“Action is the part I really focus on in my understanding (of reconciliation) because we can say a lot of things and people can come to a lot of discussion tables, but if you're not actually doing the stuff it is going to be forgotten.”

Angela Daigneault: is a proud urban Métis woman born and raised in Saskatoon with roots to Ile-a-la-Crosse and Outlook, Saskatchewan. She has a passion for community development, advocacy and peacemaking.  Her 13-year social work career has focused on community and relationship building mainly in the not-for-profit sector. But in the last three years, she has followed in her father’s footsteps to work for the Saskatoon Police Service helping strengthen relations between the community and the service, as their Indigenous Relations Consultant. She is an active member of the Anti-Racism Network, Reconciliation Saskatoon and other community-led committees. In downtime, she enjoys being a stellar auntie, dabbling in art & writing and spending time in nature with her dog.

In Angela’s conversation she reflects on her experiences of intergenerational trauma, her relationship with the church, and taking care of each other. With a compassionate heart, Angela asks listeners to kindly disrupt the systems and to move from the discussion tables to places of action.

Ben Borne and I invited Angela to have a conversation around these five questions:

1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?

2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?

3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?

4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?

5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?

Then we recorded her reflections.

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Additional resources to explore:

Saskatoon Police Indigenous Relations

The Ethical Space of Engagement – Willie Ermine

The Power of Indigenous Kinship – Walrus Magazine

ConnectR

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan

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Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.

Project Coordinator: Heather Peters

Co-host: Ben Borne

“I think now though, it's using my voice to create safe spaces, to have tough conversations, but have this conversations in a respectful and safe way. So we can … hear that before you get to reconciliation, you need to hear this ugly truth, right?”

Warren Isbister-Bear, is the Truth & Reconciliation Coordinator, Strategy & Transformation Department, City of Saskatoon. Originally from the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation, Warren has been living and working in Saskatoon since 2001. As the Truth & Reconciliation Coordinator, Warren is responsible to lead the development of an internal Reconciliation strategy and policy framework aimed at enabling all City Departments to strengthen relationships and consultation activities with Indigenous Peoples and communities while providing strategic leadership and advice, based on extensive knowledge of the richness of diversity of Indigenous Peoples, to the City departments to support them in applying an inclusion lens to policies and programs.

In our conversation with Warren we talked about the personal and professional aspects of reconciliation. Warren talked about the impact of residential schools on his own life and challenged the listener to be strategic in making the workplace and work positions more accessible to Indigenous people.

Ben Borne and I invited Warren to have a conversation around these five questions:

1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?

2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?

3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?

4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?

5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?

Then we recorded his reflections.

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Additional resources to explore:

City of Saskatoon Indigenous Initiatives

Reconciliation Saskatoon

What makes us healthy? Exploring the determinants of health in Saskatchewan

Gordon Tootoosis Nīkānīwin Theatre

ConnectR

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan

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Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.

Project Coordinator: Heather Peters

Co-host: Ben Borne

“The chef coat that you see is actually modeled after the Turkish army. And I think there's a lot of a lot of rules and etiquette, and kitchen ways of being that are actually at odds with indigenous culture. So I'm trying to, I guess you could say decolonize that kitchen experience for people.”

Jenni currently works as the Indigenous Cultural Consultant for the Culinary Team at Wanuskewin Heritage Park. She has been a restaurant owner, caterer, executive chef and sees herself as a food bridge for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Saskatchewan. Listen until the end of the episode to hear an update from Jenni and Wanuskewin.

In our conversation with Jenni we talk about how food can be a tool for reconciliation. Jenni passionately spoke about how the act of reconciliation includes acknowledgment and recognizing that cultural understandings of the land and food have been taken from people. She challenges the listeners to economically support Indigenous businesses and to eat Indigenous food.

Ben Borne and I invited Jenni to have a conversation around these five questions:

1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?

2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?

3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?

4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?

5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?

Then we recorded her reflections.

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Additional resources to explore:

Wanuskewin

Boreal Heartland

Indigenous culinary association of nations

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan

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Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.

Project Coordinator: Heather Peters

Co-host: Ben Borne

In all my conversations with people about reconciliation I have heard that it isn’t an individual journey people are on. The reconciliation path is filled with relationships, teachers, learners and explorers – it is filled with other people. So we have created a reconciliation study guide that accompanies this podcast for you to be able to take to your friends, churches, communities, or neighbourhood book clubs to engage with these conversations together.

Go to our podcast landing page to download your copy. Season One Study Guide is available now and Season Two study guide will be available as soon as we have released the rest of our conversations.

“You have to be open to it. You might not want to listen or hear what someone has to say that has a different belief system…. God calls us to love everyone, to listen to their stories. This is what have gotten me started and motivated.”

Jolene Peters lives intentionally in her Saskatoon neighbourhood as a part-time hair stylist, part-time nanny, full-time mom and wife. Jolene is from the Mistawsis band and grew up in a Mennonite family as a foster child. Jolene and her family are very involved at their church, House for All Nations.

In our conversation with Jolene she spoke about how the birth of her daughter propelled her to explore her Indigenous heritage and navigate how to reconcile Indigenous spirituality with her Christian faith. She spoke passionately about her desire that her daughter grow up to be a proud Indigenous person.

Ben Borne and I invited Jolene to have a conversation around these five questions:

1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?

2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?

3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?

4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?

5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?

Then we recorded her reflections.

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Additional resources to explore:

Office of the Treaty Commissioner events

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan

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Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.

Project Coordinator: Heather Peters

Co-host: Ben Borne

CONTENT WARNING: This episode talks about incidences of sexual abuse. It is difficult to hear these stories and if it would be harmful or triggering for you to listen, we suggest skipping this episode. Maryann felt the stories were important to share because she had been shameful of them for many years and has since realized that these are not secrets she needs to hold.

If you need help please call 211 or go to 211.ca to find local resources including crisis hotlines, addictions, abuse, and many others.

The Indian Residential School Survivors Society also has a 24-hour crisis line: 1-866-925-4419

“I want people to know where this is all coming from. In terms of reconciliation people say, Why don’t these Indian’s just get over it, move along with your life. Just by what I shared with you, how does me and my family move forward or move in any way because of what has happened to us, as a family?”

Maryann Napope is a Cree mother, grandmother and great grandmother. She is a 5th generation survivor of Indian Residential Schools and was heavily involved in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission community gatherings held throughout Saskatchewan where she worked as a mental health support person. Maryann has brought the Kairos Blanket Exercise to communities throughout the province. She has a degree in social work.

Maryann is grateful for the people that the Creator has put in her path throughout her life.

As we spoke with Maryann she shared intimately about her life and experiences overcoming abuse and a high-risk lifestyle in order to break the cycles of violence that had impacted her family. She spoke candidly about injustice and reconciliation and invoked settlers to do more.

Ben Borne and I invited Maryann to have a conversation around these five questions:

1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?

2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?

3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?

4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?

5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?

Then we recorded her reflections.

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Additional resources to explore:

STORIES FROM THE FRONT: REALITIES OF THE OVER-INCARCERATION OF ABORIGINAL WOMEN IN CANADA

Indigenous Saskatchewan Encyclopedia – Residential Schools

Where are the Children? Healing the Legacy of the Residential Schools

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan

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Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.

Project Coordinator: Heather Peters

Co-host: Ben Borne

“Deep listening is critical part of reconciliation. It isn’t just feeding back what you hear on the surface but taking things down to the depths of emotions, social understanding, intellectual understanding and moving into areas of empathy, respect and humility.”

Harry Lafond is from and lives on maskêko sâkahikanihk (Muskeg Lake). From 1956 to 1976, he lived and spent most of the time in places where there was little Cree spoken. Now, he spends much of his time seeking out Cree words and relearning how to speak, read and write Cree. That is the legacy he wants to leave his 13 grandchildren, two daughters and three sons. Harry has done many things to serve the people he lives with: he has a M.Ed., an Indigenous Languages Certificate, has served as chief, wrote some, read lots, listened to Elders, spoke many times on reconciliation and spent hundreds of hours with first his children and now our grandchildren. His wife, Germaine and Harry believe in wâhkôtowin (building relations) and acknowledge that it requires time and energy.

In our conversation with Harry he beautifully knit together his thoughts around the spirituality of reconciliation and the importance of language within reconciliation. He walked us through his journey of reconciling both Catholic and Cree spirituality while first learning and then teaching Cree phrases and understandings. In all this, he attributed the people he was connected to in his life and the relationships that helped shape him. “Many years ago, someone said, you are a good listener, and this is a beautiful complement because it meant I was practicing deep listening. And deep listening is critical part of reconciliation. It isn’t just feeding back what you hear on the surface but taking things down to the depths of emotions, social understanding, intellectual understanding and moving into areas of empathy, respect and humility. Those Cree teachings are important parts of who we are as a people”.

Ben Borne and I invited Harry to have a conversation around these five questions:

1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?

2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?

3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?

4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?

5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?

Then we recorded his reflections.

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Additional resources to explore:

Muskeg Lake

Cree Literacy Network

OTC

Indigenous couple live a life of reconciliation – Catholic Register

Black Elk

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan

*****************************************************

Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.

Project Coordinator: Heather Peters

Co-host: Ben Borne

Stacey Swampy was born in Maskwacis, Alberta. When he was 13 years old, his father died and he entered, what would become, 30 years inside the system – moving from foster homes to group homes to the young offenders systems and finally to the provincial correctional centre and federal penitentiary. When Stacey realized that he might die within this system he decided it was time to make changes and turned to the Elders who worked there to help him. Since then Stacey has become sober, embraced Indigenous culture and practices, graduated with a university degree and has worked tirelessly to help people get out of the system. Stacey has worked for Str8Up, Micah Mission and is currently back at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre, this time working as an Elder.

In our conversation with Stacey he talked about the value of learning his own story and about the importance of forgiveness, and how it is an essential step for reconciliation to truly take place. He explains throughout his conversation with us that not only do we have to forgive those who have hurt us, but we must also forgive ourselves. Stacey puts reconciliation within a problem-solving framework. He explained how the teachings from the elders taught him to let go of all the negative energy he was holding onto and finally move forward in a positive and healthy direction. “The way reconciliation is, is we have to forgive each other before we can move on and start to heal. If we can’t forgive people, then we’re still stuck in a part of the problems not the solutions.”

Ben Borne and I invited Stacey to have a conversation around these five questions:

1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?

2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?

3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?

4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?

5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?

Then we recorded his reflections.

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Additional resources to explore:

Str8Up

Writing your Life Story

Emotional Intelligence Toolkit

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan

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Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among  Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.

Project Coordinator: Heather Peters

Co-host: Ben Borne

Annie Battiste is a proud Mi’kmaq woman and member of Potlotek First Nations. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Saskatchewan. Committed to social justice and reconciliation within Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan, Annie currently works as a Reconciliation Consultant with the Office of the Treaty Commissioner and the University of Saskatchewan. As a frequent conference presenter and community educator, she is creating awareness on the important historical and social issues pertaining to Indigenous peoples, creating bridges in communities through deep reflection on the historical roots of Saskatchewan and its possibilities for new directions in empowerment of diverse groups and peoples in Saskatchewan and beyond.

In our conversation with Annie, she explains that the meaning of reconciliation shifts depending on where we find ourselves and that it is intricately connected to identity. As Annie said, “I think that reconciliation is the definition of the Canadian identity.” Annie also challenges us to think about what reconciliation looks like in the workplace. “I think it’s important for people to really learn about what reconciliation is because it’s going to become a professional competency very soon in the workplace…It’s important because it’s not going away, it’s going to get bigger, it’s going to get better, it’s going to become more beautiful, it’s going to flourish out, and it is on the onus of people to learn it.”

Ben Borne and I invited Annie to have a conversation around these five questions:

1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?

2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?

3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?

4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?

5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?

Then we recorded her reflections.

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Additional resources to explore:

Two Row Wampum

Treaty 6

Wet'suwet'en blockades

Charter of Rights and Freedoms – Section 25

UNDRIP

TRC Calls to Action

MMIWG Calls for Justice

Beaconnectr.org

ayisiyiniwak: A Communications Guide

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan

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Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.

Project Coordinator: Heather Peters

Co-host: Ben Borne

In our last episode of this season we talk with Leonard Doell, Indigenous Neighbours Coordinator at MCC Saskatchewan. Leonard has been employed by MCC for more than 20 years and has spent 40 years doing reconciliation work with the Young Chippewayan people and Mennonite and Lutheran farmers in the Laird area.

Leonard speaks about how his work has been built on the good will of those who went before him and his hope that others will come to build on the work that he has done. He invites people to create shared understandings – by learning each other’s histories and participating in events together. Leonard’s stories also highlight the work that needs to be done by both individuals and institutions. Due to the depth of his knowledge of the people and land he speaks intimately about the challenges and achievements of this story. As Leonard says, “We know how imperfect the story is, but we also know it is inspirational.”

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Links from the episode:

Stoney Knoll history

Reserve 107

Spruce River Folkfest - August 10, 2019 will be the 10th annual Spruce River Folkfest

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan

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Reconcile. Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation.

Project Coordinator: Heather Peters