National Day for Truth and Reconciliation 2025: Advancing Economic Reconciliation Through Indigenous Innovation (IRA1-V81)

Transcript: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation 2025: Advancing Economic Reconciliation Through Indigenous Innovation

[00:00:00 Animated CSPS logo. Text on screen: Welcome.]

[00:00:07 Text on screen: Content Advisory. This event will include discussions that may address sensitive or emotionally difficult topics. If you are a Government of Canada employee, confidential support is available through the Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

For members of the public, immediate mental health support is available through the 988 Helpline (call or text 988, available 24/7 nationwide). Indigenous participants are encouraged to access the Hope for Wellness Helpline which offers culturally safe, 24/7 counselling and support: 1-855-242-3310.]

[00:00:58 A series of images of Indigenous cultural activities flip rapidly like pages in a book, ending with a logo and text on screen: National Day for Truth & Reconciliation 2025.]

[00:01:11 Nathalie Laviades Jodouin appears full screen. Text on screen: Senior Vice President, Public Sector Operations and Inclusion, Canada School of Public Service.]

Nathalie Laviades Jodouin: Hello, and welcome to today's event. My name is Nathalie Laviades Jodouin, Senior Vice President of Public Sector Operations and Inclusion at the Canada School of Public Service. My pronouns are she, her, elle.

We gather today in recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a commemorative day observed in Canada on September 30th of each year. This day is dedicated to honouring the survivors of residential schools and their families, as well as acknowledging the lasting impact of the residential school system on Indigenous communities across Canada.

This year's theme focuses on advancing economic reconciliation through Indigenous innovation and is presented in partnership with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and Employment and Social Development Canada.

Before I go any further, I would like to acknowledge that I am in Ottawa, on the unceded land of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. I recognize that some of you are joining us from various parts of the country; each of us on distinct Indigenous territories. I invite you to pause and reflect on the deep history of these lands and these peoples. We are grateful to be able to live, work and learn in these territories. I encourage you to honour historic treaties and agreements with Indigenous peoples and to recognize and respect their ongoing contributions to Canada.

Acknowledging territory shows recognition of and respect for Indigenous peoples. It is recognition of their presence in the past, present and future. Recognition and respect are essential elements in establishing healthy, reciprocal relations. These relationships are key to reconciliation.

Our objective for this year's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is to reflect not only on the past, but on the paths being forged towards a more inclusive future. Throughout the course of the next 2 hours, we will delve into the evolving landscape of economic reconciliation, with a focus on Indigenous data sovereignty, digital inclusion, and initiatives such as Employment and Social Development Canada's IT Apprenticeship Program for Indigenous Peoples, which are creating meaningful employment opportunities and enhancing Indigenous participation in the digital economy.

Without further ado, let us get started on today's session, and I hope you find it both enriching and inspiring.

[00:03:49 Text on screen: Opening words from Elder Verna McGregor. Elder Verna is from the Algonquin Community of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. She is firmly grounded in her community and Nation as a member of the group of traditional Grandmothers (Ko-ko-mi-sag) and Elders. Their role includes promoting the retention of the Algonquin language and culture.]

[00:04:22 Elder Verna McGregor appears full screen. Text on screen: Algonquin Elder.]

Elder Verna McGregor: <Indigenous language> Hello, everybody. Hello everyone, My name is Verna McGregor. My name is Verna McGregor. Verna <Indigenous language>. I'm honoured to be here today because it's already been 10 years from the release of the report, the TRC report, and here we are. And today's theme is advancing economic reconciliation. And my background has been in economic development.

And there's a different, sometimes, understanding also, too, as well with this economic development. And it stems back from even our creation stories of the caretaking of the land. And I speak often to as well of this prophecy of the four colours of people on this Earth, and the reminder that we were all given the original instructions too, as well, to be caretakers of this Earth.

So, one of the stories is that it's the reminder from the red Earth people of our original roles. And I think part of that reconciliation is bringing back that understanding today as well, in addition to reconciling what has been done throughout history to the First Nations, Inuit and Métis here. So, I think that's a good discussion, and I look forward to the discussion today.

And I'm just going to say a little opening prayer. I have my tobacco, and what I do with it is I offer it back to the sacred fire or the water so that it's our connection from the physical world to the unseen world. And the unseen world is honouring, also, all the children that were – and survivors that have passed to spirit to honour them. So, I say Miigwech.

<Indigenous language>.

Again, I say miigwech four times to honour the four directions, four seasons, four stages of our lives. One of the teachings, too, as well as we're talking about economic reconciliation, is that this economic development, too, as well, reconciliation goes deeper, too. And it's not only also what was done to the original people, but also reconciliation goes deeper in what we, as humans, have done to the Earth and other nations, which includes the ones that fly, the four-legged, the ones that crawl, and the trees. So again, it's that spirit of reconciliation. And I think that's why these discussions are so important. Miigwech, everybody. <Indigenous language>.

[00:08:50 Text on screen: Remarks from the Deputy Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Valerie Gideon.]

[00:08:59 Valerie Gideon appears full screen. Text on screen: Deputy Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.]

Valerie Gideon: Hello, I'm joining you from the traditional unceded, unsurrendered, Algonquin Anishinaabeg territory. I want to thank you for the opportunity to say a few words, and I want to thank you for taking the time to acknowledge this very important National Day.

I've spent my entire life advocating for the critical importance of Canada, not only recognizing the history and all of its pitfalls with respect to the relationship between Indigenous peoples and other Canadians, but I've also spent my entire work life advocating for change, for transformation, for progress, for reconciliation.

I'm happy to say that as I'm 50 years old now, I have seen progress, but I've also been impatient at times because I've also wanted it to move faster. Events like today are critical to be able to get more allies, more supporters, and to empower the voices of Indigenous peoples across the country: survivors, their families, their communities, so they also have an opportunity to advocate for what is important to them. I'm a Deputy Minister in the Federal Public Service, so I have that privilege everyday of being able to exercise some influence in terms of core decision making in the government.

But no matter what role you play, whether you're in the public service or not, whether you're in community doing great work, your voice is just as critical and as important, and it needs to continue to be heard.

At the public service level, we have a responsibility; we are accountable to ensure that we will maintain progress and continue to work daily for future generations. It takes a lot of patience, it takes resilience, passion and a lot of heart and humanity. However, I saw that we can work together to really have new approaches within the public service as well as outside the public service.

We are an example for Canadians. If we are ineffective in our approach to reconciliation within the public service, we cannot expect others, in other sectors and in other areas, to be either. I am proud when I see my daughters, who are Gesgapegiag Nation members, including myself from the province of Quebec, go to school wearing their orange sweaters, like the one I am wearing today, and I am proud to be able to say that they are not in an Indigenous community at their school, but in an urban environment, and that they are able to really talk about the history of their family and of their community. This is something I didn't experience when I was younger.

So, I thank you once again for taking the time to participate in the events. I know you are talking about the economy; I know you are talking about the government's major priorities to move forward with major projects, the digital side—all of these things are very important, but the foundation is commonplace. Whether we are discussing any priority or sector, the foundation is our relationship and our reconciliation. <Indigenous language>.

[00:12:16 Text on screen: Message from the Director of Education & Public Programming at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, Kaila Johnston.]

[00:12:26 Kaila Johnston appears full screen. Text on screen: Director of Education & Public Programming at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.]

Kaila Johnston: Hello, bonjour, bonjour, tansi. My name is Kaila Johnston, and I'm the Director of Education at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. I'm so honoured to share the following message on behalf of the Senior Leadership at the NCTR.

I want to thank the Canada School of Public Service and the Employment and Social Development Canada for creating space for this very important conversation. This year's theme, Advancing Economic Reconciliation Through Indigenous Innovation, reminds us that reconciliation is not only about reflecting on the past, but also about reshaping the future. Economic reconciliation means ensuring Indigenous peoples have access to the tools, training, and opportunities to thrive in today's economy in a meaningful and concrete manner. It means addressing systemic barriers while also recognizing and celebrating Indigenous knowledge, innovation, and leadership.

At the NCTR, we know that data sovereignty, digital inclusion, and representation in IT are central to this work. Indigenous communities must be able to steward their own data, protect their stories, their history, and fully participate in the digital economy. Programs like the Indigenous IT Apprenticeship are only an example of how reconciliation can translate to real opportunities, real skills, and real change.

To everyone who is joining this event, merci beaucoup, thank you, <Indigenous language> for your commitment to Truth and Reconciliation, and for working with us to build a future where Indigenous peoples are respected, represented, and empowered in every sector, including technology. <Indigenous language> and thank you.

[00:14:14 Text on screen: Poem by Coldwater Elder, Dennis Saddleman & Stretch Break. Dennis was born in Merritt BC. He lives in a community called Coldwater. He went to Kamloops Residential School for 11 years. Dennis' passion is sharing his residential school experience, Dennis has been clean and sober for 45 years.]

[00:14:53 Elder Dennis Saddleman appears full screen. Text on screen: Coldwater Elder and Poet.]

Elder Dennis Saddleman: You're walking on the street. You met someone on the sidewalk, someone intoxicated. Someone didn't look well. He was wearing dirty clothes, and he didn't have a bath for weeks. Sometimes he slept in the back alley. He drank Lysol. He ate his food from the dumpster. You wondered if he went to residential school.

The police pulled over a drunken driver. The driver didn't have no driver's license and no insurance for the vehicle. The vehicle was unsafe to drive. It had a cracked windshield, a broken headlight, and bald tires. You wondered if the driver went to residential school.

A struggling man trying to provide for his family. He applied for a job. He was interviewed. Sorry, we can't hire you. You're not qualified. He wondered if the struggling man went to residential school.

A man stood before a judge. The man, he did not know how to be a father. He did not know how to be a husband. He beat up his wife and put her in the hospital. The judge sentenced him to jail. He wondered if this man went to residential school.

There is a man, he hated the church. He was angry with God because God wasn't there when he was sexually abused. He attempted suicide. He stabbed himself in the ribs and he held a rifle under his chin. He wondered if this man went to residential school.

Did you notice the residential school survivors across Canada? They're getting fewer and fewer and fewer. Someday, there will be no more residential school survivors. I'm a survivor, but I'm not the only one. There's something ancient about us. We were silent memories of our ancestors. We were existence, and we drew life from our culture and our traditions. We told unheard stories. Some went to the grave, some stories echoed with truth.

Kill the Indian in the child. You cannot kill the resilience. You cannot kill the spirit of determinations. The arm of the child shall embrace our grandmothers and grandfathers. We hunted dreams. We hunted in the night. The truth was hard to find, hard to chase, and hard to capture. We hunted dreams.

Tomorrow is hungry for rebirth, rebirth of every man, woman, and child. We were always here, and we're still here. Eternity opened the door for us. We were boundless in the veins of time. We lived two lives. Sometimes our life went around the bend, and sometimes our life would lay in the ditch. We sat at the table where crumbs kept us alive. Hunger flooded our dishes. Hunger sang a song of emptiness.

We are called a man. We are called a woman. In the chambers of our childhood, we are the centre of attention. Shall we tell stories to each other? There are thousands and thousands of desires that want to know the children behind closed doors. Shall we tell stories that our scars made us Aboriginal superheroes? Every child must return to injury with a needle and thread. Every child, yes, every child matters. Every child, every child matters.

[00:19:20 Text on screen: Panel 1. Examining the evolving landscape of economic reconciliation, highlighting Indigenous data sovereignty and digital inclusion.]

[00:19:30 Kyra De La Ronde appears full screen. Text on screen: Beyond Borders Coordinator, Manitoba Métis Federation.]

Kyra De La Ronde: Good afternoon, and welcome to the first panel of today's event, which will be discussing the evolving landscape of economic reconciliation, highlighting Indigenous data sovereignty and data inclusion. Thank you all for joining us today.

My name is Kyra De La Ronde, I'm the Beyond Borders Coordinator for the Manitoba Métis Federation, the National Government of the Red River Métis, and I will be your sessions moderator today. Before we begin our discussion, it is my pleasure to introduce our distinguished panel of guest speakers.

[00:20:01 Split screen: Kyra De La Ronde, Jonathan Dewar, and Dana Tizya-Tramm.]

Kyra De La Ronde: Jonathan Dewar is the Chief Executive Officer for the First Nations Information Governance Centre, and Dana Tizya-Tramm is the Director of Arctic Circle Strategies and the Chair of the First Nation School Board. Let's now get this discussion started. I would encourage our panelists to speak in the language of your choice.

From your perspective, what does economic reconciliation truly mean, and how do you see Indigenous innovation and leadership driving this forward?

[00:20:34 Jonathan Dewar appears full screen. Text on screen: Chief Executive Officer, First Nations Information Governance Centre.]

Jonathan Dewar: Well, before I get to all of the positive ways that economic reconciliation can be understood, I did want to start with a couple of cautionary comments.

Having long worked with residential school survivors, Indigenous peoples, more broadly in the area of healing and reconciliation, I've really had this incredible opportunity over many years to not just think about, but learn from other people about these concepts healing, these concepts of reconciliation, of course, central to both healing and reconciliation is truth.

And so, building from a place of strength, and certainly the 10 years we've had post-TRC the delivery of their final report, and of course, the Calls to Action, 10 years. We literally just celebrated that anniversary this week, although the Calls to Action themselves came out in July, 10 years ago.

So, building on all those strengths, the ability to build on top of work that has been done by many, many people from the grassroots, through our leadership, up to and including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and beyond, there are many positive ways we can take these conversations.

Now, the cautionary comments are really about any time you modify reconciliation. I think a theme that you're going to hear from me throughout is all of these things can be positive if they are truly Indigenous-led and First Nations-led, Métis Nation-led, Inuit-led, when those distinctions have to be at play.

So, I think that that's a theme that's probably going to come up a lot is if Indigenous people are leading, if they're defining the concepts and defining the ways that we move forward with these issues, I think that's the position of strength. That's the starting place. So, economic reconciliation can mean many positive things. But when we begin to modify reconciliation, I think we do have to be careful.

So, economic reconciliation, what's the imperative? What's the driver to frame it as economic reconciliation? Well, you don't have to look far to see that this is being driven by many Indigenous voices from the grassroots, through the private sector, up to and including First Nations, Inuit, Métis Nation leadership, so that's great. But I do think we have to also approach this with a bit of caution.

If it is the government, the federal government in particular, that's framing reconciliation as economic reconciliation, I think the trust equation comes into play here. And are Indigenous peoples in a place where they trust the focus on economic reconciliation, potentially over other things.

So, I think it's reasonable for us to ask, is a federal government – particularly today in this uncertain economic climate – is a federal government that is focused on economic reconciliation, also capable of focusing on the other elements of reconciliation that are essential, the health, the social, the justice pieces, all of which are essential. The truth essentially weaves through those things.

So, if we can get to that place of trust, that economic reconciliation is not something that lessens or takes focus away from what's important to Indigenous peoples. If Indigenous peoples are leading a focus in the area of economic development or economic benefit for Indigenous peoples, and Canada, and potentially our neighbours around the world, then I think that that's incredibly positive.

So, I would certainly want to frame my initial comments that way, that economic reconciliation, yes, there are many more experts than me to talk about that area. But I really did want to start with those comments.

And then the second part of the question, Indigenous innovation and leadership. I've already said Indigenous led, that is a key. And innovation is absolutely going to drive elements of this. And I know Dana is likely to talk a lot about that space. And so I'll pause there and be happy to loop back to themes as they come up in conversation.

[00:25:00 Dana Tizya-Tramm appears full screen. Text on screen: Director, Arctic Circle Strategies & Chair, First Nation School Board.]

Dana Tizya-Tramm: I believe this is somewhat of a two-part answer. Settlers came here and they removed furs, they removed wood, gold, other industries, and they took these materials and these raw materials from our lands, and they built economies, legal systems, and education systems that completely subjected and alienated Indigenous peoples.

One thing I have to say is, especially at this time as Canada is emitting more emissions – they're not going down with the Paris Accord – and the very fact that Western models measure the wealth in gross domestic product and profit, Indigenous frameworks measure wealth in relationship, in land health, in cultural continuity, and intergenerational well-being. Indigenous peoples are actually the true economists because we don't destroy our environments. We parallel systems.

So, I really want to be clear that economic reconciliation with First Nations is not only a legal and moral imperative, it's actually the best step as Canadians and the Western world has at putting forward and empowering the true economists that are predicated on building economic systems that empower our lands, empower our waters, and empower our community.

That is not going to be sold to you by major corporations. They're not going to sell you sovereignty. Nobody's going to come and save us from the climate change issue, or badly designed economies. Economic reconciliation with Indigenous peoples is actually the next step, I believe, in society.

But unfortunately, any type of economic reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada has to come with very, very loaded educational materials, because now we're up against the rest of Canada who does not understand the land title transfers that are happening. They don't understand the world proclamation, or what the economy of Canada was envisioned when we signed the treaties and around Indigenous rights and title.

So, right now, we actually have an opportunity of alienating ourselves further from the Canadian mindset if they are not educated about the rights and agreements that their representatives entered into, into the founding of Canada. It's a very interesting issue and one where all of Canada requires for us to educate ourselves out of this issue.

[00:27:48 Split screen: Kyra De La Ronde, Jonathan Dewar, and Dana Tizya-Tramm.]

Kyra De La Ronde: Thank you so much. Why is Indigenous data sovereignty essential for reconciliation? And what risks or opportunities arise if Indigenous people are not centred in data governance?

[00:28:03 Dana Tizya-Tramm appears full screen. Text on screen: Director, Arctic Circle Strategies & Chair, First Nation School Board.]

Dana Tizya-Tramm: I appreciate that. I would say to that, that the new frontier of economic reconciliation is the digital era. And data sovereignty around artificial intelligence, compute infrastructure, and the data environment that we are walking into, just as land was the basis of wealth in the old economy, data is the land of the new economy. If nations don't own their infrastructure or their data, they will once again be left dependent.

And this reconciliation is not just about fixing Canada's mistakes. It's about showing the world a different pathway and economies based on reciprocity, sustainability, and stewardship. And I know this, you can look to the umbrella final agreement and other modern treaties where the spirit and intent of these documents is postulated in advancing new relationships with Indigenous peoples.

But we have to draw a line in the sand here that data sovereignty also means dignity. To have the ability to foment your own data and use for your own services is going to be the basis of this new economy moving forward. And everything that I've seen with the introduction of artificial intelligence perfectly encapsulates the zenith of capitalism today. Toxic capitalism that erodes our sovereignty, that erodes our self-agency.

When we are creating the data with the applications that we're using on our phone, and you do not own any of the infrastructure, nor do you own the data, you are likened to a serf tilling the fields for your techno overlords. These major artificial intelligence companies are going to be taking our data and Indigenous people, and they will be creating products and services from our own data to sell back to us.

And, as I had said before, no corporation is going to sell you sovereignty. Today is about getting the infrastructure in place to start protecting Indigenous data today. Moreover, that Indigenous people will have full agency and sovereignty over that data. What I'm basically saying is the future is decentralized as we're fast entering an age where artificial intelligence programs can actually do a lot of the coding for these applications for you.

We are at an incredible vector in time and history where the affordability of the infrastructure for these data centres, and the technology allowing them to be used renewably with Indigenous applications of renewably powered and ethically governed data centres, we're showing how lazy the rest of the world is when they're approaching data centres that take from the land, that damage the environments, and disempower communities.

It's very interesting to me to see such a technologically advanced and innovative field, but it is the simple principles of Indigenous communities and Indigenous peoples mixed with this technology that actually create a viable future, one that empowers communities, one that empowers the land.

But none of this can happen with the continuation of artificial intelligence and the toxic data surveillance economy that we live in today with hundreds of corporations piling into our applications and using them for completely different reasons than what that application has been applied to publicly and what they say that these applications are doing.

There is a completely toxic, overly colonial and capitalistic field. What you're seeing is a very fast-paced evolution of toxic capitalism within this innovative field, and they're already destroying some of their own mediums. We're seeing the Internet fill with AI slop or AI written content. This is about sanity, a sanity that foments in economic realms, but we can foster and realize in community with international revenue streams that are based off of ethical data practices, et cetera.

If we don't want to continue making the same mistake that we have with our pursuit of GDP and the Silicon Valley, which is far overextending themselves over the rights of data and future generations, we need to start this now. And I've been speaking with people around the world, and I am telling you that I'm convinced that it is Indigenous people that have the natural disposition to actually work with this technology in an intergenerational context that pacifies a lot of the capitalistic tendencies that we're seeing today.

This is an ethical issue, a moral issue, a philosophical issue, but one of staunch practice in real-world economic and sovereign applications today. This could be the biggest issue facing our world today, and I believe it is Indigenous people who are the most well-versed in sovereignty, and therefore, by application, data sovereignty. Indigenous people are much better positioned to deal with this issue than non-Indigenous communities, where coordination around their public officials and their communities to achieve data sovereignty is a much more nebulous conversation and much more difficult to achieve.

[00:34:47 Jonathan Dewar appears full screen. Text on screen: Chief Executive Officer, First Nations Information Governance Centre.]

Jonathan Dewar: Yes. So, this is a very interesting question. Of course, data sovereignty follows sovereignty, right? So when we're talking about reconciliation, I think absolutely the conversations have to start with the sovereignty question or questions.

And so, in Canada, the distinctions are really important. First Nations and their histories and relationship with the Crown, and of course with Canada, are similar in many ways to the Métis Nation and to Inuit, but also different. I can't speak for Métis Nation, or for Inuit, but working with a First Nations organization at the national level and working with communities across the country, I'm better able to talk about this idea of First Nations' data sovereignty.

So, it's wonderful that data sovereignty has become a word that is in common use now, but there's always a danger with that. And so reconciliation itself is a very good example of that.

Twenty five years ago, there were small pockets of conversation where the word reconciliation was in use, but it really wasn't until the healing movements, in response to residential schools, started to really catalyze events across the country, leading, of course, to the Indian Resident School settlement agreement, leading, of course, to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was an element of that settlement agreement.

So, First Nations or Indigenous peoples having to sue Canada for action, we're pretty familiar with that, right? And so, that is what led to the settlement agreement. The TRC was a component of the settlement agreement. So, for good or for ill, however we got there, we had this really major initiative, and largely Indigenous-led initiative. So the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, with its mandate, carried out its mandate over those years, concluding in 2015.

But it doesn't mean that that's the only place that these conversations were in existence, because, of course, we also have the international work that led to the United Nations Declaration on the of Indigenous Peoples. And Indigenous peoples in Canada contributed significantly to those international conversations.

So, the Nation States, Canada was one of those four that was very, very slow to acknowledge, adopt UNDRIP. It eventually happened. And I think many people in Canada are proud of the work they did to support the development of that work internationally. And you find data sovereignty within UNDRIP and follows the sovereignty piece.

But one of the things that people need to wrap their heads around conceptually is you will hear a lot of framing around Indigenous data sovereignty. That's certainly a viable term when we're talking big picture international. But when you get to the domestic context, when you get to the Canadian context, you really do have to focus in on First Nations as distinct from Inuit, Inuit as distinct from the Métis Nation.

And then talking about First Nations, you have to go further. Dana was saying earlier about the education piece that is essential for people to be effective in economic reconciliation. Absolutely bang on. If people do not understand these complexities, that you must move from the terminology of Indigenous to the domestic context, understanding those distinctions: First Nation, Inuit, Métis Nation, and then within the First Nation's context, the fact that these are sovereign nations that will have their own worldviews and histories and ways of looking at things, and that's where the decision making is going to happen.

So, the nation to nation relationship is not a fluffy language. It is real. I think we need to acknowledge this is the truth element of Truth and Reconciliation, we need to acknowledge the extent to which Canada has truly, certainly historically, but even contemporarily, positioned itself as truly in nation to nation relationships with First Nations.

This is all in the TRC's final report. It's woven through the Calls to Action. Although the economic component of the TRC Calls to Action is pretty short, at least in terms of the number of Calls to Action that focus on that, central to it is UNDRIP. And so UNDRIP is now Canadian law. There is an action plan.

Canadians, generally, but certainly Indigenous peoples and public servants working with Indigenous peoples, people from the private sector working with Indigenous peoples, they need to know UNDRIP. They need to know the Canadian law, so that's both federal and some jurisdictional laws like BC, UNDRIP law in BC. They need to know the Action Plan. They need to parse out these details. So, before we can get to data sovereignty, you cannot skip over all of those other contextual elements.

So, if we've done all of that work, and we're at a place where we're talking about Indigenous data sovereignty, or more importantly, the way the distinctions-based peoples in this country approach information sovereignty following their sovereignty, then it really is essential to reconciliation. If we don't centre Indigenous data sovereignty within economic reconciliation, what we will see is a continuation of, or perpetuation of, an augmentation of extraction. Of, frankly, theft.

I know we're going to talk about AI in a moment. Dana has already alluded to this, but AI without ethics attached to it will simply – it's like a nuclear bomb exploding the potential for extraction and theft of really, really important information. Things that are central to culture, to language, to Indigenous worldviews and ways of being.

So, Indigenous data sovereignty, yes, absolutely essential. But people have to acknowledge there's an awful lot of work you have to do before you can get into meaningful conversation around the theory and practice of data sovereignty.

And now, fortunately, there are both national, regional, and local efforts, certainly in the First Nation space. My organization, the First Nation's Information Governance Centre, we've been given a lane to operate in by leadership across the country. And we're working in that space with First Nations across the country to help them assert First Nations' data sovereignty. The rights holders do that assertion, everyone else respects it. And so, I think there needs to be this education piece that Dana talked about.

Then, when you get to the practical implementation of practices of data sovereignty, at the nation-to-nation level, there are some things that need to be resolved. Canada's information governance regime, such as it is, its laws and policies, focused on the individual. Of course, First Nations, Indigenous peoples more broadly, have always had their own legal systems, ways of understanding the rights of individuals, but also the rights of collectives.

If you're talking about rights holding collectives, in certainly the First Nation space as I work, there is the necessity for us to acknowledge when it is a collective's right to assert its sovereignty over information. Well, Canadian law is inadequate, if it exists at all, for the assertion of collective rights, so if we're talking about reconciliation, there are these massive paradigm shifting, fundamental, foundational, choose your descriptor, reconciliation actions that Canada and Indigenous peoples still have to work through.

In the meantime, we don't stop everything while we try to fix those major things. We are working to responsibly create systems where Indigenous peoples can assert their rights and the rest of us can respect them by our work in these systems.

And so, that's certainly the work of my organization, narrow though it is. And there are also people working in the private sector. There are people working across all kinds of sectors. And so, this is the piece that I really want people to understand and take away is you cannot leap over core work to get to the buzzwords of the day. The buzzwords of today, hopefully, are meaningful because they're meaningful and not just because they're in use as buzzwords. Certainly, we won't let you do that if you're working with us.

But I think this is a takeaway that the audience for this for this panel. That's a key takeaway for people. If you're a public servant working in systems, you have a role to play. As a Canadian, you've been called on to help advance reconciliation. Now, you have to do it respectfully and in line with the systems of accountability you are working within. But you do need to use your voice.

And so, if a lack of education around these things, a depth of education around these really important contextual elements are missing, then you must demand it, because the system cannot allow you to be effective if those with the authority to build better, tear down systems if needed, those with the authority to take those actions need to hear this, and they need to be pressured to do it. An election is not enough. It's the advocacy, the ongoing advocacy of these ideas.

[00:45:03 Split screen: Kyra De La Ronde, Jonathan Dewar, and Dana Tizya-Tramm.]

Kyra De La Ronde: As technologies like AI and digital systems evolve, how can Indigenous knowledge and values guide more ethical and inclusive approaches to this work?

[00:45:14 Dana Tizya-Tramm appears full screen. Text on screen: Director, Arctic Circle Strategies & Chair, First Nation School Board.]

Dana Tizya-Tramm: I really appreciate the question, and I'm not going to hold back on this one. When we talk about, how can Indigenous knowledge and values guide more ethical and inclusive approaches to artificial intelligence, I think we need to take a step back all the way to the epistemological fork in the road. Epistemology is what is truth, and how do we know it to be true?

Let me give you an example of when Hernández Cortés was moving through the Juan de Fuca and up through the United States. They came across a peoples in South Dakota, and they were conducting a community ceremony. What they did is the whole community gathered in a circle and lined up the pubescent children, and in the middle of that circle was a basket and a weapon, and one at a time, the children would enter the circle and choose one.

If a young man picked up the weapon that would show the community that this is a man with principles and qualities. He could be a warrior chief. If he picked that basket, well, this is a male with some feminine qualities. Perhaps he's a medic, or he makes the armour and doesn't belong on the front lines of war.

If a young woman picked up that weapon, well, she's a strong woman with male qualities. Maybe she's the community chief, organizes the community. If that young woman picked up a basket, well, maybe she's a wet nurse, or a doula, or these types of roles.

Now, the Spanish observed this, and they inadvertently did the same thing. They drove a spike into the ground with a neck collar, and they observed the two spirited people in the community.

They put them into the neck collar and gathered the community and sicced war dogs on them, which pulled them into pieces in front of the community. And the Spanish pointed at those individuals and said, they are an abomination to God. God made the man and the woman and the family.

Now, what is sociologically taking place here, the psychology of people in groups, is one society was asking individuals, how do you self-identify? And we will weave you into our community and society. And the other society was saying, we don't care how you identify yourself. We have already preconceived offices for you to contort your life into to drive our monarchies forward. This is a fundamentally different philosophical conversation.

When you enter into a society where your only measurement of value is the car that you drive, what's in your bank account, and your job title, this has nothing to do with who you actually are. So, when we talk about what Indigenous peoples can offer and bring to artificial intelligence, what I'm saying is that first of all, the only option afforded to Indigenous people is, get your own infrastructure, get your own data centres, no matter how big or small, on your land for your legislation. This is the future, because once you start retaining your own data, you can begin training your own AIs instead of giving your data to the Google project, Gemini, or any of these other AI systems.

And watch what Indigenous peoples are going to build with these systems. Now it doesn't matter if an industrial project submission is 25,000 pages. Make it 25 million pages. It doesn't matter anymore because we have artificial intelligence systems that are able to break these down and understand them. And once our people begin employing artificial intelligence systems that we've designed and we trained, we now have the power of both worlds. We have the Indigenous ways of knowing and being with the spiritual and philosophical technologies that support and strengthen the human disposition through relationship, reciprocity, and respect, to have relationship with the land, one another, to practice reciprocity in all things.

And the beautiful thing is that these three Indigenous Rs are not cultural appropriation. But these three principles are not promoted in colonial systems, which eventually is leading to killing what it means to be a human being. I think it's Indigenous people that can approach this technology not from a place of deficit, but from a place of abundance, not from a place of compartmentalization and division, but one of wholeness.

And I foresee Indigenous peoples now recontextualizing industrial projects that are put forward. Now we can take the seven-generation rule. We can take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes – greatest scientific cohesion of 6,700 scientists – we can take that data and contextualize an industrial project into intergenerational ramifications.

Basically, artificial intelligence is going to unlock the academic, the legal, the economic, and the political capacities that are going to jumpstart the new architecture for society. And this is not going to come out of ChatGPT. This is not going to come out of Gemini. This is going to come from Indigenous peoples who have the infrastructure to control their own data and begin training AI systems on our land rights and titles, on our worldviews, and we will build corporations that empower the communities with intergenerational responsibilities.

What I'm trying to say is I don't believe there is another peoples on earth that have the simple philosophical disposition of community empowerment and long term sustainability. These are not buzzwords. This is not anything crazy to talk about returning back to sustainability. And now, artificial intelligence will give us the ability to manipulate the corporate act, not the other way around.

I foresee Indigenous communities adding more than just value or ethical pretenses. Indigenous peoples in Canada are the most sovereign people within the Commonwealth. It is only Indigenous peoples who have pre-existing rights that are far more sophisticated structures on intellectual property or data sovereignty. We don't use those words, but Indigenous peoples display, inherently, more nuanced understandings of intellectual property, of ownership from data that we've heard from Jonathan and this wonderful organization, FNIGC. I really recommend people go onto their website and read their discussion paper on the legislative regime in Canada not being able to support Indigenous data sovereignty.

So, what I'm trying to say is that artificial intelligence in these current iterations is merely going to exacerbate the disparities in wealth gap, in power gaps. It's not going to pacify these things. It's going to accelerate them and concentrate them. And if you could imagine in your mind, you are the only person with artificial intelligence technology, and you could give it to one person in the world. Well, we know what's going to happen if you give this technology to Palantir, one of the fastest rising military AI application corporations in North America. We know what's going to happen if you give it to the Gemini Project, if you go with Open AI. Now, imagine giving artificial intelligence to Indigenous peoples and our natural inclinations towards relationship, reciprocity, and respect.

But what I see coming very quickly is with Indigenous peoples owning and training their own systems, we can calibrate our Indigenous artificial intelligence programs to modern society with incredible accuracy. And I foresee a day coming where Indigenous peoples will utilize artificial intelligence to bend modern society to the principles of our community, of our lands and waters, and our people.

I don't think I'm being dramatic in laying out that it is Indigenous peoples who have the healthiest view of economies and how they should function, a holistic view where diversity is a strength. And as we know from nature, it banks on diversity and rewards cooperation. I guess what I am saying is that Indigenous peoples are the peoples who should be developing this technology, not the current state of affairs that we see today.

So, there's a lot of good things to come for Indigenous peoples. And this is predicated off of your lands' rights and title. And with these data centres on your land, you can legislate and create a higher degree of certainty, ethics, and transparency than anyone else within the British Commonwealth and anyone else in North America. It's only Indigenous peoples with these rights and these titles married with this technology, and it is limitless where we can go.

But again, this will not be sold to you by another corporation. And if Indigenous peoples do not pick up this technology and start innovating, then we are going to have a future full of Facebooks that does nothing for a community, that disempowers, and actually usurps not just our thought power and our organizing power, but our financial abilities as well.

The future is not these extractive models. They are grassroots, ground up, decentralized exercises of some of the most innovative people in the world, which is the Indigenous peoples in our humble communities who are working on how to make a future sustainable. This is not happening to that degree across a population in the city of Toronto, or the city of Vancouver. It's happening in our villages, and artificial intelligence is going to release the best parts of ourselves to really show the rest of the world something different.

[00:57:20 Split screen: Kyra De La Ronde, Jonathan Dewar, and Dana Tizya-Tramm.]

Kyra De La Ronde: To close off here, I'd like to ask, what gives you hope about the future of Indigenous leadership in shaping Canada's digital and economic landscape, and what actions should our audience take to support this work?

[00:57:35 Jonathan Dewar appears full screen. Text on screen: Chief Executive Officer, First Nations Information Governance Centre.]

Jonathan Dewar: Yes, so I've alluded to elements of this already. I mean, one of the things that makes me really hopeful is the incredible thought leadership we've had over many years, and I think Dana is demonstrating that as well in some of his responses. So, we have this incredible, incredible ability to... And we didn't always have the spaces that we have now.

So, there have been hard won victories, there have been difficult but rewarding collaborative and even co-development over the last decade, two decades, certainly in my professional life. I don't think my mother, or my grandmother could imagine that we'd be where we are today in terms of the relationship pieces. Acknowledging that there are still big paradigm shifting things to do in the nation to nation relationship context. The talent in Indigenous communities is incredible.

Now, the caution, of course, is or the caveat is always the, is how do you get opportunity to people? How do you ensure that people, communities, nations have capacity, the capital that is required for some of these things? So much of our work, certainly the kind of work that we do in the not-for-profit space, is dependent on government goodwill. And so, this idea that First Nations have put forward in a context of what values are, they put forward their priorities.

And so, there are national strategies across many things, including economic considerations. Indigenous strategies must be Canadian strategies, right? They must be. Gone are the days where you add a line or two to a Canadian strategy that gives some passing reference to Indigenous matters. If Indigenous peoples are putting forward these strategies, investing in strategies, then they must be central to Canadian strategies. And that's the diplomatic or political relationship aspect of it.

So, I think the fact that we've seen positive developments over the years but are still largely dependent on governments agreeing that our priorities align with their priorities, that's going to be an ongoing challenge. But the thought leadership, the ability of our formal leadership to drive the work at these different levels, the diplomatic, the political, the technical, I think we're in a place that we haven't been before, and the future should be very, very positive if there is ongoing concerted goodwill on the part of all players, so not just Canada, but Canadians as well.

It really matters if you have opportunities to inform the politics of this country. If you have opportunities to say, what is important to you? Well, the relationship with Indigenous peoples, righting past wrongs, and truly living up to the honour of the Crown and other obligations, treaty obligations, these are things that Canadians should be... You should be carrying this in your quiver along with all those other things that are important to you.

So, that would be my challenge to people is, continue that work if you're doing it. Join us if you are on a learning journey to get to that place. And, as Dana was saying, there's an untapped well of amazing potential in Indigenous communities. We just have to get the calculus right. A lot of good things underway, but much progress to make.

[01:01:16 Split screen: Kyra De La Ronde, Jonathan Dewar, and Dana Tizya-Tramm.]

Kyra De La Ronde: Thank you both again very much. This concludes this panel's discussion.

[01:01:22 Kyra De La Ronde appears full screen. Text on screen: Beyond Borders Coordinator, Manitoba Métis Federation.]

Kyra De La Ronde: I would like to thank both of our speakers and all of you from across Canada for your participation in being with us today. I hope you enjoyed today's discussion as much as I did, and I wish you just as much enjoyment for the rest of the event.

Thank you again. Merci. Merci.

[01:01:37 Text on screen: Words from Métis Elder, Jackie Mason. Jackie Mason is a founding member of Anola Métis Local, where she has served as Chair and Vice-Chair and was honoured in 2019 to take on the role of Community Elder. She has been with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada since 1999, holding several management positions, including Executive Director with the National Management Community, where she supported Blueprint 2020 initiatives and government-wide performance management.]

[01:02:24 Jackie Mason appears full screen.]

Jackie Mason: Hello. Hi, I'm Jackie Mason. I am a Red River Métis, and I was born and raised in the historical Métis homeland and Treaty One territory. Both my parents were, I say were Métis because they both passed away. I am a descendant of Cuthbert Grant, who has also been called the leader of the Métis and hailed as the founder of the Métis Nation. Today, I'm here to talk to you about Remembrance, Resilience, and Renewal.

When I think about Remembrance, I, earlier this year, went through the passing and grieving of the passing of my mother. She was 94 years old, and it brought back a lot of memories of my time with my mother and things that we endured as a family. My mother and my father both grew up in San Clara/Boggy Creek area, and unfortunately, it was a very racist area. When somebody called you Métis, the word Métis was used as a swear word. It was definitely not a word of endearment.

My mother, who was very white, fair-skinned, light hair, green eyes, could pass as white, and so my mother did. Throughout her lifetime, she passed as white. My dad, however, was dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes, very much like me, and he could not pass as white and did not pass as white throughout his lifetime. My father grew up in a home of 13 children. My grandfather was impacted as a product from colonization, and unfortunately, my grandfather abused all of his 13 children. As a result, all of them became alcoholics. My mother didn't realize this until after she was married and realized that my father was a wonderful man when he wasn't drinking, but when he drank, he was very abusive.

When my mother had already had four little girls and was pregnant with her last child, she endured a very abusive evening one night. When she recovered from that evening, she realized that she needed to make a change in her life, that she needed to be able to move, take us, and head for safety. So she did. Pregnant and four little girls in tow, my mother left my father. Unfortunately, at that time, there were no supports for women who left an abusive relationship, there just wasn't that in existence, so my mother had to go on welfare. She had no family in the city. She was on her own. So, she went ahead, she went on welfare, and she knew at some point she was going to have to continue to make changes in order to provide support and a good life for us girls.

When my oldest sister turned the age of 12, my mom was able to then go back to school and get her GED. My mom was born in 1930 during the Depression, and my grandfather pulled her out of school when she was in grade six and said, you don't have to have an education to learn how to change diapers and keep a house, so my mother only had a grade six education, and she knew if she wanted to have any hope of making a good income, or having a career, she needed to go back to school and get her GED.

So, she did that, and she would go to school at night, and my sister would look after us at night, and my mother would go to school, and she earned her GED. She did so well that they actually offered her a position to be a teacher there when she passed her GED, which she decided not to do. But life changed, and my mother was able to secure a job to support us, and we were able to go off welfare.

I grew up with no father, but what I did learn from my mother was about strength and resiliency. I learned that I had the strength within me and that I was capable of enduring any challenges life could throw my way. My mother was a very strong woman. She taught herself how to knit, how to crochet, how to upholster our furniture. When we lived on welfare, my mother often got donations of clothing, and my mom would take that clothing, she'd take it apart, she would make patterns out of newspapers, and she would resew the clothes for us to make it in more the style it was of the day, so that it looked new for us.

I never knew when I was young that I actually grew up on welfare. I didn't know what that was. But it's interesting. I never thought about not having a father either until I was in junior high when one of the girls at school said to me, you don't have a father, do you? You never talk about a father. You only talk about your mother. And then I realized she was right. I had been raised in a household with only a mother. But I was fortunate to have lived with a mother who was very strong and who believed in being able to rely on yourself, to be able to put yourself forward, and to be able to take the challenges that life threw at you.

Growing up as a young Métis girl, I grew up and I endured a lot of bullying and racism, and this continued even after I entered the workforce. I became a very tenacious person, and I learned when I got knocked down, I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward. I had been extremely blessed in my life in that I have a husband who supports me at <inaudible>. This year, we celebrated our 50 years of marriage. It has been from that strength and resilience that my mother had that helped me to forge the life I have and the ability to continue to move forward in my life.

Working in the federal government, and I worked for the federal government for almost 39 years, there is racism and bullying, and it's alive and well in the federal government. It's really important that you, as an Indigenous person, can find the supports you need to be able to make it through work. I was very fortunate in my work life that I had some extremely good colleagues, and I was able to do a lot of work in advocacy within the Indigenous community.

I have been able to help make changes, in one department in particular that I worked in, for a number of Indigenous people working within that department. And I was able to find some extremely strong allies within the non-Indigenous communities within the workplace as well. And by being able to find those colleagues and find those allies, I was able to draw on them as well in order to help support me and help me endure some of the things that happened and also be able to impact changes as well.

And then when we talk about... So that was talking about resilience and why it... When they talk about the Métis, they often talk about the resilience of the Métis and how it was through their resilience and the resilience of our ancestors that kept the Métis community and kept our cultures and our traditions alive and allowed us to be able to today be able to say, I am a proud Métis, and it's okay for me to say it within the workplace, to be able to say it within my home life, within my communities or any organizations that I belong to or join, that I do no longer have to hide who I am and what my cultures and traditions are.

My family, fortunately, have grown up in and have really embraced the Métis cultures and traditions and my grandchildren. I'm very proud and very thankful that our Indigenous leaders, our Métis leaders in particular, have forged that way for us and have made the differences and have fought for our recognition.

When we talk about renewal, renewal for me is ongoing, whether it has to do with personal renewal in my spirituality, my family, my career, and now in retirement, I had to learn to not to be so hard on myself and not to take it to heart the things that people said to me. Having a career in the federal government, I was very lucky to have had many opportunities and many abilities to work in a number of different departments.

I also learned that I had to find, again, people colleagues, allies who supported me, or could support me as well, as I worked within those departments. It became extremely important because often when you work at the manager and director level, you don't have the same number of colleagues necessarily to draw upon for that support. So, it's really important, it was very important for me, to find the colleagues and the allies that I could in order to support me and also the work that I was doing.

Because when you talk about changing culture within a department, that change does not happen overnight. It takes a long time, and we are still working, and there are still a number of really good Indigenous people within the federal government that are trying to make change and that are continuing to forge ahead and help to renew the federal government as a whole so that it can be more inclusive and more supportive for our Indigenous people and the future Indigenous people who want to work within the federal government.

So again, it's difficult when you have to work through racism and bullying because you work through all the other challenges within your workplace. But when you add that on top of it, it can make it hard, so you have to look for the good things. And you have to renew yourself on a regular basis to be able to continue being able to work and move forward, you have to refocus your thinking sometimes.

Sometimes it's a matter of stepping away to be able to get [back] in touch. For myself, and for many of my colleagues, it's making that reconnection with Mother Earth and being able to get back and step back into nature to be able to renew our spirit as well. It helps to refresh ourselves going forward so that we can help and continue to do the work we do.

I've learned to embrace my difference. I've learned to be proud of who I am, and I've learned to be very proud to be Métis. I knew I wanted to do well for myself, for my husband and my family.

[01:14:44 Text on screen: Jackie Mason, Métis Elder.]

Jackie Mason: When I failed at a job competition, and trust me, when you work in the federal government, as you try to move up the ladder, you compete many, many times if that's what you decide. I have been very successful in processes, and I have failed processes. When I failed at a job competition, I had to learn that process and finally realized that sometimes I had no control over the outcome. I had no control over that process, that sometimes it had nothing to do with me, but sometimes that process was predetermined at the beginning, and it wouldn't have mattered what I said or did or acted, it wouldn't have changed the outcome. So, I had to be okay with that. I had to accept that I can fail.

But then I also relied on my tenaciousness, and I kept moving forward, and I kept applying, and I kept trying out new things. And when something was offered to me, if it provided me with something that I was very interested in, I would accept it and I'd move. And sometimes that meant moving sideways or laterally as well as moving upward.

Life has challenged me, such as, deaths in my family, career changes, the loss of a friend, et cetera, I have to draw upon that inner strength within me and sometimes recharge, refocus, and draw upon the people who support me. Having good, positive supports has been essential and what has saved me during my life's journey.

Advocacy work has given me strength as well. Being able to talk to people and hear their stories and then help them to make changes or help support them along the way as they are making changes has been essential to me as a Métis person and has helped me grow as an elder. I have learned so much throughout my lifetime and continue to learn every day. I continue to give back to our community and to my colleagues and to my allies who have supported me. Often, I, at the end of the day, receive more than I give. Miigwech.

[01:17:05 Text on screen: Reflection from Inuit Knowledge Keeper, Monica Ittusardjuat. Monica Ittusardjuat is an Inuit knowledge keeper, educator, and language advocate from Nunavut. A residential school Survivor, she has dedicated her life to preserving and promoting Inuktut and Inuit culture through education, storytelling, and community leadership.]

[01:17:38 Monica Ittusardjuat appears full screen. Text on screen: Knowledge Keeper.]

Monica Ittusardjuat: Hi, my name is Monica Ittusadjuat. I'm a residential school survivor of three places: one in Chesterfield Inlet, Northwest Territories at the time, but after Nunavut. It's now Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut; Churchill, Manitoba, and Winnipeg. Well, actually, a place which is about eight miles out of Winnipeg, St. Norbert. I grew up for the first six years of my life in a subsistence way of life with my parents and my relatives, being together in the winter, living in an igloo or a Qarmaq, a sod house, and going from one place to another, wherever food was available. Then I was sent to residential school at the age of seven.

I want to talk about the Truth and Reconciliation Day and how I want to say the truth. That's part of my journey to tell the truth about what happened in residential school, in residential schools in general, and how reconciliations should happen, the way I see it.

There was a policy with the federal government to kill the Indian in the child, and I'm a First Nation Inuk, of the Inuit origin. I would like people to know that the federal government intention was genocide – to kill the Indian in the child. To me, that is genocide. The federal government is guilty of trying to commit genocide.

In my region, in the north, we had a school that was run by the Oblates Catholic Church. There were students from different regions, which is now <Inuktitut language> from <Inuktitut language> and Western Arctic, Central Arctic. What used to happen was different kinds of abuses, physical, emotional, and culturally. I wrote in my book, this book, The Scarf and the Butterfly, it's about my residential school experience. In that, I describe how... Well, I was in a healing session, and we're going to try to describe the inner child in us.

To me, it was dark. It was a dark cave, windy, and scary eyes behind me. The person who was asking me questions which led from one thing to another, and in the end, what's it like inside you? When I described that, he started crying and apologizing and saying that is how colonization, what colonization did to us. It stripped us of who we are and put us in a place where there's nothing of us left, no Inuktitut, no Inuit culture, because we weren't allowed to speak our mother tongue inside the school.

To me, when I read that maybe third or fourth time, it made me realize that that was the moment that I found out the Inuk-ness in me was taken away. It took me years to regain it back.

Well, we had an apology. The Prime Minister of Canada apologized to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit who went to residential schools.

But one of the things that I want to happen in Canada is for everyone try to teach mainstream society of what happened in Canada. It's not something that just happened to us residential school survivors. It's the history of what Canadian government did to the First Nations, Métis, and Inuits, to strip us of our identity in their language.

What I would also like is to be given more funding to revitalize our language, Inuktitut, for my people. Excuse me. And help us to deal with our addictions, drug and alcohol addictions, and so on. In Nunavut, there's hardly any support system for that kind of thing, so we need help.

Sure, there was an apology and many Calls to Action. I want things to happen, not just word of mouth, but just go ahead and do what they promised to the Inuit, Métis, and First Nations of Canada.

[01:26:38 Text on screen: Message from Indigenous youth, Sabryna Godbout, Wendat Nation. Sabryna Godbout is a proud youth from the Wendat Nation (Wendake). Since her adolescence, she has been committed to sharing and passing on Wendat culture to young people and the wider community.]

[01:27:06 Sabryna Godbout appears full screen. Text on screen: Care Coordinator for the Elders, Huron-Wendat Nation.]

Sabryna Godbout: <Indigenous language> Hello everyone, My name is Sabryna Godbout. I am Wendate and I am from Quebec. I am from the Turtle Clan and live in Wendake. Honestly, in my opinion on reconciliation, I often ask myself questions: What is good? What is not as good? So, it could very well be that in a few months, or even in a few years, I will have completely different remarks. However, I consistently find it important to also mention to people that when I speak, I speak for myself, Sabryna, and not for the entire Wendake community. I do not represent the Nation. Therefore, I believe it is also important to, absolutely, consider individuality and community in the reconciliation process; however, I am also an individual within my own family, within my community and within my Nation. So, I am really speaking on my behalf and not on behalf of the entire Wendat Nation.

When I look back a few years, right when I was making videos about reconciliation, I said to myself, "Ah! We, the Indigenous, also have our part to play; we have our friendship to offer." And eventually, with time, it seems that my remarks have changed. I have thoughts. In fact, I do not have very many answers for you about what reconciliation really is. I maybe may bring more questions and perspectives than answers.

Actually, maybe I can talk a little more about myself: I am currently on the Conseil de la Nation Wendat [Wendat Nation Council] and have been there as an ancestor care coordinator since March 2025 and, before that, I was a cultural worker for the Nation Council in the Culture sector responsible for cultural programming.

So, I had so many external requests to make, especially when September 30th arrived, the month of September, the first, requests for the sake of reconciliation. In fact, I sometimes felt a little frustrated in my job, because we often received calls from students from a university who would say, for example, "Hello. I'm doing my PhD ..." and people are not shy. "I have to, for the sake of reconciliation, I have the right to additional subsidies, but in order to receive them, I have to involve an Indigenous person. I'm looking for someone."

Therefore, in this context, we are using the Indigenous person as more of a tool. For this reason, there is this increasing rise in instrumentalization. So, what can we do in our actions to avoid falling into this situation? Do you have good intentions when it comes to addressing the programming with our purpose and our plan in mind?

So, there is this whole collaborative aspect that needs to be ... I think we need to be careful. Since it constantly becomes exhausting for us. On September 1st, we start to over-solicit the First Nations we know. There are also people who stand out more, who we see more often. Therefore, we will tend to go see them to ask questions.

However, when it comes to reconciliation, I think progress needs to be made. It is a long process, a relationship of trust that cannot be built in two minutes. It takes a long time to develop this cultural humility we have toward another nation. Are we also labelled too? Therefore, there is a whole process to go through before saying, "I'm an ally; I'm doing this for the sake of reconciliation, all of that."

Thus, I, first of all, really encourage people, before over-soliciting the First Nations ... I think my message would be to first get information from various resources, such as events, for example, I am thinking of KWE! Meeting with Indigenous Peoples, which always takes place in June, and the CAAN organization, which has various and very interesting resources where people can inform themselves about the number of Indigenous Nations and the languages spoken.

So, before actually going out and doing that, inform yourself first. I really believe that this is part of the process of building a bridge. In an Indigenous environment, the relationship of trust is what is very important.

Therefore, this would be the message I would like to pass on in my reflection today, in my many unanswered, but, somewhat, answered thoughts. So, there you have it. I invite you to have plenty of self-talks, inner dialogues and self-meetings to find out if you are truly ready to reach out to the other too.

So, have a good meeting! I would say that this is what I want to say.

[01:32:23 Text on screen: Panel 2. Exploring how initiatives like Employment and Social Development Canada's IT Apprenticeship Program for Indigenous Peoples are creating meaningful employment opportunities and strengthening Indigenous participation in the digital economy.]

[01:32:36 Gina Wilson appears full screen. Text on screen: Deputy Minister, Indigenous Services Canada.]

Gina Wilson: Hello, bonjour, <Indigenous language>, and welcome to the second panel of today's event, which will be discussing Employment and Social Development Canada's IT Apprenticeship Program for Indigenous Peoples, which is actually for all of us, and how it really is creating meaningful employment opportunities and strengthening Indigenous participation in the digital economy.

Thank you for joining us. Gina Wilson (inaudible). I am the Deputy Minister, Indigenous Services Canada and I will be moderating this session. I would like to take a moment to <Indigenous language> thank the Elders and artists who shared their wisdom and incredible talent with us today. I am filled with gratitude to be here with you today as we come together to reflect and learn about reconciliation and the importance of honouring Indigenous voices on the fifth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

In the public service has been really shaped by the voices and the truths of survivors. From my youth and particularly from my days of working with partners, to implement the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, to supporting the Prime Minister's Apology to survivors of residential schools and their families – the biggest highlight of my career – to even now contributing to the steering committee on the Indian Residential Schools National Monument to be on Parliament Hill.

Moments like the apology and the TRC, they're not just historic events and milestones in policy,

they were, they are, Calls to Action. To listen, to learn, and to change. Before we ease into our panel, I'd like to share that, as well in my role as Deputy Minister Champion for Indigenous Federal Employees, it's just an honour to be entrusted to listen, and to learn, and to really help uncover systemic barriers that Indigenous peoples face in joining and thriving within Canada's largest employer, the Federal Public Service.

In 2017, I released the Many Voices, One Mind: A Pathway to Reconciliation and an Action Plan, which became a whole of government's strategy to address these barriers.

The report was developed from the collective vision of Indigenous public servants across Canada. Let's ensure that their lived experience, perspectives and aspirations are at the heart of the process. The action plan reflects national calls to action and a transformation in the workplace to make the federal public service a place where Indigenous peoples are not only welcome but also valued. It is estimated that closing the education and employment gap between Indigenous peoples and the rest of Canadians could add $27 billion annually to the gross domestic product.

By embedding reconciliation into the daily operations of the public service, Many Voices, One Mind, and what will soon be MVOM 2.0, this report really challenges us to move beyond symbolic gestures and really to take practical, meaningful, and measurable steps towards inclusion.

Now, the IT Apprenticeship Program for Indigenous Peoples was identified as a promising practice in Many Voices, One Mind, and it's way up there, folks. A pure gem in the federal public service. Today, seeing initiatives like the IT Apprenticeship Program for Indigenous People take root, it just fills me with hope and inspiration. Our peoples were excluded from the industrial revolution, but the digital revolution must now include our peoples and our communities as leaders, innovators, and full participants in shaping our shared future.

It is my pleasure to convene a conversation today with a distinguished panel of guest speakers and hear from their perspectives, starting with Paul Thompson, Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development Canada; followed by Dominic Rochon, Chief Information Officer of Canada, of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat; Namir Anani, President and CEO of the Information and Communications Technology Council; and Gary Patsey, Senior Indigenous Advisor, Office of Indigenous Initiatives, Employment and Social Development Canada.

Now let's move on to our panel.

[01:37:49 Split screen: Gina Wilson, Paul Thompson, Dominic Rochon, Namir Anani, and Gary Patsey.]

Gina Wilson: So colleagues, I will be inviting each of you to reflect on one question. Please feel free to respond in the official language of your choice. We'll start with DM Thompson.

Paul, can you tell us more about the IT Apprenticeship Program for Indigenous Peoples led by your department?

[01:38:12 Paul Thompson appears full screen. Text on screen: Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development Canada.]

Paul Thompson: Thank you so much, Gina, for your leadership, for your opening remarks, and for anchoring the conversation today around the implications of taking concrete steps toward reconciliation. These events really give us an opportunity to reflect on what we can do and sometimes that can also mean doing things differently.

On the IT Apprenticeship Program, this was very much inspired by the Many Voices, One Mind report and initiative, and also by the broader Truth and Reconciliation Commission work and their Calls to Action. I'm very proud of the work that's been done on this program, although I can't claim I much credit for it personally. This got underway prior to my arrival in the department two years ago. It's really a story of inspired leadership on the ground and grassroots support for some really inspiring ideas. There was a member of our executive management James (inaudible) from our information technology branch. James put a lot of work into developing a proposal here. He secured funding through the department to get a small pilot project going. That pilot project grew. I'll say a little bit more about that.

But maybe first, Employment and Social Development is the labour market department for Canada. We have a front row seat seeing what some of the issues are in the workforce. We see the inequities in the workforce. We see participation rates, and so on. There is a recent study, for example, on Indigenous participation, found that even though Indigenous peoples represent 4.8% of the workforce, they are only 1.4% of the technology workforce, so significantly underrepresented. So, the Government of Canada does a little bit better than that, but we, too, have a gap.

So, that's what this initiative was all about. It started as a pilot project in 2020, looking at pathways to employment in the IT workforce for Indigenous peoples. The early stages were successful. It was expanded government-wide in 2021. It's about getting more representation, but I would say it's more than that.

When I think about the work we do at ESDC, it's critically important that the workforce reflects the population we serve, and that's included in the IT space. If we're going to design IT products and servatives, having those Indigenous voices are really important.

Maybe I'll just conclude with just a few facts about the program and how it works. It offers a 24-month apprenticeship that is 80% on the job training and 20% self-directed professional development learning. It's a bit of a mix. Maybe just to share some overall numbers, we've hired close to 200 apprentices now across 36 federal departments, and we've seen 58 participants successfully graduate. 31% of program participants are women.

An interesting feature of the program, it really supports this notion of Indigenous employees being able to work and stay in their communities. The IT work lends itself well to this hybrid or virtual work. 21% of the participants live and work in their community.

So, really proud of it. I hope it continues to thrive. It has received some recognition from the Clerk's report and other documents like Canada's digital ambition and employment equity reports and so on. It's a recognized program, rather, and really proud of the impact that it's having.

[01:42:25 Split screen: Gina Wilson, Paul Thompson, Dominic Rochon, Namir Anani, and Gary Patsey.]

Gina Wilson: Now, recognizing that Indigenous peoples continue to face barriers to employment, how has the program helped overcome these challenges?

[01:42:45 Paul Thompson appears full screen. Text on screen: Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development.]

Paul Thompson: First, the initiative was created by First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, for them and with them. Remove barriers to employment in the IT or federal government workforce.

It really was aimed at incorporating Indigenous perspectives in the design of the program, valuing lived experience, community knowledge, and looking at identifying participants with a lot of potential and a commitment to learning.

It integrates Indigenous worldviews in learning, very much around experiential learning to foster individual and collective responsibilities. It has some other interesting features. It has a circle of support that includes peer partnerships, job shadowing, mentorship. There's a whole bunch of elements that draw from Indigenous learnings and teachings, sharing circles, success facilitators. So, really proud not only of the fact that the program exists, but that it has embraced Indigenous perspectives in the very design of it.

One of the reasons we've been able to do that is that the team working on the initiative is itself predominantly Indigenous. 80% of the team identifies as Indigenous, so it's propelling itself with some of those perspectives built in. As a result, it creates a more culturally aware, culturally safe space for all the participants. Again, really proud of the design and the impact that it's having on the ground.

[01:44:20 Split screen: Gina Wilson, Paul Thompson, Dominic Rochon, Namir Anani, and Gary Patsey.]

Gina Wilson: Now, over to you, Mr. Rochon, Dominic. Can you speak to the importance of Indigenous peoples' participation in the government of Canada's digital workforce?

[01:44:34 Dominic Rochon appears full screen. Text on screen: Chief Information Officer of Canada, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.]

Dominic Rochon: Thank you very much for the question, Gina. I think my answers, and my response will add a little to what we just heard from Deputy Minister Thompson. As Chief Information Officer of Canada, I spend a lot of time thinking about digital systems, service delivery, technology, but none of that really matters if it doesn't serve people. We cannot serve people well if Indigenous voices, leadership, and priorities are not reflected in how we support, build, hire, design, and deliver.

Indigenous participation in Canada's digital workforce isn't just important, it's essential. Indigenous peoples bring not only critical technical skills, but also worldviews, lived experiences and leadership approaches that help us design services and build systems that are more inclusive, more just, and more effective. A digital government that doesn't reflect Indigenous voices isn't serving the country as a whole.

At the core of my role, and our work across digital government, there's a responsibility to attract, develop, retain, and lead a workforce that reflects the diversity, values, and potential of our country. Indigenous leadership and perspectives are foundational to that mission and to the future we're creating.

The Government of Canada is deeply committed to delivering services that meet the needs of all people across the country. To that, well, we need to expand space for Indigenous voices and priorities, not just in policy conversations, but in how we design and deliver digital services every day. This is long term work, but it's the only way to build services that are relevant, trusted, and truly responsive to the communities we serve.

The IT Apprenticeship program is a powerful example of what that looks like in practice. It's a program developed by and for Indigenous peoples and rooted in respect for community, sovereignty, and it opens doors not just to employment, but to influence, to shaping a digital government that reflects the full diversity of this country. It's more than a training program. It's a step towards reconciliation.

Developed by, with, and for Indigenous peoples, this program recognizes the importance of community, of sovereignty, and of designing systems that remove barriers. It valued life experience and potential over traditional credentials and opens real pathways into the digital economy. And by supporting Indigenous apprentices and graduates to work from their communities, the program enables them to remain deeply engaged with their culture bringing genuine perspectives that enrich the program and its impact. It's about listening deeply, making space, and committing long term to building a public service where Indigenous people fully participate, thrive, and lead.

By investing in Indigenous talent, we're not only growing digital skills and capacity, but affirming the inclusion and leadership of Indigenous peoples in shaping the future of digital government. The pace of change in the digital world is unrelenting, and keeping up isn't just about technology, it's about people. It requires humility, openness, and partnership to build systems that serve everyone. As Chief Information Officer of Canada, I'm therefore proud to endorse this program, which meets the Government of Canada qualification standard alternative for the IT occupational group. I was privileged to serve as an honourary witness at the most recent graduation. Seeing the resilience, talent, and growth of those apprentices, it was both powerful and inspiring.

The commitment from apprentices and the support from host organizations, from ESDC and the digital community, shows what is possible when we work together toward real lasting change. Ultimately, the importance of Indigenous people's participation in Canada's digital workforce cannot be overstated. It makes our services better. It makes our government stronger. It helps us build a digital future that reflects and respects the full diversity of the people we serve.

I strongly encourage everyone to consider bringing on an apprentice and to support the continued growth and impact of this important initiative. Because Indigenous perspectives don't just improve how we work, they lead to better outcomes, for policy, for service delivery, for digital government, and for the country. Merci.

[01:49:07 Split screen: Gina Wilson, Paul Thompson, Dominic Rochon, Namir Anani, and Gary Patsey.]

Gina Wilson: Okay. I am going now to Namir and wanting to ask you the question, in what ways could this program move to systemic transformation?

[01:49:20 Namir Anani appears full screen. Text on screen: President and Chief Executive Officer, Information and Communications Technology Council.]

Namir Anani: Thank you, Deputy Minister Wilson, for the introduction, but also for the question. I'm deeply honoured to participate in this meaningful day today to honour the residential school survivors, their families, and their communities.

First of all, thank you for inviting me to participate in this panel. On behalf of the Information and Communications Technology Council, I am truly delighted to have participated in this discussion on such an innovative and important program as the IT Apprenticeship Program For Indigenous Peoples.

If I reflect on my own personal commitment, as it relates to reconciliation, and the role that my organization, the Information and Communication Technology, in its mandate to advance Canada's digital advantage in the global context, but also as part of our role in corporate Canada, I see many meaningful ways that we can contribute, and the private industry can contribute to this perspective.

If I look at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was mentioned, the Call to Action 92, certainly it defined many meaningful ways for the private industry to partake in this objective, in either through inclusive hiring or developing respectful partnerships with Indigenous communities or embedding mechanisms and concepts in the conduct of their business, whether it's in the development of the software, or in the procurement, or many other activities associated with that.

The technology sector in itself is certainly a tremendous opportunity to respond to reconciliation in general. If we draw inspiration from the IT Apprenticeship Program for Indigenous Peoples, we can see the parallels and the opportunities that that creates. But not only that, it provides Indigenous peoples with the opportunity not only to succeed but lead in one of Canada's fastest growth segment of the economy.

There is certainly a large demand in this space for talent. According to our own studies, that we see that the talent demand in the last three years alone in the digital or the tech space have outpaced every other sector by 5:1, and specifically for the small medium enterprises that require the highest capabilities of talent to help them succeed in the next number of years.

In my view, such programs are certainly not only a catalyst, but it's a great incubator for the broader talent capabilities in Canada and should be viewed as a bridge in that dimension. As Deputy Minister Paul Thompson highlighted that an intensive program of 24 months trained on cybersecurity, cloud business, software development, data analytics, all go a long way in helping SMEs potentially acquire job-ready talent and help them grow in scale and scope and compete not only nationally, but internationally. But also at the same time, offers tremendous opportunities for Indigenous peoples to have autonomy in their careers and prospects, not only in government, also in the private industry.

In conclusion, definitely when we hear about the program and the discussions that we've had also with the private industry, the successes of the program speak for themselves. Such programs in its capability, not only for the government, but its transition also to the private industry, I see as one that should be not only scaled and championed, but also embraced as one of the greatest drivers for reconciliation, for innovation, and inclusive economic growth.

[01:53:35 Split screen: Gina Wilson, Paul Thompson, Dominic Rochon, Namir Anani, and Gary Patsey.]

Gina Wilson: That was great. Gary, over to you. What impact have you seen, personally or organizationally, from this program?

[01:53:45 Gary Patsey appears full screen. Text on screen: IT Technical Advisor, Employment and Social Development Canada.]

Gary Patsey: Thank you, Deputy Minister Wilson. The program is what reconciliation looks like in practice. We've heard the word reconciliation in many contexts. We've learned that reconciliation requires acknowledgement. So often, reconciliation can feel unachievable. It can create fear, fatigue, and settler guilt in non-Indigenous people. The late honourable Murray Sinclair, [indigenous language] is an Ojibwe protocol when we mention the name of someone who has passed – captured the essence of the difficulty of achieving reconciliation as he shared his thoughts about National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in 2022.

He says, "When I was sharing the TRC, I realized that getting to the truth was hard, but getting to reconciliation is going to be harder." He went on to say that "we are not only calling for people to understand this truth and to accept it, but we are also calling on people to recognize that there came with it benefits and privileges that are now bestowed upon the settler population. That they were bestowed at a great cost to Indigenous people."

As presented today, initiatives like the IT Apprenticeship Program for Indigenous Peoples demonstrates that reconciliation is tangible. Due to impacts of colonization, Indigenous peoples across many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities have experienced intergenerational disadvantages such as disassociation to self-identity, community, community, language, culture, and family, to name a few. These disadvantages are revealed in areas including, but not limited to, socioeconomic standing, education levels, meaningful employment, housing and health status.

As Indigenous people experience these disadvantages, symptoms like addiction, broken homes, domestic violence, limited education, substandard levels of health care, and many other factors make these multitude of challenges seem insurmountable. But I'm here to share that over the past few years, I've had the honour of hearing countless stories from apprentices and graduates on the transformative impact that such a program can have.

From pride of purchasing a first home, to having the time to participate in cultural activities and family or community events, to having access to better health care or having quality time with one's children, participants in the program have come together, supporting one another to overcome disadvantages as demonstrated in their continuous desire to heal, to break down the walls of disadvantage, to help self, to help families and Indigenous communities thrive.

The results can be seen in mental and health wellness recovery, cultural revitalization, Indigenous families reconnecting, Indigenous individuals stepping into community leadership, personal transformational growth, and acquiring meaningful employment, to name a few. I've also heard from many managers of how apprentices and graduates are tremendous assets to their teams. Managers are also... They share their experiences of accessing our program to fill their staffing needs as a turnkey solution with comprehensive supports.

The IT Apprenticeship program for Indigenous Peoples demonstrates the power of coming together, how small intentional activities can spark broader systemic change, that incremental efforts can ripple into something positive that will impact individuals, their families, and future generations. The interest in this initiative has been overwhelmingly positive. The number of applicants currently exceeds the available spaces. This speaks about the desire among Indigenous peoples to engage in digital careers and to contribute to Canada's tech sector when given the opportunity.<Indigenous language>. Thank you.

[01:58:12 Split screen: Gina Wilson, Paul Thompson, Dominic Rochon, Namir Anani, and Gary Patsey.]

Gina Wilson: Well, folks, this concludes this panel discussion. I'd like to thank our speakers and all of you across the country for being with us today. Those were amazing responses.

[01:58:25 Gina Wilson appears full screen. Text on screen: Deputy Minister, Indigenous Services Canada.]

Gina Wilson: I hope you enjoyed the discussion today as much as I did, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the event just as much.

Be well. Thank you. Miigwech.

[01:58:40 Text on screen: Inuit throat singers Qattuu Carleton duo and stretch break.]

[01:58:48 2 women face each other and perform a throat singing song]

[02:01:03 Nathalie Laviades Jodouin appears full screen. Text on screen: Senior Vice President, Public Sector Operations and Inclusion, Canada School of Public Service.]

Nathalie Laviades Jodouin: This concludes today's event. I would like to thank our Elders, speakers, and artists for sharing their valuable insights, cultures, and expertise. I would also like to thank our audience across the country for participating in this event.

I hope you found today's discussions interesting and informative. Please take a few moments to share your feedback with us at the Canada School of Public Service using the survey you will receive shortly after the event. The School has other events to offer federal public servants, and I encourage you to visit our website to stay informed and register for any future learning opportunities.

I would also like to thank the general population for their interest and participation in today's event. Once again, thank you and have a nice day.

[02:02:35 Text on screen: Content Advisory. This event will include discussions that may address sensitive or emotionally difficult topics. If you are a Government of Canada employee, confidential support is available through the Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

For members of the public, immediate mental health support is available through the 988 Helpline (call or text 988, available 24/7 nationwide). Indigenous participants are encouraged to access the Hope for Wellness Helpline which offers culturally safe, 24/7 counselling and support: 1-855-242-3310.]

[02:03:22 Animated CSPS logo appears. Text on screen: canada.ca/school-ecole.]

[02:03:27 Canada wordmark appears.]