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The Current Transcript for September 30, 2024

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

MURRAY SINCLAIR: If we agree on the objective of reconciliation and agree to work together, the work we do today will immeasurably strengthen the social fabric of Canada tomorrow.

MATT GALLOWAY: It is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and few know the complicated path ahead better than Murray Sinclair. The former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, has just published his memoirs. An excerpt from that book, Who We Are, coming up. We'll also hear from three Indigenous health leaders on the work still to do to improve health outcomes in First Nations communities. And we'll revisit a conversation with, and a performance by, the great Manitoba songwriter William Prince. Also this morning, what next after Israel kills the leader of Hezbollah? The CBC's Margaret Evans in Lebanon on anxiety about what is to come in that country. Plus:

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SPEAKER: She was already in full charge and hit me like a bus. She was on my back within seconds, just clawing, biting. I began yelling, screaming for help.

MG: After a series of deadly encounters with grizzly bears, Alberta has opened the door to hunting the bears, part of a new approach to dealing with so-called 'problem' wildlife. We'll hear from the minister responsible and a critic coming up in an hour. But we begin with the hard truths of Indigenous health outcomes in Canada. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Indigenous life expectancy is dropping. How do we fix it?

Guests: Dr. Danièle Behn Smith, Tania Dick, Dr. Esther Tailfeathers

MG: Nine years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report, and among the 94 calls to action, several were dedicated to improving Indigenous health. The TRC suggested provinces release annual progress reports on a number of health markers, including life expectancy. Now not every province has followed through, but two provinces, British Columbia and Alberta, have done so recently. When B.C. released its data, one of my next guests described the findings as gut wrenching. Between 2017 and 2021, life expectancy for First Nations people in British Columbia dropped by more than six years. In Alberta, it was a seven-year drop. In 2015, a First Nations man could expect to live to be 67. By 2021, his life expectancy was 60 years. To talk about those numbers and what's behind them. I'm joined by three indigenous health leaders. Dr. Danièle Behn Smith is B.C.'s deputy provincial health officer for Indigenous Health. Tania Dick is a registered nurse and Indigenous nursing lead at the University of British Columbia. She's also director of Quality, Cultural Safety and Humility at the Vancouver Island Health Authority. And Dr. Esther Tailfeathers is a family physician on the Blood Tribe Reserve and a former medical lead at Alberta Health Services Indigenous Wellness Core. Good morning, everyone.

GUESTS: Good morning.

MG: Dr. Danièle Behn Smith, that term, gut wrenching-- those are your words in talking about that drop in life expectancy. Can you tell me a bit more about why you use that phrase?

DR. DANIÈLE BEHN SMITH: Yeah, absolutely. The reason I used those words 'gut wrenching,' is because I think it's quite plain to see from the data that that's just an absolutely tragic decline in life expectancy. And I think for a lot of my settler friends and colleagues, they don't necessarily appreciate the acuity and the urgency and what that means for us and our families. And so, when I first saw that table and it came across my desk before we even published the report, the first thought that came to my mind was looking at the time frame. So, that data, as you mentioned, was collected from 2017 to 2022 or 2021, rather. In my own family, if I look at 2017 to 2023, we lost eight family members. So, my Auntie Elaine died as she was in her early 60s. My brother Jason died. He was in his early 50s. And I lost six cousins. So for us, although people can look at that and see data and numbers, those are our loved ones. Those are members of our family that we love and care about who are no longer sitting at our table.

MG: I'm sorry for what you and your family have gone through. And we'll talk about some specifics. But Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, the data is similar in Alberta. And I wonder from your perspective what-- I mean, numbers are numbers. But to Danièle Behn Smith's point, there are people behind those numbers. What story do the numbers in your province tell you about the state of health care for First Nations people in Alberta?

DR. ESTHER TAILFEATHERS: Well, thank you, Danièle, as well for what you've said. But I see it as a physician on a daily basis. And I'm seeing patients, young patients being lost almost two to three a week, most of them not here on the blood reserve, because we have developed a a continuum of care where we go all the way from clinics which offer OAT and also we have a number of places where people have been taught about harm reduction. So, we have naloxone available in many places on our reserve. And we've developed a whole continuum of care. But where we're seeing our people dying is in the cities. In Lethbridge, Calgary and Edmonton. And that's because the cities are ill equipped for the drug crisis that we're seeing. And what's happening in Alberta, according to the data that we've seen on the latest report, is that in 2019, there's an abrupt change. If you take a look at the data, you'll see that there's a parallel in mortality between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people until 2019, and that is when the province of Alberta started to cut back on harm reduction resources and in the city of Lethbridge actually shut down the safe consumption site. And that's where we see the life expectancy of Indigenous people in this province start to really change because the death rate in this province for Indigenous people is seven times more than non-Indigenous due to drug poisoning.

MG: Dr. Danièle Behn Smith, broadly, from your perspective, what's going on? What would lead to such a significant decline?

DR. DANIÈLE BEHN SMITH: And I think that this is one of the areas that is really, really tricky. And I appreciate that we are focusing on the toxic drug crisis because that is absolutely one of the main drivers of these steep drops that we've seen in life expectancy. But we cannot forget that there was a disparity that existed before this, you know, this significant drop. And we continue to burden or carry the burden of disproportionate impacts of chronic disease and cancer and injuries. We've heard time and again that truth comes before reconciliation. And yet I think one of the hardest truths for us to confront is the reality that ideology of white supremacy that was so pervasive at the time of the founding of this country persists in systems and structures. And that language is really hard for people to hear. It's triggering in many ways. And yet, we see this data. We see really on any indicator that we choose to count, whether it's education, whether it's housing, whether it's leadership, we see that non-Indigenous people are outperforming Indigenous people. And so, the one way that we can make meaning of these disparities is to think, oh, well, there must be something inherent-- and I'll use the indicator of leadership, actually-- there must be something inherent about settlers that make them, you know, more suited to lead. Better leaders, more capable somehow. But again, it's 2024 and we reject that notion. Very few people hold that as a core value or belief. And so, in order to make meaning and make sense of this data that's right there in front of us that we see across all these different indicators, we need to recognize and realize the truth that this ideological bedrock of white supremacy continues to be so insidiously embedded in our systems, in our structures, in our policies and our practices that it continues to confer an unearned advantage on settler folks and unearned disadvantage on Indigenous peoples. And so, I think that really is the root cause.

MG: Tania Dick, you've been listening in. How do the stories that you've heard, how are they reflected in your community, which is up the coast on Vancouver Island.

TANIA DICK: Yeah. Thank you. I really echo Dr. Behn Smith and Dr. Tailfeathers' personal stories. We've had probably in that timeline as well, directly lost six people in my life to the toxic drugs. But it's getting closer and closer to-- I live, I'm from a really kind of remote and isolated community. And when these deaths are starting to happen in our communities, we know it's not, it's kind of coming in from those urban settings. And we're hearing stories of our loved ones dying away from home. And in the last year we've had two literally happen, you know, died on our reserve. And as it stands, our communities are under-resourced as it is. And we really rely on nursing services in our remote communities. Our general community nurses, you know their well babies, immunizations, kind of basic chronic disease management. And not a lot of focus and expertise to deal with trauma. You know, all of the issues that come with addictions, mental health and addictions, and it ends up burning out our nurses. And we have such a huge revolving door. Like, nurses just cannot, it's not sustainable for themselves personally and professionally because the needs are so high and so complex. Now we can go months without a nurse in our committee.

MG: Which is only going to lead to further problems down the road.

TANIA DICK: Exactly, yeah.

MG: Dr. Behn Smith, you said that the losses that you were talking about are-- these are your words-- "A threat to our cultural community." What do you mean by that?

DR. DANIÈLE BEHN SMITH: You know, when I think about my family and our experience, we' re Eh Cho Dene. We are 'big animal people.' This is through my father's line from Fort Nelson. There are probably less than a thousand Eh Cho Dene left on the planet. We've got a handful of fluent speakers left. We need every single member of our nation to be vibrant and healthy and self-determining. We have sacred responsibilities that we have. And so, every single member of our nation has an important role to play, has gifts that they've received from the creator to keep us going and to survive the genocide that's happened since contact. And so, the threat-- and thank you for bringing those words back-- the threat to our existence. And I'm not even, you know, trying to be overly dramatic. But when we just look at the numbers, when there's just such small communities and our community is not unique, there's many other villages around what we call B.C. that are in a similar situation to us. You know, that are the very last, you know, have very few language speakers left.

MG: Well, Dr. Esther, Tailfeathers, from your perspective, what is one thing, if you could choose one priority, what would it be to change what we've been talking about?

DR. ESTHER TAILFEATHERS: It would be to genuinely include Indigenous leadership and voices at the tables of decision makers. And I think that the TRC was very was very well thought out. The calls to action were very well thought out by many, many voices. So, the things that we need to improve upon through those are the number of health, Indigenous health care providers who are able to go and help Indigenous people in the communities. The content and curriculum of, let's say, medical school, nursing school and all of the health care provider institutions, engagement with Indigenous people in the learning process so that people learn how to develop relationships and are not afraid to reach out and develop relationships with Indigenous people. And in that relationship building, we will see a change in how our people are treated in the medical institutions. So, I think that following the calls to action is probably the best thing that we can do, because those were all well thought out.

MG: Tania, it's not just in the decision making spaces where this is important. The TRC also highlighted the need to ensure that Indigenous patients feel safe in the health care system. This is something that we have spoken about extensively and there are stories from people across this country who have not felt safe. You have seen this firsthand in your own family, right?

TANIA DICK: Yeah. It's difficult when we talk about getting to the table to make decisions about creating programs and systems. Without us at the table as Indigenous, with that Indigenous lens, we end up creating systems and we finally get somebody into treatment or detox or somewhere, and the experience for them doesn't have that Indigenous lens. It's culturally unsafe. That kind of racism and discrimination that in plain sight has indicated and proven that saturates our system today, they end up leaving the treatment centre. They end up leaving the experience that they're in or they're not getting what they need to be able to pull themselves out of the dark hole that they're in. And that's all around cultural safety and humility and that racism and discrimination.

MG: What happened with, if you don't mind me asking, with your Aunt Debbie?

TANIA DICK: Yeah, my Aunt Deb, this is my mother's sister. She, they're all survivors of residential school. She's struggled but able to function, high functioning issues with alcohol. And, you know, my mom coming out of residential school and a registered nurse as well was really kind of driven to influence change and advocate for Indigenous health. So, she spent, I spent a lot of time with my Auntie Deb, and she really was the second mother in my life and she helped raise me. And she had fallen in the bathroom, hit her head somewhere on the bathtub or something, and had a pretty significant brain injury, a brain bleed. And when she was presented to emerge that morning and throughout that next morning and afternoon and evening, she progressively got worse. And every single person, the hands that she went through, I think we counted 17 through the inquest of registered nurses, physicians, ambulance, RCMP, MLAs, people on the street, all-- every single one of them, when they testified, assumed that she was just another drunk Indian. She was under the influence. She needed to sleep it off and she never received the care and proper assessment. And she actually died as a result of that head injury. And it was pretty, pretty traumatizing for us. And it's still really raw and it's still, it's a big reason why I do the work that I do today.

MG: I'm sorry. In many ways, as you said, when you think about the work that you're doing, it speaks to that title: Director of Quality and Cultural Safety. Those, I think, are self-explanatory. But what does humility in the context of that mean? What could humility have done for Aunt Deb?

TANIA DICK: I think with humility, when we're looking to those providing services, it's really having the capacity and ability to put aside your own views of the world. And this isn't about you and how you see the world and how you fit in the world and how the world should be for you. This is about somebody else's world. And what does that look like for them and what are their needs? And how can I best insert myself and provide services in a way that's going to affect their day to day world? And I think that's the crux of it when it comes down to the nuts and bolts, who we're actually working with, trying to teach cultural safety and humility throughout our health care system and our health authorities. It's that humility piece is-- really this is not about you. Put that aside and realize that we're public servants and we're providing services to people in their world.

MG: Just before I let you go, I mean, you came into this profession to make a difference. And I wonder in the face of the gut wrenching news that we started with, what keeps you going in the work that you do? Danièle Behn Smith.

DR. DANIÈLE BEHN SMITH: What keeps me going: my grandmothers who are both passed now. I know that they're walking with me alongside my aunties and other ancestors. And my kids. My beautiful, beautiful kids who, you know, I think about Orange Shirt Day, National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. That was not something that I could conceive of when I was in school. And yet, my kids go to school and they're in a sea of orange. We walk around, we live on lək̓ʷəŋən in Victoria, and that is so heartening to me to see this visible demonstration that settlers are walking alongside us. They want to be making things right. And so, that is absolutely what keeps me going, is knowing that we all want to be doing this work together. We don't know exactly how, but we can figure that out. So, those are the things that keep me going.

MG: Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, for you? I mean, the work is hard and the data is discouraging. What keeps you keeps you going and plugging away at this?

TANIA DICK: I think at the end of the day, the joy that my patients and my people bring to me, I just love my community and I love the people here. So, the stories of resilience and strength are what keep me going because I know our people are going to get through this epidemic as they did with smallpox and everything else. I know we can do this, and I just love the strength in my community.

MG: Tania Dick, last word to you.

TANIA DICK: Yeah, just of course, my nephews, grand nephews, the children. Really, the pocketful of champions throughout our system, particularly in nursing and the school of nursing with UBC, with, you know, the B.C. Nurses Union really committed to trying to find their humility and find a way forward to be a part of the solution. I think nurses are such a large health human resource and they take up the bulk of the numbers within the system. So, naturally I see them as part of the problem when we look at in plain sight. So, how do we turn that around? And I get such wind in my sails when people want it will sit down and say, Okay, let's figure this out. And there are so many allies out there, there needs to be a lot more and we need to mobilize and we need to organize and we need to continue talking to each other about this.

MG: But you feel that wind in your cells?

TANIA DICK: I do. Not every single day. It's definitely uphill, but it's making a big difference for me in my day to day to have somebody who genuinely sits down and wants to be a part of the solution, because that's what we need. We can't fix this as Indigenous people. You need to fix it as non-Indigenous and as allies, and we need to stand together and support us in this journey.

MG: Thank you all for the work that you're doing and for talking to us about it. It is important and I'm glad to have the chance to speak with you. Thank you.

GUESTS: Thank you so much.

MG: Dr. Danièle Behn Smith is B.C.'s deputy provincial health officer for Indigenous Health. Tania Dick is the Indigenous nursing lead at the University of British Columbia and director of Quality, Cultural Safety and Humility in Vancouver Island's Health Network. And Dr. Esther Tailfeathers is a family physician on the Blood Tribe Reserve in Alberta. The CBC News is coming up next. And then:

SOUNDCLIP

MURRAY SINCLAIR: In order for Indigenous societies to function properly, they must raise and educate children so that they can answer what elders from all walks and cultures in the world call the great questions of life. Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Who am I?

[Music: Theme]

MG: On this National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the chair of the commission, Murray Sinclair, shares a reading from his new memoir. It's an anecdote about a confrontation in a dark Winnipeg alley that reveals a lot about who Murray Sinclair is. That's coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

[Music: Fades up]

Reflections on reconciliation from Murray Sinclair's memoir

Guests: Murray Sinclair

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. When we talk about Murray Sinclair, we talk about his history making work as the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We talk about his work as a senator from Manitoba, as a leading voice in the conversation we're having in this country about the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. But in his new book, Murray Sinclair is also a storyteller. The book is called Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and a Nation, and it traces the story of his own childhood in Selkirk, Manitoba, raised by his grandparents and his aunts, what it was like to go to school as one of the few Indigenous kids in his class. About how he devoted himself to studying and to sports and how he thought he was going to be a phys-ed teacher before he ended up in law school and then in 1988, made history as Manitoba's first Indigenous judge, just the second in Canada. In his memoir, he tells a story about his time as a judge and an encounter he had one winter's night in Winnipeg. He was leaving work and walking to his car in the lane behind his office. Here's Murray Sinclair reading an excerpt. And a warning, there are a couple of swear words coming up.

SOUNDCLIP

MURRAY SINCLAIR: He was just a kid. Likely more inclined to checking car doors to see if they're unlocked then robbing someone. But here he was suddenly popping out of the dark from behind a telephone pole so small he could easily hide behind it. "Give me your fucking money," he commanded, in as deep a voice as he could muster. "Excuse me?" I asked him. Although I knew perfectly well what was going on. I had never been robbed before, besides the time Molly Sinclair took 10 cents from me on her way to school in grade two, after pushing me down and going through my pockets-- a story for later. "I told you, give me your fucking money." The kid had his right hand in his pocket and pushed it forward for emphasis. I looked at him closely. I had plans to describe him accurately for the police. I couldn't make out his features, though. He wasn't looking at me but around, checking to see if anyone was noticing what was happening. It was a dark and cold Manitoba day, though. It was just the two of us. I stared hard at him for a few seconds and then realized something. You don't recognize me, do you? I took off my hat to give him a better look. He stared at me for a few seconds and then realization dawned on his face. Oh, shit. "You were on my docket a few weeks ago for running away. I gave you a break. What the hell are you doing this for?" When he appeared before me, the police said charged him for resisting arrest and escape. He had been caught running away from his foster home and while in the police cruiser, he'd squirmed past the plastic shield between the front and back seats and taken off again. He was skinny, lanky and smart. Appearing in my courtroom, he pleaded to the charge of running away from his foster placement and the crown stayed in the more serious criminal court charge. I asked him why he had run away. He told me that there were two older and bigger boys in the house who used him as a punching bag. He was constantly scared. He didn't know where to go, but he didn't want to get beaten up again. There was no way I was going back, he said to me. We granted him a discharge and told his social worker to find him a safer place to stay, giving the agency 24 hours to do so. I didn't expect to see him again, but here he was. "The worker picked me up from the police station and put me in a hotel room," he sheepishly told me. "I didn't have any money. I waited for hours for the worker to show up, but he was always late. I was hungry. I was surrounded by other kids who were dumped in hotel rooms, too. I felt alone and scared. I didn't want to be there." He kept looking around, frightened someone was going to stumble on our back lane meeting. I was willing to bet that if he had had a weapon, he would have flashed it by now. I remember from his social workers report that he was a good kid. He didn't use drugs or alcohol. Had no known family members capable of caring for him but had been labelled disobedient. So many foster homes wouldn't take him. He had reported being bullied in school, but no one did anything he had told me. Good also told me that the other kids were mean to foster kids and so he refused to go back to school. He was also 16. Take your hand out of your pocket, I said to him, as if I would speak to my own son. I know you don't have a gun. He looked at me, then slowly pulled his hand out of his pocket. His hand was empty, but strangely, he kept his fingers in a gun shape. "Here's the deal," I said, "If you rob me, I'll call the cops. I know your name, don't forget. Robbing judges isn't looked at very kindly. You will be arrested, and I'll have to go to court and testify, which is something I don't want to do. You will be convicted and sent away until you're 18, at least. And maybe longer." His eyes softened, turning downward toward the pavement. "But there's another way..." He looked up. "I don't want you to rob me," I said, meeting his eyes. "I don't want to rob you, either," he said. "How much do you need?" He shuffled his feet flustered and confused. "What?" "You're still broke and hungry, so you might just go and rob someone else. The next person you encounter may try to hurt you. He may have a gun or a knife. Maybe he'll be a weightlifter or martial artist. Maybe you'll hurt them." He turned away looking towards the street. Suddenly, a couple walked by the opening unaware of what was happening. "Ten bucks," he told me. "Ask me to borrow it," I said to him. "What?" "Ask me to lend you ten bucks," I repeated. "I can't pay you back." "Don't worry about that. Ask me." "Can I borrow ten bucks?" I dug in my pocket and took out what I had. "Here's 40." "How will I pay you back?" "Don't worry about it. Just promise me you'll try to stay out of trouble." "I promise." "That means no more trying to rob people." "I promise." "If it's okay, I want to ask you to do one more thing. Go back to school. Anyone gives you problems, tell them I asked you to try. If no one will help you, contact me. I'll get things sorted out. Here's my card." "Yes, sir." Now, get going." He put the cash in his pocket and looked back at me. "Thank you," he said. Then he walked away down the lane, all the while looking at my card. I never heard from him again. But from time to time, I would check the dockets looking for his name. I never did find it. I have long since forgotten that young man's name. Over the years, I met hundreds of thousands of people, almost all of whose names I've misplaced, but replaced with the circumstances and feelings of meeting and talking. The fact I've forgotten his name is not surprising. But I've never forgotten this incident. I hope that young man made it. He deserved to. And if he did, I am glad I had a small hand in it. I hope he knows that the gift he gave me is a beautiful one. Because that young man could have also been me.

MG: That's Murray Sinclair, former senator, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and judge, reading an excerpt from his new book, Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and a Nation.

What standing in joy means to William Prince

Guests: William Prince

MG: There is another prominent person originally from Selkirk, Manitoba, and the Peguis First Nation, who we need to hear from today. The award winning tremendously talented singer and songwriter William Prince. We had the great pleasure of having him perform for us last winter in a special show from Winnipeg.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: We are here in front of a full house at the West End Cultural Centre in downtown Winnipeg. Tickets for this event sold out in less than an hour. The big reason for that: the guest that we have on stage, including our special guest tonight. Please welcome back to this stage, William Prince.

[Crowd cheering]

WILLIAM PRINCE: I'm going to play a song called 'Peace of Mind.'

[Music: 'Peace of Mind' by William Prince]

[Applause]

MG: Give it up for William Prince. Give it up for yourselves, though. Audience can sing!

WILLIAM PRINCE: Winnipeg-- Winnipeg has singers in it. That's why I called that out.

MG: Oh. It's nice. Solid. You've had a wild year. I said that it was like, you're strapped to a rocket in some ways, the success that you've had. How do you think back on what's happened to you over the last little while?

WILLIAM PRINCE: I think it's things that I was manifesting for a while. So I've been hoping upon them. But you don't really think about the Grand Ole Opry, I guess. And all of a sudden, one day it was a reality. You know, the great Winston Watney once told me that if you stay dedicated to what you love, it'll eventually become all that you do, all that you are. And back when I was writing songs in little apartments, I was writing them and performing as if I were on the Opry, I guess, you know. So the whole time has been one long preparation period, I guess, to get ready for these things so that when they did finally come to fruition, to light, I would be ready for them. So I guess I'm feeling like another day at the office, truthfully.

[Laughter]

WILLIAM PRINCE: But I say that, you know with--I say that with humility. It's a wonderful blessing to be able to do those things.

MG: What is it like when you write a song, and the audience sings back the words?

WILLIAM PRINCE: Well, it's honestly one of the greatest, most fulfilling reciprocations of energy that you can receive. To be an artist and to make art that resonates with people in any way and becomes such a big part of the fabric of their life. You know, that's the greatest joy. Truly, the greatest compliment to me is that people are moved so much that they fill theatres for you. They listen to your music, they send very long paragraphs to my emails asking me to play their daughter in law's birthday parties and come to our wedding, you know. I would go to every wedding if I could, and that's the greatest honour of my life. I'm so humbled by it.

MG: What does that mean? We heard that in that song. That idea of 'Stand in the Joy.'

WILLIAM PRINCE: Well, standing in the joy is the active choice and practice of looking around at the things we have, rather than focusing or sitting in the things that have either not been intended for us, not meant for us, or that past us. And it's not allowing worry and anxiety, those things, to rob us of the joys of the present, because we don't know how long we're going to be here. And I think of the people in my life and the legacy I want to leave behind. It's one of, hopefully not just serious contemplation and getting through struggle. You know, my, the first decade of my recorded career was very focused on grief and transition out of a difficult time. The loss of my father. Becoming a father. So while I've been quite comfortable in speaking of those things, joy and happiness is a huge part of who I am too. And I was raised in a place where happiness could sometimes feel insensitive, where you can't really celebrate your accomplishments, you can't really lift up what's making you joyous because it may rub somebody the wrong way. It may feel or look insensitive to somebody who's having an even harder time. I too, hail from the Peguis First Nation so proudly. And it's...

[Applause]

WILLIAM PRINCE: It's like any place, it has its challenges, but it also has its beautiful victories, and it has its youth that are shining so bright and just like I was, you know, as a kid chasing a dream. So I'd do a disservice to those that love me and care for me and have watched me climb in any way by not not leaning into the good, not standing in the joy, not saying I'm happy today and, you know, letting my big cheeks smile even though it's not the most ideal photo to me sometimes. One day my son is going to look back and he's going to say, you know, my dad was happy. My dad had a good time while he was here with us. So that's the important thing to me is leaving a legacy of standing in the joy and choosing it, even though it can feel a little vulnerable and foreign at times. I'm going to stand in the joy where I've never stood before, proudly proclaiming these things that we're talking about here today.

MG: And there's something we could all learn from that.

[Applause]

MG: What are you going to play for us?

WILLIAM PRINCE: I'd love to play another song, you know, stand in the joy in parentheses or in its place could have been called, 'Love and Time.' This song, this record, these ten songs, celebrate the love in my life and how I want as much time as possible.

[Music: 'Only Thing We Need' by William Prince]

MG: William Prince!

[Crowd cheering]

MG: We're the lucky ones. Thank you, sir.

MG: He was something else. William Prince performing on The Current last February live in Winnipeg from his album Stand in the Joy. Well, before we leave Manitoba on this National Day for Truth and reconciliation, we want to give the last word to Murray Sinclair. Here he is reading another passage from his new memoir, Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and a Nation. It's part of his reflection on the enduring impacts of residential schools and the path to reconciliation.

SOUNDCLIP

MURRAY SINCLAIR: The legacy of those schools is very much alive. It lives on in the daily experiences of the survivors in this country. It lives on in their attitudes about themselves and in the opportunities that are or are not open to them. It lives on in their children who do not know their languages or their cultures, and who are denied the chance to gain a sense of self-respect from schools that constantly portrayed their people as savages, heathens, uncivilized, treacherous, sneaky, dishonest, thieving and irrelevant. It lives on in the lives of Aboriginal parents who spent years living in institutions where they would never have learned to parent properly, or to participate in any kind of normal family life. And it lives on in the lives of the children and grandchildren of those parents. It lives on in the lives of Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples too, who don't know much about where they come from, where they are going, why they are here and who they are. Non-Indigenous people cannot answer Indigenous questions, but they can help facilitate a path in understanding how connected, interdependent and human we all are and can be. In the same vein, non-Indigenous peoples don't know that their identities and cultures are partly created by their connections with Indigenous peoples, or that working with Indigenous communities is the most important journey Canada and frankly, the world, must take. This is why the creation of a strong, healthy and vibrant Indigenous communities is the only path to reconciliation for all peoples.

MG: That's Murray Sinclair. Well, coming up after your regional update, we'll head to the Middle East.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Israel's killing of Hezbollah's leader has triggered rage and joy across that region this weekend. We'll bring you the latest on the ground from Beirut. And then, hunting grizzlies has been banned in Alberta for nearly two decades. Why the province is opening the door to selective grizzly bear hunts. That's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. Stay with us.

[Music: Fades up]

Margaret Evans reports on the latest updates from Lebanon

Guests: Margaret Evans

MG: Hello again, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah-- designated by Canada as a terror group, was killed by Israeli airstrikes on Friday. Nasrallah led Hezbollah for over three decades, and his death is a significant blow to that group, but it's being seen as a huge victory for Israel. Margaret Evans is CBC's senior international correspondent. She is in Beirut. Margaret, Hello.

MARGARET EVANS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Take us back to Friday. What happened?

MARGARET EVANS: Well, the country was already on edge, as you know, from an escalation in Israeli airstrikes earlier in the week. And I'd say probably many Lebanese were actually watching the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, speak to the United Nations, vowing that Israel was going to defeat Hezbollah. And he said, 'enough is enough.' Shortly after that, around 6:30 local time, huge explosion shakes the city. You felt it under the ground. It felt different. We understand it was a series of strikes, as many as 80 bombs, some of them heavy enough to penetrate what the Israeli defence forces came out really quickly afterwards with a statement saying that they had hit a major command and control centre for Hezbollah. They've since said that 20 Hezbollah members died, along with Hassan Nasrallah in that strike. And for people here, it really reinforced the feeling that Israel's reach in terms of intelligence, preparing for an operation like this, real time information from people on the ground was very long. And, of course, you have to remember, it came after those pager incidents where pagers started exploding around the country, you know, and killing a number of Hezbollah members and, of course, innocent bystanders as well.

MG: As I mentioned, Nasrallah led Hezbollah for over three decades. The deputy leader of Hezbollah spoke just hours ago in his first speech since Friday. What did he say?

MARGARET EVANS: Yeah, this was Naim Qassem. And and as you say, the first time we've heard from any really senior Hezbollah leader after this evisceration of the Hezbollah leadership was very much a message of reassurance to Nasrallah's supporters, ordinary Shia muslims who saw Nasrallah as a revered religious leader. He said he should be congratulated as a martyr. He was also very much a message to the rank and file of Hezbollah fighters who have got to be very rattled. He said, "We are in the same boat. The plan hasn't changed." You know, "One leader will replace another despite all the hardship, we haven't collapsed." He talked about the stockpile that people believe Hezbollah has, of more precision guided long range missiles, that they're ready for an Israeli ground war. So, you know, it was usual scripting from these kinds of speeches in that they talked about, you know, Hezbollah as a defender of the Palestinians and of Lebanon against what they call Israeli aggression. But it was delivered with much less confidence, I would say, than you would have seen before, perhaps a signal that Hezbollah needs to take a break. But at the same time, you know, they've been humiliated, and they need to project to their own base and to the Israelis that they remain strong.

MG: Hezbollah has been described as a state within a state in Lebanon. That it is many things at once. What's the reaction from people in Lebanon, as you understand it, and the people that you've been talking to since Friday?

MARGARET EVANS: Yeah. We've spoken to a lot of supporters of Nasrallah from the Shia population who said, you know, it wasn't just a military organization, it was a political and social movement. You know, Hezbollah has its own social system down in the south, its own hospitals. And in the Shia community, many people saw him as sort of establishing the dignity of the Shia within kind of the sectarian world of Lebanon. Of course, the fact that, you know, he created a state within a state and a militia that's more powerful than the national army means he has a lot of opponents, as well. There are people who believe he has hijacked Lebanon's ability to move forward, to move away from the sectarian divisions, the corruption, the continuous fighting, the cycle of violence that within Lebanon raises its head every now and again. So, there are some people who actually see this as potentially an opportunity for Lebanon to turn a page if Hezbollah is weak enough for the national sense of a national state to re-emerge. But it's not clear whether or not that state would be strong enough to take on Hezbollah or what's left of it. I mean, there are people who worry that, regardless that, you know, the status quo was unpleasant, but at least they knew what the status quo was. The removal of Hezbollah from that cheeseboard unsettles some people, and they think that the country could slide back into the divisions that were so entrenched during the civil war here, which lasted for 15 years.

MG: There have been airstrikes in central Beirut. You described Beirut looking and feeling like a tornado has gone through. There are a lot of people who have been displaced and are sheltering on the streets. Describe what life is like in Beirut now.

MARGARET EVANS: Yeah, it's hard to you know, because Beirut is a city that's, you know, kind of closes down, opens up, closes down, opens up. It's different this time because you've had this very quick influx of people. You know, hundreds of thousands were already coming to the capital. But after that strike on Friday, you had huge numbers from south Beirut in the Dahiya coming to the centre of town. You know, you'd see laundry on the, on kind of fences around parks, people sleeping rough. And a sense of people really being dazed because a lot of people from the south had never been to Beirut. There are stories about people up in the Chouf Mountains kind of going up there to seek protection, but just stopping in the street, nowhere to go. There are stories of families going around trying to find a place to rent. But people are uneasy because they don't know who they're renting to. And we saw last night well, in the early hours of this morning, an Israeli drone strike on an apartment in the very centre of Beirut, believed to be targeting members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. And so, the level of suspicion that already kind of exists between some of these sectarian communities has gone way up.

MG: Hezbollah has close ties with Iran. The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says that Israel's killing of Nasrallah will not go on avenged. There have been attacks by Israeli warplanes in Yemen, the targeting of the Iran backed Houthi militia there. If feels well, how would you describe this? I mean, there is real concern that this is spreading in real time.

MARGARET EVANS: That's right. But I think that Iran is really rattled, too. And many analysts would say throughout all of this time, Iran has not ratcheted up its action against Israel to a point where they might have thought it would have triggered the escalation that we're seeing now. The Ayatollah Khamenei was moved, we understand, over the weekend, to a secure location. You have to remember that Israel assassinated the former Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran not long ago. So, you know, there's a lot of talk about this stockpile of weapons, but whether Hezbollah would use it or not is actually an Iranian decision. And there are people who say, it's just not going to happen because Hezbollah and the stockpile are there to actually deter Israel from hitting Iran. And the analysis is that they just don't want that to happen. It's not to invite Israeli strikes. And one other thing that's interesting here on the ground in Lebanon is that some members of Hezbollah, I mean, the militant members of Hezbollah, feel a bit betrayed or let down by Iran because they feel so humiliated and there's a desire for revenge. And there is a sense that they are being urged not to use their heavier weapons if they can. So, you know, it's a wait and see. There are so many uncertainties. But that's the sense that Iran, up to this point, hasn't wanted to put itself in jeopardy and is willing to sacrifice, if you like, the proxy it created for its own protection.

MG: Just before I let you go, I mean, it was just days ago that there was this ceasefire proposal that was floated-- a 21 day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. You now have the escalation that we've been talking about. You have the Israeli defence minister appearing to hint today that a ground operation could be possible, at least according to reports in the Israeli media. So where, if at all, does that pressure for a pause sit?

MARGARET EVANS: The interim Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, had a press conference today. He had one yesterday. He continues to say, the only solution for Lebanon is a diplomatic solution. The French foreign minister is in town. That push is on. But what people don't know is whether this government, which is a caretaker government, can influence Hezbollah right now, maybe given the weakened state. But that's the uncertainty. You know, the message from the Lebanese government now is that consider this an existential threat to Lebanon, that it's potentially on the verge of collapse if there isn't a ceasefire. But there is a real sense that Israel has decided to go on as far as it can.

MG: Margaret, thank you for this. Stay safe and we'll talk again.

MARGARET EVANS: Thanks so much.

MG: Margaret Evans is a CBC senior international correspondent. She is in Beirut.

[Music: Instrumental]

Debate over Alberta’s new wildlife management plan

Guests: Todd Loewen, Sarah Elmeligi

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio. My name's Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

CARMELO SILVESTRO: I saw her stop at the head of the trail, let the cubs actually pass her. And she turned back and came running back down the trail.

MG: Carmelo Silvestro was out hunting elk in southern Alberta, and what he is describing are the seconds before a grizzly bear attacked him.

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CARMELO SILVESTRO: Her head was swaying back and forth. She was looking for me. And at ten yards is when she locked eyes with me. And that was the moment I knew this was-- something was going to happen right now. And yeah, she charged me full speed.

MG: Something bad did happen. Carmelo Silvestro was seriously injured. He was mauled, had several bones broken. He survived when he was able to empty a can of bear spray at the grizzly. That attack is one of a growing number of dangerous encounters with bears in Alberta and an example of why the province has opened the door to hunting grizzlies. As part of its new approach to deal with so-called problem wildlife, it is enlisting Albertans to act as public wildlife management responders. The first thirty have been selected from 7000 applicants. Todd Loewen is Alberta's Minister of Forestry and Parks. Minister Loewen, good morning.

TODD LOEWEN: Yes. Good morning, Matt. Good to chat.

MG: Really glad to have you here. Thank you very much. You have said that this isn't a hunt, that is a problem wildlife response. What exactly are these public wildlife management responders going to be doing?

TODD LOEWEN: Yeah. So, they'll be responding to situations where Fish and Wildlife officers or wildlife experts have determined that a grizzly needs to be euthanized. And so, they will be called in in those situations. And and yes, there's lots of discussions on whether this is a hunt or not. And there's multiple things that indicate that this isn't a hunt. For instance, when you, normally when you apply to be involved in the hunt, you get to choose what, where and when you hunt. And the wildlife responders will not have that opportunity. They'll be told exactly where exactly when and exactly what to hunt. And so, another good indication that this isn't a hunt is that the hunters of Alberta are still asking for a grizzly bear hunt, because they know this isn't a hunt. So, you could see that all over my Facebook page. So, I think it's pretty clear that this isn't a hunt.

MG: To these responders still, I mean, just to be clear and not to get too fine a point on this, but they would be going in and hunting that grizzly bear. Once that bear is designated as problem wildlife, they would go in and hunt the bear.

TODD LOEWEN: Yeah. And they'd do exactly what the Fish and Wildlife officers or the wildlife experts would be doing, which is going down and going and pursuing the problem bear to euthanize.

MG: Why use those individuals rather than, as you said, the Fish and Wildlife management professionals?

TODD LOEWEN: Well, there's a couple of reasons. One is that wildlife, the people of Alberta help manage all other wildlife species when it comes to moose, elk, deer. The other species we use Albertans through a hunting system to be able to help manage wildlife populations in Alberta. So, this is just an extension of that. This has been government policy for decades to be able to do that. And so, this gives Albertans a chance to be involved. And the other thing it does is it frees up officers time to do other things, you know, when it comes to trying to, you know, track down one of these bears, that's created problems, that can take days to do. And we can have our Fish and Wildlife officers doing something else that's more constructive than trying to track down these problem bears which Albertans can help with.

MG: Carmelo Silvestro, what he went through sounds terrifying. You're calling this problem wildlife. How are you, and how is the province designating what problem wildlife is?

TODD LOEWEN: Yeah. So, when we look at problem wildlife, we do have multiple different species of animals that do cause problems in Alberta. We've announced a plan to do the same thing with elk, who cause a lot of damage to crops and everything. And again, when it comes to grizzly bears in particular, there's a matrix that's used by wildlife professionals to determine what should happen to a bear that's found to be creating problems. And that same matrix is used whether it's going to be a Fish and Wildlife officer or wildlife professional that's dealing with it or an Albertan resident, the resident that's chosen off this list.

MG: Is that a bear that attacks somebody? Is it a bear that kills somebody? Is it a bear that is in an area where people would you meet on trails or what have you, where people would would generally be found? How are you determining what the problem is?

TODD LOEWEN: Yeah. So, basically there's already a matrix already in place that Fish and Wildlife officers and wildlife professionals use when dealing with problem grizzly bears. And so, that same decision-making process will be going on with this. And but basically, what we, if we have bears that are continually causing problems, say, with livestock, destroying livestock or continuing to have threatening behaviour towards people or towards livestock or actually be of course mauling people, which we've had I think two people in Alberta mauled just this fall already. So, yeah. So, there-- again, it's the same process that's been used for decades will be continue to be used.

MG: You mentioned the comments on your Facebook page, people calling for a grizzly bear hunt. The hunt has been banned in Alberta since 2006 because these bears are a threatened species. They're still threatened, right?

TODD LOEWEN: Yeah, they're still classed as threatened. And that's, you know, there's a, you know, a list of criteria that can put any animal either on the threatened or endangered species list. And but yeah, so they are still classed as threatened. As it stands right now, it's clear that the population has expanded in Alberta in both area and in numbers, and that's why we're seeing increasingly a number of bears in areas where it's populated and where there's people around.

MG: I guess I asked that in part because there are wildlife experts and conservationists who say that this isn't based on science, that there are more effective ways to handle human animal conflict and that killing a bear would be-- or any animal-- would be a last resort, I suppose. What sort of consultation was done with those wildlife experts before you made this decision to move forward in this way?

TODD LOEWEN: Yeah. So, we're in contact with wildlife experts all the time and we have wildlife experts, of course, right within the government of Alberta. And some of those experts suggested an actual hunt to happen to be able to handle the bears that are expanding into more populated areas. And but, when it came to this, the decision was made to use this program here, which is, again, the only difference at this point in this program is who pulls the trigger, whether it's an officer or whether it's an Albertan, Alberta resident helping out. And so, there's-- and I guess that's another thing, too, to keep in mind is that we didn't just announce this. We put more money in to bear smart programming and educating the public. We have money going into helping livestock producers and making sure that they're taking care of their animals in a way that doesn't attract grizzly bears and other predators. And we're also doing habitat enhancement in areas where, you know, we have the core grizzly bear habitat, and we want to make sure we enhance that habitat so we can keep those grizzlies in the areas where the core grizzly bear areas and even in the support areas. We want to make sure that we, you know, discourage the grizzlies from coming into the populated areas. And an example of that is the Westbury Lakes campground, where there was a lot of grizzly interactions, negative interactions with people there. And so, we changed the campground. We made it smaller, so it wasn't expanded quite over quite so much area. And then we also increased the habitat nearby so that the grizzlies would have a place to go rather than bothering campers.

MG: We're out of time, but that just speaks to that idea of trying to figure out how to live with these animals. Right? Part of the concern here is that they're facing habitat loss and that their territory is expanding in some ways because it's being, they're being forced to expand. Do we have to figure out how to live with these bears?

TODD LOEWEN: Yeah. And definitely there's areas where that's the case and we have lived with them for years. But please keep in mind is the area that they're expanding into, you know, this bear that attacked Carmelo, that bear is literally, you know, less than 20 kilometres from Calgary. It's, you know, ten or 12 kilometres from Cochrane. I mean, so these bears are expanding into areas that they haven't been for probably 100 years. But if we look at where the traditional grizzly bear habitat was and if we want to make sure that if, you know, some people suggest, well, people are where grizzly bears should be living well, you know, 150, 200 years ago, there was grizzlies all across every square inch of Alberta. And right where downtown Calgary is, there was grizzly bears there. And I'm not sure if the public's willing to support that kind of danger on their doorstep.

MG: Todd Loewen, really glad to talk to you. Thank you very much.

TODD LOEWEN: No problem. Thanks, Matt.

MG: Todd Loewen is the minister of Forestry and Parks in Alberta. Sarah Elmeligi is the Alberta NDP shadow minister for the Environmental Protected Areas. And before entering politics, she herself was a wildlife biologist and author of a book about bears called What Bears Teach Us. Sarah, good morning to you.

SARAH ELMELIGI: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of the minister's plan to allow this selective kill of problem grizzlies? Again, he says that in many ways, that people are going to be doing the work that Fish and Wildlife game management people would be doing anyway.

SARAH ELMELIGI: Yeah, it's-- this policy is incredibly flawed in every possible way that you can look at it. It's not based on any kind of scientific data. The science actually suggests that this approach won't work. So, it's not based on science. It won't work to reduce conflict. And it's not actually about co-existence. It's about creating places where we have people and places where we have grizzly bears completely separate from that. So, I think the minister and the rest of bear experts out there have very different definitions of co-existence, but this is not it.

MG: When you say that this won't work, I mean, we heard the story of the hunter from Calgary who had a close call with the grizzly earlier this month. He's not the only one. [SARAH: Sure.] If the bears are in areas where people are or, you know, ranchers are or what have you, and you take the bear out, isn't that, by definition going to work? Isn't that going to reduce the risk?

SARAH ELMELIGI: Well, I'll just start by saying, you know, any time somebody is attacked by a grizzly bear, it's a very tragic situation and really awful. And we do have human bear conflict does exist in Alberta. Right? So, any time we're sharing the landscape with large carnivores, I think there's the potential and the risk for conflict there. The research really shows, though, that if you don't address the sources of the conflict, you don't reduce the conflict. So, we've got research from black bear populations in the east showing that when you introduce the hunt, you don't reduce conflict. You just have bears moving into the place where the conflict occurs. So, other different bears, right? So, you know, in this particular case, with the gentleman in the northwest of Calgary, that's a really unfortunate situation, obviously. And my heart goes out to him and his family as he recovers from his injuries. But killing that particular bear, if there's a reason why that bear was there, another bear will just come to that same place. So, what the research really shows is that actually working with people reduces conflict. So, that can mean, you know, educating people and, you know, for people to have their bear spray and dogs on leash and, you know, not going into areas that are high risk during certain times of year, like, you know, big berry patches or whatever. But it can also be working with individual landowners. The minister talked a lot about livestock. It's working with individual ranchers and agriculturalists to secure what we call attractants, which are basically sources of food that might attract a bear to an area. So, the research really shows that when we work with individuals to secure attractants and to make sure that if bears come into an area, there's nothing there for them and then they just keep going, that's how we actually reduce conflict.

MG: Can you do that if you're a rancher? And I mean, [SARAH: Yeah.] one of the concerns is that ranchers are suffering losses to these predators.

SARAH ELMELIGI: For sure. And we have livestock compensation programs in place, and we have for decades to really help ranchers with, not just grizzly bears, but wolves and other damage-- hail, for farmers. Like, there's all kinds of compensation programs for agriculturalists in place. So, you know, part of it is making sure that those compensation programs work effectively. There are existing programs in Montana. They have something called the Blackfoot Challenge. Right here in Alberta, the Waterton Biosphere runs the Carnivores and Communities program, which is really designed to work with ranchers to reduce human bear conflict. And they've had tremendous success reducing conflict in that part of the province. So, there are non-profit organizations that put really comprehensive programs in place that have success, so we don't have to reinvent the wheel here. It's actually already rolling. It could just really do with some government support, would make it a lot more broad in terms of the landscape it could cover.

MG: I have to let you go, but I mean, I think anybody who's seen a grizzly bear-- certainly not as close as Carmelo-- but anyone who has seen one knows that they are majestic beasts. But can we-- is it actually possible to co-exist, in the world that we live in now, is it actually possible to coexist with them?

SARAH ELMELIGI: Yeah. Of course it is. We do it. We do it all the time. Like, Canmore, Banff, we coexist with grizzly bears in my hometown every moment of every day. It really is about considering how bears use the landscape and how people use the landscape and doing land use management and supporting people and communities to find ways to coexist with bears. It's totally possible. There's lots of science to back it up. And the grizzly bear recovery plan for the province details a whole suite of recommendations that are not currently being applied. So, this approach won't work. And it's not part of grizzly bear recovery in Alberta either.

MG: Sarah, good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

SARAH ELMELIGI: Thanks so much for having me.

MG: Sarah Elmeligi is the Alberta NDP shadow minister for Environment and Protected Areas, and somebody who worked before in the world of wildlife biology and the author of a book called What Bears Teach Us. That is The Current for this Monday, the 30th of September. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. CBC is honouring the fourth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with a line-up of Indigenous led original programming across our broadcast and digital platforms. You can check your schedules and stay tuned to CBC Radio, CBC Gem, CBC News Network and CBC Online for more information on that. We're going to leave you this morning with music from the great Jeremy Dutcher. He is from the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, just won the Polaris Music Prize for his second album, Motewolonuwok. From that, this is Jeremy Dutcher and Rising Beauty. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. See you tomorrow.

[Music: 'Rising Beauty' by Jeremy Dutcher]

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