Why Reconcile?

Sam. Now, the important question of the day. Why reconcile? Why is this so important? Why do we need to do this as a country, as people, as Canadians, as First nations indigenous people? Why? Why do we have to do this? I know my answer. And the most important thing is that you know your answer. Answers are going to be different. People are unique. People are individuals, and that's okay. But you need to know why this is important to you. So I invite you to pause the video right now and take a second to write down your answer. Why reconcile? Now, for me, there's two sides to the reconciliation coin. I have a lot of very personal reasons why I want to do this, and then, of course, there's national reasons. So I'm going to run through those for you, and maybe they're going to align with your reasons. First off, let's talk personal. I believe I was literally born to do this work. You see, I'm the daughter of a beautiful stranger, strong in Anabe Quay from Kuchijing First Nation. My mom was wise and intelligent and funny and carried so much wisdom. But she was also indigenous and uneducated and female, which meant, considering she was born in 1927, there were a lot of people that didn't seek out her. Her counsel. They didn't listen when she shared her words. But I'm her daughter, and she spoke to me, and it's that wisdom that I now pass on to you. But I'm also the daughter of a beautiful, amazing, empowering, funny, intelligent Frenchman from St. Jerome, Quebec. My dad, Leo Boucher, taught me that I could be anything I wanted to be if and only if I was willing to work hard enough to get it. My dad promised me that there were going to be people that were going to try to stop me, that would tell me I didn't know what I was talking about, that I had no right to say the things I had to say. And he reminded me that I needed to find the people that did believe in me. And I needed to believe in myself. I needed to keep going. It wasn't going to be easy, but it would be worth it. Now, my mom being born in 1927, she was taught to be ashamed of everything about being an Anishinaabe. But as I came to realize in later years, thanks to the guidance of another amazing elder, my mom couldn't help who she was. My mom believed she had one mission, one goal in life, and that was to pass on to her children all that we would need to survive after she was gone. My mom would remind us on A regular basis, that she wasn't going to be here for our entire journeys. And it was important that we figured out how to overcome challenges, how to get back up after a fall, how to believe in ourselves when nobody else did. By passing on her teachings to us, my mom guaranteed that even in a world that frowned on her teachings, that we would be okay. Now, the first time this became obvious to me, I call this the church story. And if you look at this image, that is literally the little country church that we used to go to every Sunday. Remember, my mom was taught to be ashamed of her teachings, but she wanted us to have what she called a backbone, something that would hold us up and allow us to stand up again when the whole world came crushing in on us. Because she couldn't share her teachings with us, she did the next best thing. And she leaned on my dad's religion, which was Roman Catholic. But as I said, mom could not help being who she was. She didn't announce this is a teaching. She would just simply tell us stories or remind us of things. And the earliest one I remember playing, played out every Sunday on the steps of this little country church you see, just before me and my brothers would walk in. The same thing would happen every Sunday. My mom would stop us and get us to look her in the eyes. You know how parents do with their kids when you really want them to listen? She would always say the same thing. When you go inside and the man at the front starts talking, talking, if he says something and the little voice in your head goes, wow, yeah, that makes so much sense. Then you take that and you keep it and you use it. That was meant for you. But if he says something and the little voice in your head goes, what? Leave it here. Doesn't make him a bad person. It just means that's meant for somebody else, that's okay, too. Use your brain. God gave it to you for a reason. Now, I've been teaching that to youth across the country for the last decade. But honestly, if I was to say, I'm going to teach you the church story, now, some of the teenagers may not pay attention. So I came up with a different name, and I call him the Gatekeeper. Think of the guardian in a video game or a grumpy receptionist in any clinic or hotel that you've gone into. You come in, they bring you information, and you're there and you decide. They decide if it gets in or not. Now, if you have a gatekeeper, I'm talking to you. You get to decide, am I Going to take this in or am I going to keep it in the lobby? I've already asked you to set your ego aside for a minute to allow the information in. You can kick it back out later. The gatekeeper has that potential, that power. But you have the power to decide. If there's one thing my mom was scared stiff of, it's blind faith. Don't believe someone just because they're talking. Ask yourself. Does this make sense? I've been using my gatekeeper my entire life. And it was my gatekeeper that may help me to realize, even at the young age of five, which is how old I am in this little picture sitting next to my dad, that the world treated my dad differently than it treated my mom. If my dad walked into a store, the manager there would, hi, Leo, how are you? But if my mom walked in a little too far behind my dad, or God forbid, walked in by herself, she'd often get met with a scorn unless the person knew her. I knew how amazing my mom was, yet these people were treating her as if she had nothing of potential to offer. So thanks to my gatekeeper and my mom's teachings, I realized at a very young age, the world can be wrong. Their opinion of you can be absolutely wrong. So if you hear nothing else today, please remember that if someone's telling you you're not worth that new job or that investment, they could very well be wrong. Especially if they don't know you. So I was given the background. I was born to do this work. I also believe I was given the style to do this work. If you haven't noticed so far, I talk in conversational English. I don't use a lot of what my mom would call 15 words. Those big long words that nobody knows how to spell. And that's on purpose. You see, in my culture, it's all about communication and passing on wisdom. And my told me point blank that no matter how educated I get, I must always speak like I'm talking to my grandmother. My mother believed that there was nothing more disrespectful than using language that would make someone else feel stupid. So I don't. And I believe that style has worked well for me, especially in cross cultural relations. Now, I also happen to believe I was given the professional and personal experience to do this work. Before I became a motivational speaker, I actually worked for 20 plus years in employment and training. I worked at one of those beautiful non profit agencies that help people go back to work or go find a new job, go back to school, or even start their own business. We were encouraging people to believe in themselves long before I started my motivational career. And Personally, I'm a 10 year domestic abuse survivor. I know what it takes to reconcile with a person that has hurt you or a past that is too dark to even talk about. So I know what it takes and it is possible, which is why I do the work I do. Further, and even adding to that, I believe I have the responsibility to do this work. Because you see, it's an Anishinaabe teaching, an Ojibwe teaching that with a gift comes responsibility. Wisdom and knowledge are useless unless shared. I know this stuff, but if I were not to share it, it's not going to help anyone else. And that's again why I do the work I do. And if that wasn't enough, the icing on the cake. I live in Thunder Bay, Ontario, a city known nationally for its anti Indigenous racism. So I just figured this is a perfect place for the path to, to start now on a national level. And I hinted about this earlier on, I really felt there needed to be an Indigenous lens, an Indigenous perspective added into the conversation. I'm 56 years old, so I thought I could add in some age acquired wisdom that I picked up along the way. And I definitely wanted to remind those people in the very expensive suits the reconciliation is personal. It is always personal. What works for one person is not going to work for the next. What works for one community may be too much or not enough for another. And that's okay. There is no Pan Canadian solution because families, individuals were hurt. And when you hurt someone, they're the only ones that can decide what they need to get past it. It's not going to be easy, it's not going to be quick. Our elders say constantly, it took us generations to get here, it's going to take us generations to get out, but it's worth the journey.