Spencer Watson and Len Morcetz explore reconciliation on Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Day, dissecting residential schools’ legacy—60,000+ Indigenous children dead, systemic trauma persisting—and the resistance from non-Indigenous Canadians who demand physical proof before accountability. Morcetz’s personal healing mirrors broader truths: Indigenous men make up 47% of federal prisoners despite being just 4% of the population, while 20% of Canada’s female homicide victims in 2018 were Indigenous, often under 35. Their Water Worlds series merges Indigenous and Western science to combat crises like poisoned reserves and dying kelp forests, proving progress exists but is stifled by stereotypes. Imperfect efforts—like Morcetz’s apology for a drunken youthful mistake—are essential to dismantling colonial harm and fostering unity under "one sky." [Automatically generated summary]
No, the cool thing, Spencer, is that this is part of reconciliation.
The conversation you and I just had is literally reconciliation about being free to express and also help the others, each other learn.
Right?
So what we're doing right now is actually reconciliation to its pure spa.
All right.
We'll see if I can do this as well as I did it the first time.
And we're back with Truth Unrestricted, the podcast that is broadcast from Splatschin de Sequepem.
So I have a very special episode today with a very special guest.
First, I should say I'm your host, Spencer Watson, and my guest today is someone I went to school with, who's lived his own life and done his own thing since then.
But it's been an interesting ride for both of us.
So go ahead, Lynn.
All right.
I'm Len Morcetz.
I am an Indigenous filmmaker.
And also I was the president of the Alberta Native Friendship Centers and had an interesting life.
I've filmed across Canada, many different nations, been at the forefront of a lot of initiatives, you know, to make positive impacts on communities around Alberta and Canada.
And it's been an interesting ride.
So thanks for having me on the show today.
Absolutely.
No, thank you for coming on.
So this episode is going to air on Truth and Reconciliation Day.
It's a relatively new official statutory holiday in Canada.
I can't remember exactly how many years, but I believe it's less than 10.
Do you know how many years it's been an official holiday?
Actually, it only lasts like four or something.
It hasn't been.
Yeah, it hasn't.
Yeah, right.
I think last few years, it hasn't been that long.
The last four years have felt like 10.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
Truth and Reconciliation Day is it's needed.
It's a part of a thing that Canada needs to recognize and deal with about our nation and our the relationship of all of our of our citizens with each other.
There was, for anyone who listens to this podcast who isn't from Canada, there was once upon a time a residential school program.
It's one of several sets of things that were done to the Indigenous population of Canada by the European settlers and new Canadians in that time.
It started right after Canada became its own country.
The British obviously played their part beforehand, but Canadians don't get to wash their hands of this and say that was what the British did.
And then we're new, you know, like a new manager kind of thing.
That's not how this actually went.
It's our problem.
So I prepared a thing to say here, and we're going to get into that right now.
So I read a quote in a book once that went like this.
We all inherit the violence of our ancestors.
The quote actually had no context in the book.
It was given as an epigraph at the beginning of a chapter.
But the idea struck me when I first read it several decades ago, and it hasn't left me since.
If we use this as a principle to guide our thoughts on things like racism, we could bring our society to a greater understanding in equality.
Canada has had a difficult history with equality, and it's something that we've had difficulty facing.
A long time ago, Europeans had the idea that if they had the strength to take something, then they deserved to have that thing.
This was a time of empires, which expressed dominance over groups of kingdoms in a continued attempt to live up to a storied Roman legacy.
Military power was the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, and the people of that time held deeply racist beliefs, which were commonly held and pervasive across entire cultures.
Colonization is a word that has had several meanings over the years it has been used.
It once was a word that was used to create a legal definition of an external place to which an empire might wish to move its people.
Now it's seen as an expression of genocidal force by opportunistic and domineering cultures over less advanced peoples.
Canada has its own history with this, and we need to take an unflinching look at how we have hammered our country into its current shape.
The laws and political maneuvers that created Canada very often worked to push aside the Indigenous people who previously occupied this land.
Further, many efforts were made to shape the Indigenous Canadians into a more palatable, Eurocentric shape.
These efforts actively sought as their primary goal and motivation to erase First Nations cultures in an arrogant belief that the European ways were better.
Canada's residential school program was seen as a way to strip entire Indigenous communities of their cultures, beliefs, and languages.
It resulted in a large number of children dying, and a larger number than that suffering abuse and the lasting torment of PTSD.
The truth about Canada is that we're divided.
We have reservations which are filled with wounded people, trying to heal from years of disregard, disrespect, and a general lack of opportunity.
We have a history of taking from Indigenous people and then begrudging anything that is ever given back.
Any business that is created by Indigenous people suffers the assumption of favoritism while the white people crow that they had no such favoritism, forgetting that the entire continent was cleared of Indigenous people by disease, war, and treaties whose terms were written in foreign languages, were likely not fully understood, and were often not respected by the Europeans.
Truth and Reconciliation Day is seen by some white Canadians as a day begrudgingly given.
It's referred to with long sighs and expressions of, well, I guess they need a day for that too.
When gravesites were being x-rayed outside various sites of former residential schools, and each new week brought a new site with a new body count, the expressions from white Canadians were of disbelief.
No one I knew voiced justification for the existence of such a thing as a child graveyard outside a school built to erase Indigenous culture.
But some did voice a willingness to not be convinced until the bodies had been removed from the ground.
Some people look at this situation as one in which they personally played no part and therefore need to express no guilt or shame for what was done.
But I argue that this isn't about guilt or shame.
It's about responsibility.
The white people in Canada need to understand that the actions taken to move First Nations peoples onto reservations was done to clear land for white people to live.
The residential school system was created to make Indigenous people more like white people.
I would say that it was done expressly for the benefit of the white people.
But the really fucked up part is that the people who put the residential school program together to erase First Nation culture probably thought they were doing it for the betterment of the First Nations.
I grew up in a world in which this was already happening and in which I had no participation.
But I inherit the violence of those who came before me.
And especially when that violence was done with the hope that my life would be improved by the effort.
Truth and reconciliation is a day when we must face this violence without softening its impact, without worry for the reputations of important historical figures.
So thanks for that.
I get a little emotional a little bit sometimes thinking about it, you know, and I didn't want that to be a part of that, you know, like, but it must be emotional for you too to, I mean, you've probably heard a lot already, but yeah.
No, I actually, to be honest with you, what I what I like is moments like this.
Like I know that you're on a new journey and you're learning a lot of different things, right?
And so when you learn these things, you have different emotions come up.
You don't know if you're saying the right words.
You don't know if it's politically correct.
And a lot of people get scared over it.
But what it, what reconciliation is, is being able to offer spaces where people can share their points of view.
And then we work together.
We work together on understanding each other.
There is a teaching that comes to my mind about why do Indigenous people sit in a circle?
And what it is, is that, so if you have the most beautiful carving in the center of this circle, and Spencer, you're on one side, I'm on this side.
And I say, Spencer, tell me what you see.
You will look at that carving and you will describe in great detail what you see of that carving.
And on the other side of this circle, I will look at that carving and I will describe my point of view in great detail from what I see.
But together, we see the whole carving.
And that literally goes for any situation or whatnot.
You know, this could be for religion.
This could be for reconciliation.
This could be for Canadian history.
But it's understanding each other's side of the circle and having a safe place to do it.
And so that teaching brings to me another thing that I thought about when you were talking about, you read that quote.
And what was the quote again?
We all inherit the violence of our ancestors.
The violence of our ancestors, right?
This is where I've said this at many meetings and different things is honor is a double-edged sword.
On the Indigenous side, we have to honor our ancestors because they survived the most horrific conditions to keep our people, teachings, and spirituality alive.
You know, that's what they did.
So we have to honor them by picking up ourselves, you know, straighten ourselves up, get into the new world of like, you know, this is the new hunting grounds is, you know, being doctors, lawyers, you know, just being straight up family, you know, have like, you know, having a good family, bringing our kids, you know, opportunities.
On the non-Indigenous side, the honor is, is that your families came here with a dream of having a better life because they wanted to fear, flee Europe, wherever they were in all corners of the world to come to this beautiful country to start a new life and have their families flourish.
But in the pursuit of that, at the time, you know, an ideology was thought that this way of colonialism, which is a passed down trait through the many societies across Europe, because people have been colonizing themselves for a long time, right?
But now in this day and age is recognizing that and honoring them by also correcting the mistakes of their past so we can meet in the middle for both of our families for our futures, because that's the goal.
That's well put.
And I worry that when I look at Canada and I look at culture and I look at part of the problem that we have is that we have reservations.
And I'm not saying that in that we never should have had a place for Indigenous people, but it becomes a system whereby people not involved with or knowledgeable about First Nations cultures get to just sort of sweep it under the rug and ignore what happens outside of where they live.
And they just say, oh, that's a problem for over there.
That's a, you know, those people have that problem.
We have these problems.
Those are different set of problems.
And I don't like that.
Like, because it's like white Canadians treat First Nations people as though they're from a different country.
And we're all Canadians.
I mean, when we hear about an ice storm in Quebec that freezing rain, you know, takes down a power grid and an entire town is devastated.
You know, Canadians will get together and they'll help out.
But then when we hear about poisoned water on a reservation, we don't do anything at all.
There's no drive to, at least from what I've seen, there's no drive to help them out.
And I think to myself, if the water were poisoned in a town that were filled with white people, you know, we would put a lot more effort in.
And that is shameful and stupid and short-sighted.
And, you know, because we're all Canadians, whether we like it or not, right?
We're all, we, we're all in this together.
You know, we're all on this planet together.
We're all in this country together.
You know, so how do we get to a place?
You know, obviously this is sort of rhetorical, but in a way that rhetorical questions eventually become questions that are answerable.
A question we need to start with is, how do we get ourselves to a place where the problems that happen to Indigenous people are also problems that affect white people and for that matter, all other Canadians who aren't white, you know, new Canadians from Asia or South America or whatever.
I mean, there are Canadians now too, right?
So, how do we get to a place where this is recognized, that we take on all the problems that are happening?
Because I hate that, you know, whenever these things happen, I can't even give money because I don't even know there isn't a GoFundMe.
You know, there isn't a drive to provide anything for people who are devastated in a native community when it comes up.
Sorry, not a Native community, Indigenous community.
How do we get there?
Is it just community outreach programs?
Is it more native friendship centers, or is it more conversations like this where we try to not just talk to people who are Indigenous, but like talk about the things that are happening?
Like, what's your thought on this?
Well, it's just about awareness.
And honestly, the answer is everything you said.
It's about having discussions, bringing awareness, you know, what's going on.
There is a lot of good things.
Now, what I learned when I was provincial president is that, you know, there's communities that are firing in all cylinders, and reconciliation is just, you know, part of life, because that's what reconciliation is: is that, you know, in the end, the goal is just to have it, these are the people in our community, and they're a diverse group.
And, you know, that's just the way it is.
That's reconciliation to where it becomes the norm, right?
Everybody shines in their beautiful way, and it's just sort of, you know, everybody's part of that spectrum, that circle, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's just, you know, but there's, there's old systems and old ways, and it's, it's really gonna, it just takes time.
We have to have these conversations.
We have to be able to, you know, provide safe places for people like myself to learn.
Like, I just want to say, like, I am not speaking on behalf of Indigenous people of Canada or anything.
I'm just speaking for my own beneficial.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm urban and Indigenous.
My mom, you know, she was a settler like with German roots.
My dad was Cree from Mr. Wasis.
So I've always walked in between the two worlds.
But I do know that when I, you know, from when I was younger, I didn't understand the things that affected my family.
And then I moved to this city with my mom.
And so through time, I just sort of got, you know, little side jokes, you know, little racial things here and there.
I was sort of pinned at, but I didn't understand the backing of how to combat that.
So for a bit there, you know, I guess I could say, like, I wasn't ashamed, but I kept it silent because I was like, oh, here we go.
Everybody's going to have comments about something.
But it slowly beats you down.
But it wasn't until when I was older and I had my own children that I started rediscovering my history.
And when I started understanding the impacts of like residential schools and then how it affected my family and how that spilled over to me to, you know, the crazy life that I was given as a youth and then the things that I had to deal with until basically everybody passed away and I was living on the street for a time being.
So, you know, after I discovered that, I was like, oh my gosh.
Like, I had no idea that I had these things pushing down on me before I even understood them.
And that was the cycle that I was born into, right?
And so, but through time and conversation and, you know, finding urban organization, urban indigenous organizations, like friendship centers and stuff like that, where, you know, I was able to learn my culture, then I thrived and then I was able to speak about this point of view.
And so, yeah, one of one of the things is like open conversation, bring that awareness out.
You know, it may suck to hear, but you know, the truth never, the truth takes uh, what is it?
The lies take the elevator, but truth takes the stairs.
So, you know, it comes out through time, but on the same token, with this day and age with our kids, you know, um, they will, they're, they're already being more aware than we were, and so time will change.
So, it really comes down to like what side of the fence do you want to be on when we reflect back to this time?
Yeah, and I think that like right now, and it's a it's a separate sort of topic that I do want to hit on another episode of this podcast.
But there is this idea that some things are uh woke, and that to some people being woke is bad, being politically correct is bad or undesirable in some way.
But I think what we have to get to is in labeling things that are attempting to be politically correct or woke as uh bad or undesirable, we are putting a barrier up to attempts to do to have conversations like this, right?
Uh, because if if someone thinks themselves, well, if I start this conversation and I slip like like I did a couple minutes ago, I slipped and I mean, I use native instead of First Nations or Indigenous, which is kind of the more preferred thing now, um, instead of referring to First Nations people as native, you know, that I'll get slapped and I'll get canceled, that I'll get uh, the mob will come after me somehow,
like there's an invisible mob that's ready to pounce on anyone.
Uh, but really, the key is you have to go to these situations knowing that you're gonna not do them perfectly, you're not gonna do them necessarily correctly all the time.
Be okay with whatever mistakes you make, but go into them earnestly, knowing that whatever mistakes you make, you'll accept them and seek to do them better the next time, right?
Because that's that's how we learn, right?
You try and maybe it doesn't work out quite right, and then you do better.
I mean, none of us stepped up to the plate and just hit home runs, that's just silly.
So, really, I mean, I sometimes it seems like I stumble through these conversations, but I'm learning too, right?
I'm not perfect, I'm not even all that good, really, at a lot of things.
And so, I just try and that's it.
And I, I try honestly to do them, and I don't always do them perfectly or even all that well.
But the fact that I try, the fact that I, you know, so today, reaching out to try to, to, and maybe other people then reach out, maybe other people try, maybe other people try to understand and learn.
Um, yeah, yeah, I agree with that.
I agree with that, Spencer.
Like, as I said, like when we first talked, I was like, oh, I can see that you're, you're just starting your journey of like learning your own, like, you know, the um elders call this like everybody's healing journey, right?
Because, um, I guess from a societal point of view, you're only as strong as your weakest link, right?
And so we're, we're learning these things and you have to provide those safe spaces.
So, yeah, there may be things that you'll say that aren't correct or maybe not perfectly politically correct, but I think providing a safe space for you to do that is a good thing.
Um, one of the things reminded me, so I read the one of the people I really admire the most was Malcolm X.
And when you actually read his autobiography, what I picked up at the very beginning when he was, you know, starting his journey, learning about, you know, what's happening, what's happening to his people, and so forth, he didn't want any help from anybody else who wasn't African-American.
He was like, I do not want your help.
This is an us thing, and we're trying to figure out the problem.
But then as he evolved, he actually, you know, he actually learned that everybody is under this sky and it is a group.
It's actually more of a human problem.
Yeah.
You know, what we're facing.
A human problem.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so he actually started accepting help from non-African Americans for his movement.
And everybody knows what happened to him at the end.
But I really picked up on that.
And then, so as I started getting involved in friendship centers, so if anybody doesn't know what a friendship center is, so friendship centers are organizations that are found in rural and urban settings that give a place for Indigenous people, people like myself, a spot where they can learn and maintain their culture, but also providing a safe place for non-Indigenous to learn.
And they operate a lot of programs, cradle to grave programs from like pre prenatal to soup kitchens.
And it's not just open to Indigenous people.
It's everybody in these communities.
So in Alberta, there's 22 across Canada, there's over 120.
And, you know, Alberta, I think they service over 100,000 people a year for like meals and pro whatever.
And then across Canada is like in the millions.
And so, you know, that's just one reflect of organizations that, you know, the money they seek is for those programs.
So, you know, supporting friendship centers is an important thing.
But yeah, anyways, where was I going with that?
Well, that's, it's good to say exactly what these things are.
I mean, I think everyone, most everyone has heard of friendship centers, but most of the people who aren't First Nations have never gone to one because we understand that it's part of that divide.
We tend to look at things like that as not for us.
And so we don't learn about them because of that.
Yeah.
Oh, I found where I remember where I was going with that.
I brought up the friendship center thing because when I was president of the Alberta Friendship Centers, so sometimes you'll get this idea of that reconciliation, somebody helping you.
So like, let's say yourself were having discussion, right?
Some people have it and be like, well, as you said, they have to be perfect.
You know, they got to say the right things and they can't make mistakes or whatnot.
But what I discovered in my journey, which reminded me of the Malcolm X thing, was that not every flower is a beautiful flower, but it's still a flower.
Right.
So maybe that person isn't perfectly politically correct.
Maybe that person isn't the image you had in your mind of who should be representing to do the reconciliation.
But what I found is that there's some people out there who are gruff, rough, and tumbly, and they're trying to do the best job they can with reconciliation.
And sometimes it can rub you wrong or something like that.
But in the end, they're trying.
They're trying as a human being.
Yeah, that's an important part.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got to see past that.
Not everybody's perfect.
And so that's where actually after reading Malcolm X and then experience that, I understood.
I was like, ah, yes, you're right.
It may not be the perfect scenario, but we're just at the beginning of our healing journey.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there's in some ways I blame a lot of things on Hollywood, but not in a comical way.
Sometimes we think that what we need is one perfect moment, one thing that turns everything, one thing that changes all the thought, you know, the one hero that comes in and gives the perfect speech or whatever.
But that's that's not how real change happens, right?
It's not one moment where one person says the right line or speech or whatever.
It's a it's a group of people.
It's a it's a collective effort.
It's people who inspire their neighbors to also do part of the thing.
It's it's uh people who inspire their coworkers to help out or whatever.
And so, yeah, it's it's imperfect.
It's a large number of imperfect moments that really change a culture or bring a new idea about, right?
If if a if a brand new idea came in and one guy had a shiny speech and then everyone else rejected it, it still wouldn't, it still wouldn't take hold in a population, right?
So yeah, like I think we need to give ourselves a little bit of a break.
I think we need to understand that when we do things like this, we're not going to be perfect and we'll ask for forgiveness when we screw up, right?
Yeah.
One of the teachings, one of the teachings is love and love is unconditional.
And so it's sort of like, I accept you for who you are.
And, you know, and I'm glad that people like yourself are making more efforts to become aware.
And, you know, in that process, you're going to just, you know, it's just like when you're at school and you, as you discover new things, you're just popping off about, oh, I just discovered this.
And it goes to the-Did you know this?
Yeah, right.
Yeah, you see the whole picture, right?
And that's what I like about being a filmmaker is the Hollywood thing, as you said, is that from my life experience and what I've got to witness and see, and it's been a crazy journey, but a beautiful journey.
And in the end, I see why it's why I was meant for that journey.
And being a filmmaker, I'm able to take these moments, the things that we're talking about, and I can expand on.
I did a documentary on the Sino-Cochee about the Indigenous peoples, you know, who lived in the Jasper Valley.
And there were multiple Indigenous groups that lived there.
But then, you know, when they discovered the secondary route to the West, Jasper Alley exploded.
But then all of a sudden, the people that lived there when they were living in harmony, David Thompson writes that at the very beginning, there was a beautiful relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada for trade and the things they needed.
And there was a harmonious time.
It wasn't until greed later on really came it in.
And then you started having wars over, you know, resources like the Beaver Wars, the Seven Year War, which was the first world war.
And that was between, you know, for North American trade.
Well, it was for trade all over the world, but, you know, French English and then English became more dominant.
So like, you know, but at the beginning, it was this harmonious time.
But then through greed and ambition, we sort of started counseling each other out.
And then, you know, all of a sudden those European ideas came in and they're like, well, you know, we got to clear the land.
And so, you know, this piece of paper says that we own it.
And so like, you know, Indigenous people, they're like, how do you own something like that?
The concepts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They didn't totally have a definition of why would you want to own rocks?
Like, that doesn't make any sense.
Yeah.
Right.
But even here long after you're gone.
Yeah.
Yeah, but even between then, like, you know, when you had the French-English wars, there was Indigenous people on each side with alliances, right?
And so it's um, you know, it was this, uh, it was, it was a different time, right?
But um, but that's the thing with Canada is that we're diverse and uh we're learning new things, and we're all heading in the right direction.
Is there anything that really sticks in your mind that you see as a reconciliation to yourself?
Um, I well, I mean, I struggle with mentioning this thing, but I probably should.
I have something that I, I mean, I want to say to you personally, and I struggle with whether I should leave this in the episode or not, but I do want to say it to you.
So, um, I mean, once upon a time, a couple lifetimes ago, one night we were both drunken teenagers camping up on a hill with a bunch of other people, and we were just ornery drunken teenagers.
And we, we got into it, and I hit you.
And I hardly remember anything of what was happening except that it wasn't important.
You know what I mean?
Like, I that's what I remember about it: it wasn't important.
Whatever we were arguing about, it wasn't, you know, there's nothing about it that was changing, moving the needle for anyone, even like the next day in our tiny teenage lives.
Yeah.
And I mean, I felt shame that I had done it.
Uh, but that's not the real point of what I, why I wanted to bring it up.
Um, first, I want to say officially, because I never did sorry for doing that.
I and I also recognize that, you know, of the few things I remember from that night, it might have easily been you hitting me and then walking away, right?
Like, if I remember right, the only reason why you didn't hit me back was because like two guys were holding you back, right?
Like, it was just this moment where things got heated, I hit you, and then people separated us, and then we moved to different areas and whatever.
But, and it was, you know, it also wasn't, I remember that it wasn't a thing, it wasn't a racist thing, it wasn't a white guy versus an indigenous guy thing, it was just two teenagers.
But why I brought it up and why I think it's important, at least to me personally, is that after that moment, after that moment, in all the other moments after that, when I saw you, I mean, we weren't like friends, we were like acquaintances, like we would show up to the same party because we knew a lot of the same people, but we never went out of our way to hang out with each other.
But whenever we saw each other, I was at forefront in my mind that I had done this.
And again, I felt the shame, but I was always wary because in my mind, I was worried that you were going to want revenge or something for that.
And you never did that I ever noticed, you never did.
You just shook it off and then you went about your life.
You just moved on.
And this happened like, you know, I never mentioned this to anyone.
I never talked to anyone about it.
But you just, you know, moved on and it continually came up in my mind whenever I saw you.
It was, you know, the biggest reason why I was always hesitant about getting to know you more because I thought you were going to be still angry about it.
Because, and I realized what was happening was eventually, I realized what was happening was I would have still been angry if it had happened to me.
But what I came to realize was that you were handling the situation far better than I ever would have.
And that wasn't the only influence in my life that led to this change in my life, but it was one of them that I reflected on many times.
And it led to me being able to eventually change my life to a point where I could let things go.
Because I was an angry teenager.
I was a vengeful person for a very long time.
I was a person who would never let anything go for a very long time.
But what you did in all the moments after that moment became like one of the things and like a model for me for how I could let things go, how I could move on after a thing, because there were times where I was stuck in a moment or a situation like that.
And I realized I had to.
I had to figure out how to let myself go, let go of whatever bit of pride or whatever I thought was hurting me or whatever, to just move on.
And what you did helped me to do that.
So it's something I've never told anyone about you or how you affected me, but you affected me.
You helped me to learn that.
And I wanted you to know that.
Thanks, man.
One, apology accepted.
Two, yeah, you know, at the time, I guess it's called forgiveness, my brother.
Forgiveness.
Yeah.
I just, I learned that.
I grew up in a very turbulent home where all these stereotypes of alcoholism, family violence was like a common thing.
And so I learned a long time ago that if I held a grudge for every time somebody got drunk around me and took a swing at somebody, I'd be angry, angry, angry inside.
And that's not my nature, right?
So I guess that's what I was saying about that toxic environment that I grew up in taught me a lot.
And I was ahead of my time.
You know what I mean?
And so I remember that night.
Yeah, we were all, you know, hanging together, being teenagers.
And I just remember that.
Yeah, I just remember that happening.
And I was just sort of like, but I understood at the moment that it wasn't you.
You know, that wasn't the Spencer that I got to know.
That was the Spencer who had, you know, too much alcohol at the time.
And he reacted in a way that wasn't rational because, and I was able to understood that because of the environment I grew up in.
So if I was, you know, from a different style of family or whatnot, I could see maybe, you know, being angry and whatever.
But at the time, I just remember going, well, that wasn't the true Spencer I knew because Spencer I knew you're always witty, smart.
You did different things.
You know, I never found you a non-intelligent person.
And so when that happened, I was just sort of like, well, that's not the guy I know.
So I'm just going to let that go because there's no point.
I have enough rocks I'm hauling around.
And the Spencer rock was not going to be one of those rocks, right?
It's like, yeah, That's nice.
It's a moment where I had to come to terms with the fact that I was the asshole, right?
Like everyone, there's a saying, everyone's a hero of their own story.
But that night I was the asshole, right?
I wasn't the hero that night.
I don't know if you were, but I definitely wasn't, right?
Probably the people who held us apart afterward were the heroes.
I don't know.
But yeah, that.
And I just wanted to tell you that, man.
That, yeah.
And I don't know if that should be part of the episode or not.
I don't know.
You got to keep it.
You know why?
Because this is exactly what reconciliation is, but on a whole different scale.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
I was, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I was wrong to have done it.
It was stupid.
I mean, we were all stupid to be getting drunk up on a hillside, you know, I mean, whatever.
But yeah, that's just what everyone was doing at the time, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And in like in some way, I would not want to keep it because I worry that it, I worry that it cheapens the day, you know, like I worry that it distracts from what's the point of the day, but I think you're right that it is.
This is the point of the day.
Yeah, it is.
It is about recognizing how you messed up, how the situation's messed up, and being able to let that go.
And do things better.
And do better.
And tell your story so that other people can learn from it and do better.
There you go.
You just nailed truth and reconciliation right on the head, my friend.
Bang.
You just personalized it.
You just made it smaller into individual, but now we're talking about a collective thought, right?
And that's it.
It's like for truth and reconciliation, it just really comes down to show up, find those organizations that are doing things, find, learn the Indigenous culture.
There's some communities that are so advanced and they're so in there that it's just a day-to-day conversation, but then there's other communities where the message is getting to.
And that's just the ebb and flow of any conscious thought across any society.
It just takes time.
It comes in waves, right?
So there's beautiful things happening across Canada and there's non-they're across Canada.
So it's just understanding where we're at.
And I think that another thing to mention is that everyone affects everyone else that they deal with, even in little ways.
And so that's a reminder that how you conduct yourself, what you do mention and what you don't mention in, you know, when you're alone at work with just a couple people or whatever, that affects them too.
So if you, if you, as I still see sometimes as people, if people, you know, revert back to racist jokes when there's no First Nations people around, I mean, you know, that affects everyone else.
And they start to get the idea that not only is it okay to tell those racist jokes, but maybe they're appreciated.
Maybe they get some little invisible social points for doing it.
Right.
And that affects the environment.
That affects everything.
And that's part of what I want to get across is that, yeah, you got to let go of those.
And I don't want to sound like I'm some kind of saint yelling from a pulpit or something.
I used to tell those jokes.
I was a, you know, I listened to all the, you know, tapes that we would record and pass around to had things on them.
I did do that.
And I have to recognize that I did do that.
That's part of this day too, to recognize how we were doing it wrong before and how we were affecting the culture of the people around us that encourage them to do it wrong so that we can consciously affect the people around us to start to do it better.
But that's the concept I was telling you about: that's how that's what you learned.
Yeah.
You didn't just come up with a racist joke.
You learned that.
Yeah, yeah, I did.
Yeah, I was affected by the other people too.
Yeah.
Right.
And so it's this cycle that goes on.
Like, yeah.
So what everybody's dealing with right now is that, you know, for Indigenous people across Canada, like, you know, look at the stats.
We're like 4% of Canadian population.
But when you have, you know, generations that have this semi-idea that people are less than, then you're more willing to do things and, you know, associate those people as less than.
And then you have like these huge margins that come up with like murdered and missing women.
You know, like that's just crazy.
There's some, there's some stats.
So Canada, what Indigenous people are like 4.0% of the population.
But let's just talk about prison steps, right?
So because of this passed down softness where it's in our songs, the way Hollywood betrays Indigenous people or other whatever, right?
You know, we're sort of these subconscious programs.
But let's let's talk about stats.
So in the prison system, I think Indigenous men represent like 47% of the Indigenous of the population in prisons.
Unbelievable.
That's in Alberta.
And we're only 4%.
For Indigenous women, it's like 52 to 53%, something crazy like that, to like 27 teen stats.
So that's the prison system.
For murdered, for missing and murdered women, here's a stat that I thought would blow your mind.
So in Canada, all women of girls are killed every so in Canada, a woman is killed every woman or girl, whatever is killed every 48 hours.
Violence against women, 30% of all females and women are committed by an intimate partner.
In 2018, 20% of the female homicide victims were Indigenous women.
Almost two-thirds of Indigenous female victims are under the age of 35.
21% of Indigenous women reported having experienced some form of physical or sexual violence by a spouse or partner.
I even have family members, extended cousins and stuff who have been passed away.
One that brings my mind is a close family member of ours and his wife disappeared.
And she went to nursing school and she was at her graduation.
She was home with his daughter and they went out to celebrate that she just got her nursing diploma, never came home.
Seven years later, to discover the killer was.
And the reason why he did it was because he wanted to know what it was like to murder an Indigenous woman.
That was a mom.
That was just because somebody, because all these years, that propaganda about, you know, being less than and then, you know, the idea that no one is going to bother to investigate it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, these stories.
Oh, the chief that took money.
It's like, are you kidding me?
Like, you know, out of all the trillions of freaking good examples, you pick one thing.
Like, look at our own political system.
They got, they got their hands caught in the cookie jar 24 or 7, but that's okay.
But the one Indigenous chief from freaking way back when, you know, is the one that tainted the water for everybody.
And so it's a corrupt system.
It's like, it's all this BS that we're starting to sort through now to be like, well, that's not the case.
There's a lot of good people, strong people doing good things to bring us all up to speed.
And we just have to recognize that and lend in a helping hand the best way we can.
Yeah, I mean, when I hear about a situation where water is poisoned on a reserve, this has happened a couple of times, and I'm sure I haven't even heard of everyone.
I haven't tried to cobble together a full list or anything by any means.
But there's been a couple of different times where water on a reservation is found to be just straight up poisoned, poisonous, and completely undrinkable.
And the fault is always cast upon the Indigenous people living there, the First Nations people living there, as having done it to themselves and therefore deserving of whatever happens there.
And I think that's an awful way to treat people.
Like, just not just an awful way to treat First Nations people, that's just an awful way to treat people.
And I think that's where we need to get to is they're people, your people.
I'm people.
If we're going to be a nation of people that respect the lives and livelihoods and welfare of people, then for crying out loud, we have to be a nation that also respects the lives and livelihoods and welfare of the First Nations people.
That why does the first question need to be, was it a chief that took money and poisoned the groundwater?
Why can't the first question be, well, how can we get them some clean water?
Right?
Like, why can't that be the first thing that we talk about?
Why does it have to be trying to cast blame on the community itself to victim blame?
Like, I know what you're getting at with that for sure.
That problem is very complex, but from what I understand, from what I understand, is, you know, there is a department called Indian Affairs, right?
And Indian Affairs, well, I guess they have a new name now.
So it used to be INAC, Indigenous, and Northern Affairs Canada.
Now it's Crown in Indigenous Relations and Indigenous Services Canada, whatever.
So when you're on a First Nation, right?
You have to fill out paperwork and the paperwork goes somewhere together, just like municipalities, sort of like this pump is broken.
So you fill out the paperwork and you send it to head office and head office has to approve it, right?
So all the paperwork's been filled out and it keeps getting sent to head office, but head office isn't fixing it.
Yeah, right.
And the ones that get fixed are the ones that are more.
I heard a story of a First Nation where they kept having problems with their water over and over and over again.
So they go to a big meeting where, you know, Indigenous Service Canada's people and, you know, just a big meeting.
And so they go up to the podium and they're like, this is our groundwater when they had their moment.
This is our groundwater.
And we've been putting in, you know, to get a filtration system.
And they're like, did you fill out the paperwork?
They're like, yes, here's the last how many years where the paperwork slapped it on.
They brought this with them.
Yeah.
And sort of like publicly pressured at the moment.
And then they got their treatment center.
And it's like, oh, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.
You know what I mean?
So, so Canada has to ask themselves what service, why are they not getting it?
Right?
Calgary just had a big water problem.
Do you see any paperwork going through and they're still waiting for approval?
No.
No.
They're fixing it right now.
Calgary get a rule.
Yeah, right.
Right.
So I'm just saying, like, you know, it's very complex, but, you know, it's whatever systems are in place.
So, you know, maybe my facts are wrong on that, But I don't believe so, but it all goes to services Canada.
And, you know, so they're not approving these things to come down the pipe where they are.
And then I don't know what systems clog up, whatever, but I'm just saying, like, you know, there's a root right there.
You know what I mean?
Nobody ever talks about that.
Yeah, my my look at it is that if it was like it, like I mentioned before, if it was a non-Indigenous community that that was, you know, flooded out or freezing rain storm, the people of Canada throw the money together.
And I mean, this is this is dark, maybe a little bit, but I, you know, when the Humboldt crash happened.
This was a thing that I heard someone in the shop that I work at actually say when the Humboldt crash happened.
Whether they said it like I don't even know what.
You know what they meant, necessarily when they said it, but it struck me as even worried that it might be true, but Humboldt was a crash.
For people who don't understand, Humboldt was a tragedy, a huge tragedy.
There was a busload of school children I believe they were 13, 14 kind of range, and they were all on a hockey team and they were driving home from a tournament and there was a horrific crash that killed, I think, nearly all of them.
I can't remember exactly how many.
It was like 22 kids all in one go.
But someone said that if that had happened to a busload of Indigenous children, we might never have heard about it, and I don't, you know.
I heard it.
It was part of another conversation that I wasn't part of.
I didn't know if they were expressing grief, that they wouldn't hear about it, if it was Indigenous, or if they were some kind of glee or if whether it was just a bland comment on the state of our world, but I thought it was.
An interesting look at.
The state of our country is that I don't even know if they're wrong, and that that is part of what bothers me about this situation.
Is that yeah the, the attitudes need to change.
You're right that the the, the government programs that are meant to step into gear to do this, need to change.
But Canadians wash their hands of these situations because they'll tell themselves that there's a government agency that's going to fix those things and that's just for those.
Those communities and those same Canadians will understand that the government never fixes anything really efficiently or well or anything else, but they're still okay with just washing their hands of it, never offering any help, never, at least no help that I can see.
There's no national sort of outcry.
And that's the thing that I think we should want to change.
Ordinary Canadians should want to change is our attitudes about situations like this, where if it was a busload of Indigenous children who had been in the Humboldt crash, that we would have the exact same level of outcry.
That when it is an Indigenous community that has water that's poisonous, that we have the same level of outcry as we would have if it was a non-Indigenous community that had that, because we're all Canadians together.
Yeah.
You know what?
On the Humboldt bus crash comment, I'm going to put it to you this way.
Like, I honestly think I can't go that dark.
Think that if it was, it's, I think, if it was indigenous kids or not, it would just be a horrible, horrible thing, and I think so too.
Even let my brain right, I think so too.
Right, that thought was like being on the real dark side.
So yeah, probably because that was, that was horrible, but still it was.
I know what they're hinting at.
I know what they're hinting at.
Maybe it was a dark joke, I don't know, I can't tell, but it worries me.
It worried me that it might be true.
Well, I and that's a, That's a thought of my view of Canada is that I worry that Canadians are so far away from the humanity of this that they might, you know, and I don't, aside from just talking about it, bringing it up, I don't know what else to do, but I think this is a start.
Well, I, you know, First Nations and urban Indigenous and all the organizations that we've been talking about this for a long time and there's been quite the awareness on it.
And I know, you know, I know there's been efforts.
I don't know exactly where it's at right now, but I, yeah, time, time will, time will change all.
You know what I mean?
So, but yeah, we're, we're definitely, we're in a beginning phase.
I think with our generation, because we're Gen X, I think we've literally went from like, you know, rotary phones to where we are today.
So we're actually, yeah, so, you know, there's a technology evolution.
There's been a social evolution.
A social evolution's, you know, been happening since the dawn of time.
So every, every society is one step ahead of the last society for their evolution.
So we're coming up.
I just finished doing, um, I filmed across Canada doing a television show called Water Worlds.
And that's where I really focused on two-eyed seeing, where two-eyed seeing is Indigenous teaching.
Well, it's new.
It was coined.
It was the phrase was coined, but it's basically one eye sees to the past and Indigenous ways of knowing and the other side sees to the Western ways of knowing and together they can guide our future.
And that's another form of reconciliation because on the scientific level, you know, I went across Canada starting in Newfoundland and we learned about microplastic in the ocean and what people are doing to clean up.
And then went to the marshlands in northern Ontario to the Magnetoan First Nation and how they're preserving turtles and the marshlands around there because that's a filter system for the water and how everything's in balance and they're using science methods to save turtles and they're using traditional knowledge of how to, you know, keep the area clean and what's in the area.
And then went to the underground caverns with Jill Heinrith and learned about the filter systems and what's affecting them and what people are doing to bring awareness to the problems that are happening with our creeks and rivers.
And then, you know, went over to the kelp forest where I learned like 95% of the kelp forests on the west coast have died off.
That's literally the forest of the sea where the life is.
And 95% of them have died off.
And people are using traditional knowledge of where the kelp forests were and Western science to, you know, geomap and preserve kelp, but yet replanting it in a more resilient strain of kelp into a warmer area to see if it will flourish to try and bring back the ecosystem back into balance.
And that's, you know, using both science.
So there I was on boats with indigenous and non-Indigenous and universities and whatever.
And there was people coming out of the woodwork to teach us, you know, how to film underwater, the science behind everything, all the way until, you know, up to killer whales.
And we even did submarines exploring the glass sponge reefs and what's happening with that precious filter system that's only found on the west coast.
Right.
So it was an amazing adventure.
And that's where I learned is that, you know, we can get stuck in these catchphrases of like, you know, just easy hot topics, I guess, to talk about.
But there is such an amalgamation of change out there that just needs to be more in the forefront of like, look, more examples of us working together, more examples of people doing things.
And that's, well, you know, turn that propaganda machine as you hear, like, always the negative stereotypes to changing the social fabric by telling these stories.
Right.
So we can understand that maybe it's not so dark out there.
We have to give our future generations something to hope for.
They can't just keep getting fed that, you know, the world's going to blow up and everybody's fighting against each other.
Because you got suicide rates shooting out the roof for Indigenous youth.
And how about just our youth in general, right?
How many funerals have we all been to with somebody passing away?
Because they have no hope.
They turn on the TV.
Look at the political system for the U.S. Ours.
We're just fighting like cats and dogs.
Like Trump was what two times assassination, school shootings all the time.
The world's burning.
Like, what kind of future are we giving these kids?
Like, our, like, we're just killing their will, you know?
So that's why we have to, you know, do what Mr. Rogers said back in the day and give positive examples, you know, so we can expand on that.
And, you know, there is lots of that happening, but slowly turning.
Right.
So I don't know, I know almost nothing about what your current projects are, but you mentioned that you've just finished something, a big project.
Was it a documentary or a TV show?
Yeah, it's a television show called Water Worlds.
It's 13 episodes that explores all the ecosystems, starting with the spirit of water.
Tantu Cardinal is the voice of it.
And it's really talks about the spirit of water and like everything from when it falls to the ground and it goes through the underground caves, like all the filter systems.
Yeah.
We literally walk through all the filter systems until water is back in the ocean and gets pulled back up to the sky again to start its life cycle all over again.
And we learn about everything that's living in there, infused with teachings and science, and how everybody is working to save these things because it's important to dissect everybody here is about the world is changing and climate change, but it's sort of like, well, you know, what I guess I wanted to explore because we always talk about, you know, for Indigenous people that we're water keepers is sort of like, what are we doing?
And what is happening?
Like, you know, everybody just hears these big stroke things of like global warming and but it's sort of like, well, what is actually the root cause?
What are contributing factors?
And so I was blessed with going across the Turtle Island and, you know, learning from different nations and scientists about every sector about what's going on.
And so I made a series in season one is Canada-based.
So yeah, that'll be coming up soon.
That's amazing.
Yeah, I haven't.
I've been sort of peripherally aware of your work in doing these projects, but I haven't looked really, really deeply into what each one is.
But I'm hoping to have a bit of time here soon to watch and learn and know more.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
No, I think today's conversation we had is a necessary one, you know, as, and I think I appreciate you doing your best to, you know, bring these topics up because you're still learning them yourself.
And as I said, like, you know, we have to, we have to have discussions like this, but it's not all doom and gloom.
You know, everybody goes to Truth and Reconciliation Day on September 30th, and it's about just acknowledging our past and how we need to move forward together.
And sometimes the truth hurts, and that's okay.
But, you know, by doing and having days like this, and everybody's wearing their own shirts, that's why I always wear this chain.
It's always got a reflection of everything I believe in one, right?
But this is this is the healing journey that we all need to be on.
And so I just encourage everybody to go out, you know, participate in those local events.
And yeah, just keep pushing to make our lives and our worlds better.
Yeah.
And not just on a single day, but starting first on a single day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just an everyday thing.
Because, you know, I think I really do think racism and everything is more like a human problem.
We keep dissecting ourselves into what we believe that somebody else should be.
And then we disappoint ourselves.
And then all of a sudden they're less than.
And we've been doing it for the whole evolution of our species.
So I guess the question is: will we be able to evolve past this point and start seeing us as like a one people under the one sky who is a mixture of everything, but yet we're together?
Right.
So yeah, total rosy sunglasses, eh?
But we can push.
You're more optimistic than me, and that's okay.
There's no not going to be any repercussion for that.
It's okay to be optimistic.
I know that we'll always be able to do that.
Let's afford some time in your life to be optimistic.
Yeah.
That's exactly it.
Like, can we do it?
That's the big question, right?
Well, we'll not, we'll never know unless we try.
That's it, eh?
So, all right.
Yeah.
So is there anything else you for wrapping up here?
Is there anything else you want to plug?
Any other projects you're working on?
Anything else you want to make sure everyone hears about?
No, I um I was uh I'm just glad that you you invited me and we got to have a conversation and yeah, just hang out together and just sort of yeah, you know, see where everybody's at.
But thank you for your time and I'm glad I got to see you on your journey of discovery here.
So thanks a lot for taking the time, agreeing to come on.
I don't know if anything was difficult for you, but a couple things today were a little difficult for me.
I'll admit that.
But that's part of the day, right?
Having the strength to do those difficult things and soldier through them, however imperfectly.
And yeah, don't be afraid to do them wrong.
It's far worse to just not ever do them.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's literally it.
Don't be scared to get it wrong because it's all about learning together.
Right.
And so yeah.
Yeah.
Right on.
Thank you.
Great.
Thanks.
Till next time.
And everywhere you turned around.
So definitely not broken.
I would say, you know, wounded in many ways and healing.