Two years after launch, patience is paying off for Calgary's Indigenous Relations Office, team says

Rushing around the lobby of Calgary's city hall on Wednesday, Terry Poucette is busy setting up an event to celebrate Indigenous Awareness Week.

"A typical day involves back-to-back meetings planning Indigenous awareness for different business units, supporting different business units with Indigenous engagement," Poucette said. 

"In addition to that, we've got council motions that we have to pursue."

Those motions are huge initiatives — the Indigenous Relations Governance Model, the Indigenous Gathering Place and the Indian Residential School Memorial Project. 

Poucette, who says she comes from a traditional family in Stoney Nakoda Nation, is the team lead with the city's Indigenous Relations Office (IRO).

When she accepted the position in January 2020, she was told the office was going to support the City of Calgary with the advancement of truth and reconciliation.

The establishment of the IRO was a call to action in the city's White Goose Flying Report that was released in 2016 — a municipal response to the final report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

And while Poucette says the pandemic presented challenges for the office's goals, Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra told CBC News on Wednesday that council is very committed to the work.

"I look forward to watching it grow, get its feet underneath itself, expand in its influence of every decision that we make as a city," Carra said.

'Reconciliation is not a race'

That work is done internally as much as it is done outside the walls of city hall. 

The IRO developed an Indigenous 101 training program for internal staff. 

People are directed first to get the basics of Indigenous people in Canada, in Alberta and in Calgary. After that, more forms of training are provided. 

"Change is slow, and reconciliation is not a race. It's not a tick-box exercise. So, you just need to be patient," Poucette said. 

She has also had to practice that patience at times.

She refers to recent tensions between different Indigenous groups during the planning process for the Indigenous Gathering Place, for which she is the corporate team lead.

The challenge wasn't the tension between the groups, but educating her non-Indigenous colleagues.

"I stress to our leaders — and to the corporation in general — that it's a double-standard to expect all Indigenous nations and all Indigenous people to get along, and if they don't that there must be something wrong," Poucette said.

"You don't expect all Canadians, all provinces, all countries to get along. So, why are you placing that expectation on Indigenous people?"

In her role, Poucette knows she has to navigate a complex Indigenous community in the city. 

"I think in the end, we all want the same thing as Indigenous people. We want reconciliation, we want to be included, we want to be respected."