, or any projects fall short, is having the right information to make better decisions about budget. Sorry, that was very intimidating.

I think for some people who don't know it, socio-economic. So there's a requirement. So socioeconomic impact assessment is really understanding all the social parts of our environment. So a company might want to understand the biophysical asset. if they build there, or what the impacts on water quality. And at the time, socioeconomic impact assessment was one way to understand people. And I think it has some, you know, there are limitations to that. So my career really built on the gender and then, you know, the community health aspects,

again, building that medical, sociological, psychosocial lens, like the emotional aspects, the sense of place. And then I, later in my career, I realized we're actually talking about cumulative effects or our cumulative cells. So it would encompass all those things. That's incredible. And how did that go over? Because with a master's, you have to submit it, get reviewed. It went really well, actually.

The graduate sort of defense, because, again, my professors, like, they acknowledged how much work went in. And like this is two communities with, oh, gosh, I can't remember how many interviews I did, but I was able to show how it was applied. So it was easily defended. And I'm just so grateful to, and also these two mentors of mine as well, Dr. Fernando DiMaio and Dr. Michael Hathaway, Dr. DeMio was the medical sociology statistician. And then Dr. Hathaway was the anthropologist, very quality. So I got these really great, like, qualitative, quantitative training.

And I, for some reason, I did really well at statistics, which I didn't expect to do so well. Because I screwed up in high school. I failed math so many times, but statistics just clicked for me. Interesting. And so you started working primarily with corporations, and then later on you started impact resolutions. Can you tell us about that time working with corporations? Yeah, thank you. So mostly, you know, in a corporate context that was before impact resolutions, we expected to continue working in those industries, but we also realized that it was sort of the bust, the natural gas bust in terms of where companies would need our set of skills and environmental application process.

So, you know, we started doing other work that was more community focus with indigenous groups and, you know, sort of with indigenous groups who were sitting at the opposite end of the table, we were now working for them, you know, with impact resolutions. And it was a slow, a long lead, I would say, like, you know, it was myself and there are 23 members that founded it with me, who were in on a, you know, either, had their foot in the door just to keep involved because they'd want to jump ship and retire with impact resolutions one day. Or they were involved in a part-time to full-time basis. I would be remiss not to mention Sir Murray Slezak, who's, I would say, more like an older brother. Even a father figure to me who, you know, when I came back from working internationally, came back to Canada, he was the only person to see my set of skills as important invaluable because I had to start back from scratch back in Canada and he hired me

through a consulting firm to do the socioeconomic impact assessment for LNG Canada which I ended up doing for most of the major facilities in B.C. at the time but he ended up joining me at impact resolutions and I would not have the company if it wasn't without him who kept us going, being able to help with financing a lot of the projects in terms of developing the materials we need for project proposals, business development, and is really just has been amazing mentor and coach. And I think a lot of, maybe I'm making an assumption, but it was not, like when I first started the company, a lot of the questions I was asked, well, oh, don't you have children? How are you going to start?

that high really like um no i don't have children number one but would you ask a man so it was a unforgiving environment for a woman of color who's very small as well um so i you know we it was it was really great to have murray who just really endorsed us and we still have a majority of the members who are involved and so because those major projects weren't flourishing at that time. We ended up really focusing on smaller projects and just got bigger and bigger. And any additional funds we would put into our passion projects. And our passion projects have really, six years later, are now our regular clients, which is really cool. So what made you want to start impact resolutions? What was going on previously that kind of

made you go? I'm ready to branch out on my own and have my own philosophy and play that out. because I think one interesting thing is that we see the, and I don't know if I'm just a pessimist, but I see the mission value statements, philosophy, and you read it, you kind of go, sure, that's what your priority is at Coca-Cola. I'm sure that this is what you're worried about. So what made you kind of go, this is what I'm ready to do. I want to bring my worldview into reality. It was a healing journey for me. Um, after my last sort of, you know, working for a corporation, that was a very jarring experience. And again, the work with communities was a lot easier than dealing with the corporation itself. And, um, again, I feel very grateful for those executive leadership who were

there to really shield me from the rest of the corporation to do my work. And once they retired. Let's just say I exit and I was provided a very healthy, how do you say, a bonus. And it was that bonus. It's like, this is what I need to do. And it was really that being able to prove that I'm valuable, I'm worth it. I really love my work and I wanted to continue that work. that's where I put that bonus into starting impact resolutions and having worked with the majority of people that are in impact resolutions in previous years,

they too had experienced something similar. Like this was a time where thousands of people were being laid off, you know, in a matter of weeks. Like in the city of Calgary, I'm not sure if you remember that time. It was really harsh. And then those who've remembered,

remained in those environments where, you know, their workload had quadrupled. And it was just so toxic. So those people who left those environments, I was able to attract because they'd worked with me before. They knew what I'm capable of in terms of running a project, creating a safe environment where people felt awesome to flourish. And that was sort of the promise that I made that, I did a lot of research as well and how to run or how to keep really awesome people. So creating projects that are meaningful, giving business development opportunities to people if they want it, but not forcing it upon them, creating a very clear work structure. And again, that over time sort of has been more refined, but I knew that was really important

and paid people well, right? that that is well. I know in a lot of consult, like I pay people top dollar. It's not maybe as good as, you know, oil and gas, but certainly just better than United Nations rates. And everyone knew what everyone else was making. So having that transparency and that was kind of really, the focus was on building a really good environment, which I probably put too much effort in the beginning and which has benefited us in the end. But refining the business development approach really came a little bit later after three years. We were just, you know, applying for requests for proposals, you know, being denied. And it's sort of like, it's very dehumanizing.

So we instead kind of took all the energy we would put into that and put it into our interpersonal networks. So let's say we have a community, you know, we interact with that community. Well, we'll raise the money so we can work together. That has become way more successful than, you know, these... Hold on, break that down for people because that seems... Oh, sure. That seems crazy. Like, when you're thinking of doing a business, that seems like unlikely.

Right. Well, but that's the kind of work we wanted to do, right? So it's, you know, we have established this really great rapport and built long life relationships with a lot of communities and nonprofit organizations. What if, instead of spitting 30 hours into a request for a proposal for some blind government contract, what if we then worked with a community, identified the needs, identified the funding, applied for it, won it, and then we would continue the work. And that has been more successful in terms of the kinds of work that we're winning versus this blind RFP approach. And you're also building a relationship from the outset that we're trying to help you. And that's sort of where that's the sweet spot in my mind.

And that's sort of where our passion projects are becoming our regular clients now. Wow. Can you tell us more about the decision? Because I'm sure you're seeing all over the news right now, can't find good people. You can't find good people. Can't afford good people. And I think that your approach, I don't believe that you can't find good people.

I think you can. Yeah. I really do. And we've never had to put out a. a sort of a posting, an ad posting, because our work is generated very organically and based on the things that really energize us. So, you know, not to say like we, we still love doing the large-scale impact assessments, but it's extremely competitive. And when there's such great other projects to be done, so, you know, Murray has just done such remarkable things into building

sort of an auditing team, an assessor team. Like, we're still working in the natural gas industry, but we're now auditing their work, you know. We're still, you know, doing regulatory work, but now we get to do work for regulatory agencies, right? So, but it's all because we have, I've been thinking and I've been working and building teams like this for so many years. It's now I get to do it for myself. I know who we need to do X, Y, and Z. Right. And so when you're hiring people on and you're talking about business development, can you just tell us about what that initial conversation with a potential staff member looks like? Because I don't, it almost seems like it's lip service for so many organizations to say, oh, we'll get you training. And then it's like one two hour course every year that you don't want to attend or something.

Well, and to be quite honest, like it's a it's a growing company, right? I'm I'm a single woman who founded a company. to give an opportunity to people who are consultant professionals. So I provide insurance, I provide them benefits, and the protection of working as an independent consultant without having the additional burden and the cost of that. And so how that works is, you know, as well, impact resolutions has, provides the quality assurance, quality control, the graphic design. So independently, you can produce, you have to be. be all those things. But impact resolutions when we win projects together, that's, you know,

you be you. You be your subject matter expert, you. You then, you know, five different people writing one thing is then given to me, I do the quality assurance, quality control, you know, editing, global editing in one voice, and then produce a remarkable graphic design output. It's just, that's kind of how we operate. So that's in bringing in new members. It's really to fit the things that we are probably expanding on. the founding members, the 18 of us, that's, we've grown it together to this point. So we've been able to attract work based on our interpersonal networks. That's amazing.

And it just reminds me I work with Alpine Legal Services and his approach has been, I don't want my name on a door. I don't want my name on a building. I want to do the marketing. I want to do the branding. I want to make sure the lawyers are protected. But then they come work for me. They get a certain percentage of whatever they bring in or whatever work

they're doing, but then they don't have to worry about branding themselves, marketing, doing those elements. That's very similar to what impact resolutions has to offer, team members who want to join. And there's others who, you know, just kind of want to do the one-off project here and there, because they, because the kind of projects that we do are fun for them. It's not kind of the regular, usual things to do. And then they don't have, like, they need to complete 35 hours and then not interest. That's right.

Yeah. And, you know, it's deadline driven. So, you know, I'm very clear around sort of what needs to be done in a particular time. And that's really my job. Like, I'm probably less on less on the subject matter technical expert. I'm more just organizing the teams and the projects and then future business development. Right. So when you were starting this, though, I imagine some of the feedback you would have gotten is, you're crazy. You can't do this. You need to have 35-hour work weeks and you need to do it this way. And I had to, like I was still continuing to work full-time and then running the business. But my approach has always been, I need, so in keeping a great team, I'm building the business for them first. So they get all the hours, as long as I can still keep them and continue, keep on going.

So I would have full-time work elsewhere and still managing the company, ensuring that those team members. because I had no funding coming in. I was like, the only funding that I was the ones that I'm generating that I was generating. So any other full-time employment was all going back into the company. That's a lot of work, though. You're doing too. What was that, what were those initial days like? That's normal for me.

Like, I'm just like, you know, working and living on your own since your three jobs, school, full-time. Like, that was actually less of a work week than usually. Because I guess you're building something that you believe in. I think so. It just, it was more clean. Like, you remove the stress of, of the toxicity at a workplace. And even if I was getting at a workplace, I had this, it's okay, because there's a greater goal here. Like, I can handle the bullying now because I don't have to be here for a long time. Right. I can say no whenever I want to. Yeah. And so are you particularly working with any area like BC or are you still international? What kind of levels are you? It's BC, mostly.

Alberta, northeastern B.C. But then again, we are, you know, really starting in Pakistan and Turkey is probably our major focus areas right now. And what brings that about? How do you make a decision like that? Yeah. Well, Pakistan actually came about organically as well. I met Arshad Jami, who the kind of sociologists and anthropologists that we are in involuntary resettlement living with communities as a way to understand policies and practice is quite... unique, like, in terms of really pushing that method. And Arshad reached out to me, 2015, is like, hey, you do this work, too. We just ended up building such a great professional relationship where he joined impact resolutions when I started the company. And he's a premier sociologist working for all the major dam projects in Pakistan. And, you know, we just had that real connection.

He came to me one day. He's like, love involuntary settlement, but what do you think about sustainable agricultural tourism? And he was starting to work with programs in Pakistan. It was a reconciliation programs to invite Sikhs and Buddhists back to Pakistan after they were exiled in 1947. The current prime minister is on this huge reconciliation program. So a lot of monies were being put back into resuscited.

restoring these goodwaras and Buddhist sites where a lot of sort of the major spiritual sites happen for Sikhs and Buddhists. So that's kind of where we started that sustainable ecocultural tourism there, providing immersive experiences, helping reunifier, reconcile relationships between those who were exiled and help sort of rediscover areas that they were, that they had been. exiled from. And we did a soft tour, actually, in March 2020, just as COVID was going to hit. But it was remarkable. And we were able to apply it. And, you know, we were just kind of testing out what it was going to be like. And we were able to find this one grandson's grandfather's house. And it was great. We, we were just coming to Mita Twana. And in a matter of four hours,

we had the whole community coming with us to find where we were. thought he lived and we found the place where he lived in addition to the temple that he used to pray at. I am always learning something new. Can you tell us a little bit more about the exile of these individuals? Yeah, it was when basically, so Britain had, I guess, a process of decolonization. India and Pakistan split in 1947, where Muslims predominantly reigned in Pakistan. And it was through a natural border. I can't remember the river now. And then most others remained in India. And it was that time where many six who were overnight had to leave their homes as Pakistan and India became separated due to decolonization of Britain. Wow. And I'm not as well-versed in this history as I should be. But that's,

that's kind of the working knowledge that I have. And more recently now, certainly in this sort of spirit of reconciliation, yeah, it's really exciting to see and to work in Pakistan and sort of an opportunity to see opportunities for tourism and the areas of the north and how diverse and how welcoming and loving the people are. And Turkey kind of came about, well, because of COVID, we had to stop our tourism there. So Turkey came about our shed kind of in a similar way. It was like, oh, you know, what about Turkey? And so we started our kind of doing some scouting for Turkey.

And now we're really focused. We've already developed some relationships with local nonprofits to provide charitable, meaningful tourism engagement opportunities. So we hope to hit a market that wants to travel, visit areas in Turkey, but work with a nonprofit that we're working. to maybe do at work to empower girls' education. So we're working on what that's going to look like over the next, actually in September,

we're going to be doing a tour and working with that nonprofit Peda, who's already been operating for 11 years. We're just hoping to collaborate with them. Wow. When you're growing this, what have you kind of seen or what is your perspective on

where maybe BC is going in terms of, are we moving in the right direction? I saw that Stahela's First Nation just did their reconciliation agreement to Watson came to their agreement like 10 years ago now. So are you feeling like we're slow and steady

wins the race and we're on the right track or what are you seeing? I think I think I need to, you know, having spent time in those communities, I think they have had to learn as they go. I think now, again, going back to creating that space for communities to really explore

on their own for what they feel is valuable in their communities first before it being triggered on the outside. I think we're moving in the right direction. But there are isolated areas that have sort of problems that are intergenerational that are really savage. The opioid crisis, for instance, is a pandemic. And that worries the heck out of me for all communities, no matter where it's this, you know, there's, again, that gap in terms of what we think a community in a society is that we need to pay special attention to because people are self-medicating, right? People need to, you know, and impact resolutions is really blessed.

We're supporting the All Nations Outreach Society who, you know, is the first of its kind program, really with the Heisla Nation, with the money. they got from LNG to the first of its kind outreach program with James Harry Sr. To provide unconditional ongoing love and support for those lost and drug addicted on the downtown east side for when they're ready for it. And since we started working together in the last couple of years, there's partnerships of BC Housing, First Nations Health Authority, Ministry for Social Development and Poverty Reduction, where they're able to help more and more people and more.

more and more nations through lynch programs, through, you know, water and land-based healing programs, because I think if we continue to focus on, you know, that healing for when people are ready, I think we're moving in the right direction. But he's like, they are a small army that, you know, needs to grow. And impact resolutions is really there to provide the administrative and governance support because of all the background stuff. But I think If more and more people focus on kind of the direct human parts instead of it being, this is an institutional thing that I work for and, yeah, you know, X, Y, and C, and it becomes quantitative and statistical, then that's dangerous. But if we can marry or sort of mix the two in terms of

evidence-based decision-making, I think we're going to be okay. Yeah, I think that it's such an interesting time because my challenge, I guess, as a native court worker, was that I would send people to treatment places where I knew that there was somebody with, who is still recovering, running the place. And then it's like, well, I want to set this person up in the best way I can, but the resource I'm sending you to is imperfect. They need to be healthy too. Yeah. That's right. And that, and that's sort of where, you know, looking at James and all his volunteers and the board members is just so empowering and inspiring, right? He has a story. himself of addiction and recovery and then giving back.

I encourage you to introduce, you know, that introduction for sure because it's just mind-blowing, like, how effective his small team is compared to those big nonprofit organizations to claim to do the same thing. But it's really the timing of being able to coordinate multiple organizations for when that person is ready to heal that James, has been able to sort of overcome by being available and visible to that person, but then quickly, you know, there's no time like the support is there and he drives people back home. And sometimes it's like 16 hours away for when those people are ready to heal.

That's a really interesting point you make. I feel the same way. I feel I've worked with a lot of nonprofits. I've gotten to see what they say they do in comparison to the... they do. Yeah, and that's probably the most disheartening is that I've worked with places that are supposed to be shelters for women, and then the feedback you get is like, this was like they were rude, they talked down to me, they kicked me out because it became 10 minutes late, and it's like, what, and I see, like, when I started as a native court worker, one of my, the values I went in

with is I'm not going to fix anybody. I'm going to help people when they're kind of ready and they're probably going to fall and my executive director of the native court workers does a really good job of saying your job isn't to get someone out of the court system, your goal is to make the periods in which they're not in the court system longer because then it's three months

and it's six months and it's nine months and you expand that time and that's your goal. If you can do that, you're making a difference because then it's a year, then it's two years, then it's five years and you're working towards a longer term goal but I did see other staff and other people

and other organizations go, I helped you. Why are you back here? Like, aren't she good now? And it's like, no, you're going to follow down. We all follow down. Well, that's right. And we can follow down again and again. And that's kind of when I was younger and kind of that insight because I screwed up a lot and again and again.

And I, you know, thank you people who continue to love me. And that's what I love about James is that, yeah, those people can, it can be, there's no limit to how many times they can, you know, you know, go back to being on the downtown east side. It's that just as your, you know, your person said, we just want to make those longer, you know, those times longer in between them going back. Because it's when they're ready to heal and we meet them wherever they're at. And those are the kinds of organizations and the kind of work that we want to be involved in,

whether it's industry, whether it's government, that they're, you know, when people hire us or people know that they've worked with impact resolutions, that there's an expectation of how things have been done, that they can feel confident that there was, you know, to go above and beyond FPEC, to really kind of really understand and support the mechanisms of which people really need to heal with, right? Like, I kind of think of if we're sort of really trying

to our target audiences, you know, drug war dismantlers, land defenders, you know, it's like those are the people we want to work with who are really trying to do something different that actually works for people versus what's going to help them. Right. Can you, you don't have to give like an direct example, but can you give us an example of you meet with a community and you say, hey, let's try and work together. We'll try and get some funding.

What's the goals that you guys are kind of setting together in terms of getting funding? Then we're going to do X, Y, and Z. What are those kind of things that you're working on? Well, I think it's not a cold call. It's usually people who know us already. Like, for instance, with the All Nations Outreach Society, it'd already been working with them for a little bit and being able to put in-kind support from team members

to then work with them to develop applications for funding that keeps them operating and then also able to pay ourselves. So that's sort of one example. You know, part of this, I hope that message is out there, contact us. Like, you know, we want to hear your stories, what's going on, because we're certainly not traditional in the way that we see how things should be run, and potentially we can work together once you get to know us as well. And I think that's where team members have been able to make those introductions through

working relationships they've already had with previous careers or previous work experiences. So that's where Bill Murray just has a reputation on its own. And he's just so well-renowned in our field that people come to us because they know Murray. So that's one facet as well. But I also create incentives for members where they're going to get a commission off that first opportunity. Interesting. So I'm looking long-term potentially. to work with my community, Chihuahua First Nation.

And they're asking me to join their economic development committee. And they've asked if I'd be interested or open to the idea of running for chief and council this coming June. I'm open to the idea. I'd much rather be part of an economic development corporation because that's where I feel I don't really want to do the politics. Well, that's where the work really shines and lives. It's like I've worked with some really great economic development arms and continue to do so, who do some really great things for the community in terms of raising capital. And that's what I get to learn from Murray to raising capital.

We work together and how that can be reinvested back into the community. So that's one, actually, we do that exact kind of work with one nation in the north right now, raising that funds through the economic development arm and then creating an organizational framework to make sure the needs of the community are met by talking to the right people, not only on staff, but with those committees that make up community members. Right. So if I were to call and say, hey, we're ready to get started on economic development, what would that conversation sort of look like? Right. Oh, with impact resolution. Yeah. So I'm ready to, we're ready to get the ball rolling, but we want to do things ethically and make sure we're lifting up

and building capacity within our community. I think that that's where perhaps if I hadn't have done this paper. I would have thought, no need for community consultation, all just hit the ground running. We'll get some business in here. So what would that conversation sort of look like? I would probably ask if, you know, sort of what community plans have been done recently, what are about to be updated? Has there been a needs assessment? That could have been triggered by, you know, sort of industry wanting to operate in that area. So that would be sort of some bite-sized pieces around a needs assessment. What's your communications plan? How do you know what you know what you know is what you know, right? Like, whether are you in treaty, are you not in treaty? Are you doing a

relationship agreement? So it's really kind of understanding potentially what community pieces have already been explored or discovered or are wanting to and then working backwards. Well, let's do needs assessment. And then that kind of, ding, ding, okay, we know what funding to apply for, if that's, and then how it might build into sort of later phases of funding. that includes a communication plan, or maybe that's done simultaneously, but really it's a conversation that starts and trying to understand for myself, how much practice have you had working as a community? It's kind of the question I have in my mind, whether that's through treaty or community plans or et cetera. That's incredible, because yeah, that's what we're,

my hope is to start working on that. And I know that it's going to cause a lot of disagreement in the outset, there's going to be, we're going to be airing dirty laundry in those early phases of, I didn't like how this was done 15 years ago. And that's okay. You know, you kind of got to get all that out. Like that's really important because it's like a pressure. It's pressure lid. And then it boom. So like, again, it's sort of that needs assessment. It's kind of understanding all the things that need to be addressed. And the communication plan kind of ensures the governance around ensuring people don't get to that point. Yeah. And then you get kind of part of that out of the way because what happens, I think, is if you avoid that and you go,

we'll just, we'll just not do that because why would we air our dirty laundry is that leaks into business agreements and people start having elections, all of that. And, you know, it's, you could have a hybrid system, hereditary and elected system. We don't, I wouldn't know, right, but it's sort of maybe that's something that, you know, having something that the community can focus on that brings love back into the community and practicing on. how to communicate with each other is really my goal. And we can find that with available funding out there under the guise of, you know, economic development.

But really, it should serve multiple purposes in my mind. Yeah, I don't disagree. I think that that's something that when you're kind of in a cycle of poverty or you're used to the same old, same old. It's easy. Yeah, I see it with, because I'm not on chief in counsel, thank goodness right now, because I see those shots being taken of like, oh, you're. getting rich off of this and it's like chief and council make about a thousand dollars a month like

you're not getting rich off of doing this job that's right but if those then that goes down to a lack of communication right or awareness and and that's kind of the work that i'd like to think i'm doing with the indigenous center for cumulative effects is again positioning communities to have that understanding before it's triggered by outsiders because once it's triggered that is only going to be amplified you you know you know all these like why are you talking to that person, and that creates such an environment of unsafety, you know, and that's the scary space that happened in the North, to be quite, to be quite frank, and where it's gotten sort of out of control. People don't feel safe there anymore. That's awful. It is awful, and I don't think

it needed to go there. I think there was another way to do that, and there was a lot of missed opportunities. Yeah, and I think that when you have people like yourself who are willing to, I also interviewed a Knuck Crawford and one of the things she commented on because she's a family lawyer. And so she gets those. Oh, she gets it all. Yeah. And she gets to see that. And so trying to have a calm person in the room to break things down and like, okay, like we hear what you're saying.

And like there is this space to talk, but we need to make sure we're still being constructive and working towards some sort of goal. Like I feel like. That sort of, yeah, it's mediator, mediator might be the right term, but it's emotional, a mediator who is neutral and trusted on all sides. That's kind of, you know, the key point. And, you know, the work that we do is sort of, if there might be people already existing in the community who just needs a bit of training and confidence to know that they continue that work. Like our, our position is we want to work ourselves out of a job. Yeah. we don't want to be here forever. This is not, you know, it's really just to kind of, again, going back to what Helen said, share what we know and provide them the support until they're ready to take that on their own. It's just funny that you say that because that's how I feel about taking on a role

because I do feel mostly disconnected from my community that I don't have any opinions on what correct development needs to be. So whatever the community chooses, I don't have a team I'm on where it's like I want it to look like acts. And so I feel like I can be helpful all the way up until somebody else is ready to lead the way on what they truly believe their community needs to look like because I don't live there. I'm not going to if we put in a pipeline or if we start logging more or if we put up a big gas station, I'm not going to be there using that service anyways. So whatever all of you want is what I want for you so that you can fill the jobs that interest you. And that's where the needs assessment comes in to depoliticize sort of action plans or next steps. for people, for everybody, right?

It's sort of, and but the work to get there and to the outcomes of what those needs are, again, is practicing on how to collaborate and with those who live on reserve and off reserve. Yeah, what advice would you give? Because it sounds like a tool that everybody could use more of an ability to relate to, oh, I hear your side, I hear this side,

and recognizing and having those conversations. It's a built skill that I feel like we're starting to see the value in, but it's still in those very nascent pastages. It's interesting that you say that we just came off a project where we're supporting Muslim youth serving organization actually provide, you know, appropriate and sort of culturally relevant support. And the first question kind of had to ask yourself, have you included youth in the decision making? Have you included youth in sort of the idea of the programming. And that's, you know, it seems common sense,

but it's really, it's an important question to ask, have you included community members? Have you included, who have you included as community members? And how, you know, how were these consultations run? Like, it's good to have a facilitator, a neutral facilitator, because it doesn't have to be long and drawn out. For me, it's four sessions. You should have enough information.

The first two, just everyone being able to air out their, you know, sort of identify the issues and vulnerabilities, pivoting in the third one to, you know, co-collaborating on solutions. That's where the real magic happens, right? And that's it. It's like a, it's really a well-being-based, strength-based, trauma-informed, community-centered approach, really. That's kind of, you know, how we see engagement, whether it's with industry or community programs or sort of nonprofits.

That's kind of the formula in my mind. I love that last part because that's where people start to see themselves as the solution. And I think that that's what maybe we're, it felt like that's what was what's been missing from conversations when I was a court worker was that they're like, and of course I believe that there's been atrocities against indigenous people. But there's this instinct to go, this isn't my fault because of Indian residential schools. And I think that that limits our ability to see ourselves as the potential solutions to the challenges that we're facing. And I think that that's, I feel like that's inspirational. And I feel like it just needs to be said more. It's again, the pain, turning that pain into purpose.

And some people just have never been asked. Like, it's disgusting. Like, when I go into a place, it's like, did you even talk to them? It's like, what? You've been texting them. That's how you think a relationship. No. like and and that's it like people just sort of don't even know something about themselves until

they're asked to participate and that's it you can only just give the opportunity you can't force people into it but once you create that safe space they're going to tell us more people they're going to tell more people and then it's again practice right and then they integrate it themselves and then they're excited about the solution yeah you're creating champions and that's kind of you know the involuntary resettlement work for me that sort of of this idea or the sort of the fault of previous assessments is those who were involuntarily resettled weren't sort of taking ownership of those plans. Well, of course they're not. They were not anywhere near the department, you know, they were not able to make any decisions

about it. They're not inspired. It's someone else's plan that was imposed upon them. Of course they're not. So that's kind of where I got that training and that insight. to like it's not even like I think other people do I think the confidence that it's the right sort of start it's the right place to start yeah that it's the cornerstone of how to move forward is by building up the community so that they can in the future come to weather any storms yeah they can weather anything I really believe that I really believe that I know it that's where you know sustainable ecocultural tourism for me whether it's here in Canada or elsewhere whatever the outcome it might be tourism but at least we're leaving a legacy they have clean water you know wastewater treatment you know housing you know it's just like that's the legacy i want to leave sorry could you tell people what that is it's a very long word sustainable ecocultural tourism so it's sort of like that idea like that's kind of the the guiding principles right and that might be the outcome that our journey gets us to but it's an option only after we're going to

to a community, meeting them where they're at. So just like anything else, assessing what they want, and then building the infrastructure. Usually it starts with community infrastructure, wastewater treatment, all that sort of good water, like those things that you would expect food, that building them up where, and we're working with community members and community leaders to, you know, raise the funds to get them there. But ecotourism might be the outcome, but it doesn't have to be. You know, but our entry point for conversation is tourism. That is very interesting.

Can you explain why tourism is one of the cornerstones? Because I agree with you, I just think it would be valuable to kind of sift that out. You know, for me, it sort of goes back to the sustainability. You know, people want to visit and share and build. I don't know. For me, it's just sort of being able to invite visitors in an area that you're you're really proud of gives you such a sense of, I don't know, just pride. Like, it's, it's being, it's nice, like, cleaning my apartment and having people over. I have a huge sense of pride

in that. Like, it's like, yeah, I clean it. It's like, you know, I'm proud of me. You want to share it. And I think tourism for me kind of generates a potential and, and really kind of builds that solidarity because we hear stuff on the, and again, it's the news. Like, I always want to be there and go there and listen for myself. And I think creating tourism opportunities for me kind of generates the right sort of momentum, you know. Like I've visited areas that you see on the news that are war-torn, and I have such a different perception of those areas.

It's, yeah, I think that's where tourism can, we can really take advantage of, I guess, as an excuse to collaborate. Can I just ask your thoughts on the news from your perspective? because you've gotten to, we saw a wet swin on the news, you got to work with them. We see perhaps Pakistan or countries near there in dire states of affair. And we develop our perceptions often based on our understanding of what's going on on our news cycle. And if there's anything that hopefully we're starting to develop is to ask more, better, higher quality questions and to really reflect on our, like I had Getangeli Gill on. Yeah, that's right.

And she's very interested in working with, I think she's a part of a project right now trying to make sure that education is accessible to women in other countries. And she's a practitioner as well. And one of her comments was like, there's so many amazing things going on in other countries, but it never makes our news. And it was just like, that's so crazy that that's a problem that we haven't looked into solving. And I was advocating for her and I'm probably going to advocate for you to consider doing like an update on what's going on around the world that's good, new or information that we're. information that we should be championing and be proud of and give us a different perspective on these countries because if you ask me, if you asked me to go to Pakistan, I'd be like, I don't, is it safe? And like, that's a naive question from somebody who doesn't know.

It's a fair question, right? And, you know, I think of Pakistan and Afghanistan and when I was there just last in 2020. And you see, you know, using the pandemic as an example, and you didn't hear about this in the news. The first thing the Prime Minister did was develop areas for the poor and homeless to be safe and taken care of in this pandemic. That was the first thing that he did. Like out of, out of anything, he shut the country down. He made, you know, he just made it, you know, gave the structure the people needed in, in what potentially could have been a panic situation. You know, we were traveling on our way up to northern Pakistan on the Chinese Pakistan border. We had to come back early, and that's when I had this opportunity to visit

Peshwar on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and go into Afghanistan. And these are areas, you know, 10, 15 years ago that were constantly being bombed that you would see in the news. And such a different perspective for me, people would look at me. Obviously, I'm not from there. And They would smile. They felt like there was this hope that, you know, they were able to finally move back into their communities. Like, there was peace in that region again. You know, so I certainly, for me, it's just sort of reinforced again how important it is to visit and kind of spread that awareness that it might be different from what you're used to, but it doesn't mean it's wrong. Did you have any reaction to what happened with the troops pulling out?

You know, the first thing was phone my colleagues. How is it going? And I know I don't want to talk too much because I know I have colleagues who had a very, you know, who were there at that time and had some horrible things happened to them. So I know it's nothing is sort black and white. I get that. But their perception was so different. Like there was a sense of celebration for them, you know, and and sort of hope at sort of that U.S. withdrawal at the same time that was happening. So I was hearing many different things, and my experiences are kind of based on my own.

But I've just been given so many reasons to know how important it is to be there to really understand it or have, you know, how important is to visit those regions before having an opinion. That's what I think is the most interesting, right, is people have all types of opinions on good, withdrawal, bad, withdrawal, what should have been done better, and they never went. Yeah, or they base their whole careers on an idea. that they've actually never been there. That's, it just kind of, wow. Again, I think if we can kind of bring it back to the basics,

I think we, I think there's some hope for us. I definitely feel that way in regards to indigenous issues. I just think it's discouraging when, like, from my perspective, your leader perhaps goes to Tafino and goes and relies. Like, that doesn't inspire confidence. No, it doesn't. And that's the thing. is sort of, well, what is leadership?

Is it just one person? Like, is that one person, is that reasonable to expect they should shoulder and burden all of that responsibility? You know, when there's so many different kinds of governance and leadership styles, right? Or, yeah, I don't know. And I think that's a community by community decision. And, yeah, that recognition that there is a whole minister response. And we didn't focus on what they're doing. And that's where I think it gets easy to pick sides or to politicize.

issues and pick one side or the other, and I think that that's where there's value in like trying to understand deeper, trying to hear people out. Spend that time. And it might feel like a lot of work, you know, but, you know, just like for anything, you know, you have the right tools, the right people in place, you know, do that early work early, meaningfully will just save you, you know, such a, it'll just set you up better for things that are going and and just make things more um yeah people more feel like they have more ownership of of the process yeah can you tell us uh we have gone through a lot of your career but we were talking about your non-profit earlier right can you tell us where it's at today you know i wish it's kind of blended in with impact resolutions work so i haven't actually

utilize the nonprofit versus sort of next plans to to work with the community communities, you know, I still communicate with the communities that I worked with back in those days. They had a horrible fire, you know, and I'm, I don't have to raise the money. I can usually take the money more on a personal level. I don't have to have big fundraisers, which I would love to do sort of going down, but I continue to sort of keep in touch and would like, and actually have one member, and she was nine or six at the time when I was working there. She's now a young adult. She wants to be a civil engineer and she's actually one of our members to gain work experience on our team. So really remarkable. We're starting a

bit of a, I guess, sort of the work that we're involved in that's related to the nonprofit, you know, 10 years after the dam has essentially abandoned any social responsibility. What is life really like because we don't often hear the stories of the people when they're not involved anymore. And I think it's a critical moment that they probably need to get off their chest. So we're starting that conversation and that work. Wow. That's amazing. We make these decisions around resettlement action plans and da-da-da-da. But how does it actually operate? Like so, you know, 20 years after construction. I, you know, I fail to see the benefits, even though there is such a, you know, I fail to see the benefits for those early decisions that were made back then.

I see hope in the future, but hopefully this work can help inform sort of future resettlement action plans. Yeah, I think that that's the tough part, right, is that it's on our new cycle or it's in our minds at the front end. And then looking back on, like, again, like, when you think of the politicization of the U.S. is health care system. And then you see now it's not even a topic. But it was the primary talking point for almost a year of just talking only about, well, I would do health care this way or that way. And I disagree with this person's approach on that. And then it's like, well, none of you were doing anything.

Like, what are we doing? Like, you know, professional talkers, you know, professional self-promoters. That's the expertise we've created in our society now, and people make a lot of money doing that. And it's sort of for me, I just, I think if they use those skills that had some reciprocity going back into, you know, the communities they supposedly serve, wow, what magic that would happen, right? So, yeah, I hear you. It's sort of new cycles and what seems sort of important, should always be important, especially for those people who don't have. have access to the media like you and me. Exactly.

The person who connected us is actually Mark Lalonde. That's right. So if we don't have a chance to talk about him, I'll be disappointed. I was going to say another, you know, a dear friend and another just, Mark is just not only just a great friend, but he's super energizing. I feel really safe with him to, you know, kind of have these kinds of discussions about the what-ifs. And I would say a mentor to, you know. How did you meet? Mark. Mark was actually, for listeners who don't know, he was actually a past podcast guest.

That's right. Yeah. He, we met actually was a colleague of his, Royston. And Royston and I worked in the field together. He's corporate security for Coastal Gas Link at the time. So this is back in 2015, 2014, 2015. And basically, Royston's role is to ensure the safety of the environment, field teams. And there were 150 plus 80 with Sowetan Hereditary Chiefs, elders and youth with us, all collecting environmental information at once. So Royston and I were leading those programs.

And I met Mark through Royston at an event that their company was hosting. We just became fast friends after that and always made an effort to connect when we're in town at the same time. Actually

Mark was the first to introduce me to Abbotsford, a few years ago. It was sad because I moved to Abbotsford and then he moved to Sunmerland. But that's how I discovered or started to explore the Fraser Valley. Amazing. Because, yeah, I took his class. Okay. I did some teaching. I taught it at a few sort of special courses with him. Of course. Yeah. And so he was kind of the first to be like, we don't have the answers and these are global problems. And I was like, hey, I'm here for you to tell me what the solutions, these problems are. that's what that's and uh he gave us an assignment he's like uh right about a problem and all the

different aspects of that problem and so i think i did um uh the main one was like water and uh like rising water and it's like it's a complex problem it's impacting different communities completely differently some for the better some for the worse um who takes responsibility who's accountable for when water is rising and how do we hold them accountable if we like and it's so complicated but that was his kind of approach is just like fine problem and talk about all the problems with that problem. Well, and it's so overwhelming, and that's where I, you know, when we're talking right now, it's like, where do you start?

If we haven't started with what I think is A and B or C, which is people and the people who might be sort of immediately impacted, then we've gone too far. And that's sort of where I feel I have something special to contribute to the world or to the people I work with. is that intimate understanding based on our whole selves. That's amazing. For somebody who's interested in working with you, they've listened to this and they've gotten this far,

what would you say to them in terms of your perhaps an elevator pitch or your idea of what impact resolutions is bringing about? Yeah, thank you. I think it, you know, honestly, as a team, we're building a safe space for people to explore the what-ifs, the possibilities and the potential of what that mutual sort of reciprocal relationship between industry and community and everything can offer by having the right information. So I encourage you, reach out, love to hear more about you, and many people have.

A lot of people have found my profile online and introduced themselves, and always like, oh, because that's how I used to do things when I was younger. I just pick up the phone and ask me a question. Like, that's how I certainly started off in my career. That was actually my next question was going to be, like, you set such a strong example in being willing to persevere and willing to take risks. Like, for many starting a business is a very intimidating process. For many, starting a nonprofit organization is a very intimidating process.

Traveling the world, intimidating process, leaving when you did, brave decision. And so I think that. You set such a strong example in willing to say, I'm going to move forward and I'm going to put a smile on my face and persevere. And I think that so many people get stuck. And there's like a good quote of like so many people live quiet lives of course of lives of quiet desperation of wishing they had of saying I could have done that. Maybe. That's suffering. Yeah. You know, that that suffering and, you know, it goes back to, you know, having the space to daydream and explore those. what-ifs. And I feel so excited through impact resolutions that I get to with such a brilliant,

you know, passionate, enthusiastic group of people who believe that too. And it's not to say we're disregarding the greater good for our own personal needs. Those can be met too. That's why I think I started in patch resolutions as a for-profit because I think when I was younger, sort of, you know, you forget about that and thank goodness mary who reminds me we need to make profit too and that's kind of that's the thing i'm learning but yeah it's you know i don't think we need to suffer i think there are ways that and questions that we can ask ourselves to at least start with the right step yeah i don't disagree i think profit is a tough when you're when you're a genuine person it feels like profit is it's so wrong exactly and so it's something that i've thought about

out too because it's like well I want to work hard set a good example but I want to make sure that I'm passing like my community doesn't have wealth to pass on and so if we're not looking at having enough wealth that we can donate to good causes where we can say like I I um one of my role models and I think he's made a few mistakes more recently but it's navel ravicant if you've ever heard of him he's an investor he helped start Facebook and one of the comments he made was like go get the money like you can't like the people who are who have bad ideologies who are selfish who are they get the money and then they go influence things by buying a building and say we're going to put this that's right business in there and they go make more money and they

continue to grow that and so if you're saying I'm idealistic and I'm not going to participate in that system then they're going to go have their influence and that's what I always try and consider when I'm talking about indigenous communities is either a corporation is going to come in and tell us what they're going to do, or we're going to say, actually, we're already investing in doing X, Y, and Z. Exactly. We don't need you. Yeah. Right? And that kind of goes, yeah, I couldn't agree more.

And that's the thing I had to kind of contend with in my university days, you know, working for, you know, World Bank projects, you know, those, you know, in that context, I was constantly being, you're selling out. And I had to really contend, no, this is important. I'd rather be there, you know, and knowing that I care to do the right thing than some other person who might not care as much. And that's one way I rationalize it in business. I need to remind myself of that too. And that's sort of where, you know, building the company, ensuring that the team is taking care of first,

I finally in a position where I can take care of myself now. And I know that, that for me is sort of like, that's, okay, that's success moving in the right direction, you know. And then hopefully I'll get to that time where I can, you know, step away and someone could walk into my shoes to take it over. I'm constantly thinking of that. So I can take this profit and invest it somewhere, you know, because that's important to me. That's, that makes me happy. Yeah, I feel the same way about the podcast. I, yeah. When I started this, I was like, I'm not going to do this role forever. I might continue to have conversations, but this has brought me such benefit in terms of building relationships with people, networking, learning more about people's stories, that it would be perhaps selfish of me to just think, oh, when I'm done, this disappears and this platform is gone. That's right. It's sort of a legacy that you can pass on. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a different way of thinking that I think we're not naturally sort of inclined to think that way. So I think that those small pivots will really make a difference. I couldn't agree more. And I think that it's inspirational to think I'm building something to pass on rather than this is just about me and my success. Totally. I'm excited for you.

This is great. And just some of your great announcements recently with Chilliwack Tourism. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I am very excited about that opportunity. Can you tell people how they can connect with you online, your website, your social media pages? Thank you.

I'm on LinkedIn. Pepita Elena McKee. I'm also, I can be reached at www.wimpactresolutions.ca. Amazing. And I think you're also on Twitter, if I'm not mistaken. Not actively, I would say. LinkedIn is probably the space we're more active. Facebook is where a lot of our friends, our colleagues, our clients sort of live and operates. So Facebook is another page that we have. We have an Instagram page, but I think LinkedIn and Facebook is probably the most active. Amazing. Pepita,

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to hear about the journey that you've been on. I think that you should have your own movie based on like the amount of struggle you faced early on and your willingness to push forward and not listen to the naysayers, not listen to how other people define you. I think that it's easy for all of us to fall into how other people perceive us. And for your willingness to leave that circumstance, we don't know what could have happened. If you hadn't have chosen to do that, you might not have been here today to share such an inspirational story and your willingness to see both sides, I think, is another area where there's so much to learn from that because it's so easy to judge someone based on a clickbait

headline or on an assumption rather than going, well, this, perhaps this corporation is working to try and make money and take care of their shareholders and this community is working to try and take care of their community and they both have perspectives and I think that that balance is so important because I believe in like the rights of people to protest but I want it to be informed and I want it to be understood that there's so much nuance to these conversations and I think that we should enjoy that rather than flee from it and I think that that's the example that you've set by saying this is a long process and we're going to go through it together but at the end everybody's going to flourish and I think that that's that's what I want people to understand about

indigenous communities is if we don't develop you miss out on our culture our language our food like our stories out history missed opportunity not to exactly no thank you Aaron for giving me this platform I'm really honored to be able to share my story in such a safe environment and you made it really easy to share. I want to say, yes, thank you for this opportunity, Aaron, so much. Yes, I heard that you had perhaps a more difficult experience previously, and I hope that this was more positive and more impactful. It was, yeah. Thank you. Again, I feel like all the work that you did in advance and just the environment that you've created here. Thank you. Well, it's such an honor to be able to sit down with people like yourself and hear such an

important story and I'm always learning more like I had no idea what was going on in Pakistan and so I take those stories with me and talk about them in the future because I enjoy understanding and learning from your experiences and I think that that's something we don't do perhaps enough is that we go well like maybe there's something to learn from this person's years of life experience that's right well I you know I don't want the conversation to stop here Aaron always feel welcome to reach out as a sounding board and brainstorm anytime Sounds good. Thank you so much for Peter. Thank you.