The Ben Mulroney Show - The most open and honest conversation with an Indigenous Chief you'll hear today

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

GUEST:  Aaron Pete/ Chief of Chawathil First Nation  / Podcast host “Nuanced” If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. All right. Very glad to be having this next conversation, because if you're like me, I've said before, I think I said 10 years ago on Twitter, I said the prime minister who is responsible for achieving true reconciliation will be recognizing. as one of our great prime ministers. Full stop. Still believe that today. However, if you're like me, in my position in this chair, I have been talking about stories that have concerned me. And when you start piling them on top of each other, they kind of build anxiety, wondering, are we on the right path? Have we settled into a dynamic from which there is no escape? And are things better today than they were a few years ago.

I think these are things worthy of discussion. Unfortunately, it does feel that if you try to have these conversations in certain circles, you're either shouted down or you're called names. And then we found this young man, Aaron Pete. He's the chief of the Chowethill First Nation. He's a host of a podcast called Nuwanced. And he is having those conversations on his platform. And he's having them in really, really fascinating ways and want to have more of it.

So I want to invite him on the show. So Aaron, welcome to the Ben, Mulroney show. Thank you for having me. I don't know if any guest has ever started this way, but I first discovered you by watching corner gas where you were on a unicycle with fire in your hands juggling. So it's an honor to be on the show. Well, you know, that was all smoke and mirrors, my friend. They stuck my head on somebody else's body. But if it may just stand up and pay attention, I'm very happy. Thank you for, thank you for joining us. I really, really appreciate it. Before we

jump into our conversation. I want to ask you, you know, this is, your, your podcast is, it resonates with me, right? Having, having honest conversations where you can sort of park outrage and you can park emotion to a certain extent and, and just try to further a conversation and take people from where they are to where they need to be, I think is, is noble and admirable and I think we need more of it. What's been the response to this project? So I rebranded last year, almost exactly now, from bigger. than me podcast where I was interviewing role models to nuanced where I was trying to have tough conversations. And the response, like the change in the numbers, I can send them to you

is just insane in response to being willing to have tough conversations. Yeah, but you know, unfortunately, we're living in a time where the loudest voices aren't necessarily representative of the most people, but the loudest voices and the loudest voices are oftentimes the least helpful voices. Are you, do you hear from people who, um, Because it's very easy to say, okay, you're going to have a conversation with somebody who is a member of First Nation who's a pro pipeline or thinks Pierre Poliyev should be prime minister. And they'll say, how could you platform that person, for example? How do you, how do you explain to people that, that, yeah, hearing things that you that you might disagree with, that's helpful. Because I try to do that as well.

and it's really hard to explain to some people that the saying things that you might not, or hearing things that people might not agree with isn't inherently a bad thing. In fact, that's how things used to get done. So I just interviewed Tim Tealman and we did a bit of a debate on whether or not we should be reconciling at all,

whether or not that's a good that governments should be spending money on. And my argument is this is taxpayer dollars. Anything where the government is taking taxpayer money, your money of your paycheck, and spending it, We have the rights to debate it. We have the rights to argue about it.

That's our duty as citizens. That's why we have freedom of expression. And so I did that interview. And overwhelmingly, the response in the comments was just thank you for being willing to have the conversation. I may not agree with Tim. I might not agree with Aaron. I just want to know that we live in a society where we can have these conversations. Well, look, I'm so glad that you're here.

And I'm so glad you mentioned Tim, because that's where I wanted to start. And, you know, just so we're clear, I told you where I'm coming from off the top. I am not talking to you as if you are in anything. I'm not talking to you as if you're a representative of First Nations writ large. You are one person and you have your own opinions. I'm not going to ask you to speak for people. I want to get your take. But I did want to start with a quote that I found of Tim Tealman.

He was asked point blank, what is reconciliation? And this is what he had to say. Well, I would say that what reconciliation is is a guilt-driven process of transferring money, land and power from non-indigenous Canadians to the modern descendants of Hunter-Gather. And it's premised upon this fundamental lie that the Western nation states are evil, that they are founded on an illegitimate basis, and that therefore the citizens of those nations must atone for that sin by effectively transferring their property, their money, to indigenous, the modern descendants. And so the question people always ask is, well, when are we done?

Of course, say never. It's an ongoing process. And I think that betrays the fundamental assumption of the illegitimacy of Western states. I've got to say, Aaron, if now Tim Teal means a former indigenous rights lawyer, he's got a lot to say on this. If you read his Twitter or X feed, there's a lot there. If I had heard something like that, Aaron, a couple of years ago, I would have thought those were the ramblings of a reactionary right winger. But as as the years progress, not only do I hear nuggets of truth in there, but I suspect more

and more people are going to hear something and parts of it, if not all of it, is going to resonate with them. And that is concerning to me because if in fact any part of that is true, I think we're in trouble. Ben, we're on the same page. I see the same movement taking place as you do. And I think organizations like BCAFN, AFN, UBCIC, these lobbying indigenous organizations are really not reading the room. And so many British Colombians are going, when does this end? How much money? How much land? What is going on? Is my private property safe? And I'll just quickly say to Tim, I enjoyed that debate. I still disagree with him. He pulls on the courts in that piece. Like the courts aren't there to drive public policy. They made a decision. The parliament can absolutely overrule that and

say what direction Canadians want to go in. It's not their role. to kind of guide public policy. Then he kind of goes to like, everybody hates the West and certainly that there's people out there that feel that way. I don't feel that way. Most indigenous people don't hate the West. We don't hate cars. We don't hate air conditioning.

We don't have hate housing. Like we don't hate a lot of things. We hate how the relationship went for a certain period of time where it was basically no respect for First Nations people, no respect for indigenous people. Our culture is stupid. We're going to outlaw it. Like those are the things that most indigenous people are against.

And we're just saying, hey, let us do our thing and can we work out some of these past things? Like how the land was settled in British Columbia. Can we try and figure that out? And then everything we get offered by the province or the federal government is what we work within, which is what Tim dislikes. But that's not driven by me or any First Nations person, specific claims processes, court processes.

Those are all by the West's design that we're operating within to try and resolve some of these past issues. Well, yeah, I look at the, you know, we'll stick with the West, for example. Well, look at David Eby's government, you know, this notion that I think last week or two weeks ago, we sort of kind of stumbled on this story that they had removed the word provincial from every provincial park. And sure enough, we checked online and it bears out because, and then you go back and look at the NDP's website. You know, the word provincial is steeped in colonialism and therefore is traumatic and all this stuff. I was like, I don't know that anybody asked for this. I think it's this, there's an element of self-flagellation by certain people on the left to bend over backwards to peel away notions of colonialism.

I don't know that the word provincial is inherently, aggressively anti-First Nation. But it speaks to a, it speaks to a narrative that a certain type of politician pushes that, I don't know that has had, has the, buy-in from the people, or at least I don't think it's been tested the way that it should be. How do you feel about that? I completely agree with you. I think we all knew this back in 2015. We knew that the liberal party of BC at the time was much more representative of the middle and that the NDP swayed left. And back then we kind of said, let's try swaying a little left. Let's try and move forward and be progressive on issues. They've now been in power for 10 years now. And a lot of this has been

driven, I'd say, over the past couple of years where Premier David E.B. has been in power. And there's just this instinct to want to give more and more and more and more and to have this shame and this guilt about who we are as British Columbians or Canadians. And I would say, and I don't know if we'll talk about the separation discussion today, but I'll just say, like people argue Premier Daniel Smith is being pulled to the right by some of her caucus and by the party. And I would say the same thing for the BCNDP. I mean, David Eby came out and very clearly said, we are going to make this a confidence vote about these amendments to DRIPA.

We are going to proceed with some of these conversations. And then he, but internally, was pulled the other direction and had to walk back from that. So there's clearly a pressure within the party to not proceed on kind of taking a very rational, reasonable, middle-grounded approach on some of these things. And I'd say at this point in time, it's not even helping indigenous people or First Nations people that this is taking place because we've lost the plot and people have failed to be able to articulate what is reconciliation where are we going and how do we bring everybody along on this if i'm just dragging all of these names you and i can't pronounce forward i'm not saying that that's an inherently bad thing

but when we just go in that direction and people aren't buying in yeah we're really losing the plot and losing british columbians and i think not doing the service to actual people living in real poverty Well, and I think that's where we want to take the conversation next. We're going to take a break when we come back more with Aaron Pete on reconciliation. What does reconciliation mean in practice? What does progress on this file mean? We're going to be talking about that next. Don't go on here.

The Ben Mulroney Show continues. Some crimes are so shocking. They don't just make headlines. They forever change our society. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's most infamous crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes. release every Tuesday through Thursday

from the first time that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome back and we are continuing our conversation on reconciliation with Aaron Pete, a host of Nuanced, the podcast.

Do people call you Chief Pete? They do. Well, Chief, welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Thank you for staying. What does reconciliation mean to you? So I grew up in the 90s and I was always taught that we had discrepancies in our education outcomes, addiction outcomes, mental health outcomes, education rates, employment rates, economic development opportunities. And so I always thought that that was what reconciliation was.

It's drifted quite a bit as we spoke about earlier towards renaming things. And I'm not, none of those are inherently bad, but not addressing. how real First Nations people on reserve and in, like, urban communities live. And so I think that is what reconciliation is to me. I think there's two schools of thought. One is more about lands and title and rights. And the other is about, like, real living conditions of indigenous people. And I've always been much more concerned with living conditions,

because I think that's actually how we make sure every Canadian reaches their full potential. Well, I think you bring up a good point because your version of reconciliation speaks, to the betterment of stakeholders in the Canadian experiment, right? And Canada's not going anywhere, at least that's my plan. And so to have members of this Canadian experiment for the First Nations have all of the metrics by which we judge human success improve, that makes everyone's lives better. But it does seem that we are almost on a daily basis assailed with, performative sort of things like land acknowledgments that don't help anybody's lives improve.

The land acknowledgement, you could argue, breeds discontent within First Nations because you're constantly reminding people of an injustice that was perpetrated with no recourse. And then on the other side of that bargain, you have these, you have indicators of wealth transfers. without necessarily accountability. You have court cases that seem to be indicating that once unassailable property rights are now under attack. And we're lacking a balance. We're lacking a balance. We're lacking real communication.

We're lacking a knowledge as to where we're going with any of this. I don't see how any of those things. Now, each one on their own, I'm sure it could be justified if somebody wanted to justify them. But you put them all together. and it feels like we are in a far more precarious place today as a nation than we were five years ago. I'll say two quick things. One, just to put this into context, like my grandmother attended St. Mary's Indian residential school. She drank all of her life because of the trauma she experienced.

Then my mom was born with fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, and that reshaped her prefrontal cortex significantly. And I've never met my father. So like the downstream effects of some of these things are in fact real. I know some people need to be like reminded of the context. And so I was given extra supports as a consequence of that history in order to go and succeed and given opportunities to get out of these situations. I completely agree with you. But I will, I'll just restate like again, all of those things that you're describing were

driven by the courts. I mean, I think it's very well clear that a lot of those things could have been addressed. The court cases, the government could have intervened. They chose not to. on some of these renaming pieces they didn't proceed on. Why do you think they don't? Some of them, it seems, would be, like I said,

not a heavy lift for a government, but like I said, they lay the foundation for, like, let's call apprehension on the part of, of, you know, the Canadians that came here, or the Canadians whose ancestors came here. It leads them to be apprehensive about the entire experiment of reconciliation. And I don't want anyone to be apprehensive.

I want us all to have buy-in. I want us all to believe that the future is bright for everybody. But these indicators suggest otherwise to a lot of people. I agree. My answer might be controversial in that I think that human beings have always had this idea of original sin. And I think that this fits very nicely into the idea that these people committed an original sin are in part of it. And that there's a way of addressing that. I think as we've drifted away from religion, that's been a consequence.

Now, I'm not a super religious person, but I can just see the tenants of somebody feeling bad about existing. I think that's part of the climate agenda. People feel guilty about using things and living their life. And then on the Indigenous file, they feel like they're on stolen land and that they've done something atrocious and that they can pay penance in order to make up for that. And I think that that's just in the hearts and souls of all of us to feel responsible and feel to blame for things and want to write them in some way or another. And then I think that works its way up into the political, where everybody's,

says they're non-religious and then we're doing land acknowledgments and prayers to start all our meetings for indigenous people. I just I can't see those two things as separate. I'm in conversation with Aaron Pete. He's the chief of the Chout Hill First Nation and he's the host of the nuanced podcast and we are having

a long as wide a conversation as we can possibly have on the notion of reconciliation and where we are going as a country on this file. I think a lot of Canadians really one of the flash points and that should concern people is is the Cowichin tribe,

the court case that made a lot of people sit up and take note and wonder, are we on the right path? Are we doing things right with the court saying, you know what, your property rights in the city of Richmond? And it may not be yours. And there have been politicians, there have been legal scholars to come in and say, well, of course not. That's not what this is about.

But it does create uncertainty, Aaron. And uncertainty is the antidote to investment. You know, if you want to drive away investment, you make things, you make sure the climate is uncertain. And we've already seen quite a few examples of investment fleeing British Columbia. And I wonder what you thought of that. I think it's extremely unproductive. I'll say from the outset, Cowichin tribes said that they weren't coming after private.

property rights and that the courts basically asked for clarification from the government and they did not get that clarification on what the government's position was and so that's created a lot of confusion and fear and i was surprised to see the government's response go there's nothing to see here and then pivot to we're going to have a loan back guarantee program and then say i just had the minister for indigenous rights and relations on and then he's back to saying hey there's there's not a lot the concerns here around private property rights, everybody can just calm down now. And I think to your point, how people invest in a home is believing that it's going to be a retirement plan. And so when you put the ownership of that into question, it puts a lot of fear in the market.

So yes, you might not see people not being able to renew their mortgage, but you will see the value of those homes, just like you would, if an earthquake happened there, reduce in value. And that's going to have a long-term impact in British Columbia. And I really don't feel like any of our leaders are really grappling with the potential outcomes. of that in a meaningful way. But then we have the conservative saying they're going to repeal DRIPA. And that also doesn't really fix the Cowich and Triba's decision. Drippa was mentioned, but it's not the fundamental underpinning of this decision.

So we have a lot of public communication to do with everyday British Columbia and the Canadians on how we actually all get back on the same page. I am continuing my conversation with Aaron Pete. He's the host of the podcast Nuance. He's a First Nations chief. And he on his podcast has, I think, a similar goal. that as we do here, which is to have real conversations that could be emotional, that we try to keep emotion out of, so that we can get to a place that we need to be.

And Aaron, I thank you for sticking around. Thank you for having me. But five years ago, some news dropped like a bomb in our reconciliation project in Canada, and that was that ground penetrating radar discovered 250 in unmarked graves at the Kamloops residential school. And that began, that was an, that began an emotional roller coaster. And five years later, there are some, there, there are great many people asking, why has there been no exhumations? And are there, in fact, 215 or any unmarked graves in that location?

What do you believe is under the ground at Kamloops? I have no idea. I know that how the story was written. And I'll say that many children did die at Indian residential schools. And so that history, broadly speaking, isn't in dispute. It's more about this location. And I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to wonder whether or not there are unmarked graves or a septic system or nothing. And I don't think that makes you a denier of all of the history.

I don't think that makes you an inherently bad person. I don't think it's constructive to have that type of conversation. I think we can absolutely blame the media for how that was. communicated outwards. And I think the First Nation community has some responsibility to address this uncertainty because it's dividing Canadians and First Nations people. And individuals who had nothing to do with that are now taking some of the brunt for this confusion and this miscommunication. Yeah, it has been, it's quite emotional. And then you've got, you know, certain federal political leaders who want to criminalize even the, even the discussion that

you and I are having right now. And look, I think what you said was absolutely dead right. You know, to ask this one particular question in no way calls into question the terrible treatment of First Nations in a number of these schools over the course of decades. And so those two things can be true at once. But what is it, Aaron, about the unwillingness to, by certain members of First Nations to not dig. Like, why not? It feels weird that the $12 million from the federal government was transferred with an eye to do that research

and to dig and to exhume if necessary. And like I said, from my perspective, if there are bodies there, I want that, I want First Nations as well as everyone else to be able to mourn and learn from it and atone. But if there's nothing there, then I want us to be able to move on from that so we can focus on the very real issues that we should be focused on. Well, I'll say a few quick things to that.

First, they did receive that money. The application was pretty broad in that you could do multiple things with it. In all fairness to everybody, like excavation and confirming what they claimed is like a super reasonable thing to expect because they did get a lot of funding rolling from the provincial and federal government on this note. And so there was a downstream benefit to First Nations communities with that claim. And if it's not true, we all need to know about that. But I'll say on the community level, I mean, like, Ben, do you want people digging up your

relatives in order to confirm whether or not they're buried there or not? Like, I think that's a pretty also reasonable position for individuals to feel. But when you're a government, when you're a funded government by taxpayer dollars, You have a different fiduciary duty than you have if you're an individual mourning the loss of your relative who potentially died in some of these schools. And I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that they do find bodies there. And that that would be a tragic heavy thing for the country to go through yet again to confirm that. But I'll just zoom out and really quickly just say, my only other concern is we have a completely unprincipled leadership within our parliament that are perfectly comfortable flirting with the idea of removing people's right to freedom of expression, asking questions on a perfectly. legitimate piece of like our news. And that's just completely unacceptable. And I'm always

concerned when elected officials start to wield their power to control what conversations we are and are not allowed to have. And listen, I'm pretty sure that we could put our heads together and find a way to do that investigation respectfully that would be in line with First Nations traditions that would so that if a body were found or multiple bodies were found, we could do so in a respectful way. I think, I think we, because, because the alternative is to live with, I mean, it's a Schrodinger's cat situation. You know, the cat is both alive and dead inside that box, and we have to live with the

worst case scenario in both scenarios. And I just don't think as a country, we can live with the uncertainty and, and the possibility of doing so respectfully exists. But let's continue the conversation because I think what happened after that was it unleashed a torrent of guilt, call it white guilt, call it whatever you want. And what has been witnessed from one side of the reconciliation table is a massive transfer of wealth. And a lot of Canadians don't know where the money goes once it leaves the federal coffers and enters the First Nations economy. There's almost an opacity and a lack of transparency. And I think

increasingly, as the temperature has been turned up, a lot of Canadians kind of want to know where the money is going. Can you, from your perspective as a chief, explain the machine in which the money enters? Sure. First, I'll just say, like, to your earlier point, the whole point of Canada and the thing I love about our country is that we can have tough conversations about an issue and still be extremely respectful and thoughtful.

Like that's one of the Canadian values that I think we've just always held true on. But to your second question, I don't know if I agree with this claim that First Nations aren't transparent. All of my audits for my First Nation community are public and you can just type in our community and you can go through our audited financial statements. The only delay in getting them out is Indigenous Services Canada approving them and putting them on their website. Most communities are aligned with that. We fall under the First Nations Financial Management Board who supports First Nations and being transparent about our spending. There are certainly communities, just like municipalities and just like provincial bodies, that are not transparent and they should be held accountable for that.

But overwhelmingly, First Nations wants to be transparent and deliver on that. It's really the liberal government that's pushed back on the First Nations Financial Transparency Act and whether or not it should be enforced. I completely support enforcing it. Chief Billy Moran supports enforcing it. Most First Nation communities do because we've gotten this question for so long and we don't get a lot of money. And so being transparent that we don't get a lot of money is more than comfortable with us.

There are red herrings of where they have a lot of money and they're not transparent with it. That should be addressed. But I don't think most communities fall within that category. You know, I remember when Justin Trudeau took office, he, you know, one of his goals was to make sure that all the boil water advisories were removed from, I think I can't remember how many there were across Canada in reserves. And I don't know that they made as much as many inroads as, as, as many inroads as, they had wanted. What is that sticking point? Why is it so hard to get clean water on reserves? How we, it's 2026. How can we can't do that? A few different reasons. I had the opportunity to go to Saskatchewan a few years ago with a community that didn't have clean drinking water. And they

shared that they got the funding to build the system, but they didn't have the capacity to hire experts in order to maintain the system. And so I think that's likely one of the gaps is how do you get somebody who's an engineer to go out and live up in a rural community of 200 people to maintain a water system by themselves when the First Nation community doesn't have excess dollars to pay that person what they're worth in regular markets like in cities like Saskatoon or Edmonton or or other cities. The competitiveness, they're going to go where the money is. The second piece is, I think, capacity of First Nation communities. When I came on to my leadership, many people didn't know how to apply to Indigenous Services, Canada, what the process was,

how to allocate those dollars and how to work with Indigenous Services Canada and engineers to get that done. That is a technical process that if you only have a grade 10 education, it's going to be a real challenge for you to deliver on. So there's that capacity issue. And then there's also just the willingness to invest in these very rural remote communities where there is only 200 people and you're going to spend what, $10, $15 million on a water system for 200 people. That's a huge investment for Indigenous Services Canada to put towards. Now, they have the money as I interviewed Chief Gilly Moore. And it's just how they go about allocating those dollars.

We've had Aaron Pete of a First Nations chief and podcast host from Nguenced the podcast, joining us for a wide-ranging conversation on truth, on reconciliation, and on the state of First Nations Canadian relations. And I thank you, Aaron, for sticking around for one final segment. I want to jump in to the idea of natural resource development. That was central to Mark Carney's election. campaign. It was actually central to both his and Pierre Poliev, whoever one was going to get elected on a platform of responsible resource development in this country. And there is at least a

perception on one side of the equation that no matter what happens, there's always going to be someone, possibly a loud voice, not necessarily representative of the majority, but a loud voice on the First Nation side that will be there to either slow things down or shut them down altogether. Is that a fair assessment? Yes, that's a fair assessment. So, so, and thank you for answering that. So the next question, Aaron, is how, like, explain the logic to me. If, if there is money, if there is money that should be transferred from the federal coffers,

the provincial coffers, two First Nations, where is that money supposed to come from, if not from this bounty that exists to be developed by the Canadian economy? Well, first I'll say that most First Nation communities I know want to be self-sufficient. They want to have, whether it's a trust or whether it's economic development, funding their pathway out where they're not reliant on government dollars. Going through the government funding process is slow, arduous and ineffective and often and not aligned with what the community actually wants to do because it's not designed by us,

it's designed by Ottawa. So I think most communities don't want to rely on federal funding or provincial funding forever, but that's where we are today. And so most talk about self-sufficiency, self-reliance, those types of things over the long term. Aaron, can't that self-sufficiency be part and parcel of developing those natural resources

in partnership with First Nations? And, you know, everything from hiring practices to subcontracting to First Nations firms for any part of the development of a pipeline or of natural gas or, you know, any number of those projects of which there should be countless going on in this country at any one time. Absolutely. And I do think that that's the pathway out that we're seeing. Alberta's done that. They signed on when they were expanding the Enbridge line. They had First Nation sign on and get a revenue sharing agreement.

And it's the same with the sunrise expansion project for my community. We are supportive of the expansion because it will, one, benefit our region financially, but also it will employ our members. It will employ our members businesses and allow our economy regionally to grow. But I think that you will always have this fight, and I don't think it's unhealthy, between how do we protect our oceans and how do we develop our economy with natural resources? And where is that balance? Nobody should have a veto. There isn't a correct answer. it is an ebb and flow that we have to work through each time we want to do something,

is how do we make sure that the beautiful country and province that we live in is still that, while also making sure that we all have a high quality of life. And I think that's an ongoing conversation we have to have every time we want to build. I think I can't remember exactly the number. I'm going to pull this out of the air, but I remember asking myself, when was the last time there was a massive oil spill off the West Coast? And I think it was about 30 years ago. I think that the technology after the Exxon Valdez oil spill has advanced so far that the fear of an oil spill is vastly overstated, vastly overstated.

I think we just lost Aaron. I think we lost the signal there. So I hope we can get him back because I don't want to end it this way. Let's try to get Aaron back immediately. I'm so glad to be able to have this conversation with him. I'm so glad to have a conversation without fear of being smeared for simply asking questions out of curiosity. Oh, and he's back. There he is, Aaron.

Okay, wonderful. I'm glad to have you. So how do we get to a point then, Aaron? Because you said that, yes, in fact, there are choke points. And how do we have the conversations to get beyond? because some people feel that there is a de facto veto by certain tribes. How do we get to a point where it's more collaborative and less confrontational so that we can build these things responsibly?

To me, you make them justify how they leave their members and their region in poverty if they're not going to proceed. You ask them, how are they going to pay for the social programs they expect from the federal government and the provincial government, which is what you just asked me. How do you plan to get there if you're not going to accept this? Because one can't happen without the other. And living in a world where you get the money and you don't have to take any responsibility for how the money is made is an unhealthy leadership system that needs to be addressed. We need to be able to have mature conversations that goes, everything is about tradeoffs. If we're going to build another pipeline,

there's risk to the environment. I've heard studies that no matter what, when you build a pipeline, there's small seepage that happens because of those pipelines that's unavoidable. And so how do you balance that and the cost to the environment with the benefits to individual people? I just don't think it's acceptable for us to say, no, under any circumstances, which is what I heard coastal First Nations say, it's just not adults in the room energy. You have to address the real concerned people have about our economy and where our quality of life is heading. I mean, I have tons of members who say they can't afford groceries. How are we going to address that if not for another pipeline or,

through more natural resource extraction. What do you want me to say to my members when you veto other regions and what it's going to do for our economies? What is the argument? The last large-scale catastrophic spill was 1988 that spilled released 874 liters of fuel oil off of Vancouver Island. So 88, long time. 874,000 liters, I'm correct. So a long, long time ago, like I said, the technology has improved. In our last couple of minutes, Aaron, I'd love to turn the page and let's talk about things to be hopeful for.

As it relates to reconciliation, as it relates to the advancement of First Nations in Canada, where are you seeing the most positive advancements? So I think First Nation communities are really coming into their own. I know people are worried about the Taltan Mineral Agreement, but I think that that's going to result in more mining and removing like important precious. metals that are used for our phones and stuff. I think that's a huge opportunity. I think there are a lot more First Nations that are interested in how we grow our economy than what we saw 20, 30 years ago. I think there's a willingness to have a middle grounded conversation. Many communities are getting F&FMB certified, which means that they are presenting public audits. We're moving in that direction. And I think as you see Chief Billy Moore and Ali Warbis in BC, we have indigenous people who are

not just NDP liberals. They're willing to be conservative. And I think that's an important part of our democracy and then I just see the education rates improving. I see there are willingness to for First Nations to contribute to the economy, provincially and federally. And I think that there's an opportunity here for us to have these tough conversations and come out more united than we were. And I really believe that that's the Canadian way. And so I hope we have leadership, provincially and federally that want that middle ground and don't want to continue to pigeonhole First Nations as anti-development, anti-growth,

or in the reverse, only development and only pro-growing the economy. There's a middle ground here for British Columbians, Canadians, and First Nations. You and I have been speaking for an hour. I don't think either of us has raised our voice once. It's a wonderful thing. And lastly, let's go back to how we started. When we talked about the Tealman quote, if reconciliation is a destination as opposed to a journey,

then where do you want to see it end? Where do you want to see reconciliation end? I would love to see us address the education rates, employment rates, addiction rates, all of those things. In immediate term, I would love to see our government say every year we're going to put out the plan. We're going to follow through on the plan. If the plan doesn't work, we're going to scrap it. We're going to try something different. We're not going to continue to fund the same processes that have existed for 40 years.

We're serious about getting people out of poverty. We miss out on their potential when we don't. And I think more broadly, I think the more we lean into these uncomfortable conversations, the more we understand each other, the more we can kind of address what the concerns are. Tim Tealman is right that this mentality creates a victim mentality and it's one of my big concerns. It's true that a lot of horrible things happen in our past, but we can't tell First Nations people to live there. We can't tell them that they can never go and become something if they stay this way. That is the only way that I got out of the circumstance that I'm in is by believing I'm not a victim of just history and that I can become something else,

something different, something unique. And that's how we contribute and that's the way we have a strong and vibrant country. And so I have a lot of optimism that the more we lean into tough conversations with people like Tim and where you and I don't yell at each other and hate each other and I don't call you names and you don't call me names, the more we can just focus on the issues and start addressing them, which is what I think a healthy country and a healthy democracy does. The only thing I'm going to call you, Aaron Pete, is a terrific guest and I hope you come back soon because this is a conversation.

I'd like to continue. I really appreciate your time. I appreciate your opinions. I appreciate you joining us. And I wish you nothing but the best. It's an honor to be here.