Show Notes
“I think now though, it's using my voice to create safe spaces, to have tough conversations, but have this conversations in a respectful and safe way. So we can … hear that before you get to reconciliation, you need to hear this ugly truth, right?”
Warren Isbister-Bear, is the Truth & Reconciliation Coordinator, Strategy & Transformation Department, City of Saskatoon. Originally from the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation, Warren has been living and working in Saskatoon since 2001. As the Truth & Reconciliation Coordinator, Warren is responsible to lead the development of an internal Reconciliation strategy and policy framework aimed at enabling all City Departments to strengthen relationships and consultation activities with Indigenous Peoples and communities while providing strategic leadership and advice, based on extensive knowledge of the richness of diversity of Indigenous Peoples, to the City departments to support them in applying an inclusion lens to policies and programs.
In our conversation with Warren we talked about the personal and professional aspects of reconciliation. Warren talked about the impact of residential schools on his own life and challenged the listener to be strategic in making the workplace and work positions more accessible to Indigenous people.
Ben Borne and I invited Warren to have a conversation around these five questions:
1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?
2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?
3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?
4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?
5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?
Then we recorded his reflections.
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Additional resources to explore:
City of Saskatoon Indigenous Initiatives
Reconciliation Saskatoon
What makes us healthy? Exploring the determinants of health in Saskatchewan
Gordon Tootoosis Nīkānīwin Theatre
ConnectR
Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan
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Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.
Project Coordinator: Heather Peters
Co-host: Ben Borne
Recording and Editing: Matthew Hildebrandt
Music by Queen Queen Josephine
More from Reconcile. Everyday Conversations
“Action is the part I really focus on in my understanding (of reconciliation) because we can say a lot of things and people can come to a lot of discussion tables, but if you're not actually doing the stuff it is going to be forgotten.”
“The chef coat that you see is actually modeled after the Turkish army. And I think there's a lot of a lot of rules and etiquette, and kitchen ways of being that are actually at odds with indigenous culture. So I'm trying to, I guess you could say decolonize that kitchen experience for people.”
In all my conversations with people about reconciliation I have heard that it isn’t an individual journey people are on. The reconciliation path is filled with relationships, teachers, learners and explorers – it is filled with other people. So we have created a reconciliation study guide that accompanies this podcast for you to be able to take to your friends, churches, communities, or neighbourhood book clubs to engage with these conversations together.
“You have to be open to it. You might not want to listen or hear what someone has to say that has a different belief system…. God calls us to love everyone, to listen to their stories. This is what have gotten me started and motivated.”
CONTENT WARNING: This episode talks about incidences of sexual abuse. It is difficult to hear these stories and if it would be harmful or triggering for you to listen, we suggest skipping this episode. Maryann felt the stories were important to share because she had been shameful of them for many years and has since realized that these are not secrets she needs to hold.