Season 1, Round 3: Highlights

What are the goals?

After exploring the “Why” of The Gravity Well conversation in Round 1, and questioning “Who-is-who-in-the-Zoo” in Round 2, explore our collective goals in the Round 3.

This summary captures the discussions on various critical issues, including the importance of historical context, the impact of urbanization on climate, indigenous rights, agricultural policies, and the urgency of addressing climate change. Speakers emphasize the need for context in understanding historical and current events, the effects of urban heat islands on weather patterns, and the historical and ongoing dispossession of indigenous peoples. They advocate for local support, regenerative agriculture, and the importance of grassroots movements in combating climate change. The dialogue also touches on global issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the role of the UN, and the need for systemic change to address oppression and inequality. The overarching theme is a call to action for individuals and communities to engage in meaningful change to address these pressing issues.

Highlights from our conversations under the umbrella of “Where Are We Going?”, firstly among ourselves (15), with Regan Boychuk (16), Harley Bastien (17), Shannon Stunden Bower and J. Bruce Smedley (18), Janet Pennington, Kristy Jackson, and Lori Curtiss (19), and Beau Shaw, Walaa Katoue, and Wesam Khalid (20).

Regan Boychuk – Independent Researcher | Polluter Pay Federation Board Member | Roofer

When I started to look back at the history books, even the history books in Canada had the strange thing when I went to go look for important events, it wouldn’t include the date or I’d have to check four different sources and find in a footnote on page 800 that there would be the date and how difficult it would be. The biggest research insight I’ve had in the last year is taking all these facts I gather from all these different and simply putting them in chronological order and it makes it perfect, it doesn’t take anything more than common sense that any roofer has that you can see quite clearly what’s happening. My biggest insight is that there’s no truth without context. That any fact or any date or anything, you put it over here and it means nothing. You put it in its context, it could mean everything. And that’s the main trick of the media of Concision of now. Now it’s over. I got to go. I got to go. Next one, next one.

Jenny Yeremiy – Co-Host | Geophysicist | Liability Expert | Public Activist

It normalizes. Yeah, it makes everything equally important and doesn’t, like you said, help us understand that context. Alex and I were having a conversation yesterday about something Jordan Peterson spoke about, how when people talk about temperature sensors on the earth, “Well, they’re used to not be concrete there and therefore we can ignore it because now there’s concrete.” Well, but no, the context of that is the concrete is part of the warming. That’s a whole part of our addition to [the landscape harm]. That’s an example of what you’re describing, a lack of context in what he’s saying so that people can grounded in saying, “Yeah, that’s true, and also part of the cumulative impact problem that we have and the temperature rising based on those activities.”

Alexander MacGillivray – Co-Host | Fine Arts Major | Jack-of-All-Trades

We need those sensors in urban areas, especially, because we need to know how much this heat bubble created by all this asphalt and all this concrete affects the stratosphere and how storms behave and where they move. If you create a microclimate like this heat bubble over the top of a city, you’ll see, and I’ve seen it because I’ve lived in Calgary my whole life. We used to get wicked storms in the northwest and now they all just split around the city and go to the rural areas around the city, so the storms split because of this unnatural environment the cities have created.

Harley Bastien – Blackfoot Elder | Land Restorer and Protector | Spiritual Guide

As soon as these boots hit the floor, I’m giving back to Mother Earth, all of my relatives and seven generations. That’s how much I give back. I don’t give an hour here, an hour there because, to me, they’re going to take the money, their glory. They want to be looked at as the expert, knock yourself out. The only thing that matters is that I’m protecting all my relatives and I’m looking at seven generations, not of human beings, folks, get that out of your heads. I am not talking about your kids, your grandkids, and your great-grandkids. I’m talking about all of creation. Until you can get that in your head and your heart and in your spirit, there’s no hope.

Shannon Stunden Bower – Associate Professor | NiCHE Canada Executive & Board Editor

The period of agricultural colonization that I was talking about a little bit is tightly coupled with processes of indigenous people’s dispossession, the creation of reserves, the signing of a number of treaties across the prairie West, the imposition of several genocidal policies on Indigenous peoples in the Prairie West. We’re part of a process of what scholar James Dash Chuck has called clearing the planes, meaning moving indigenous peoples and indigenous communities out of the way as it was perceived by those involved in executing this policy of the agricultural society that was going to develop to benefit largely Western Europeans or Americans or people who had been in Canada for generations already by this point, eastern Europeans later on. We need to recognize that these processes went together in the context of the developing agricultural society in the Prairie West from the late 19th through the early 20th century.

We see a history of disregard for Indigenous peoples and Indigenous interests that persists into the 20th century, and up into the present day, Indian Affairs is a bureaucracy that’s been in place since the 19th century. It remains in place and in many ways it reflects some of the fundamental problems in the relationship between Indigenous peoples, certainly in the Prairie West, across what’s now Canada more broadly, and the Canadian state. The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration was created in 1935 in the context of this 1930s emergency that I was describing a few minutes ago, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration was created by the federal government as part of what was called the Canadian New Deal. Listeners might be more familiar with the American New Deal. A suite of policies was put in place south of us to deal with a crisis in the United States.

At that time, there was a whole suite of policies parallel in some ways different than others in Canada that were called the Canadian New Deal as sort of a reference to that set policies in the South, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, the PFRA was one of these policies that was brought in at that moment. The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration remained in operation as a bureaucratic entity within the federal government, sometimes in the Department of Agriculture, sometimes in other federal government departments. It remained in operation through to 2009, so over these 70-plus years of operation, this is an organization that did a whole bunch of different things in the Prairie West and also more broadly, and it was eliminated in 2009 by Stephen Harper’s conservative federal government as a part of what some people have called Stephen Harper’s, “War on Science.”

Kristy Jackson – Environmental Advocate | Food Inspector & Advisor

What I am very focused on is what the UN says, that there’s just not a lot of time left to change course a bit, and that’s why I’m so focused on an actual movement. The number of people who will be impacted by irreversible. Climate change is huge, and so we need to also keep our eye on the prize, which is getting our leaders to publicly address that this is happening. There’s some denial that tipping points could happen and the time is now. I just think we should be bold and brave and willing to look foolish even and just somehow get a movement to happen because we don’t have a lot of time. There’s a new movie coming out, Outgrow the System, and I’m excited to potentially do a screening of that because even that three-minute video is just so hopeful. It’s very optimistic and I feel like we could get people excited and wanting to come out to our rallies if it’s a fun time.

Lori Curtiss – Financial Psychologist | Peace Region Raised

We have to normalize supporting “local”, whether it’s “Alex made me a walking stick” and “this thing is great and I want more of them”, or friends of ours are having a barbecue this weekend and everybody has to bring something for the food bank and we’re filling a truck full of food for the food bank. Yes, things need to change, but it’s hard. In the peace region, the small family farm doesn’t exist. They’re gone. All the farms up there are these massive, massive corporations. How do we bring back the small family farm? My parents near the end of their farming life were organic farmers, not because of how they believed in it or the good of it, it was there was more profit in being an organic farmer. Is that how we bring back the small family farms? We need to support “local”. You need to spread it on your Facebook, your Instagram, or however you get information out there because that’s the only way people are going to change.

Janet Pennington – Environmental Scientist | Agriculture Expert | Activist

I am very concerned about poverty and equity and those pillars of democracy that I see potentially going to be bulldozed for privatization. So through these things, I want to get back involved I and regenerate my understanding of agriculture through the lens of regenerative agriculture. And so whether that’s talking to my family about practices that we could consider for the farm, those dialogues are really hard. And my dad just talking through his belief system and the barriers that I see between the political camps and the tribalism that’s occurring here in Canada and the skills that I’m learning in deep canvassing with Alberta talks are so valuable with anybody that I speak with, whether it’s my kids or my dad or my cousins that are actively farming, understanding and collaborating personally as well as is in my community and hopefully co-creating change.

Walaa Katoue – Watermelon Foundation Founder | Mother to Palestinians | News Analyst

I feel like in all of this chaos and destruction and grief, there is this sense of people coming together for what’s right, for what’s humane and decent and good, and in an environment like that, there’s no room for any sort of hatred or discrimination against anyone because the second we start to do that, we play that game. We’re reinforcing the systems that are oppressing us. The same system that looks at me as a Muslim woman or an Arab is the same system that looks at people for being Jewish and stereotypes and is bigoted. This is not antisemitic to speak about rights and justice and it’s unjust to suggest otherwise.

Beau Shaw – Independent Jewish Voices | Queer Citizens United | Audiovisual Analyst

What reconciliation looks like in regards to Palestine and all world conflicts. It’s removing permanent member status at the UN Security Council, removing the veto power from the US and China and Russia, removing it. There should be no veto, okay? If it’s democracy, it’s democracy if we remove the fact that the imperial powers in this global system, our “rules-based system”, okay, remove that veto power, remove that and make it a multipolar system.

Walaa: Unless there is self-determination and the ability for them to determine their future. It’s always been that they are on the side suffering while world leaders discuss their situation about “Are we going to recognize a state? Are we going to consider these settlements illegal? Are we going to…” They need to be at the forefront leading the conversation on what their future looks like.

Wesam Khalid — Palestinian Activist | Extradition & Criminal Defense Solicitor

Their young generation has tasted struggle now and seeing the reality they’re seeing, they’re watching on TikTok and on social media images of children and civilians being picked out of the rubble while their governments justify it. So these people are not going to accept the old way anymore, nor should they, nor should they, and it’s going to mean that all of us are going to have to start looking at the world and living differently. We talked a bit about refugees and a bit about the exploitation of the rest of the world. This is not academic abstract stuff. I mean the world we’re living in is built. It is the world that came out of colonialism. It is the world that came out of the exploitation of the rest of the world and continues to be maintained through that exploitation. A lot of people go into this refugee debate as if all of these issues are going to be explained by, oh, we need to get the refugees out of here.

That’ll solve the housing crisis, that’ll solve the economy. That kind of stuff is going to have to change. This is a part of this entire situation, and the structures of oppression exist for indigenous people in this country. They exist for people of colour in this country. They exist for working class people in this country and all around the rest of the world too, and all around the rest of the world. It exists like that and these structures are coming toppling down and people are starting to see it, and that shouldn’t be of concern to people frankly. The world that we’ve known is coming to an end, and if you’re one of the hundreds of millions of people who have lived for years in poverty or in homelessness or hunger or one of the millions of Palestinians who have been living under occupation for 75 years, good riddance enough with this world, let’s have something else.

Beau: If you want to have a discussion about Zionism with me, a Jewish person who would love to have that conversation, okay, please, please reach out to IJV Calgary and even give you a safe place to talk about your feelings. It’s IJV Calgary on Instagram. If you want to start having that conversation, if you’re curious about what it means to talk about even the idea of Zionism and maybe start to think about what the implications are for the world around you, please reach out to me.

Walaa: It’s a critical time for us all to ask ourselves. This is our corner of the world. What can we do to make it better? We are past this being a critical point in time, global warming is upon us, climate change, the environment, the toxins, everything. It is all coming and rushing to a head. We need to ask ourselves, how can we take action and not for a second belittle what we can do as an individual? This is what I love to see, if there’s a point of optimism here, it’s exactly that, is that every person who stands up and says, “I’m going to boycott this”, or “I’m going to join this encampment” or “go to this protest”, that is how you build movements. It’s by people, individuals, coming together and risking things. The consequences are real, but I think being silent, those consequences much worse.