238. DEBATE: The Future of Reconciliation in Canada! Tim Thielmann VS Aaron Pete

Aaron Pete debates Tim Thielmann on reconciliation, Aboriginal law, residential schools, reserve conditions, legal equality, colonial history, and Canada’s future.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Why reconcile at all? Reconciliation is effectively a golden crutch. It's something that is extor exorbitantly expensive. It isn't functional. It doesn't help people walk on their own two feet. And um and ultimately just gets traded for something, something else altogether.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Can you lay out uh more about your background, how you arrive at those conclusions?

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Reconciliation is essentially a form of transferring um money, land, and power.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

The obvious retort I'm gonna have is yeah, but we didn't sign a treaty in can in BC, and so the that transfer was done without the consent of the First Nations people at the time. And so you like by default, the crown took all of the land, and now First Nations, their argument would be now we're trying to get some of that authority, some of that power back, because we got zero percent from the outset, and now we're trying to pull some of those things back.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

We should replace reconciliation altogether with the goal of equality, of legal equality.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

If you're born on reserve and your parents are alcoholics and your parents are addicted to stuff, the odds that you're going to be able to leave that life in order to go become something are intensely low. You and I can both say, pull up your bootstraps, hop off the reserve, and go meet some new people. But the odds that that happens is intensely low.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Why is it that indigenous people today should be paid, should receive reconciliation for these historical injustices, but not have to compensate for historical benefits.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Uh, it's a privilege to have you on. My personal belief and how this came to be was I believe that it's important to have ideas challenged, even those that we consider are controversial, even ones we don't think are necessarily uh worthy of debate. And I think all ideas are worthy of debate. And so I had made a post. I've been talking a lot about indigenous issues and my perspective on them, doing a lot of monologues, but I believe it's important to have those ideas challenged, criticized, push back against. That helps me understand my ideas better, but it also makes sure that I'm accountable uh as in the public marketplace of ideas. And so I had made a post saying I am open to having a disagreement, I'm open to somebody challenging those. And you thoughtfully reached out and said, I'd be open to debating. I don't believe the reconciliation project, and I'll let you state in your own words, but that this is necessarily needed. And so that's why you're here today. So I appreciate you coming on. Uh, I'm excited to do this. Would you mind briefly introducing yourself?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Sure. Yeah, well, and thank you for having me on. Um, I really do respect the fact that um you have opened yourself up to others with differing points of view. I think we need far more of that, not less, in Canada. And so I applaud you for taking that stance. Um, yeah, my name is Tim Thielman. I practiced as a lawyer for Indigenous peoples for about a dozen years in British Columbia, largely up in the northeast part of the province. And um, about six years ago, five, six years ago, I um withdrew from that practice after shortly after the passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, because for various reasons I had come to believe that despite my earlier good intentions, Aboriginal law and and the reconciliation project was fundamentally counterproductive, both for Indigenous peoples and the and the clients I was trying to um support, and for the province and the country as a whole. And so I withdrew from that practice. I took a couple of years off um to focus on family, and then I ran um in the provincial uh campaign as a Conservative Party BC candidate. And um to make a long story short, I subsequently was the chief of staff for um 1BC and Dallas Brody, and um was largely responsible for the reconciliation policy that 1BC championed, together with the um the documentary that we produced called Make Me a Killing, um, which focuses not only on the Kamloop's claim of the 215 uh bodies, but more broadly on you know what I called the reconciliation industry and how these claims of um atrocities are being used to uh essentially dispossess British Columbians and um enrich a new elite of um of of consultants, chiefs, uh developers, and others who are are profiting from um from this new um governance format.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Tim, did you also work with the conservative party when it was getting started?

SPEAKER_01 5:11

I did, yeah. So I um shortly after the uh election, I um was the research director with the Conservative Party of BC, and that was how I um came to know Dallas Brody um because she um she objected to um my treatment by Don Rustad at the time. And um I was working with Dallas when um when we discussed um commenting publicly on um Jim Heller's case, because Jim Heller, as you know, was a lawyer who basically had sued the Law Society for defaming him after he asked for indigenous course materials to be corrected so that they didn't say falsely that 215 bodies have been discovered in Kamloops. And um and I suggested to Dallas that she post about this because to date, at that point in time, no elected official had had the courage to simply state what was an in uh an incontrovertible fact at that point, which is that there had been zero bodies um actually confirmed in Kamloops, despite um many years of claims to the contrary by indigenous leaders, by Canadian political leaders, by the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, many, many others. And so she became the first elected leader to do that. And then John Rossad promptly uh threw her out of caucus uh as well.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

So before we dive into this, I do want to just lay out kind of some of the underpinnings and then some of the principles I hope we can follow in this debate. The first I'll say I come to this in good faith, uh, believing that you also come to your perspectives in good faith. I don't think you're a bad person, as you might imagine. I'll have people in the comments and people uh in indigenous communities saying I shouldn't even be talking about this, I shouldn't even uh give this any light or anything like that. And I don't, I don't agree with those people. I don't think that makes us a stronger country. And what I do believe at the root of this is that we are not the the left and people who believe in reconciliation have gotten lazy, intellectually lazy. They're not laying out the argument the way I think they they need to be. And so we're in this time where nobody really understands the rootings of why reconciliation is important or whether it is something that we should be chasing. And that's why I think this debate is important for us to be able to do. The principles that I'm suggesting we follow is that freedom of expression is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy. Um, I assume good faith in you that you believe these things genuinely, and that your aspiration is that we have a stronger, healthier, more vibrant British Columbia and Canada. Um, that we believe all ideas, no matter how normalized they become, must be articulated and defended and explained, which is what I'm here to do on one side and you're here to do on the other. And I'm just wondering, is there any other principles that I'm missing that that as we go into this debate?

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I mean, I don't think we need to debate too much about the the debate itself. I I agree with you that um I also want to have a good faith discussion. I want my goal is to try to understand the truth, to try to explore ideas in a respectful and intelligent way. And um, and I think that I share your concern that there will be others that in bad faith attempt to discredit you because you're talking to the wrong people. And when I left my legal practice, I had similar fears, right? I mean, I was essentially um, you know, I've been disowned by close friends, by colleagues, by many others for effectively coming to the wrong conclusions um when it comes to um reconciliation or many other um issues that are supposed to be progressive. And in part, that was what drew me away from uh leftist political culture, having been a self-styled progressive for much of my adult life prior to that point. Right. Again, I was um I was a lawyer, an environmental and aboriginal lawyer, trained at the University of Victoria, who was a social justice champion. And I came into Indigenous um law with those motivations, and I practiced for 12 years for those reasons. So I do want to sort of emphasize at the outset as well that um I'm not motivated by animus towards Indigenous peoples. It is quite the opposite. You know, I spent much of my career trying to help and to empower Indigenous peoples. And what I found was that my practice, and I can go into this, we can go to this more detail later if you like, but was effectively doing the opposite. Instead of reviving, helping to revive these ancient hunter-gatherer cultures that promote cultural revitalization, it was doing the opposite. It was entrenching a culture of victimhood and dependence, because the way the law works is that the more you're impacted by a new project or development, the more money or or power you get from the government. This is duty to accommodate, right, and consult. And so the lawyer's job was to convince both internally, the chief and counsel and externally, the government or the industry, that your clients are deeply impacted by every every opportunity that comes to town. And that actually has psychological second order, first and second order effects, right? You start to believe these narratives of victimhood. And um, and also ultimately I found like it wasn't actually empowering at all. And and the the kinds of solutions that are being developed now, which I saw 10 years ago, are not really revitalizing cult traditional cultures. What they're doing is transferring vast sums of money from the productive members of the public to chiefs who then provide them to lawyers like I was, environmental consultants, developers, publicists. And you create an entire new level of bureaucracy through these environmental assessments and other processes, where it's largely white consultants making huge amounts of money to essentially slow down projects and extract wealth for um for their clients. And that's not productive value. And so it wasn't productive for the economy, for the good of British Columbia, and it wasn't ultimately, again, revitalizing traditional cultures, it was creating a new racialized bureaucracy.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

So I'll ask you to provide, and that was a bit of an opening statement, but the idea that reconciliation as a whole doesn't need to be pursued. Can you lay out uh more about your background, how you arrive at those conclusions, um and and and I guess some of your alternatives.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah, you're right. Because that that was more of a those are more of my concerns about what pragmatically, what practically reconciliation looks like as you go down the road. But let's let's step back for a moment and ask why reconcile at all? And underlying the um claim for reconciliation is essentially a a worldview in which um the founding of Canada and non-indigenous um uh peoples, the you know, colonialism and so on, are seen as a grave moral error, as a s as a sin. It's founded upon this idea that there is there are historical injustices that have been committed against indigenous peoples through the dispossession of their lands, through the loss of their culture that must that were so egregious that they must be compensated um set effectively forever through a process of reconciliation. And it's not often spelled out clearly what reconciliation is supposed to be, but it's effectively a form of power transfer. And it's set out quite clearly in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples what reconciliation means. But but fundamentally it's this belief that um that the that there is a historical injustice that must be balanced. And uh what changed for me was when I started to to read uh the histories of the explorers, you know, David Thompson, um, you know, Captain Cook, you have George Vancouver's journeys, many of these other first-hand encounters. And and then you you actually just think from first principles, well, okay, it let's say that it's true that First Nations or Indigenous peoples who previously occupied Canada lost control you know over their lands. Um let's say there's some some some debts in in one column. Well, what about the other column? What about all of the historical graces, the historical benefits which the ancestors, you know, the hunter-gatherer peoples gained through the arrival of Europeans, through the advent of British colonialism? Let's compare British colonialism to other examples across the globe of colonial powers or or just uh lar more powerful civilizations conquering or assuming control over the lands of others. What was the default um that typically happened? Well, the default was either extermination or slavery, right? Throughout all of human history, and that includes um civilizations of of every race and kind. What was different about British colonialism um throughout, to my knowledge, the history of the world was that for the first time the British decided that they would not enslave, um, they would not allow slavery, either within um Great Britain or within anywhere within its empire, and in fact, anywhere across the globe that was within their power. And so for 150 years, the British fought to end slavery, and that included when they came to the western coast of British Columbia, where slave raiding and trading was uh being practiced. It was practiced by the Haida, it was practiced by the Cowchan, right? We have reports that one third of the Caochen people um uh were slaves and that they were permanent slave classes, you had you had um you know permanent slave and free classes. And so one of the uh one of the benefits of colonialism was the abolishment of slavery by uh indigenous peoples, of indigenous peoples, and so shall should I ask like to whom shall I ask for uh reconciliation for that? Does that mean that you or your children should pay me or my children for having been released from slavery? And and you can go down the line, right? There are many other benefits. The British, because they were um a Christian people, they weren't perfect, of course, but they came and they clothed indigenous peoples, they gave them clothes, they gave them food during um during winter when when starvation was a real concern, when children actually starved to death, right? They brought technology, they essentially catapulted those hunter-gatherer peoples from the stone age, where there was no metallurgy, there was no writing, um, right, there was no uh written laws, uh, there was no modern medicine. So they catapulted them hundreds of years forward in terms of the technology and and moral um progress. And I in terms of you know, slavery, ending slavery, there's cannibalism ended, tribal warfare, um, trading posts. You know, Nigel Bigger, historian and ethicist Nigel Bidger, makes this point that um, you know, the Hudson's Bay Trading Posts became centers of peace because the traders wouldn't tolerate um war and conflict within those zones. And so indigenous peoples competed to be close to these areas where they could trade, cooperate, um, and become uh improve their lives. So when you compare Canada's uh history of uh colonial integration, it certainly wasn't perfect. You can certainly point to examples where um you know this group or that group was mistreated. I'm gonna not gonna deny that, nor should we. But it's hard to find globally an example where colonialism was um more peaceful and more cooperative than it was in Canada. And so I don't think I don't think it's productive to go back into the past and to try to say, well, okay, here's some historical injustices that happened 200 years ago to this tribe, uh, and so you know the modern descendants today should get paid for those forever, without without acknowledging all of the benefits that being included into the Canadian project brought as well, all of the benefits from the economic development. And because if you play that game on one side, if you say that reconciliation is owed to the descendants of Indigenous peoples, then at some point on the other side you'll have descendants of non-Indigenous peoples saying, Well, what about reconciliation for all of the benefits that you received? So my view is it is a firmer foundation for the country, um, for all of us to be grateful, that we have been granted the rights to full citizenship, uh, that we are granted this wonderful legacy of the British rule of law, of equality under the law, and that this ultimately should be the goal, that we should replace reconciliation altogether with the goal of equality, of legal equality. And that means removing all unique um and special uh statuses um for indigenous Canadians, that will, in my view, improve markedly the lives of Indigenous peoples who um on reserves are far worse off than those living off reserves. We could go into that. You'll have your own perspective and a very lots of firsthand knowledge there, obviously. So that's my view is that if we set the goal not as reconciliation as a permanent form of of debt repayment or of you know penance, which it currently is, and instead say, no, we are all equals, both as humans in the eyes of God or in the eyes of each other. If you're you know not religious, that's fine. And um, and we should have legal equality, and that's the goal, and that we all should have the opportunity to strive to make our a better life within this country together as Canadians.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Thank you for that. I'll start by just laying out my perspective, and then I'd like to respond to some of yours, and then I'll give you the time to respond. I'll also know just really quickly, it's a challenge to both try and moderate and make sure that we flow thoughtfully while also uh trying to be disagreeable. Uh, so I'll say from the outset, I think when I look back at the past, I agree with you there's a huge danger in getting lost in a victim mentality. So when I look back at history, at some of the uh the early accounts between the French and First Nations, there was a collaboration taking place. And their relationship wasn't perfect either, but you had a coalescing of two cultures, which resulted in the May P people. That was, I think, at its best, what Canada was aspiring towards is two cultures coming together and taking the best of both as much as possible to create something new. And the British came in with a very different perspective and saw their culture as superior. And I think that that's the case throughout most of human history that cultures that are more advanced or that have more technology often think less than. uh of their counterparts. But I think something was profoundly missed through that. And that perspective of the West having a better culture and superseding it became pervasive. And you see that in accounts where they talk about the savages and where they they talk about um the flaws within the Indian and trying to remove uh the Indian from the child. And I think that resulted in a lot of unnecessary hardship, a lot of abuse, neglect, and harms of First Nations people. And if you even look at it at a high level, you see that the West didn't just bring all the good. And I agree with you. I think one of the mistakes we're doing right now is we have this pendulum and for a long time the pendulum was ignoring perhaps indigenous issues. You might disagree with that, but I would say a lot of history was not trying to make sure indigenous people were treated equally and fairly. And now we've had the pendulum swing incredibly in the other direction. And now with the unmarked graves story and with the Cowichon decision we're seeing the pendulum start to swing the other direction. And so my belief is we need to stop swinging the pendulum and try and find a balanced middle ground that that charts a path forward. And so when I look back at the policies that were created in regards to the uh the Indian Act but also just starting with the fact many indigenous people died as a consequence of the diseases um that were brought over from from Britain and from France and and that killed a lot of people. So when you talk about the benefits I think the overwhelming fact is that the the first thing that happened was a lot of harm and a lot of deaths and a lot of disease that plagued First Nations people. And that they didn't know that that was going to happen. Maybe they they had indications through what happened in in South America and other places but that was one of the biggest effects of the two cultures meeting and that was extremely harmful to indigenous people. Then you have policies like the Indian Act which placed control over the Indians with the crown and then you have um Indian residential schools which were designed to remove the Indian from the child and to assimilate them into Western culture. Then you have the 60s scoop that results in indigenous children being moved into white homes. And I'll say from the outset my um my mother was a part of the 60s she had um she had a mother that went through Indian residential school St. Mary's in mission and because of the abuse and the trauma that she had faced she was not a good mother to her child. And so my mother was born with fetal alcohol syndrome disorder as a consequence of the drinking my grandmother did coping with the trauma. Now I'm not excusing her responsibility for choosing to drink but that is a downstream effect of what happened to her in that school and she talked openly about how that that messed her up her whole life. And so my mother born with a disability then gets taken in to Kokalitza Indian Hospital in Chillawak and a white nurse who's Catholic takes her in and raises her as her own. So I'm I'm again a believer that the two cultures have something to share with each other, but that those pieces had a downstream impact on me. And I am proud to say that I think I've turned around a lot of those policies and been able to make something of myself but it was as a consequence of the positive investments that the West has made in trying to respond to those historic harms. And I think when you talk about moral sin, I agree with you people today are not accountable for what happened in the past. They're not owing me personally a debt but the government was a huge player in that and the government still exists today and it made uh it took legal responsibility over Indians. It took a lot of these responsibilities onto itself the Indian Act was designed by not First Nations asking for it but by the West um and so just going through a few other of your points um I don't believe that reconciliation is a forever project when you say past ins must be compensated effectively forever I do believe we need an end date. I do believe we need a plan and we need to address the the actual issues and so when we talk about the actual issues I'm not trying to be vague about what I'm suggesting we try and address. When we talk about lower education rates I would say 52.2% of status First Nation people aged 18 to 24 have a a high school degree that's in comparison to basically 90% of non-Indigenous the employment rates are terrible for First Nations uh the likelihood of um addiction and uh drug use on reserves is higher the crime rates on reserves are higher the child welfare system predominantly has indigenous children in it these are where I say if we were to sit down and look at these issues and go like look at the discrepancies and then develop a plan to address it that would be my path forward. And once it's addressed and once we find uh a middle that that reflects the general population I'd say that task for reconciliation is complete. And then when we talk about honoring the past I think you're correct. I think we've taken too heavy hand at history and we don't acknowledge the fact that indigenous people did have slaves and that we did have a bankrupt we didn't have a bankruptcy system. So if you owed somebody money it was your children's children's children's children that were responsible for paying that off those are bad ideas. We had um forced marriages I don't think that that was a good idea. There was a lot to learn and indigenous people did learn a lot from the West but the West did not treat indigenous culture as if it had something to learn. And one of the references I often make is how seniors were treated during COVID. Our elders are very important to indigenous people the senior population was not properly cared for during COVID and you saw a lot of death and a lack of support for them because the system is so often to just put them into homes. So I think there's a path here where Indigenous culture, the best of it, can inform the West and can improve how we operate. I think the other one would be how we steward the environment and the relationship we try and have with the environment is something the West can learn because the capitalist system isn't strong on that front. And then the the next piece you said was Nigel Bagar um and having deaths and benefits. I I had a great conversation with Nigel uh the there was an an issue where he was coming to speak in Canada and they tried to cancel it because he was a denier and I attended that event in support of him because I believe these these conversations are important to have and that he does shine a light that the the Britain and the West's perspective was trying to do something different and beneficial. And did they fall short? Absolutely but their aim and the direction they wanted to go in over the long term was aspirational. It hadn't been done before to your point. And I do think that we need to hold space for that and understand that when we look back in history we will always be able to look at it with rose colored glasses. We will always think we know better than the people back then. Their general thrust was in the right direction but they did fall short and I I think there's a path today to try and address some of those issues. So I I want to stop there. I don't want to uh hog all of the time uh I invite your your responses to what I just said.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Sure. Okay there's lots there and that's great. Um let me start with a couple points where uh we agree um so um when in terms of the impacts of colonialism the negative impacts I would say that there are two principal negative impacts and the first one was disease and I think that we agree that that was unintentional and not morally blameworthy. Europeans en masse did not come um to infect or to uh use disease as a weapon against indigenous peoples um it was quite the opposite there were missionaries that dedicated their lives to trying to um provide healthcare services and to heal indigenous peoples that were sick disease ravaged you know the European uh populations as well and um and and and this was this was a tragedy right this was uh you know probably an inevitable um tragedy of the con of the of the conflict of of two very foreign cultures and so I don't think that anybody should blame um europeans for that and and if anything it's something that we should be proud that um in Canada um missionaries and others worked with indigenous peoples to try to overcome the disease that um that would you know heartbreakingly uh impacted um many throughout the nation so I think we can kind of acknowledge that him just quickly on that point would would you would you put would you still you had a negative and um a positive column you had like a debt uh and a benefits would you agree though that that is in the negative call well no because it was not morally blameworthy there was no intention whatsoever to um provide or to inflict disease upon indigenous peoples in fact it was the opposite right that unlike many other um ruling civilizations the British didn't simply say well too bad um you know you're our slave population now we don't care if you die of disease they were motivated by Christian charity and they tried and and sent missionaries and uh and nuns and others to administer to the health of indigenous peoples.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

They tried very hard to improve their standards of living so if anything it's I would put it in the in the positive column but it it's just one of those things where it was an inevitable tragedy of um of the uh conflict of two cultures or the um the meeting of two foreign cultures so uh it's a tragedy yes is it something that you know should should my children be paying your children because 200 years ago um you know disease ravaged uh the people of Canada uh I I don't think so do you think so I I think that's a bit of a straw man i I am not putting forward the idea that because of what happened that somebody owes money as a consequence my argument would be from the outset that was an a material harm to the population so it doesn't matter how good your intent is to to bring new vaccines or to try and educate the population they were they were leaving the country that they were in in the goal of trying to build a different life and a better life for their family and that had huge consequences for the native population. And I think starting from from that outset the policies could have been much more thoughtful and and I had debate I spoke with Tandis Milcom and she talked about well they brought vaccines well they brought vaccines for the thing they brought in that's not that's not charity from my perspective you brought a problem and then you brought a potential solution to that problem I don't and then we go back to how Indian residential schools were built and I think that that did a huge disservice to the design there wasn't proper venting uh they were removed from nature they were placed in in buildings that didn't have proper sanitary systems and so it's not like they did that and went oh my gosh this is terrible maybe we should slow the process of reaching out to these communities maybe we should pause and reflect they continued with their project all the same and that had huge ramifications uh across Canada over the long term it's not like that happened year one and then it was over that took years and years for them to travel west and continue to have those types of impacts on First Nations people. And I think at a certain point you have uh a culpability or responsibility to your Democrat to your to the people you're working with uh to be more mindful of how you're impacting them. And then at minimum you should be trying to do more to help them. And I don't really see a lot of that throughout history I see as the same heavy handed approach even when masses of indigenous people were dying so um there's a couple of things there.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

One I want to touch down briefly in the on the residential schools point um you know I've heard you mention the report by Bryce in 1907 which acknowledged that there were ventilation problems and and people living in close quarters in some residential schools that were um that were leading to high levels of tuberculosis and other infections. What I haven't heard you comment on is that in the years following um great strides were made in residential schools to actually address those underlying health conditions. In the next 15 years or so um I think it was about 80 different residential schools upgraded their systems. You saw infection rates plummet by um roughly nine times up to the first uh second world war. And by that point um the infection rates like the the mortality rates from disease um in residential schools were somewhere between two to four times lower than they were on reserve so you know you can also argue that all reserves were you know you can blame the uh the colonials for reserves too but but I guess the point I'm trying to make is there were efforts to respond again to the real um suffering of indigenous peoples uh in residential schools themselves where where the rates of death from disease were far lower eventually than they were um on reserve and and more broadly I guess my my question is you know if you look at colonial interactions in Canada where there was no widespread violence there was largely a silent sort of settlement and occupation of the lands and acknowledgement of crown sovereignty if not um in writing than always then by acquiescence for many years that the crown in British Columbia effectively um managed the land for you know the first hundred years without having to sign treaties because it was assumed that you know the crown had effective control of the lands and was was taken care of indigenous peoples. In many cases, you know, these reserves were established beginning in the mid-1800s to protect indigenous peoples from whiskey traders and gold rush miners coming up from the United States where where violence would um violent outclashes would take place and there would be instances where they would try and steal lands or or other resources from indigenous peoples. And so you can call that paternalistic but again the motivation was largely to protect indigenous peoples in Canada from these real conflicts and broadly to manage the lands for productive uses. Now I guess my question is you we can take issue with that right we can say well maybe their motivations weren't quite so pure you know they had other reasons and fair enough but where in the world other than Canada would you say that the the colonial integration the project of colonial integration was more successful? Where was it more peaceful, more cooperative than in Canada That's an interesting question.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

I would I would say Australia New Zealand would be other examples of um countries that had different approaches that were less violent.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

And I I don't know if I would agree that that more open clashes of violence in the 1860s New Zealand had had violent clashes with the Maori in Australia there were open violent uh clashes with the indigenous peoples in Canada they were virtually non-existent particularly in British Columbia there were there were a a fair there there were a fair few um clashes between the two cultures um uh I my understanding is the Cowichan was one of them uh and then in the east there were there were fights against the British throughout the early 19th century in British Columbia and so I I guess yeah my understanding is that the Cowichan was an extremely violent warrior clan at the time and fought back quite a bit. There was I'm not aware of any significant violent clash between the Cowchan and the British authorities in British Columbia I mean I guess my point is that okay in the main it's it's not historically controversial to say that colonialism canada was probably the most peaceful of any um of any empire you know empirical relations with indigenous peoples in history and again I I would attribute that to the the the British um the unique the uniqueness of the British tradition in having ended slavery and being motivated by Christian compassion it wasn't perfect right um there are instances of neglect there are instances of of cheating and wrongdoing by various subjects but in the main I think it's hard it's hard pressed for people to find examples where it worked better. In the States it was you know you have violent clashes and exterminations in South America you had you know the conquistadors coming enslaving the indigenous peoples to you know essentially mine gold and then you know have murdering them relentlessly not in Canada. So again I I think as much as you may want to say that while there's some moral culpability here they could have done this better you know they could have done this better it's I I guess I I see that a little bit as presentism where it's easy to look back at people and to say well you should have done things differently when compared to their contemporaries they seem to have you know managed things relatively well. And that's not to undermine the fact that there were tragedies disease. I want to if I can I want to speak to the second thing point thing I think that we just they would probably agree with each other on. And it's that another downside of colonialism, um thank you was um the introduction of alcohol and I see this similarly to the introduction of disease in that I don't think that in the in the main there was ever an intention among the British authorities to um to disempower um indigenous communities with alcohol to destabilize them but it's obvious that alcohol has had that effect um for the last you know at least 300 years if not longer in in Canada and I think that's been a another tragedy but also another example where the you know the the the record of the British and Canadian government is not is not all is not terrible. John A McDonald uh in his government he um passed a law that that prohibited um the sale of alcohol on reserves and to indigenous peoples and was that paternalistic yeah it was but was it intended to protect indigenous people from the ravages of alcohol that were destroying communities yeah it was and you know it goes back even to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1713 I think they were they were asking their own traders do not trade alcohol to indigenous peoples because it is having these devastating effects on their communities. And so when I look at the you know we talk about intergenerational trauma and you know you mention all of these disparities that exist between indigenous people and other Canadians you know you certainly will find no disagreement with me that these disparities are real. These are facts these disparities are real and they're very serious. The question really is what what is the best way for those to reverse those trends? And I guess my my feeling my view is that reconciliation will not improve those substantially and we have data to back that up. We have increasing amounts of financial transfers and power transfers over the last 10 years and we've seen most of those socioeconomic indicators essentially remain flat and what would really address many of those issues is a concerted focus on the most proximate causes of suffering and that's things like alcoholism. Those rates have those those have devastating intergenerational impacts and um you know those rates are a minimum 10 times higher in Indigenous communities than in non indigenous communities in Canada likely much higher than that. And I think um we would be far better served focusing on um eradicating alcoholism and alcohol culture Than um than I'm trying to pin these disparities on, you know, um the fact that somebody's grandparents went to a residential school or uh, you know, um because of colonialism, you know, other other factors from many generations away.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

There's a lot there. I would like to pull us back a little bit to Bryce, and then I think we can talk about where we are today. Um, and I think we'll have a lot of agreement that what we're doing right now, I don't think is working. Um, but to go back to Bryce, I mean, do you dispute that he had to do a lot in order to get the government to listen to him? Originally, he was working for them and he was writing reports, and then he comes out with his book in response saying, like, I am not being listened to, so I have to take this to the Canadian people in order to get a response. So when you say, well, after that, they responded and they started doing things, it's like, yes, but because it took so much work in reaction to him doing that privately and then having to go public saying this isn't working.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Um, well, I mean, that's that's good, isn't it? I mean, isn't it good that we had a representative of the government haranguing the government over the treatment of indigenous peoples?

SPEAKER_00 45:16

That that's good. I'm glad 100%. But why is that why was that necessary? Because because why is that necessary? They should they the British should respond.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

I mean, I guess just because the British and the Canadian officials are human beings. Um, I'm not making the case, I'm not jumping to make the case that uh the Canadian government or the Canadian people are perfect or that they are perfectly altruistic, they're human beings and they're uh just as susceptible to um self-interest, to greed, and to envy as indigenous peoples or any other people. And so but I just don't think that's I think that's something to celebrate that that he made the case. You know, I'm sure he had his own, you know, he was a bureaucrat, I'm sure he had his own personal grievances and reasons to do so, but it doesn't matter, it's good. He raised an issue and the government responded by spending lots of money to improve residential schools, and the results tell the story that the rates of disease on re in residential schools plummeted. And that's good. And so it's not something we should look back at residential schools with anger or or um or grief about, largely, because it happened so long ago, it's talking largely about a hundred years ago, this disease. And um and uh it's it's something that the government took steps to address. Um, in fact, I if you look at the numbers, and if if you could make the case that if they hadn't had residential schools at all, if they just left indigenous children on reserves, that you could have had two to three, four thousand children um more dying of of these diseases.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

I don't I completely disagree with that. And what I've tried to lay out and what I was about to jump to is that immunity over time. So when you say like in the 1950s and 60s, uh they ended up having better outcomes than on reserve populations, that's because they were they were adapting to their surroundings. That's because they were getting comfortable. The first year of COVID showed a huge uh loss of life and a lot of people being impacted. Five years later, the impact is way less because we've all adapted to that. On reserve, you have people outdoors, more connected to the environment, not staying indoors 24-7. And so they didn't need immunity from these things because they hadn't experienced them before. But that doesn't show that their quality of life or they were living subpar quality life on reserves or in their communities. That shows that when you bring them in and then you start to get them to assimilate and adapt to those diseases over a 50-year span, that they are going to start to have better outcomes than the native population living in community. But the default of living on community is way better for your health. And more and more our science is is confirming that being outdoors more is better for a healthy life. Being more connected to the outdoors is better than being indoors all the time. And that was what was being offered, and often not being allowed to return to their community um as a consequence. And so I don't think that that was an overall benefit. And I think First Nation communities living how they had lived is a far better, more healthy way to live overall than what they were pulling them into in those schools.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Well, I I guess my view is that the data doesn't bear that out. The data shows the opposite, that um the rates of of death from disease remained two to four times higher on reserve than they were in residential schools from the early 1900s to basically um the mid-40s, I think it was, early 50s. And that was largely because of um, well, mostly because of the introduction introduction of antibiotics, which um effectively did away with TB. And and the reason why TB remained, T T B actually remains a killer in remote Indigenous communities today. Like people don't realize this. Um, I think there's this kind of rose-tinted glasses that some people put on when they think about, you know, indigenous peoples living in you know traditional lifestyles out on the land, on the reserves. That's not really what the data shows or what the reality is. The reality is um there are a lot of um they're they're far from the medical resources that other communities have, far from economic opportunities other communities have, housing often is is run down and subpar. Um, these are just diff very, very difficult, dysfunctional places to live. And so the health and wellness indicators kind of track that. And that's that was true then, and it's and it's definitely true now. I mean, you can look, you can look at almost any indicator. And you know, I did a thread on this on Twitter. You look at the levels of violence, roughly murder rates are like 10 times higher on reserve. You look at suicide rates that are about twice as high in reserve for Indigenous peoples. So indigenous peoples living on reserve have almost twice as high a suicide rate than those off reserve. Uh FASD rates skyrocketing in very remote communities. And none of this should be true. This is an important point from my perspective. None of this should be true if what's really to blame for Indigenous negative outcomes, indigenous failures, is colonialism or you know, European culture, white culture. Because then you would expect that the farther away from colonial culture indigenous people get, then the better off they'd be. You'd expect these remote communities to be doing great. Um but they're not. They're they're really, really suffering. And so I go back to your point about you know the Metis and how some of Canada's greatest um I don't know uh hyper uh exaggerate the point, but but a a marked success of Canadian history is the Metis people, where you had um an integration, an assimilation effectively of um European and indigenous peoples, uh, you know, finding the best in in each other's cultures. And I think that's what we need to pursue today as well. Um, but not yeah, I think that's what we need to pursue today as well.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

So I'll say on the first piece, I think your argument, and you can correct me if uh if I'm misinterpreting it, is like in in for a penny, in for a pound. Because again, if you go back and you acknowledge the fact that the West came here and then they brought disease, and then these First Nation communities in their communities were not ready for it, and then they're harmed as a consequence. I think that that logically plays out that that they brought it over, that they're accountable for that, and so their their way, their way of life was not harmful to them before that happened. And so the your your argument, if I'm summarizing it correctly, is well, the Europeans came over and then they brought the solution to the problem that they had brought over, and that was a huge benefit to the First Nations people. And my counterpoint would be if they hadn't have done that, they wouldn't have been put in that circumstance and had pressures to try and accept things that they didn't understand and and take some of the Western medicine that ended up being required. And so today, when you go, Oh, this is still taking place, it's because some of those communities are trying to reject that, just like some religious communities try and reject certain medications and stuff like that. But aren't you and then to your aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Um sorry, go ahead, finish your thought.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

No, no, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

Yeah, aren't aren't you basically then making the case against civilization? Like, aren't you then saying, um, in you know, today's descendants of hunter-gatherers in Canada deserve to be paid through reconciliation in some form or other, deserve to get these benefits because of the downsides of civilization, you know, disease came, but we don't have any obligation to pay for the benefits of civilization. We don't have to pay for being freed from slavery, don't have to be paid for being invited to become full citizens of Canada for the protection of the Canadian government, for the benefits of Canadian government for the last 150 years of for being given the ability to read and write, to be given metallur, you know, the ability like metallurgy, guns, modern sanitation, modern medicine. Like none of these were here before Europeans got here either. So I just don't think you can have it both ways. You can't say, well, we want to be paid back for all of the historical injustices without saying we're gonna also pay you back for all of the historical graces, all the historical benefits that we received. So I think that's the trap you fall into. In my view, is that's a bad game. That's a fool's errand because it will end up having us fight because eventually, you know, my children will say, Why am I paying Aaron's children because of all this stuff that, you know, all this because of history? Why can't we all just be equals? Like, when can we be equals?

SPEAKER_00 54:17

So I think that's an important point, and I'm not anti-civilization, but I like the quote from Thomas Sowell that says, um, the what is it? Like, there's no good and bad, there's only trade-offs. Um, and this was a trade-off. And to pretend it wasn't is also a fool's errand. And the trade-off ended up with large amounts of First Nations people dying. And so when we talk about these people who stayed in the reserves and didn't end up in the schools and go, well, it was worse for them, it wasn't worse because they weren't taking care of themselves or they didn't have a society that was working, it was worse because they hadn't interacted with the diseases. So the comparison that uh in these schools where we were giving them vaccines, it was at par with um that's my understanding of the statistics is it was it was more at par with, not um better for um Indian residential schools, if I'm understanding you correctly. You're arguing later on uh it ended up being a little bit better, but um the ultimate consequence. Oh, in the later years, though. And and again, my my point to that would be that they they began adapting. I I'm not seeing the statistics for two to four times better in the 1900s.

SPEAKER_01 55:30

Yeah, there was. I mean, you could read Ian Gentile's article called Not a Genocide, and he um he goes over the stats um in the early 1900s, early to mid. It's like 1910 to 1950, basically. But we don't need to argue about the stats.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Okay, I don't have that from the yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

The part of what I'd like you to address is why is it that indigenous people today should be paid, should receive reconciliation for these historical injustices, but not have to compensate for historical benefits.

SPEAKER_00 56:03

I think it's worth then uh perhaps, and I'm not trying to dodge your question, but I think it's important that we define what we consider reconciliation to be, because I wouldn't agree with that definition of reconciliation. I understand that's what we have today, and that's how it's operating as is, but that I'm not backing the current system of reconciliation, and I don't think that's a specific a sustainable path forward to just be trying to compensate people for these things. I I believe there's kind of two tracks, and I don't know if we'll have the time to get into both um today, but there's the track of rights and title, which is the couch and decision and it's the Musqueam Agreement, and it's those things. And then there's the other track, which I'm my focus is, which is the living conditions of people on reserve. And when you reference, like today, we look at these communities and they're not practicing their historic ways of life and there's addiction and alcohol, yeah, that's because their culture was absolutely destroyed. And I know people who had to work very hard to try and keep things like the language going. And so we have these communities that are absolutely at uh a disadvantage from their starting point if you're born on reserve in comparison to if you're born in the West. And that has major consequences. And I think trying to figure out what the path forward is from there to allow indigenous communities to still practice their culture, to reconnect with their culture while also appreciating the values of the West and trying to create a path forward that works for both, I think is really important. I don't think this can continue forever. But I guess I would just counter like, I don't, I don't think the path forward is just cash settlements across all of these initiatives. I don't think that's sustainable. I don't think that's what British Columbians or Canadians are asking for. I don't think it's what individual First Nation people living on reserve are are thinking reconciliation truly is. They want a shot at a better life, a good paying job. Um, they want to be able to connect with their culture and learn what their great-grandparents learned. They that's the path that I hear from my members on a daily basis that they want. And so um, I understand that cash settlements are a part of the work that you did. I understand that they're a part of the reconciliation project that exists today. That does not mean that I back that process as the path forward. I think governments have delayed this um and that we need to take this back to British Columbians and First Nations people, not just the chief and councils, but the people and understand what is the path forward to make sure that indigenous people have the right to access their culture, the right to practice their historic ways of living, while also making sure that they're living um a quality life by the Western standards.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

Yeah, okay. Let me let me address two points there. So, one in terms of what is reconciliation, it's a good question. We should be clear about our terms. So I would say that reconciliation is essentially a form of transferring um money, land, and power um to the you know descendants of um the hunter-gatherers that that occupied the lands of Canada before Canada's establishment to you know indigenous peoples today. So it's forms of transfer of money, land and power. And it happens, it's not direct, right? It's not as if at the end of this podcast you will ask me to pay you $100 because you're indigenous and I'm not. But it happens indirectly, right? In that um people who pay taxes, who are productive members of Canada, they earn money, they pay taxes to the government, and then the government provides um tax subsidies to indigenous communities. Yeah, indigenous communities are roughly 80 to 90 percent um funded by federal uh taxes and to some extent provincial taxes, um, as opposed to municipalities, which are maybe 20 percent. And so so sometimes it you'll you're you're seeing transfers of of cash that happens through transfers of taxes. It happens through transfers of land. You know, you mentioned Aboriginal title. You know, these are forms of transferring lands that belong to the public. Um, again, the public it being uh the people that are represented by the the government, the crown ultimately, but as um represented by the government that the people elect. So we're transferring lands out of the public um control and ownership into the hands of um indigenous tribes and bands, and and it takes the place of um of transfers of power. And and that occurs through provisions of um shared decision making, free prior informed consent, and other forms of essentially removing decisions over virtually everything in the province, through TRIPA as a good example, um, and placing um and constraining the ability of elected governments to make those decisions on behalf of the public. So now that you know those decisions are being made either in collaboration or jointly, or otherwise through um processes which allow Indigenous peoples to sort of um effectively control or exercise influence over those decisions. So you have money, land, and power. And then there's also soft cultural power that uh go along with that. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

Quickly, can can you just I I imagine you know the argument, so I don't want to disrespect you by just arguing a point I'm sure you already have grappled with, but can you briefly just lay out this the steel man from your perspective? Because when you say that that that transfer is happening today, like the obvious retort I'm gonna have is yeah, but we didn't sign a treaty in can in BC, and so the that transfer was done without the consent of the First Nations people at the time, and so you like by default, the crown took all of the land, and now First Nations, their argument would be now we're trying to get some of that authority, some of that power back because we got zero percent from the outset, and now we're trying to pull some of those things back. And I I I know you know that from the work that you've done, and so I just could you lay out like what's the what are you countering with that position? Because I think that's an important piece.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

Yeah, that's that's great. So the mainstream position uh and the position of indigenous uh tribal leaders or activists, but the generally the mainstream position today is okay, um, when the crown um asserted sovereignty over British Columbia, um, that was somehow illegitimate because it didn't have the the full consent of Indigenous peoples. And therefore, it's now the task of courts or governments to essentially provide some or all of those lands back to the modern descendants of those tribes whose lands um were essentially um uh assumed by by crown authorities, right? So that's the process of reconciliation. Again, it's a it's a transferring of land and ownership and control over these lands back to the modern descendants of those tribes. And my view is um all of that is um unnecessary and counterproductive. Uh it was a mistake for the courts in 1973 and subsequently to find that there is Aboriginal uh ownership and control of lands that uh persists. I think it was quite obvious and clear that the British authorities um had sovereign assumed effective sovereignty over the lands of Canada, as of um the victory in the Plains of Abraham, the Treaty of Paris, and the Royal Proclamation in 1763 all assert British sovereignty over Canada. And then the British government in BC effectively ruled um the province for a hundred or plus years, um, because it was obvious that they had effective control. It established, yeah, there was the military superiority was not in question. They established cultural superiority with provision of you know written language and infrastructure and on and on and on. And so the and the benefits were provided, benefits were provided to indigenous peoples as well, like including the right to become full citizens. So from the earliest days in Canada, any Indigenous person could forgo their status as indigenous people, as Indians, and become full Canadian citizens and take on the rights to vote, to own property, to run for office, and so on. So those benefits were given freely to a conquered people. And and there was no there's no need for Canada to unwind itself, in my view, by essentially um picking apart the lands in British Columbia that were never given in treaty by indigenous peoples back to the modern descendants. Both because there's on a moral basis or legal basis, there is no need for it. And and then on top of that, you have the pragmatic arguments about, well, what does it look like in 50 years? If you have 200 plus bands in BC, you know, and and the majority of those each have their own unique jurisdiction, it's like trying to build a plane with 200 pilots, and each of them get to decide to go to a different destination. It's completely um unworkable plan, regardless of the moral and legal sort of um uh arguments for it. So I just think both in terms of moral reasoning, legal reasoning, and uh practicality, this vision of the future of of reconciling by giving away lands back to indigenous tribes and jurisdiction back is totally unworkable. And we need to renew our commitment to a Canada based upon the equality of our citizens and the eventual equalization of all legal rights and entitlements between Indigenous and non Indigenous Canadians.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Tim, are you against the treaties that took path that took place in the East?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:05

I'm not against them. I think in their historical context, they made sense. And, you know, again, it's easy to look back. We could look back on those treaties. We could look back on Treaty 8 in Northeast BC or the Douglas Trees and say, well, you know, this wasn't fair. And you could argue that from the colonial perspective. You know, they they didn't need to do this. They shouldn't have even recognized the rights at all. They should have just ruled like a sovereign. Or you could look at it from the indigenous perspective and say, well, we didn't get a fair deal. You know, uh, a fair deal would have meant, you know, more land and more this and more that. And so I don't think that's productive. I think it's best to have a historically nuanced uh perspective and um, you know, to try to be sympathetic to the viewpoints of all the historical actors uh while at the same time charting a course forward that is going to work for the nation as a whole. And I think that means um charting the course, having a clear destination. And if legal equality is the destination, then it's just a question of, well, okay, it's it's essentially a logical puzzle or strategic puzzle. How do we get there together in again, in the most peaceful, collaborative way possible? And I think that means acting quickly because the longer that we go on the current course, um transferring lands, money, and power away from the public, I fear that that will give rise to a serious conflict uh in the future and will make peaceful coexistence far, far harder to attain.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

So there's a few pieces that you said that I think I should respond to. One, you used the word conquered, and I don't agree with that level of analysis. My understanding and my reading of the two cultures is that there was a desire for coexistence. And so there wasn't a conquering that took place. And the desire of Canada, which again, uh to your earlier point, was to not repeat what had happened in other countries, was to try and do something differently, which meant we weren't conquered, that we were trying to find a middle ground path forward. And I think almost every time the government's made a decision, it's been done with the belief that we are two parties coming together, not, and that's why the jurisprudence, the law has all shaped in a way that reflects what was decided in case law, that there was a desire for indigenous peoples' rights and history to be respected. Um, that's why we're stuck with this protest. And when you reference the Douglas Treaties, is that was always the intent was to try and find a middle-grounded path forward. Now, I I'm not here to disagree that where we are right now is an absolute mess when it comes to trying to resolve this. 204 nations, all of them asserting territory over similar lands, all of them disputing what the path forward is going to be. This is a mess by the government's own making. And I just had the opportunity to speak with Tom Isaac. And one of my questions for him is who do you blame this absolute catastrophe of policy on? And he's like, Public government. They were the ones who avoided the question at the beginning. They are the ones who have signaled that they're open to trying to resolve this all throughout history, and they're the ones who did not resolve it over all of our history. Indigenous people have wanted peace on this issue for a very long time. And now I do feel like a lot of people are looking at First Nations, like, what the hell are you guys trying to do here? And it's like, this wasn't any negotiation process, and you'll know this, Tim. It's not designed by First Nation communities. The specific claims process wasn't designed by First Nation communities. It's a resolution process for a treaty, isn't designed by First Nations, it's public government that's designed all of these systems that are completely unworkable. I mean, I look at it for my own community. If we want to bring peace to the land issue within our region, if I wanted to do that, that's a 20, 30-year process. And that process isn't designed by me. That's designed by public government. And so to me, they have bungled this again and again and again. And I don't think the path forward that was put forward by the NDP or the liberal government was workable. I agree with you that the money spent did not tangibly improve living conditions. It didn't resolve any of the questions that we have. It didn't serve any of the aims you and I have agreed are the centerpiece of this. But I think just throwing our hands up and saying this isn't working, let's just move on from it, really doesn't improve the material living conditions on reserve. It doesn't improve the likelihood that people like my big concern is that there's an indigenous kid that is not going to reach their full potential just because of where they live. And I think that's an absolute travesty that Canadians and British Columbians sh should and have been against throughout a lot of our history. And that's not resolved from my perspective with your policy proposal. And I welcome your feedback as we start to wrap this up. If you have a closing argument or if you want to respond to what I have to say.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:04

Well, yeah, so I guess what I would say is at what point do Indigenous people take responsibility for indigenous outcomes? Right. I agree that every Indigenous child should, you know, have the opportunities to succeed. Um, this is true for every child. And like today, there's nothing stopping any Indigenous person from getting an education, from getting a job, from working hard, from opening a business. In fact, all of the policy levelers have been pushed in the direction to make that possible, right? There are grants for for schooling, for education, there are grants for any Indigenous business, any cultural project you can imagine. Um and so my my view is that actually it's not productive, it's not actually helping Indigenous communities to have government continuing to take money from taxpayers and provide free benefits to the Indigenous peoples. I think ultimately it's it's it in reinforces a cultural, a culture of entitlement and a cultural of dependence. And that what is needed is for Indigenous peoples to look into their own history, you know, to revive their own warrior cultures and and to stop coming to Canadians saying we blame you for our uh failures. I think that, and uh I know this will maybe um sound harsh coming from somebody who's not indigenous, but this is just my true belief. It's true for anybody that in order to succeed, you have to be able to stop blaming others for your failings, even when others maybe are blameworthy in some respects. And um, it's about taking control over what's within your power, just like you've done, Aaron. I mean, you know, you could have blamed colonialism and you could have begun drinking and ruining your life. But look at you, right? You've risen above that, you've taken the opportunities that lied in front of you. You're not anti-civilization, anti-West. You're using all of the tools that um that the West brought to this nation, and you're you're making a life for yourself and inspiring others. And I think that is the path for Indigenous peoples. It's not through reconciliation. It's not, and because the reconciliation ultimately is the process of taking money, land, and power from non-Indigenous Canadians and transferring it to Indigenous Canadians on the basis of their ancestry. It's a form of racial, um, of power, racial power politics. And I just don't think that that is the future that is good for Indigenous peoples, ultimately. I don't think it's certainly not good for for Canadians. To me, that is recon reconciliation is effectively a golden crutch. It's something that is extor exorbitantly expensive. It isn't functional, it doesn't help people walk on their own T feet, and um, and ultimately just gets traded for something something else altogether. So we need to throw away the golden crutches and we all need to walk on our own T feet. That's my view, as equals, side by side.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:12

Okay, in closing, I will say that I agree with you that the path forward cannot be uh too much weight cannot be given to a victim mentality, or people get stuck there and they get trapped, um, thinking that all of their problems are somebody else's. I see that in indigenous communities, I also see it in the West all the time with people blaming other people for their misfortunes. It's a huge challenge, and people missed out on the opportunity to improve their own lives. But I do think if you look at the policies from the Indian Act, how it was written originally, if you look at the policies around the potlatch, if you look at the policies around Indian residential schools in the 62, there was always this pervasive belief that the West is better, the West knows best, and that if some indigenous folks dies, that's okay because it's for the greater good. And I think that was all an error, and it resulted and it resulted in a lot of people being placed behind the eight-ball historically. I mean, Tim, you and I are pretty focused on the present, but if you look at say 1950 to 2000, there was not a lot of investment in First Nation communities in comparison to what we're talking about today. So to me, we've already tried the experiment of just leave them alone, let them try and figure it out for themselves. I've spoken to um Grand Chief Stephen Point about how it when he took on leadership role in the 80s, that they got no funding from anybody, that they had to scrounge together dollars from uh being in the lumber industry in order to attend meetings in Ottawa and like the process they went to. There was not, we've already tried what I think is not investing and not supporting these communities. But I'll say at I guess a zoomed out level, I'll say my my vision, my dream, my goal, my hope is that we do move past all of this, but that we develop a policy where whoever is the bottom 10% of our society, whoever is the one, the community struggling the most, whoever are the people who are the most disadvantaged, that we always have a goal of making sure those people have the opportunities, the resources to reach their full potential. Because I think that's where I come to the reconciliation table at. I just want to make sure people have the opportunity to have a good life. And I don't think that that's the case. I do think if you're born on reserve and your parents are alcoholics and your parents are addicted to stuff, the odds that you're going to be able to leave that life in order to go become something are intensely low. You and I can both say, pull up your bootstraps, hop off the reserve, and go meet some new people. But the odds that that happens is intensely low, unlikely, and the odds that they end up on the downtown east side is extremely likely when they leave the reserve. And that's the tragedy of the system that we exist in. And that's my hope is that we can start to address these issues, keep our mind focused on the statistics of where people are living and work to put that to an end. And I think that would bring the reconciliation project, hopefully, to a close, uh, and and Canadians can have peace, knowing that their money doesn't just go towards pouring it in to chief and councils, as you've pointed out, or to corruption, that it goes towards making sure every Canadian has a fair shot uh at a really good life uh and reaching their full potential. With that, uh Tim, thank you so much for joining today. I think we only scratched the surface as I knew we would. Um, but I I just want to appreciate you. I know that a lot of the commentary you've provided and a lot of the perspectives you have are intensely unpopular uh amongst some people and like just not even allowed to be disappointed. I disagree with that. And that's intensely popular, actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:52

Maybe not uh some that you run in, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:56

Sorry, I'm not trying to say that 1BC doesn't have support or or that the people who support those types of parties don't exist. I'm just saying that yes, you pay a toll for having the perspectives you hold um amongst some groups of people.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:10

And I don't believe this. I know we're almost done, but but I really do believe that the view of ending all legal, uh, this sort of two-tiered legal system between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians in favor of equality is extremely popular. And it's just not popular among the media class and the current governing elite. But I think most people, including a large number of indigenous people, um, are very much in favor of equality today.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:39

Okay, I'm yeah, I'm not trying to um straw straw man the point that there are people out there that support that. I'm just saying that when you when you've done the work you've done, you've paid a consequence over your career, even in the conservative party having to go to 1 BC as a consequence. And still there's you're right, there's been uh a price to pay among the political class for having the views you hold. And again, I think respect just is owed to individuals like yourself who are willing to stand on your your beliefs and your principles, even when it's unpopular, even when you get flacked, even when you're not invited on shows. And I think that that's important for us to remember. And why I was uh happy to have you on is because I do think you come by these beliefs, honestly, and and we don't agree on on much of this. Uh, we agree in certain areas, but I think the importance is that we continue to live in a society where you're given a voice, I'm given a voice, and we hash these ideas out. And I think to uh your point, we haven't done a great job of that within the media class for a very long time, and I don't agree with that. So I appreciate you being willing to come on. Uh, it's been a privilege to speak with you, and I do think we we at least learned some things, and obviously we're not going to agree on everything, but I think uh it was an opportunity to have the the two perspectives shared.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:52

Yeah, and I want to just echo that back, Aaron. Um I I really do respect the fact that you are you're a sitting chief, and um there's a political cost for you uh in in having conversations with people that hold views that are are you know largely condemned by many of the people that are in your community. I mean, it's I just note today that you have Leah Gazin, I'm not gonna go into big speech, but you know, Leah Gazin effectively trying to criminalize um many of the viewpoints that I express today. And um, and so I think it's to your credit that you are uh wanting to promote a society in Canada and BC where we're having difficult discussions, we're attempting to steel man opposing arguments. Um, you know, I I welcome having you uh have a more prominent role in in our public debates, particularly because you're having such an open um attitude towards um engaging with differing points of view. And I want to um to really uh show you respect for um for having done that and just thank you for having a great conversation. I'd love to come back sometime and we could delve into residential schools or um cam loops or any of these issues in greater depth at some point, but it was a really enjoyable conversation from my point of view.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:13

That sounds fantastic. Uh I agree, dare I say, we're practicing the Canadian spirit, disagreeing politely and trying to find the path forward. Thank you again, him, for joining today and for having this conversation. Great. Thanks.