Preparing for the Conservative Storm ...

Okay, so today I'm totally going to need you to ignore what's going on behind me. The last of my filing cabinets moves up to the new office today. So all of the guts, all the files that were in those filing cabinets are in various containers behind me. But that is so not what I want to talk about today. I think for many people of varying backgrounds, there's a sense of uneasiness, a sense of foreboding, a sense of fear, any and all of that stuff because of the US election and the rise of the conservative message, voice and party here in Canada. Now I live in Ontario. We've had a provincial Conservative government for a while now. I could totally go off on a rant on that. Not going to. What I'm focusing on is the very real possibility of a federal Conservative government like we see in the States. Not the same, the same party, the same mindset, if you will. And what I'm personally doing as far as my own health and well being, preparing for it. And then I get a rally cry for Indigenous peoples and other marginalized peoples as well. So let's talk about it. Hi everybody. My name is Andy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And I've been working as a reconciliation guide for the last 15 years. I balance both sides of the feather so I can be in a First Nation community helping with healing and empowerment and remembering our resilience and the strength of our teachings. Or I can be in non Indigenous corporate Canada, business colleges, universities, hospitals, helping them to understand what things look like from our side of the feather, helping them to come up with Indigenous engagement strategies that are not the blind leading the blind, meaning they actually involve Indigenous people in the development. Bottom line, I'm just helping building bridges I my work. Now this is kind of funny looking back because I used to describe myself as a motivational speaker because they did keynotes and workshops and seminars, did still do and realized fairly quickly that that title just does not work because I may be in a First Nation community talking about violence and suicide. I may be in a non Indigenous entity talking about the likelihood of racism within their staff. Those are heavy topics and somehow I don't think that's what comes to mind when people think motivational speaker. So I went with reconciliation guide and I focused on the word guide because I don't necessarily do the reconciliation work. I facilitate the work. I add in some understanding and some education and explain some things in A safe environment, no attacks, no shame, no guilt. So that people can do the work that they want to do. Understanding and respecting the autonomy of the first nations communities as well as the business entities I work with. It's not easy work. As I mentioned in a couple videos recently, I've done a lot of lateral violence training lately and talking about the roots of lateral violence, talking about our oppression in this country country, talking about what that does to our communities, to our families, to our relationships, to our work environments. And I'm indigenous so I'm. I'm not pointing fingers. I'm talking about lived experience. It is not easy work. So my self care game has to be epic. I believe self care is self respect. If I want you to respect me, I have to respect me. I have to show you how to respect me and taking care of my, my mental health, my. My physical well being, both of those things. That's part of it. I could not do this work if I did not take care of myself. So up to my, my workout regimen, watching what I eat, losing some weight, really working one on one with my doctor. Because yes, I am one of those incredibly lucky Canadians who does have a family doctor after years of not having one. But, but. So we're going to talk about social media for a moment and in my case we're going to talk specifically about Facebook. Now there's a part of my heart that Facebook has because that's where I started my business. When I first started sharing entries, my very first book in it was in a Facebook group because pages didn't even exist then and I've had a loyal following there. But over time the following has changed, the interactions have changed. Now anyone. This is no surprise to anyone that my spaces, whether it's. I'm not talking about my space, even though I remember that my spaces on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn are safe spaces. I don't allow attacks there of any group. If an indigenous person was to attack another marginalized group on my page, they would be removed. It's not. It's a safe space. I always picture the person. I picture someone like myself coming innocently to a page. I don't want to feel attacked by what I read there. But having said that, my pages are from an indigenous perspective and if you are non indigenous and you come to my pages, then you have to understand that you're going to hear a perspective you may not have heard before. And thanks to back to back teaching we understand that the perspective I'm going to describe things that you can't say see from your vantage point. Remember when we're standing back to back, you can't see the whole room. There's a part of the room you're absolutely blind to, and that's the part that's directly in front of me. If we're the one standing back to back, that's the kind of stuff I share through indigenous eyes on my pages. And I guess in my mind, in my perhaps naive mind, I've always pictured us sitting in a sacred circle, in a healing circle. And I now understand there's a really good chance you've never taken part in the healing circle. So how could you know the protocol? But I have. And you don't question what someone says. You don't ask for clarity. You don't ask them to repeat themselves. You don't ask them to explain themselves. You listen, you absorb, you take it away and you contemplate it. And at various times during my 15 years on my Facebook page, I have asked my followers to do that. Not to comment, to instead sit with it, to understand that even though it may not look like that to them, it does look like that to me. And in turn, many indigenous people. And if you want to build bridges, you gotta acknowledge that this is what it looks like to me. This doesn't look trustworthy, this doesn't look safe to us, whatever the case may be, that looks disrespectful to us, whatever it is. And time and time again, I have not been heard. And I think to be fair, it's largely because of new people coming to my page. So they don't know the rules and they post things that I don't want to see. And if I don't want it because they hurt my spirit, it's rude, it's ignorant, it's attacking. Even if it's not attacking indigenous people, it's attacking or it's ignorant in that they are lacking so much information. It's ridiculous. And I'm not going to take on educating them. That's what I do for a living. I'm not going to also do that in my spare time when I'm looking at stuff social media. So to that end, and this is meant in no disrespect to the respectful followers that give me a thumbs up every single day. But I'm going to shut down comments on my Facebook page for the only reason, to protect my mental health. I no longer have the bandwidth or the capacity to have to constantly go to my page to delete, block or correct whoever's there. And I will correct if I actually thought they were being respectful. If they're not, I don't have the time. If you don't have the time to respect me, I don't have the time to explain things to you. Non indigenous education cannot be at the price of indigenous pain. I am not a sacrificial lamb. I owe you nothing. If Canadians don't know their own history, that is not on me. I do enough. And that's my seminars and my videos. And if you actually sat and contemplated my message, you would receive the information. It doesn't mean I'm engaging in a debate or worse, an argument. So that's what I'm doing for my mental health. That's me personally. And maybe you seriously need to look at who's on your friend list. Whose comments are you absorbing? What you take in, you attract. And I'm taking in positivity because I need the energy to do important work. And that brings me to my second point. The rally cry recently. Well, I don't know, this year, is that still recently? We're coming to the end of 2024. I made the decision that at some point I am actually going to retire. I turned 60 this year and I set the bar. The end for the year I turned 70. I'm going to do 10 more years of this. Now, to be fair, I am Anishinaabe. We don't just stop working. What's going to happen at that point is the business functioning, the marketing, the reaching out to customers that will end. I will continue doing the work with people who reach out to me and ask for my help and advice. But the selling of the business, what every business does, will cease in 10 years. And that's where I guess the clarity came from that I'm now enjoying. Because I now understand why every strategic planning trainer, any trainer that deals with planning of any type, whether it's goal setting, visioning, whatever, smart goals, to remember those. And a lot of people are against those, I get it. But they do say send a date. And it's amazing what has changed for me now that I've set a date. Because if you don't set a date, you'll do it someday. I only have 10 years to make as much impact as I can. That changes everything. Which brings me to the rise of conservative conservatism. Is that a word? You know what I mean? The rise of the Conservative Party in Canada mimicking and repeating so much of the ugly that is south of the border. Pierre POV and Danielle Smith are dangerous in my mind. Can we go back? And I remember conservative politicians who, yes, were business people, but they were respectful. Leo Bernie, I come from Hudson. Leo Bernie lived down the street from us. He was good friends with my father. He was so respectful, such a beautiful, dedicated. And what was he? Minister of Natural Environment or Natural Resources? I don't know what it was, but because I was a kid, that's what the Conservative Party was to me. Yes, he was business minded and I may or may not agree with that now, but he didn't attack people like we're on the public school playground. It wasn't about name calling. It was about questioning the validity of policies. It wasn't attacking a person personally, and it wasn't about limiting someone's rights. Daniel Smith Are you listening? Anti trans much? I ridiculous. Children will die because of what that woman has to say. So for any marginalized person out there, so marginalized women are marginalized. Black indigenous people of color, like so, so many of us. You have experienced this. I know you have. Especially if you live in a smaller community, municipality, town, city, whatever, that may or may not have a whole bunch of people offering the same service. And what I'm talking about is having to endure racist jokes or slurs or stereotypes, even if they're delivered more passively, because you need the service. You need your haircut, you need your glasses fixed, you need the dental treatment, whatever it is. And you endure, even though you can feel it cutting your spirit, you endure because you have no choice. See, here's what I'm thinking. I'm foretelling the future here. I got a bug flying in my face. I think it's going to get worse. Just like Trump ushered in an era where racism just could be way more blatant. And racism was always there, but it was whispered in the background. Now it's like in your face sitting in a restaurant, some idiot feels the need to say out loud at another table what they think of indigenous people and they know you're going to hear it. That kind of ugly. I think we're going to have to endure a lot more. I think the ugly is going to get more blatant and we only endure. I'm not talking about if you have a choice and you got some service provider and they're you're enduring crap there. Change service providers. But I'm talking to the people that don't have that choice, that if this is the only person offering the service or a service that you can access, because maybe you don't have a car. Maybe you don't want to drive to the next city because you can't afford the gas. Whatever the case may be, I think the endurance we may have to endure more. So this is my battle cry or my rally cry. I'm speaking to indigenous now because obviously that's my group. And please pass this on to the youth that are in high school, considering if they want to go on to college or university. We need indigenous doctors, we need indigenous teachers, we need indigenous lawyers, we need indigenous hairdressers, we need indigenous optometrists, we need indigenous store clerks, we need indigenous butchers, we need indigenous everywhere so we can go to you and not have to endure. We need to up our capacity so that our people don't have to endure. And if mainstream has an issue with that, mainstream can deal with it. They can get better at creating safe spaces. Because I think you saw the video almost like six months ago. I was at my hairdressers, which I naively thought was a safe space because it had been there so many times and to a new person walked in and what I had to listen to literally had me crying in my vehicle. So that's the rally cry. I'm going to continue my work and I'm going to continue educating and empowering. But please pass this on not only to the youth, but the people that work with the youth. If you have any connections and employment and training agencies that work with indigenous people, please pass this on because we need you. I'm speaking to the indigenous youth now. We need doctors, lawyers, teachers, dentists, gas station attendants, gas station owners. Anything that we have to go near mainstream for we need you to do so that we don't have to endure anymore. I hope that made sense. If you are going to comment on this video, and I do welcome the comments, but please, I don't want to debate with you, I don't want to argue with you. You're here to hear an indigenous perspective. Please hear it, don't debate it, hear it, pass on the message. That's what being an ally is, not repeating what we say because you're going to change it even if you try not to. Just pass on my voice. And I encourage anyone who is connected to the youth, to employment and training agencies, anything like that, to reach out if you need encouragement because I got your back. We gotta have each other's backs because I think the storm is just starting to brew. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.