This week, an extended conversation with two of the people behind 'Unsettling Canada 150.' Planned for the exact same date as Canada Day—July 1—this national, Indigenous-led day of action will serve as a counter-action to the multi-million dollar, orgiastic commemoration of the country’s 150th anniversary of Confederation. A joint initiative of the movements known as Idle No More and Defenders of the Land, 'Unsettling Canada 150' will feature a series of events in the weeks leading up to July 1st. Our guests are Janice Makokis, legal scholar and First Nations advisor, and First Nations policy analyst Russ Diabo. // Our theme is 'nesting' by birocratic.
On this week’s roundtable: sensationalizing suicide? We recount the critiques of 13 Reasons Why, the Netflix teen drama that's sparked controversy for centering the suicide of one of its characters. And shaking off Shakespeare: amid the recent kerfuffle over cultural appropriation, we’ll discuss why one Ontario school board has booted the Bard in favour of Indigenous authors. Joining us at our roundtable are Jessica Deer, a staff reporter with the Eastern Door newspaper in Kahnawake, and, in Phoenix, Arizona, Lakota activist and communications professional, Taté Walker.
This week, a breakdown of the BC election, the result of which is still up in the air, leaving Indigenous peoples with all sorts of questions. Questions like which would be better or worse for their interests, a Liberals/Greens coalition or NDP/Greens? How much Indigenous issues factored into this election, or how much Indigenous voters did? And how did Indigenous candidates fare? Our roundtable welcomes two BC-based journalists, Angela Sterritt of CBC Vancouver and CBC Indigenous, and Wawmeesh Hamilton, who works for CBC and Discourse Media. // Our theme is 'nesting' by birocratic.
This week, an extended interview with James Daschuk, author of Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life. The award-winning book is a harrowing, historical account of Canada's original Aboriginal policy—re-location via starvation.
In this conversation, originally recorded in 2014, Daschuk discusses his investigation into the roles that disease, climate and politics played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of Aboriginal people in the late 1800s, an era when Canada’s first prime minister—John A. Macdonald—relentlessly pursued his so-called 'National Dream.' A pursuit that coincided with the often nightmarish existence of first peoples on the Plains. // Our theme is 'nesting' by birocratic.