The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT -  How Real Were All Those Smiles and Hugs Yesterday?

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Spark President Perry Tsergas sitting in this week. Niigaan Sinclair joins to talk history, about the now defunct Hudson Bay Company. 

Smoke, beers and the truth. Fred DeLorey, Perry Zergis, coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Yes, Perry Zergis is filling in for Bruce Anderson today. Bruce is, I don't know where he is. I think he's off fishing somewhere, quite frankly. He's off fishing somewhere, quite frankly. But Perry's by and Perry is the president's CEO, signs the checks, does it all at Spark Advocacy in Ottawa. And they're glad to have him with us because he will be helping us break down a Spark Advocacy poll that came up. But first I want to start on the First Minister's Conference.

And Fred, why don't you start us here? I mean, this was quite something to watch at the end of this day. All the First Ministers came out and they were basically glad ending each other and full of smiles and hugs. Your guy, Doug Ford, was saying, best First Ministers Conference he's been to in seven years. Should we be surprised at all this or should we be reading anything special into how Mark Carney's first FMC went? No, I don't think we should be surprised at this stage. This is the stage. We're still in that

honeymoon. Everyone gets along stage. Carney's just been made prime minister, elected by the, you know, in the last election. And then we have the existential threat that exists with Trump so it makes perfect sense that everyone's getting along. Particularly like Premier Ford's comments you know calling referring to Prime Minister Carney of Santa Claus and saying he's going back up north to to to work in a shop to get things done. It's obviously great to see the question is how long is are we going to see this type of cooperation between all the provinces? There's still very serious things that need to be resolved. And everyone's saying right now they want to get rid of all the interprovincial barriers and just wipe them out and have one Canadian economy.

But that's going to impact a lot of jobs in different provinces. There's different industries that are dependent on having those trade barriers. And when those provinces, you know, when those issues rise up, when we get more into the weeds on it, there's going to be some premiers that are going to be hearing from constituents and it's going to cause some issues. And, you know, listening to a good talk last Friday when you had Chantel and Rob on talking about, you know, the Meach Lake and how everything was, everyone was getting along so well at the beginning of that as well. And it quickly unraveled.

And that's one of the things that is going to be very interesting to watch and see how this progresses. What's your take on it, Perry? Look, I think, I think what happened in Saskatoon was actually quite, quite stunning. You know, I'm being involved in politics for geez, just over 20 years now. Correct me if I'm wrong, Fred, you would probably know better than me. But at my last check, every premier coming out across their social media feeds saying glowing, positive, encouraging words coming out of that meeting with their colleagues and

with the prime minister. You've got Legault saying that he's never seen the premiers talk so much about the economy ever before. You have Danielle Smith, Danielle Smith out across her socials, Danielle Smith out across her socials, not with any couched criticism, but with words like, I'm encouraged by what I heard, clear commitment from the prime minister to build. So I think what has come out of that meeting is something quite unique and quite special. It's created a big runway for the prime minister

in these early days to get things done in the House now. My memory of political history in this country, at times when there's a new Prime Minister or a new government and the first conference like this takes place, there's usually a degree of goodwill at that first one, and then it begins to kind of unravel. But this one's different in the sense that the stakes right now are much higher than I think we've seen at any of those past conferences. Whether it's the situation with Donald Trump and the US, whether it's the situation with this belief that there has to be some kind of nation-building projects taking place. And most of the ones that are being talked about are in some fashion around the energy issue.

So those are all big stakes that have been dividing issues in this country for a long time. But there actually seems, at least in this moment, and I buy into what Fred's saying, it's early going and things can unravel quickly. But there was a sense yesterday, and Perry points out some of the quotes from some of those first ministers, that this was different, that this actually was different.

Fred? Yeah, I think a big part of it is what Prime Minister Carney is advocating for, like these building things, right? That's not something that we've been doing for the last decade very well in this country. We've almost been anti-building things. And we need to do that for our economy.

There's so much that needs to happen. We have such rich resources. We're not getting to market. And having a prime minister who wants to do that certainly changes the game. You know, most of the, most of the premiers are of the conservative bent, whether partisan wise or just ideological. So he's speaking to them. And that's why I think, we'll talk a bit more about the spark insight research later But I think that's a big part of what we're seeing is Carney is not to the to the left or to the right is in the middle

And that has a big impact when it comes to working with premiers and trying to you know Deal with their issues and get things done. So I think that's a big part of this He is it's not just goodwill because he's a new prime minister. It's because he's speaking to the issues I think that a lot of these premiers want and need to get resolved for their own respective provinces. So all in all it is a good start on that front. And it's clearly not just the premiers where he seems to be in line with as you know as Fred mentioned Perry you've got this spark advocate he's got this advocacy he's got this new data research document new poll out

Bruce actually wrote a couple of good substack pieces on it over the last couple of days give us the you know sort of the executive summary that that sort of 45 second, one minute breakdown. What is this telling us about the mood in the country right now as it comes to, you know, a new government and a new prime minister? Yeah. So I love the final point Fred just made because I think it's actually a beautiful segue into what I think this research is telling us, but the public opinion zeitgeist of the last,

call it six months to a year, is even telling us. This idea that Carney is not necessarily left or he's not necessarily right, he's in the middle, I would add a nuance to that. I think Fred's right, but my nuance would be this prime Minister is obsessed with outcomes. This is what he talks about, right? Everything has to drive towards an outcome. And I think the voter, you know, zeitgeist, the public opinion that we were seeing and tracking

all last year was that it didn't matter if you were a blue collar unionized worker. It didn't matter if you were, you know, a highly educated PhD living in an urban center. That stuff didn't matter. You were pissed that you couldn't get a doctor. You were, you know, annoyed at how expensive air travel is or how complicated it is to use our infrastructure sometimes to get from A to B or how expensive it is to get from A to B. Business and business leaders shared that frustration. So I think Carney's coming in at a moment in large part driven by Donald Trump and an existential threat and risk like we've never seen, but also a permissive environment to invest and to build so long as that it actually leads to outcomes.

So that at a high level, at an 80,000 foot level is I think the wind that is in his sails right now. You know, what in these early days, what he's been in office for something like a little over 135 days and what we're largely seeing if I had to sum it all up, Peter, to give you the the short crisp executive summary, I say he's got the benefit of the doubt from voters, right? The folks are overwhelmingly, including those who did not vote for him and his party, feeling positive and like Daniel

Smith, encouraged in the current moment. Well, that's the interesting thing about this data is that it does cross over into other streams beyond the kind of liberal base or even those who voted liberal. There is a degree of goodwill, or more than goodwill. Kind of, you know, let's get her done. This guy sounds like he wants to get her done. He's saying let's build and voters are saying let's go. So what do you think, Fred? How real is it?

Well, it's interesting. I would say six months ago, Canada was incredibly polarized where we had a conservative party led by someone who was further to the right than we're used to or accustomed to. And the Liberal Party was led by Justin Trudeau, who is definitely further to the left. So we had a very divided electorate on that. And even the left was divided into two with the NDP eating a lot of their vote.

I think Carney has erased much of that by being a, you know, I don't, you know, I'll probably get in trouble here with conservatives and liberals. He's a progressive conservative prime minister, or maybe we should call him a conservative progressive to be a bit more fair to the liberal side. You know, he has changed it where he is, you know,

he has changed the game in that he is really running on a lot of what the conservatives have been running on the last few years. The speech from the throne last week that the king gave easily could have been delivered for a conservative prime minister. That could have been Pierre Poliev's speech

in many, many regards, a few tweaks here and there. It focused on fix the budget, stop the crime, build the houses, axe the tax. It was all Poliev stuff. And to Cardi's credit for doing that, these are things that need to get done in this country. And he's identified that. And I think that's who he is at the same time, as Perry said, this seems to be a person who is very outcome focused and wants to get things done. And these are the things that need to get done. So the polarization kind of disappears when you when you you know when you go from far right to far left to the middle. It's just it's a natural outcome from this. Of course expectations are high and that's what's going to be his big challenge. On the

conservative side for Pierre Poliev, people say his big challenge in the next election is dealing with his negatives and his likability. And not saying that's not his biggest issue, that is a big issue that he needs to address. And I think he can, I'm not sure whether he will, but I think he can address those. But I think Poliev's number one big issue is that he has a progressive conservative opponent now, not a far left liberal opponent. And that's just changed the game. And there's so many Canadians that I felt left behind over the years. And if Carney can rebuild our economy

and get things moving in this country, then that's gonna eat a lot of Conservative Party of Canada votes in the next election. Well, he was already kind of out of the picture because he doesn't have a seat in the house and he's got to do handstands to try and attract attention right now. But in terms of yesterday he really looked out of the picture in terms of that. Well as leader of the opposition hard to be you know you're not a first minister,

you're not a minister at all. Exactly but I mean the point the the the fact that this was not a room of liberals this was a room as you said of mostly conservatives. Yeah. And he wasn't there, and his voice wasn't there. And he shouldn't be. He shouldn't even be trying right now. He should be right now focused on learning what worked and what didn't in the last election. Last week he came out after the speech from the throne and did a press conference. I thought there's no need for him to be out there right now. He should be going quiet. He's not gonna score any political points right now,

Poliev isn't. There's nothing to score. No one's keeping score. He should be just mapping out and talking to campaigners and doing the research in this last election and learning from it. That's what he should be focused on. And then his by-election that'll happen this summer,

come back in the fall ready to go. But right now he looks like a wounded animal when he comes out. And I don't, that's not a good look. It's not on brand for him. He was defeated and it's it like I've won and I've lost. It sucks to lose. It hurts. And you can see it on his face. And I don't want to see that. I want to see him come back in the fall, ready to go. And I think that's the look that he should be focused on. Alright Perry let's swing it back to the situation as it plays out for Carney right now because obviously everything that happened yesterday looks good for him and these numbers that you're showing look good for him. How long has he got to deliver on the

expectations and the promise of what we're witnessing. I mean, how soon does he have to be able? I mean, at one point he was saying, you know, we'll have a, you know, one economy instead of 13 economies by July 1st. You don't hear that mentioned too often now. It's July 1st comes, you know, just around the corner. But one assumes there is, you gotta look at this with a degree of expectation that this is gonna run out at some point,

that you have to have deliverables. And what was that term that you used earlier? He wants outcomes. That's right. Yeah, so how long has he got? You know, he's got two big gates to clear coming up. One is the artificial one that he created, Peter, which is the, the July 1st Canada day date of, on our way to one Canadian economy, significantly reducing

the barriers, at least at the federal level, the levers he, he can control. Of intra provincial interterritorial trade. And then the second level, the levers he can control of inter-provincial, interterritorial trade. And then the second gate is the G7. And those are the two big spotlight milestone moments coming up for him. Now, do I think he's got to solve all the world's problems leading into or coming out of those two moments? No. But at the end of the day, he's got to start breadcrumbing out what his version of an outcome of a deliverable looks like. And I would argue constructive criticism of maybe the last two years of the previous government, there's got to be a comms plan around it. Half of politics is just the

theater of it and perception from voters. And so whatever his version of an outcome is, coming out of that July 1st, Canada Day, he better be working, and I'm sure he is, with his advisors and his communications folks on the inside right now to say, look, here's what we're aiming for, but we sure as hell better have some kind of plump impagintry coming out of July 1st to show for it. I think at the provincial level, Doug Ford would be someone I would point to and say

the premiers in this country have done a much better job of advocating and promoting what their legislative regulatory outcomes are. So I think he's got a near term gate that he's got to clear. And that's July 1st. And that's demonstrating to Canadians and the rest of the world coming out of the G7 that he's a strong leader that is stepping up to do what he said he would do in the campaign.

Pierre Pauli have spent two years attacking globalists and telling us that we didn't need globalist thinking. And turns out voters in a time of uncertainty felt that we could use somebody with some international relations experience and international business contacts. But to your point, what are we going to have to show for it? They gave them the benefit of the doubt. That would be my high level takeaway of what the polling is. Now what do you got to show for it. They gave him the benefit of the doubt, that would be my high level takeaway of what the polling is. Now what he got to show for it coming out of those two milestones. I think beyond those two milestones, he's probably got the balance of the year to use the backend of this year in the fall sitting session, parliamentary session, to really

flex on some big legislative changes, regulatory changes, and big investments from the federal government, which he's prepared to do, he has said many times. Fred, you get the last word on that. Yeah, I think expectations are definitely incredibly high, as they should be. He was elected because he gave people huge expectations of what he could do. It's interesting with the July 1st deadline that he created. Originally it was, you know, it was communicated that all inter-provincial trade barriers would be gone. Then it kind of shifted to, well, the federal part of inter-provincial trade barriers will be gone. And now its legislation will be introduced to eliminate

federal trade barriers that will be gone. So it keeps getting watered down significantly. But at the end of the day, I think it's really outcome focus. It's not about what deadline is met or what is actually gone. I don't see what lists is going to be removed of trade barriers. I don't understand exactly what all of those are. So, and I think most voters would be in that bucket as well. I think really in the fall, I think things could get interesting if we're not seeing movement on these things when Poliev is back in the house. And we've got to remember Poliev and Andrew Scheer

and Michelle Rempel-Gardner, Melissa Lantzman, they are incredible opposition members who can pick apart governments. They've been doing it for four parliaments now, way too long, but they are very capable of doing this and finding the cracks and exposing them. And I that's where you know in the fall is something to really look at. I think he has the summer to show some kind of growth or something happening but if we're not seeing things or at least something coming together by

then and I know it's probably unfair to say fall but that's the the reality of how people think they want to see it soon and quick. So I'd say he has until then to start showing something other than just making announcements. You know, it's funny, we've always assumed in this country that summers are for, especially in terms of the political game, summers are take it off, do the barbecue, do the lake, go sailing,

go water skiing, whatever. This one doesn't seem that way. And this guy doesn't seem that kind of guy. He really does seem focused on trying to make things happen, which only adds the pressure to him in terms of, you know, I think by, you know, the fall, Canadians are probably going to want to see something here. As a result of all this, Perry gives them the end of the year. It's probably somewhere in that range somewhere between the fall and the end of the year. Listen, gentlemen, that was great. And Perry, thank you for filling in for Bruce this week. It was real good. Thanks for having me. Have me back.

Okay. Well, tell Bruce that. I'll just tell him to stay fishing. He can keep fishing from time to time. He deserves a summer off occasionally. Oh yeah. Even if Mark Carney's ministers don't. No he's got way too much work to do this summer. All right guys thanks again, take care. All right thanks. And welcome back, Peter Bansbridge here. I hope you enjoyed Smoke Mirrors of the Truth today. Now with something very different here for our second part of our Tuesday episode of The Bridge. The other day, I'm in Scotland, right?

Scotland actually another 24 hours or so before heading back to Canada tomorrow. First in Toronto, then to Alberta, I'll be in Calgary for a few days. The other day we were doing this sort of going to a few antique stores in northern Scotland. It's always interesting, there's always history in these places. There's no doubt about it, lots of history. Some of it recent history, some of it old history. Anyway, we were in this place and we saw a bunch of old fur coats, and I mean old, they were in pretty rough shape and almost afraid to touch them they were in such rough shape. But

checking out the labels, we saw in one of them Hudson Bay Company incorporated 2nd of May, 1670, an old faded label in an old, really run down fur coat look like, I don't know, muskrat, something like that. It was in, I'm telling you, it was in bad shape. The label Looked old now. It you know it probably wasn't that old. I mean it certainly wasn't 1670 It might have been 1970 It wouldn't have been any newer than that I Would say probably somewhere in the law you know, around halfway through the last century.

And I thought that's pretty neat, especially when the news of the day was the end of the Hudson Bay Company. Now, you know, we've all grown up with the Bay being a part of our lives. And you know, I mean, the first Bay I saw was when I was in Churchill. I don't remember there being a Bay in Ottawa when I was growing up there. There could have been. I just don't remember. You know, there was Edens and Murphy Gambles and the Yard Fisher, and those were the kind

of department stores of the day, sailors. I don't remember the Bay, but it may well have been a Bay there in the 1950s. Anyway, there were certainly lots of the Bays in Western Canada. And so when I was in Churchill, Manitoba, tiny town, you know, like 1,000, 1,200 people, there were two Hudson Bay companies.

There was one in Fort Churchill, which is kind of where the, kind of the public sector workers worked. And I, you know, I spent my time in both that one and the one in downtown in Churchill, which was more, it was almost like a trading post. It wasn't, but it was almost like that. It was pretty rough. The crowd was a rough crowd in that bay. Anyway, so that was my first real introduction with the bay and the controversies and the history that were attached to it. Because the bay is, if nothing, one with a tortured history, is if nothing one with a tortured history which is coming to grips now as the place folds down there are issues in the big building the Hudson Bay

building in Winnipeg and their histories surrounding the artifacts that still exist at the Bay. So this relationship with indigenous communities is a difficult one and a history, as I said, is a tortured one. So I wanted to get to that. And so somebody wrote in over the last couple of days and said, you should talk to Negan Sinclair and if you listen to cbc radio or watch cbc television you'll see Negan every once in a while he's a professor at the And so I tracked him down.

Wasn't hard, found him. And we decided to do a little chat. So let's have that chat now because I think you'll find it all very interesting and with a real degree of history to it. Here we go. He gone St. Claire on the bridge. So Negan, tell me, what's your first impression when you hear Hudson Bay Company?

What do you think of? Well, the Hudson Bay Company has probably the most complicated legacy. And it's something in which it brings up a lot of pain of the past, a lot of feelings of conflict for indigenous peoples and communities. The Hudson Bay Company, unlike the Northwest Company, which was led by French fur traders, had basic policies that were xenophobic from the very beginning. And that means that the Hudson Bay Company had the notion, for example, that they were only going to get let trading happen in the fort.

They were only going to operate in English, in English, for example, or under British currency. And they had some really basic premises like they weren't going to marry into indigenous communities. And they always brought a kind of elitist position, never mind the fact that they were funded from the slave trade, from all of the colonies within Prince Rupert's family.

And so the Hudson Bay Company has brought a lot of pain to communities. And of course it has a very rich historical legacy, but it's a complicated one. It is a complicated one. But did you have those feelings right from when you were growing up?

Was that sort of born into you? Well, to be honest, I didn't, you know, like most people, you don't ever really learn the true historical breadth of the complexity of Canada. You learn a maple syrupy sweetness story that you get hammered in in schooling. I grew up in Selkirk, so that's the former site of Peguis First Nation. That's where I come from. I'm from Peguis. And Lower Fork Gary, which is the other connected fort, the other Hudson Bay Fort, for trading fort with Upper Fork Gary, which is in the downtown of Winnipeg. Lower Fork Gary was literally, we went there for school trips every year. I touched furs, I worked on shaping metal, making bannock at the fort.

We were regular people that just frequently, all my friends worked there when we were in high school. Working at Lower Fort Gary, being intricately tied with the Hudson Bay Company, never mind the fact that my treaty, the very first treaty of Manitoba in 1817, is made between Pegwis, Chief Pegwis, my community, and Lord Selkirk, the original head of the Selkirk settlers, which was the representative of the Hudson Bay Company. So I am intricately woven in with the history of the birth of the Hudson Bay Company in Manitoba. Did you feel any emotions as the history of the Hudson Bay Company has come crashing to a halt over these last few years and now these last few days? I'm not in any way sad.

In fact, if anything, I'm reminded of a kind of when what goes around comes around. And the Hudson Bay Company has acted brutally, exploitatively, and while having lots of good things they're proud of, lots of ways in which they help to build Manitoba's economy, lots of things that perhaps we can now see indicative within the city of Winnipeg, some of the infrastructure,

some of the economy that's been built, and the fact that the train line comes through Winnipeg is very deeply tied in with the Hudson Bay trading forts that went on the Red River. Of course, there's all of that rich history, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for a company that at the first sign of losing profit, at the very first sign of not being able to take things from our community, build a monstrosity of a building in the downtown core and then just abandoned us to clean up the mess. All Manitobans have to do that. We have this, the largest building with concrete in Western Canada, both at the time and still in the top 50 of buildings. It takes more money to pull that building down than it takes to renovate it. And so people are now stuck with this mess in the

downtown and the Hudson Bay Company. I think that is a, uh, indicative of their relationship in Manitoba throughout history. They consistently come and make messes and the rest of us have to clean it up. And you know, as somebody who lived in Winnipeg or anybody who's ever passed through Winnipeg, it is hard not to notice that building. That's, that's for sure. And I think the latest estimate to try and fix it up is like well over $300 million. There is an indigenous connection to the management and ownership of the building now. What happened was just about a number of visions went into that building.

When the Hudson Bay Company started pulling out from Winnipeg about two decades ago, slowly, surely, they would maintain certain floors. There are parts of that building that are very iconic. Iconic, for example, the Paddle Wheel restaurant on the fifth floor was something that all of us went with our parents and our grandparents. It was a part of the rich history of visiting Winnipeg. Many people went to there before Jets games

and before events that happened in the downtown concerts and so on. But they began to shrink the building more and more. And of course, the issues of asbestos construction, maintenance of the building, they began to pull out of the downtown core. And eventually there was conversations with the University of Winnipeg, there was conversations with the city of Winnipeg of what to do with this heritage building. But it is the Southern Chiefs Organization, which are 23 First Nations, now 24, who have come in to rescue the day. They came up with a vision for seniors houses, senior housing, sorry, a medical facility, some commercial development, and then particularly partnering with the Winnipeg Jets,

the True North Entertainment, to be able to build some kind of legacy project for the downtown core, to keep people moving, being entertained, working with downtown. And so the Southern Chiefs Organization, which are two dozen First Nations, and the people who own the Winnipeg Jets have joined together to work to try to save that building renovated to work with it. But there's been some recent speed bumps some turbulence in that there's been some scandals involving that organization and the Grand Chief of that organization and some concerns that perhaps have led to some

and some concerns that perhaps have led to some hesitancy or some pausing of that vision. So whether it will happen or not, I think is may or may not be true, but there really is an interest in Winnipeggers of what do we do with this huge monstrosity of a building downtown because if it's not this project, then what will be the next one? Sounds to me like you'd probably just be as happy if they knocked the whole thing down

in spite of the obvious expense of it. Well, I mean, I'm also a historian. I'm a professor. I'm a person who had many good memories in that building. So I would love to see this initiative by the Southern Chiefs come to fruition, especially if it was for housing. But I also have seen the specs. I've seen the plans. It will cost four or five hundred million dollars to renovate that building. And the question will be, is that best spent? Is that something that we want to invest ourselves within? And it's going to involve multiple levels of government, federal, provincial, municipal, and also all the resources of many

of those First Nations who have boiled water advisories, who have issues of infrastructure, mold, and moldy houses. There's going to be a challenge of whether this is best spent here. But should we blow the building down? I tell you, if we blew the building down, there would be a massive health crisis in the downtown core because many people who are unhoused are

also living there across the street, people who are experiencing homelessness and we would have to figure out some way in which we can house people in which a building that is full of asbestos will suddenly be put up into smoke into the atmosphere. Wow. Well listen, the reason I wanted to talk to you had nothing to do with that building or your perhaps childhood memories of the Hudson Bay Company. It has to do with the very fact that the company now is gone under and yet there are certain artifacts of indigenous life and history in Canada that are still tied to that company. And the concerns about how do you get to that? So how do you get to those artifacts?

So yeah, we're talking about about 4,400 pieces of art, historical documents, even things like old catalogs. We're talking about things that were traded historically, blankets, materials. There's even old Barbie dolls within those archives. Now, the province of Manitoba has an agreement with the Hudson Bay Foundation, which is separate to the Hudson Bay Company, to maintain what's called the Hudson Bay Archives

in Manitoba. That will continue. There is not a question. Those are certain, for instance, for trader journals and so on. The province of Manitoba will continue to maintain the Hudson Bay Archive. But the problem is right now that you've got a company in receivership. So all of those assets that were being held by that company, the 4,400 of them, which some are arguably, I mean, you know, are Barbie dolls really from the 1930s and 40s and 50s?

Are those things of historical relevancy? Well, some people would say they are, but when it comes to those materials relevant to indigenous communities, we're talking about the actual documented history, sometimes in fur trader journals, sometimes in those items that were traded, sometimes they are items that were inappropriately traded for like ceremonial items, beadwork, drums.

The fact is we don't really know what's on all of those because the Hudson Bay Company won't say they won't release publicly what it is that they are holding. And so within those 4,400 items, there's going to be a struggle. The province of Manitoba, historians, researchers at my institution, the University of Manitoba, they've said that we have to inspect these materials to determine their historical significance. The Hudson Bay Company doesn't want to do that. They don't want to open the items up for conversation. And so what they've done is they've given the work to an auction company and who are interested in their own outreach, their own profit. And that will then be a struggle. They will probably

charge money to the taxpayers for items of historical significance. Now that's one level. I actually think this is a legal issue because Indigenous peoples and Canada under Bill C-15 now have rights that they've never had before, or Canadian law is supposed to come into concert with Indigenous rights. Article 6 through 10 of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is what Canada's opted into, is that we have a right to, as Indigenous peoples,

control the way that our history, our culture, our language, our traditions, all of those things in the way in which they exist within the country. Undoubtedly, all of these items, whether they be fur trader journals or ceremonial items or even just documented history interactions between people and Indigenous communities back in the 1700s. All of that is of critical importance to the continuance of indigenous culture, tradition, nationhood. So I actually think this is a legal right for, and it will be violating the law in Canada by simply auctioning off these items to cover a bankruptcy debt. Where is the stuff sitting right now? Is it in Winnipeg? So right now, the items are predominantly in the Manitoba archives under the Hudson Bay purview.

And so that's for the most part where most of them are, but then some of them, they are within Hudson Bay archives across the country, which were in different centers, mostly urban centers. Now I know you're, you're getting pressed for time there, other people want to use the room that you're- I'm just going to, do you edit this part or you just go straight through? I just go straight through.

Straight through, okay. Well, those of you who are listening live just know that I'm at a big conference in Toronto and there's a room here that I snuck into. Okay. Well, here's your last question. Um, uh, some people will know, I certainly know, uh, that, uh, your dad, uh, was the great Maurice Sinclair. Um, what would he be thinking about on this? Do you think, did you ever have a chance to talk to him about this? Oh yeah. Situation with the bay.

I got the opportunity in the last few years of my dad's life. Uh, I cared for him. I, uh, helped, you know, do his everyday activities. We spent a lot of time having egg and cheese from Tim Hortons and drinking coffee together. And I will tell you that we talked a lot about the Hudson Bay archive. And if there's one thing that he and I both agreed was that Hudson Bay Company never fails to disappoint. And when there is a series of choices that they can make to build relationships, they continually choose competitiveness, individuality, and capitalism,

as opposed to working with the communities in which they have always depended on, relied upon to build their economy. Do you think you're in for a long struggle on this? I think this is an issue of cultural protection, pre-patriotation, and it's like many issues in Manitoba, but also the country is how do we interact with each other? How do we create more healthy communities? And this is at the center of that struggle. Is this part of reconciliation? Can you draw a line? Undoubtedly. This is absolutely about reconciliation because it's about the ways that we treat each other,

the ways that we tell the stories of this country, and ultimately how do we operate in the future together. Negan, thank you so much for this. Appreciate your time and appreciate the time of those who want to get into that room and use it for their own. I apologize. They're all staring at me through a window right now. And I keep waving them in.

But Miwetch, thanks so much, Peter. Okay. Take care. Negan Sinclair. He was in Toronto, but he's from the University of Manitoba. Teaches at U of M, but in a conference in Toronto right now. Many thanks to him for joining us and thanks to those who wanted to use that room that he was hiding out in. Okay that's gonna wrap it

up for today. Reminder, question of the week, you got to have your answers in by noon tomorrow Eastern Time. The question of the week is if you have a nation building project in your mind, what is it? That's what governments are looking for. Nation building projects. They have their own ideas. You've probably heard about them in the last couple of days. But what's your idea?

What would you put forward as a nation building project? Want to hear it? So send that along to the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. Include your name and the location you're writing from. Have it in as we said by noon Eastern time tomorrow. 75 words or less. Okay. There you go. That'll be Thursday, along with the random renter, your turn and the random renter tomorrow. Um, tomorrow is our encore Wednesday program and we're going to go back to last year

and talk about the forest fires and what we learned from them that happened in Banff as we're facing wildfires of Epic proportions in northern Saskatchewan northern Manitoba a bit in northern, Ontario So that story once again this summer Friday of course is good talk With Chantelle and Rob and look forward to having you join us for that. So that's it for this day, a busy one.

Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back again in less than 24 hours.