Indigenous Engagement IS Reconciliation! (A SWOT Analysis to Consider)

If you are a non Indigenous person living within Canadian borders, you are already taking part in reconciliation. Now, before you freak out, because I know a whole bunch of people just panic because they have no idea how to do that. What I am saying is, in my humble opinion, Indigenous engagement is an act of reconciliation. Think of how many times Indigenous people were left out of the conversation or, or not heard or rendered invisible. You are engaging with Indigenous people and if you don't think you are, you're watching this video right now. That means you can hear me, I'm Indigenous. That's Indigenous engagement. That's reconciliation. But I know a whole bunch of you just had a panic attack because I know your heart's in the right place and you want to do this the right way and you don't want to make any mistakes. Next to impossible. You're going to make mistakes, but don't panic. I have a four step guide, four things, four steps I need you to take that are going to help you be way better at your future acts of reconciliation. And I'm going to explain it in a way that you'll totally understand. So let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. What I just said in Ojibwe was, hello, I am Red Thunderbolt Woman Loon Clan in my Christian Canadian name. I'm Sandy Boucher, a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And for the last 15 years, I have dedicated everything I have to Indigenous Canadian reconciliation. I want to bring a country together. That's something we should be able to do by Tuesday, don't you think? Maybe not. For the first eight years of my career, this career, I really focused on First Nation communities. Helping them to heal, helping them to reconcile with what happened, helping them to remember their resilience and the strength of our teachings. The last eight I've balanced the feather and I do just as much work with non Indigenous Canadians. Amazing people, heart in the right place, who want to learn how to do this right. And in these times of tariffs and threats from our southern borders, this is the time where uniting and recognizing the strengths that Indigenous people bring to the table is going to help Canada. So now I'm even more adamant. But those amazing non Indigenous people I work with, yeah, Indigenous Canadian reconciliation scares the daylights out of them because they don't want to do anything wrong. They realize so much has been done wrong that they don't want to add to it. So these are also the people that love checklists and the 10 steps and all that fun stuff. So I thought it'd be really nice today and share four things, four steps you can take to prepare for more reconciliation, work more engagement with indigenous people, like you're doing right now. So you might want to grab a pen or paper or mark this as your favorite video. I don't even know how you would do that, but I guess you could do that. You want to subscribe to my channel? Because I share all this kind of good stuff on a regular basis. I'm so excited, I'm out of breath. And I also just did a TikTok that was pretty emotional. So that's why I'm this way first off. Okay, so let's talk about the four steps. So this is going to be. You're already engaging with indigenous people because you're watching this video. But what would help you make sure that in the future that you could do more of this, and you got a lot less chance of doing something you shouldn't do or saying something you shouldn't say. So the first thing, number one, any situation, any new, you've got a challenge you want to deal with or you're in a new environment, what's the first thing you do? You do an assessment. You evaluate the situation. This is my new job. What's been done? What do I need to do? Who are my supports? Who's my chip? What's my challenges? Right? If you have a challenge, okay, what do I have in my favor? What. What's going to be making this even worse? How do I move ahead in the exact same way? What I want you to do as the first step is evaluate your privilege. And we've discussed this before. This is Peggy McIntosh's unpacking the invisible Knapsack, talking about white privilege. And again, I'll put the link in the description box underneath this video. It's open source now, so you could just type that in, Google it, and you would find it. But here's the important part. Yes, I want you to do the quiz. Yes, I want you to come to terms with how much privilege you have or don't have, depending if you're indigenous or not or marginalized or not. This is not a beat yourself up exercise. This is not a woe is me exercise, because the marginalized people, we are some of the strongest people out there. So this is literally just evaluating the terrain, right? This is the first level of the video game. You got to figure out where the bad guys are. If you have a ton of privilege, no need for shame or guilt, you didn't ask for your Privilege. No one asked for whatever level of privilege they have. But identifying it and accepting it is crucial. You can't deny it and you can't give it back. You can't pretend you don't have it. None of that's going to help. So go through the quiz and identify your privilege. But here's the really important part. I want you to go through the quiz a second time and imagine what it'd be like to live within Canadian borders if every single one of those statements you answered no. Now you're starting to get a little bit closer to understanding what it's like to be marginalized. Those people do not need to be saved. The people that answer no, systems and policies and processes need to change so they no longer have to answer no. There's the difference. Okay, so one, one, take the quiz. Second, I need another evaluation. That's all of them are evaluations. Okay, second one, I need you to evaluate your knowledge. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you know about the oppressive legislation that still continues in Canada today? We are talking about way more than the residential school system. We're talking about the sixties scoop. We're talking about treaties that have not been held up. We are talking about the. The naming legislation that happened in the north, the discs with the numbers or assigning a surname to people. I have a family tree, thanks to my cousin, that goes all the way back to when our family just had one name. Right, but that wasn't convenient for the Indian Agents to record. What is an Indian agent? What. How did status come about? How did the reserves come about? How much do you know? Again, this is not about beating yourself up. Most of this depending on your age, was not taught to you in school. That wasn't by accident, by the way. So what is your assessment of your knowledge level then? Of course you're going to want to change it if it's a low number. That was number two. Number three, this is not about judgment. This is not about shame or guilt. This is about evaluating the terrain that you exist in. Number three is evaluating your influencers. And I am not talking about social media influencers. I'm talking about who's in your world and do they still look down on Indigenous people. Keep in mind all those people that say, why do I have to make up anything to Indigenous people? I never took their kids. They're still looking down on Indigenous people then. They're. They have the exact same attitude that the original settlers had. So they are perpetuating the problem. Okay, so who are the influencers in your life. Do you know any Indigenous people? The people who have opinions about Indigenous people? How would they know? Have they ever interacted with Indigenous people? Or did they just observe from a distance and make assumptions about behavior? It's really easy to sit back and follow the stereotype and say all Indigenous people are drunks or addicts or both until you unpack what they're trying to run away from. And maybe if you had the horrific history that many of our people do, you'd be drowning in a bottle too. It's not about judgment, it's about knowledge. So what is the level of your knowledge and where are you getting this knowledge from? Who are these influencers in your world? I'm not saying kick people to the curb, but if I have someone telling me about Australian people who has never been to Australia and has never had a relationship with someone who is from Australia, I'm taking their knowledge with a grain of salt because it's going through their cultural lens. It's their interpretation, it's a guess. And even if they studied it in school, who wrote the textbook, we kind of get better at looking at where we get our information. And last but not least. So we've evaluated your privilege. We've evaluated your knowledge of Indigenous Canadian interactions to date. We have evaluated your influencers and the people in your inner circle or bigger circle. Last but not least, evaluate your contributions. What have you been doing when someone shares a stereotype about Indigenous people? Are you sitting silent when an Indigenous influencer activist shares some truth, like this video, do you share it? Or are you like the secret ally you don't want anyone else to know that you're actually supportive of Indigenous Canadian reconciliation. I saw a quote the other day. What did it say? If you claim to be an ally and you're not getting hit by the stones that that group gets hit by, you're not standing close enough. If no one knows that you are a fan or a supporter of Indigenous Canadian reconciliation, you're not an ally. Let's get crystal clear on that. So I promised in the opening that I was going to present this in a way that mainstream is used to. I don't know about you, it's probably passe now because I know consultants and trainers love to come up with new ways to phrase things so that they get hired over other people. It's kind of like strategic planning. Every year there's a new way to do it. It's still strategic planning. Give me a break. What I'm talking about in this case is not necessarily strategic planning, but a SWOT analysis evaluating that train strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Look at the list I just gave you. You're going to identify your strengths, which is your privilege. Ha. Privilege means you can open doors. Also means you can hold open a door for someone who doesn't have privilege. Your privilege is not a negative. See what I mean? Don't deny it. So strength, your privilege weaknesses could very easily be your lack of knowledge or your tendency to believe one of the stereotypes. So you gotta unpack that stuff. Opportunities are all the times you have an opportunity to share information. Do not repeat what I'm saying. Share the video. Do not repeat what Dr. Pam Palmettar says about some interaction. Share. Share her post. Right. Don't take away our voices. Don't reword our voices, just share our voices. Kind of like a virtual holding open the door. And last but not least, the threats could so easily be the people in your circle that are still sharing with you the stereotypes. So rather than being their student, be a teacher. Share with them. You do realize that's not true, right? If you ever want to hear the actual facts, we could have a combo. Not going to argue with you, but that is just wrong. So there you have it. The four steps. Evaluate your privilege. Evaluate your knowledge. Evaluate your influences. Influencers. Evaluate your contribution. Do that kind of stuff. Improve your skills. And by the way, you should be doing this. Reconciliation and engagement. Now. You don't wait until you're perfect at it because then we're still being marginalized while you're waiting. Don't do that. Let's get into this now and together we'll get better at it. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye bye.