Ahkameyimok Podcast with Perry Bellegarde

This conversation with the late Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney, Canada's 18th Prime Minister, was originally posted in August 2020.

"Some people said, 'well there is racism in Canada but there is no systemic racism.' And to those people I said, 'You've clearly never read the Indian Act, because it reeks of systemic racism.'"

The Right Honorable Brian Mulroney, Canada's 18th Prime Minister, is National Chief Perry Bellegarde's guest on this latest episode of the Akhameyimok Podcast. They discuss climate change, overcoming systemic racism against First Nations people, the sweeping recommendations for change in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and the leadership lessons he learned in leading the international fight against the white minority Apartheid regime in South Africa and for the freedom of Nelson Mandela.

Brian Mulroney was Canada’s Prime Minister from 1984 to 1993. In that time he oversaw the negotiation and implementation of the US-Canada Free Trade agreement, and then NAFTA. He initiated important environmental reforms, including the Acid Rain treaty with the United States. He was also at the forefront of attempts to make the Canadian constitution more inclusive, trying to bring Quebec into the fold with the Meech Lake accord and then the Charlottetown Accord. He was Prime Minister during the Oka Crisis, thirty years ago this summer, which led his government to establish the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People. It made sweeping recommendations on how to restructure the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

A special thanks goes out to the Red Dog Singers of Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan for providing the theme music for this podcast.

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is produced in Ottawa by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions.

Bryan Trottier needs little introduction. The Hockey Hall of Fame player was a key member and leading scorer for the New York Islanders Stanley Cup dynasty of the 1980's, and then with Pittsburgh Penguins of the early 90's. He is also incredibly proud of his Cree-Metis-Chippewa heritage, and his hometown of Val Marie in southern Saskatchewan. In this fun and fascinating conversation, he talks with Perry Bellegarde about learning to play hockey on the beaver pond on his family ranch, playing bass in his father's country band, his parents advice on overcoming racism as a young hockey player, how the infamous Dave "Tiger" Williams saved his hockey career as a junior player at Swift Current, and of course, his key role in the NY Islanders Cup wins from 1980 to 1983. This is an interview to savour.

Bryan's new best selling memoir is called "All Roads Home: A Life On and Off the Ice."

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is produced by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions in Ottawa.Our theme music is performed by the Red Dog Singers of Treaty Four Territory in Saskatchewan.

Chief Perry is thrilled to be joined Douglas Sanderson and Andrew Stobo Sniderman for a fascinating and thoughtful conversation about their new book, "The Valley of the Birdtail."

It is a heart-rending, true story about racism and reconciliation.

Divided by a beautiful valley and 150 years of racism, the town of Rossburn and the Waywayseecappo Indian reserve have been neighbours nearly as long as Canada has been a country. Their story reflects much of what has gone wrong in relations between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Canadians. It also offers, in the end, an uncommon measure of hope.

DOUGLAS SANDERSON (AMO BINASHII) is the Prichard Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and has served as a senior policy advisor to Ontario’s attorney general and minister of Indigenous affairs. He is Swampy Cree, Beaver clan, of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation.

ANDREW STOBO SNIDERMAN is a writer, lawyer, and Rhodes Scholar from Montreal. He has written for the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, and Maclean’s. He has also argued before the Supreme Court of Canada, served as the human rights policy advisor to the Canadian minister of foreign affairs, and worked for a judge of South Africa’s Constitutional Court.

And thanks to the Red Dog Singers for our theme song, Interbal.

"The survivors felt if this had been white children, the community wouldn't be the ones having to investigate their own genocide." - Kimberly Murray

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is back!

And for this return episode Chief Perry Bellegarde is thrilled to have Kimberly Murray as his guest. She is the new Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools. That appointment by the federal department of Justice came about after the heartbreaking discoveries of hundreds of unmarked children's graves in former Residential Schools at Kamloops, BC and at the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan, and the hunt is on for more at dozens of former Residential School sites across the country.

In her discussion with Perry, Kimberly Murray talks about the technical challenges of searching for graves, overcoming hurdles put up by all levels of government and the police, what her role involves and enables her to do, and what justice looks like for the thousands of children who died from abuse, disease and neglect in Canada's Residential School system.

Kimberly Murray is a proud member of the Kanesatake Mohawk Nation. Before taking on her current role as Special Interlocutor, she was the Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee from 2010 to 2015. And she was the Ontario’s first ever Assistant Deputy Attorney General for Aboriginal Justice. After that she led the search for unmarked graves at the Six Nations of the Grand River, working to recover the missing children and unmarked burial sites at the Mohawk Institute, which was Canada’s longest running residential school.

Ahkameyimok will continue to put out a new interview every couple of weeks, be sure to subscribe where you listen so you don't miss future episodes.

And be sure to follow on social media. Just search for @perrybellegarde

****As we move into 2022, we're reposting Perry's episode on Hope, one of the most popular of the past year. We hope it brings you joy and inspiration as we enter the New Year.****

***Encore Episode***

In his seven years as National Chief, Perry Bellegarde focused on the importance hope: "Always leave more hope in a room than was there when you arrived."

Over the run of the Ahkameyimok Podcast, no matter how difficult the conversation or the issue, he always ends by asking his guests this question:

What brings you hope?

These are some of his favorite answers to that question.

01: 18 -- Chief Willie Littlechild - former TRC Commissioner, Member of Parliament, lawyer, social activist and author of the first draft of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

02:24 Dr Lorna Williams - Canada's leading expert on the promotion and revival of Indigenous languages.

4:14 William Prince - Award winning and chart topping country music star

6:30 Rt Hon Brian Mulroney - Canada's 18th Prime Minister

7:40 Dr Dan Longboat - Founding Director of Trent University's Indigenous Environmental Science Program

10:42 Marion Crowe - CEO of the First Nations Health Managers Association

11:41 Wade Davis, best-selling author, film-maker, explorer, UBC Anthropology Professor

12:32 Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond - fmr judge, law professor, children's advocate

14:27 Jagmeet Singh - Leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada

15:13 Bobbie Jo Greenland-Morgan - Grand Chief of the Gwich'in Tribal Council

17:40 Kevin Loring - Artistic Director of the Indigenous Theatre, National Arts Centre, Ottawa

19:40 Elder Wilfred Buck - leading First Nations astronomy and star lore expert

21:52 Senator Kim Pate - international expert in legal and prison reform

24:01 Brigadier-General Joe Paul, the highest ranking First Nations officer in the Canadian Armed Forces

25:12 Brad Regehr - The first First Nations President of the Canadian Bar Association

26:21 Louise Bernice Halfe - Canada's first Indigenous Parliamentary Poet Laureate

28:05 Dr Alika Lafontaine - the first Indigenous person elected as the President of the Canadian Medical Association

30:03 Romeo Saganash, former Member of Parliament, and leading advocate for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

31:41 Conner Roulette, First Nations gold medal winning junior hockey star

33:09 Chief Cadmus Delorme, Cowessess First Nation, home to 751 unmarked graves found at the Marieval Residential School

34:30 Tom Jackson, actor, musician, social activist

36:36 Marie Wilson, former Commissioner, Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The Akhameyimok Podcast is produced by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions

Theme music is by the Red Dog Singers, Treaty 4 territory, Saskatchewan

A holiday message from Perry Bellegarde, with best wishes for the year ahead from Perry and the Ahkameyimok Podcast team.

*** In honour of the first ever National Day of Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th, we are re-posting this interview with Marie Wilson, who was a Commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2009 to 2015. This interview was originally published June 3, 2021. ***

***The subject matter and content of this episode may be triggering for some listeners. The National Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line is accessible 24 hours a day at: 1-866-925-4419 ***

"We did hear of children's bones being found in the foundations of buildings when (Residential) schools were dismantled. We heard of children being thrown into furnaces. These were children. The little ones who have woken up in Kamloops this week, these are children calling out to all of us now."

Marie Wilson, former Commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which gathered testimony on the crimes and abuses against Indigenous children at Residential Schools in Canada, joins the Ahkameyimok Podcast from Yellowknife to discuss the shocking find of a mass grave of 215 children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The grave was found on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School at the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in British Columbia. Dr Wilson discusses her feelings on hearing of the the Kamloops mass grave, her memories of visiting that site as Commissioner, why her work on the TRC from 2009 to 2015 means she is shocked but not surprised by this mass grave and believes there are many more like it across Canada that need to be investigated, and why she believes the Pope and Catholic church, which ran the majority of the Residential Schools, needs to apologize for its role in what the TRC described as cultural genocide.

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is produced by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions

Our theme music is performed by the Red Dog Singers, Treaty 6 Territory, Saskatchewan