 Hey, I'm going to let people in. Thanks everyone. Right, so I'd like to welcome everybody to today's live conversation about race and racism in Canadian post-secondary education and beyond that is a collaboration between McEwen University and the Conversations Canada. My name is Craig Zemski. I'm the Associate Vice President Research at McEwen University. I would like to start by acknowledging the land on which we gather in Treaty 6 territory is the traditional gathering place for many Indigenous people. We honor and respect the history, the languages, ceremonies, and culture of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, who call this territory home. The First People's connection to the land teaches us about our inherent responsibility to protect and respect Mother Earth. With this acknowledgement, we honor the ancestors and children who have been buried here, missing and murdered Indigenous women and men, and the process of ongoing healing for all human beings. We are all reminded that we are all Treaty people and of the responsibility we have to one another. So again, I'd like to welcome you to the next event in the webinar series that I've kind of been formally calling McEwen in the mixed events. These conversational events have brought together McEwen faculty, staff, with various community partners to discuss pressing societal issues to allow us to see these issues in a different light so we can better understand the issues and ultimately try to work collaboratively towards common solutions. I always say universities are a microcosm for what occurs, what happens in society, and I think for us to be relevant, we need to put ourselves out there and be in the mix. So today's event was coordinated at McEwen University through the Office of Human Rights, Diversity, and Equity, and the Office of Research Services working in collaboration with the Conversation Canada. So I will just briefly introduce our two conversationalists and then I will turn it over to President Trembi and Ms. Riva Saba. So Dr. Net Trembi is the President and Vice Chancellor at McEwen University. She has a wealth of experience and knowledge both as a leader in both the post-secondary and the public sector. In addition to being a very accomplished academic, she spent nearly 30 years building a career with the government of Alberta. She's the current Chair of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, which is a partnership with Canadian universities that is dedicated to expanding digital content for academic research and teaching in Canada. She's on the Board of Directors for the Conversation Canada, as well as very recently, as we know, serving as the Chair of the City of Edmonton's Community Safety and Well-Being Task Force. Benita Srivastava is a journalist, educator, and media innovator with experience in South Asia, South Africa, and North America. She's reported and edited for the New York Times magazine by The Billet Voice and Savoy. She co-hosts the Asia Pacific Forum at WBAI Radio and the Solid Mix at CKLN for over a decade. And she's also taught media for non-government organizations in Canada, the US, and Rwanda, as well as teaching at Ryerson School of Journalism as a professor of journalism. So I will now turn the conversation over to Dr. Trimme and Ms. Srivastava. Thanks, Craig. That was a great introduction. It's nice to be here. And thank you very much for the invitation to McEwen University and to everybody who helped put this together and organize it from the conversation and also at McEwen. My name is Benita Srivastava. And I'm going to be a little bit less formal, Craig. Then if you don't mind, I'm going to go right into it. This is the podcast world. And in the podcasting world, we normally don't have a visual. And I've had some of my guests who've told me that they've actually spoken to me with the headphones on while lying on the ground or sitting on the couch. So we're just trying to get into kind of an intimate space with each other. And I invite you all to join us along on the journey. And we are here today to talk about some of the issues around race and racism. That is what our podcast Don't Call Me Resilient is about. But we also want to get into some of the everyday challenges that we're facing in our lives. So I know, Annette, that you're a supreme and expert organizer and leader. And I am going to really ask you some of those really pressing, curious conversations that we're all having with each other right now, which is how can we make our Zoom lives better? How can we run a meeting that's interesting? Those are some of the just personal selfish questions that I have for you. But I'm going to jump into our conversation today, which is about the role of the university and the role of the university and the future of the city and how these things are connected. As Craig says, we have some responsibility for those of us in universities. And having grown up in an academic family, I take this very personally as well. Some people think of universities as places of education. And they are places of education. Of course, they are that. But they're also so much more than that. They can be so much more than that. And they're called upon to be so much more than that, as I'm sure President Trinby and Annette, you can tell us all about the pressures to be excellent in research, to be amazing in business, real estate players, real estate acquisition, to survive as businesses. These are all some of the pressures that universities face. But we also have to be good at change when we're talking about universities. And we are in the middle of massive changes right now. We are six years past the TRC, the truth and reconciliation, the 94 calls to action, six years past that. Where are we now in those 94 calls to action? University has been called to integrate many of these, as many of these actions have to do with education. And we're also in the middle of a year of what many are calling a year of racial reckoning. And what is the role of the university? When we spoke last week, Annette, you said this has really been on your mind a lot, which is what is the role of the university in the, what's the role of the recovery? What role can the university play in the recovery of some of these things? And I say recovery in kind of a very large way. So universities are called to be part of this change. And many, many people challenge the idea that universities must do more than merely reside in the city that they belong to. They must actually take part in the city. They must integrate with it. And they must take part in having a role in part of its social change. And I'm really excited to be here today with Annette because Annette is someone who really embodies this idea of really wanting to take the university out into the world and out into the city and see what kind of impact the university and the city can have together in terms of imagining the future of the city. Well, we're really in a moment. I know the kids right now don't use the word pandemic. Like they say things like panini. Apparently saying panini instead of pandemic takes the fresher off of what we're talking about. But we are in the middle of this panini pandemic. And we do have to sort of, we are facing so many things that we have to talk about so many challenges. So I just, I'm gonna reiterate again some of the things that I said earlier on and Craig has introduced me, but I'll start again with that, which is my name is Vinitha Srivastava. I'm the host of a new podcast about race at the Conversation Canada, which is called Don't Call Me Resilient. We do tackle some deep issues about race and racism and joining me today live. My co-host for the afternoon or for the morning is President Annette Trimby, who's as you know, President of McEwen University. So thanks for having this conversation with me Annette and thanks for sparking the conversation. So although Annette, you've only been the President of McEwen University for under one year. You've been faced with many challenges and you've already challenged this idea of the university as merely being in the city. You understand that it's not enough just to hope for inclusive societies. You actually have to take action. And your philosophy that the university must also integrate with and work for the city can be seen in your latest work, which has really recently been in the news. So I'm sure many of people have heard about it, but that you were recently called upon by city council to chair an independent task force on community wellness and safety. And that task force presented its findings this week to city council. And that task force was a direct outcome of Black Lives Matter protests or the calls to action from the Black Lives Matter led protests, led marches this summer. And they were challenges to policing. So this week your task force that you chaired released the report and the report is called for some significant changes to policing and to safety in the city that you were part of Edmonton Police Services. The police chief has expressed his disappointment and he's declared the report to be inaccurate. And you've presented your task force has presented its 14 recommendations to city council and they're not gonna take months to deliberate over recommendations. So no one said fostering engagement in the city or fostering change is gonna be easy but Annette I know that you're up for the challenge and you're not backing down. So I know that we have a lot to talk about. So thank you again to McEwen and to the conversation for organizing this event. And just so you know, before we start, McEwen University is a member of the Conversation Canada and you yourself Annette are on our board. So I'm gonna jump right in Annette and I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about what I mentioned earlier which is that you've been in this role about five months at the university and you've started five months into, I'm gonna say at the pandemic. And I know that safety of students and faculty were really top priority on your mind but as we mentioned that you've also been called to do this other massive duty which is to chair this task force. So what you said and one of the things that you said in this report is that Edmonton's community safety ecosystem desperately needs to be modernized. So can you tell us a little bit about this report? What are some of the things that you recommended? I know it's a lot. Well, just tell me about this report. I like open-ended questions. I like open and I'm just pretending we're having a conversation on the phone because it's a little bit, I'm watching the caption, I'm seeing myself on screen. I have a blanket on my legs but I'm gonna try and relax and just pretend we're talking live. It's great to be here with you too. And one of the things you said early, you talked about hope is not a strategy. Hope is not enough, right? So I did arrive at McEwen University, I'm gonna say in the middle of the pandemic but it's not really the middle because we're still in the pandemic or Panini or whatever your kids call it. My kids are a little older, they call it the pandemic. But in many ways, I arrived in the middle of a triple pandemic in Alberta with the oil and gas situation and our economy changing so fast on top of the pandemic. And then you add to it the rational reckoning. And my thinking has always been and I've been a university president now this is my second time and the first time was at the University of Winnipeg. And when I arrived at the University of Winnipeg, they too had some fiscal challenges. And then city of Winnipeg, that was the year Winnipeg was declared the most racist city. That was the year Tina Fontaine was found in the Red River. So there are some similarities. One of the differences though, arriving this time at McEwen is I didn't have the luxury of in person or time, right? So you add the oil and gas, the pandemic and the racial reckoning. So I arrived at a very charged time. And part of what you do when you start at a new university is you really take the time to get to know people, you take the time to understand and you learn a lot by walking the halls, you learn a lot by attending seminars. I've been trying to do that, but Zoom isn't quite the same as being there in person. So about the report, it's really about a journey. And first, why did I say yes? I said yes. My husband said to me, why did you say yes? I said yes, because I think the role of a university is broad teaching, research and serving the public good. And by serving the public good, it really depends on how you see public good. So I think it is part of my role to be out there in community, providing some service. And in my past role, I often did things for, I did a task for the city of Winnipeg, I did something for the federal government, I did something for the provincial government. So I do think that's part of my expertise is process and I have been involved in a whole number of things. So I did it because McEwen is downtown, we are in the mix. We have a role to play in recovery, recovery defined in so many ways, bringing people back down town, the economic recovery in Edmonton, as well as we have a leadership role to play in anti-racism, equity, diversity and inclusion. So about the journey, I said yes. And part of why I also said yes is what the city did something very different. This is a task force like no other because they deliberately went out and asked a search firm to put together a task force with community members that had lived experience as well as a broad range of expertise. On top of that, they appointed members of the police service, they appointed a representative from the Edmonton Police Commission and they appointed two people from the city. I've never had the experience of working with such a diverse group. So part of it is I wanted to have the opportunity to learn from those task force members. And I was the late addition. They figured out who they wanted and then they sorted out who they wanted as chair. How was the chair chairing that kind of a diverse? You said you've never been such a part of a diverse group and you're the chair of a really diverse group. How was that for you? Well, it was a lot of fun and very rewarding and tough emotionally sometimes. And we did all of our work through Zoom. No, actually Google in this very room and we did it in the evening and everybody on the task force has a complicated life with jobs and children and all sorts of things to take care of. And often people arrived and we'd start the meeting by sharing their day. So I was so impressed. This was such an engaged group. They really laid their soles bare. They were very open-minded and we did things in a totally different way. So... Yeah, sorry. I don't mean to ask you again. I'm just so curious. So you start things in a different way only because I think so many of us struggle with this when we're having these kinds of challenging conversations. I mean, the conversations must be really challenging when you're talking about policing and safety and community emotions. And you're saying that there's a mix of people, those who've got the experiential level and then you've got the people who are maybe more theoretical about it. And then you've got the practitioners at this, you know, you've got... So what kind of techniques did you use? Every meeting you started with sharing something about your day or is there another technique that you want or secret that you're going to share with us about what happened in some of those meetings and how you did those? Well, part of it was how we started and obviously the beginning, the middle and the end. And in the middle, I mean, we started... Many of you have been involved in very complicated system exercises. The role was huge because we were asked to look at how to make our city more safe and welcoming through an anti-racist lens. And part of the pressure was this task force was created in response to the Black Lives Matter protest and a series of public hearings where the majority of the people that showed up at those public hearings called for a defunding of police. And in many instances, what they meant by defunding was to invest in things to reduce demand for police. So although the scope was broad, one of the tensions in the group was the relative focus on policing. Compared to everything else in the community ecosystem. So if you look at the report, there are recommendations on investing in other things in the ecosystem. For example, public washrooms, for example, indigenous shelters. One of the other tensions is today, city council will probably be releasing a report that speaks to all of the money flowing into Edmonton social safety net, money from the federal government, provincial government philanthropy. And what it demonstrates is there is a lot of money coming into the system overall. So I think one of the counter arguments to one of our recommendations, which was to freeze funding to police and take what they would normally get through a formula and invest that into some things to reduce demand for police. Today a report will come out and it will say there's so much money in the system. Really the problem is just one of coordination. So maybe you could debunk or maybe explain something that I think is commonly, I mean, I think you touched on it just now, but the common misconceptions around what does defund the police actually mean? When, you know, that's the sort of cry and you get this kind of immediate defensive reaction to that. There will always be a role for police. The word defund though means different things to different people. The task force was clear in our report that we thought that word meant was to invest in services that would reduce demand for police. We did not recommend a cut in the police budget. We recommended a freeze. Right now they get predictable increases year after year. And this was a decision made by city council a few years ago and they're thinking at the time was that this would depoliticize police funding, make it formulae. That was a few years ago when everything was going up or everything was at least being maintained but we're in a different cycle right now. So what we noticed was police funding was going up but other preventative services funding was going down. Right. So it's not about getting rid of the police. It's about actually bolstering and boosting up other services that could help community services, things that you said, public washrooms, shelters, community services. Sure and in terms of how the task force approached its work there were a number of reports made available to us that were commissioned by the police service or the police commission or city council. There's a lot of information out there that members of the task force would collect and share. So we created a bit of a portal but a lot of the work was actually done by subgroupings of the panel that would go away and put some thoughts together. So it was an interesting process to actually come down to 14 recommendations. And early on in the process we decided that we didn't want to have a million recommendations and that we wanted our recommendations to be doable and we wanted to get transformation through incremental change, which sounds like a bit of an oxymoron to transform the world through incremental change. But if you pick the right ones, they start to feel doable and far less threatening to people. Yeah, I mean, when you look at the 14 recommendations they don't sound, there's nothing in there to me that sounds extreme or threatening. But one of the things that I found really interesting was that the police official response and one of the things, I mean, it was generally negative as you called it but I also think that it was interesting to me to hear that one of the things, one of the critiques about this report was that it was inaccurate or that it was under-researched. And I'm wondering what your response is to that. We use publicly available data and part of the sensitivity is always when you are comparing things like per capita spending on police, number of police officers per 100,000, you're always to some degree comparing apples to oranges, right? So there was a pattern though. So we found the data we could find. We said Edmonton looks like a bit of a spending outlier. We noticed that other things were either frozen or decreasing and to me that's a pretty straightforward observation. So it was, take a look and we compared to other cities about the same size as Edmonton. So again, the devil is always in the details but the pattern is there. So that's why one of their motions was to go take a look at the funding formula, figure out who they wanna compare themselves to and where it gets interesting is we also recommended some funding be tied to performance. So what's interesting, do you get more as a police service when crime goes up or do you get more as a police service when crime goes down? Right, so you need a suite of metrics. I mean, but some of those stats are indisputable in terms of the racial profiling of indigenous folks in Edmonton or black folks in Edmonton. Some of those stats are just indisputable information. Well, and again, it led to this conversation around what is evidence, right? And so for a number of the task force members, the days in between the release of the report and the actual presentation at City Hall were quite challenging because many of them felt that their lived experiences were not perceived as evidence, right? And that's why, I think we worked well as a team to try and tell our story on April the 6th. It is really challenging I think for when we're asking, when we're asking people to give their evidence to be witnessed to their experience. It's one of the, I'm gonna say it's one of the stresses that happens to I think especially indigenous black, racialized people of color when we're called upon to give our experience as evidence. And then on top of that, you're doubted or you're taken through this kind of critique in a very public way. Yes, but I am so proud of each and every task force member and we have created a bond, created a family. Our work is done. And that's hard for people to be honest with you and we should feel very good because we wrote a brave report. I was gonna say it's a very brave report. That kind of work that you've put out there, it's very brave. And I guess that's what I'm talking about. You have all the energy to do and the work that you put this brave report out. And some of the challenge now is to, I mean, how to deal with the rollout of that, how to deal with how people are responding to that. Well, and now for me personally, another reason I said yes to this assignment was because I was away from Edmonton for six years. And so for me, it's a way to connect back to the city and I wanna take what I've learned through this task force experience and think about the same issues on my own campus. The report of the task force is called safer for all. And each and every campus in Canada, I mean, we are paying attention to equity, diversity and inclusion, looking at our policies and procedures through an anti-racism lens. And we want our campuses to be safer for all. Although I might argue that I prefer the word brave and safety and bravery kind of go together. You can be brave if you feel safe, but I don't want people to think being safe means you're always comfortable because part of what university is all about is bringing you to things, new ideas that do sometimes make you feel uncomfortable. It's a really good point. See, on campus these days, there's a conversation about, you know, it's just going off of what you're saying about brave versus safe and who's allowed to feel safe on campus and when do we challenge that safety when we're challenging ideas that really shift and can make some people feel uncomfortable. So on university campuses these days, as I'm sure you're aware, there's a really fierce and current conversation that's happening about free speech versus hate speech. I don't know if you have any current examples that you wanna talk about. I'm sure there are some because I know there are some. No, there are always some. And again, freedom of expression in Canada is not like free speech in the States and freedom of expression doesn't allow for hate speech. How do you define hate speech? And you know, as well as I do, that often language is the center of these conversations and we are having some of those conversations right now in our classrooms at the Cune University. And I'm aware of those issues and part of what I think about as a president is the degree to which I put my energy into changing the system versus dealing with individuals instances where they happen. And obviously we have to pay attention to both. Yeah. But the real change is the systemic change. So how do you make the systemic change when it comes to things like hate speech and language on campus? Do you start making policies around certain language? And doesn't that get tricky as language changes so quickly? Well, exactly. So I don't want to make it just about language. Sorry that I led you into that. It sometimes centers around language, but I don't want to make it just about language. So, you know, part of it is, this is about cultural change. Cultural change is influenced obviously by tone at the top. But I've also learned, this is my second time around as president, that I'm not a big fan of grand gestures and proclamations, moonshots, without really an understanding of how to accomplish that. I'm a believer in setting and aspiring and inspirational vision, but you still have to think it through. So I want to move beyond the superficial and beyond the obvious things and dig a little deeper. And at the end of the day, whether you're talking about reconciliation or racism, or equity, diversity and inclusion, part of it is we need to put some thought to what gets taught how by whom. Yeah. And if you think of a university campus, the diversity of our students is always going to be ahead of the diversity of our faculty and staff as our society changes because our students are here for a couple of years and faculty and staff are here for decades, right? So we're in this race and we're never gonna catch up. So what do we do to try and at least try to catch up? So we have at McEwen done an inventory of all of our equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives and they're all over the place. Like there's so many grassroots initiatives, but I want to get some synergy from those initiatives. And I- So when you say grassroots, are you talking about from students or you're talking, what kind of grassroots? Is it city led things or- No, I'm talking campus led. So Irfan Choudra who was on the task force with me who's in our human rights and diversity office. I should also mention we had a student on there from McEwen social work program that was absolutely awesome, Leila Bellini. So students, faculty, the office of human rights and diversity, individual faculties have EDI committee. So there's a lot of activity. I'm trying to ensure that we get some synergy with all of that activity. And part of the role of leadership is to help set priorities and allocate resources. Yeah, yeah. That's a tough one. I mean, I just, for me, I'm thinking about my experience. I sat when I was a student activist at the University of Toronto, I sat on a, it was a presidential task force on race relations. I was a very vocal anti-racist activist in Toronto. And I think, to be honest, we were so active, like I actually have vague memories of, I'm gonna say, but I actually have vague memories of standing on top of the president's desk. Like I think we were quite bold in our actions. And I think partly to kind of, we actually got quite a lot done. And one of the things that happened is an EDI officer was appointed for the first time at the University of Toronto as a result of our activism. We had a group, the group was called the United Coalition Against Racism and then the Toronto City Chapter was the Toronto Coalition Against Racism. And I remember feeling even at 20 something at the time as an undergrad that I was being asked to sit on the presidential task force because it was safer for them to have me sitting at the table than standing on top of the table. Oh, that's a great metaphor. So I just, I feel like that once I got onto that task force and I sat every week with the president, Robert Pritchard at the time of U of T with the head of EDI, Professor Calvin Andrews and many others from the community. We sat every week, we came up with these great bold ideas. And I feel like we got, was my first lesson in getting weighed down by policy and getting weighed down in process. And then feeling like, you know, I was younger too, but I really wanted things to happen faster. And so I'm just wondering how you, that's, I guess what I'm trying to ask you is how do you deal with this weight of policy that can slow us down? Well, you know, what you've raised is quite interesting because I'm thinking of the intergenerational differences and what did your dad teach at the university? Yeah, so my dad also taught there. Okay, good for you. I'm sure that meant for some interesting family conversations. Yes. I mean, obviously you can try and make change from the outside. You can try and make change from the inside. Most of my career has been on the inside. I've had the privilege. I've been in powerful roles. I've been a deputy. I've been a university president. This task force gave me a real feel for being on the outside, trying to cost to be shown the outside, right? And there are different ways to try and cause change. And, you know, I wanna drive those changes that are going to have the most transformative impact. Every change initiative that I've ever experienced, I'm not a statistician like your father, but I always think in terms of bell curves and distributions, there's always a group of people that really want change and for change and they spend a lot of time together. And then there's a group of people who resist change. They too spend a lot of time together. And then there's people in the middle that both sides are vying for to join their side. And I think on a lot of issues that middle, you know, why are they in the middle? Well, they don't really know. They don't know the truth. They don't understand. So, you know, some training might help or they're afraid of change or they just don't know what to do. And so, you know, I'm always aiming to work with the middle and pull them to the change side and understand, you know, their motivations for being in the middle. And on our task force, many of the members would say anti-racism is a verb. Here are the racist or anti-racist. And I know many individuals on my campus would say, well, that's too simple. You know, there is a middle. There is a middle. And, you know, are they racist? Are they anti-racist? Well, they're part of a system that has structures embedded in it. We all have our unconscious biases. And, you know, one of the podcasts, you had one of your guests talk about how, you know, she encourages people to think of the first time in the most memorable, well, with the most impactful time when they raise differences, right? So anyways, I think part of it is giving people some solutions to do the right thing because I actually think people want to do the right thing. You know, you can't be an activist or you can't be doing the kind of work you're doing without being a complete optimist and believing that people can change. This is the never-ending thing about the activist. You must be hopeful otherwise. No, absolutely. And it's funny in the debrief after the report was out, you know, some of the members of the task force were saying, I feel so naive. But by the end of the conversation, you know, they were feeling hopeful. You know what I'm getting at? Because, you know, they were taken a little back by some of the reaction. But at the same time, you know, let's be enthusiastically optimistic because the city council has said they're going to take 90 days. They're going to figure out which of those recommendations they can act on quickly. And they're going to, they will develop a joint strategy that is informed by our report. So we should feel good. Well, you know, there's a, there's the bound. I mean, of course, as an activist, we do have to remain optimistic. But essentially as an anti-racist activist, I think there is also a deep embedded skepticism that's also necessary. Because we know the systems are in place and the systems are designed, you know, to keep us in certain places. And so you have to have optimism, I think. But we also have to, in order to keep going, we have to remember the system is in place. And it's the systems that we're trying to break down. And again, you know, change requires momentum. Change requires leadership. And there's always a tendency to swing back. In my life, prior life as the deputy minister, when it came to policy, I was always worried about overswakes, right? So something is called out. There's a reaction. And sometimes it's an overreaction. And, you know, the ways too far back and forth are not good for people either. I prefer kind of continuous momentum in the right direction. Let me talk to you a little bit. Something completely different just for a minute. And it's something I've been thinking about, especially as we're on this, I mean, hi everybody. I realize that we're on a video call, although I'm only looking at you and you're looking at me, but I saw myself smile the other just a second ago. And I was thinking about women leaders. And I read an article the other day, actually on our conversation website about women leaders. And it was talking about young girls and smiling and how, you know, we don't have to smile. We shouldn't have to smile to make people feel comfortable. And I'm just wondering what are the unique, you know, if you think about some of the unique challenges of being a woman and being a leader, especially, I know there are studies on campus that talk about, you know, students and student evaluations, for example, students expect their professors to be nurturing if they're female. Or, you know, we expect certain things from women leaders. And you have been a public servant for more than 15 years in government, but also now, as you say, twice as university president, as a woman leader, do you have some specific challenges that you wanna talk about as a female in power? Well, you know, I will say early days when I crossed the river from the U of A, where I was doing my postdoc tour through the province of Alberta, you know, I tell people that I had a lot of very good mentors, but truth be told, I really learned how to fit into the system that was very, in the first department, I was in very male engineer dominated. And so I tell people, you know, female leaders before me had to really push their way in. I felt invited to the table, but I really had to adopt the norms of the table. And I think this next generation will change the table. So, you know, rather than just fit in, they will demand change. And that's why it gives me such pride to work at a university and interact with young people. I will say as a university president, as a Métis university president, one of the things I learned at the university, Winnipeg, remember I arrived there in 2014, Tina Fontaine's death, truth and reconciliation commission, you Winnipeg being called the most racist city. You know, we were on a nice trajectory in terms of indigenization, but I learned quickly not to promise things I couldn't deliver. And I also learned that I couldn't, I was held to a different standard. Then let's say some of my male counterparts who got a lot of kudos for a lot of apologies and grand statements. I really felt I had to deliver. And I don't know if I was imagining what people expected me or this was what I expected of me, but this is why I'm very careful. And, you know, to be honest, it means I make mistakes sometimes because there are times when I don't rush in to say what people hope I say. It's very difficult as a university president to speak on behalf of the university community. How often do you do that? And in a lot of universities, there's constant pressure on the president to make a statement on behalf of everybody. And, you know, I got trapped a couple of times where, you know, I called out something before it happened and then it didn't happen. So it's almost as though, you know, there are traps set for you to fall into and then you get into trouble. I want to ask you more about that, but I'm also looking at the time. I can't, you know what? I do feel like I lost, we got into a little bit of a phone call type conversation and I'm losing track of time. So I'm conscious of everybody's time too. And I, you said something about, you know, I'm just going to share a little bit of a personal story about my life, which is you're talking about being a woman leader. And I can tell you many stories myself about feeling held to a different standard at the front of the classroom or at the front of a meeting or any of these things where I think people are expecting something different from me because I'm a woman. They want me to be nicer. And I'm not that nice sometimes. They want me to be, you know, they want me to be nicer. I'm not, I want to say what I want to say when I want to say it. And, you know, I'm not your mother. I am somebody's mother, but I'm not your mother. So, you know, there's all of these kinds of things. But we've been talking a little bit about, you know, telling personal stories and how our personal stories also impact the work that we do. So for me, I grew up hearing stories of the British colonialism. My parents both grew up under British colonial rule in India. And so there was no way that I was going to go about in the world without a critique of British colonialism which also includes Canada. And when we moved, when my parents moved to Canada, this is how I was raised with this very kind of mind frame. And recently, I'm sure everybody remembers the story of Joyce Echequan in Quebec who was, who died in the hospital and recorded her own death and the racism that she experienced just before she died. And my daughter was trying to think about what she could do here in Ontario and Toronto. What could she do? She's 11 years old, she's in grade six. She's very law abiding, you know, 11 year old. And she decides, I'm not going to stand for the Canadian national anthem today. And this whole week, I'm not going to stand. And this is a huge deal for her because she's so by the book. She's one of those by the book kids. So she calls her grandmother, my mom, and says, what should I do? Should I stand or not stand? And my mom says, you know, my mom who grew up in Delhi, my grandfather was a journalist. So my mom grew up in poverty because her dad was always writing about the British government and always getting thrown in jail. So these are the stories, I mean. So my mom says to her, you come from a long line of activists. You sit down when they play the national anthem. Like sit down, do not stand up. And I think part of, so part of that bravery of being able to go out in the world as an activist and also the knowledge that I have comes from those stories. And it's very motivating to me. It helps me walk with a sense of purpose and a sense of mission. Of course, I didn't just remain there, but that helped spark to me and set me on that. I'm just wondering if you have some of your own personal motivations like that, from your identity, from your community? Well, thanks, Vanita. So for me, growing up in Winnipeg in the 60s in a Métis family was kind of interesting because it was a time when you were really encouraged to not share that identity. And depending on how you looked, and I'm from a large family, and I was kind of in the middle in terms of how people saw my indigeneity. And my earliest memory of becoming aware of race was when I walked down the street and this little little lady that I used to visit. I was quite young, but we were free-range children like we could kind of, we were not so supervised as children are today. And I used to chat with this lady and she pulled me aside when I was about five and said, if you wash your skin with lemons, you will whiten up and nobody will know. So I went home and got the SOS and luckily my mother found me before I did too much damage, but those sorts of memories. And then, I think in terms of the powerful women in my life, like my Métis grandmother, the beauty of her was she was just so accepting of anything and everything. Like she was so optimistic and she was just so chill, chill, chill, you know what I mean? Like just the chillest person you could ever meet, most loving person you could ever meet. And, you know, which gives confidence, right? Because absolutely zero judgment. And then my mother very grounded when I went off to school. So, you know, there weren't a lot of people in my family that had gone to school. My older sister, there was a program you could become a teacher in a year other than that, you know, first generation. And my mother used to constantly tell me, you know, what I love about you Annette is you've gone to school, you've got all these degrees, but you're still very grounded. You haven't forgotten where you've come from. So I'd say both of those just remind me of just how privileged I am and how other people don't have the same opportunities I have. So I would like to say I use the power I have. I try and be responsible with the power I have. Well, it sounds like you are. You are out in the world. I mean, the question of why you do what you do, you know, your husband asking you why, why did you sit on this committee? I mean, it is a very brave thing to do. You've put yourself in the center of a little bit of a storm. Yes, I have. The task force work is done. I'm moving on. I could count this. All that being said, I've got a lot to do on campus and we're going through a strategic visioning exercise trying to figure out what we want to be in 2030. We're having these conversations, equity, diversity and inclusion are definitely coming up as is reconciliation, as is recovery in its fullest form. And the thing about McEwen that I love is they have embraced being a downtown university and there is a real desire to be connected with community, to be porous and to have impact. And there's a lot of openness to really thinking about students and how the world of work is changing and how people will be learning continuously, they will be moving in and out of our systems. And, you know, I'd like to say it's a very open-minded university, right? It's quite a humble university that I think people don't understand just what we have been contributing and what we do have to contribute. I think we're the type of university when you say universities are expected to do better. Yes. Like we are doing better. And again, you know, we're more nimble, we're more flexible, we're more student-centered. The research we do tends to be more interdisciplinary. We are connected with community. We're in a very interesting spot downtown in Edmonton, near the Ice District, near the Arts District with a number of not-for-profit social enterprises and social service agencies just north of us. So we're in the mix. So let's say you get a sudden windfall of cash, what would your dream thing to do be? Do you have some dream projects? Oh, I think if we got a bunch of cash, you know, I kind of see my job as we've got this ecosystem of incredibly creative academic entrepreneurs, right? So I would just find some seed money so they could go out and do what they want to do. So just more of that enabling, unleash, you know, all the capacity we have at McEwen to go change the world however they want to change the world. I mean, it definitely shatters all those ideas of the ivory tower, right? This idea that you are there by yourself and you're creating research. I mean, it actually enables and helps researchers to have their research have an impact. Absolutely, yeah. And this way our missions are aligned because that's what we do at the conversation too. We're trying to get, you know, space for researchers and academics to be out there in the world. And not that they're not, but just to have that message, you know, be known. Well, again, I think people forget teaching research, serving the public good. We're full of thought leaders and we're full of people who serve the community in a whole variety of ways. And I think we need to talk about that a little bit more. Which is why I like what the conversation Canada does because it's a way of amplifying the work done on our campuses. And again, our faculty members have full academic freedom. They can go study whatever they want, right? And they do. I've heard the new, you know, just talking about how language changes, EDI, but now EDID, equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization. Well, you know what? I'm careful with that word decolonization. We are a provincial university created in law. And, you know, that's a moonshot. I'm not promising. Yeah. So I like to think of inclusion and reconciliation in terms of sense of belonging, more diversity and thinking carefully what we teach, how we teach it, who teaches and having a faculty and student body that is more reflective of the students showing up on our campus virtually and in person. I like that last thing that you said because it is that fine balance of optimist plus skeptical, you know, plus being skeptic plus the skeptic. So you're the optimist, the activist optimist but you're also the skeptic because you're saying you understand that you are part of a system that still colonized. Well, and Rai Moran from the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, I remember having this conversation with him and I would say Rai, when I meet elders and they talk about their grandkids, they're very proud that their grandkids have credentials from our colonial institutions. And I'd say, you know, I don't want to throw the baby out with a bathwater. That's a ridiculous expression, but he said, but the bathwater is dirty. And I said, yes, like we'll work on that. But again, I mean, metaphors are kind of wild and we have to trash a lot of the metaphors we've used in the past and create some new ones, but. Okay, I know we're out of time, Annette. I'm sorry. I'm looking at the time, I'm way over and are we okay? I know somebody's doing a timekeeper for us and maybe Craig can check in for us. I have this quote that I have to say as I'm gonna say thank you and close up, but I read something that you said the other day and it's this, as a leader of the university, I tell people our role is to absorb chaos, portray calm and convey hope. But I'm gonna add a fourth one. Our role as leaders is also to bring out the best in people. And thank you very much for spending your time with me today and for sharing all of that information with us. Craig, I'm gonna ask you to just jump back on and tell us how we are doing with time. You're actually fine, Vanita. I thought I promised to end at 11.15, so I just wanted to check in. I never wanted to want to stop a horrible experience. Yes, thank you very much, both of you. And Annette, thank you so much for spending all your time today. Is there a question that you wish that I had asked? I just wanna comment on your last one, bringing out the best in people because it really is about bringing out all of the capacity. And if I go back to the task force one more time, part of our message was there are a lot of people in the community safety and wellbeing ecosystem and help them because there's a ton of capacity there to help others, right? So I believe ecosystems are more resilient when they are diverse and don't call me resilient, no, just kidding. You can say that. You know, this whole thing about resilient being a bad word, we are resilient. We do have to acknowledge our resilience but at the same time we're just, we can't rely on that. It's not fair to keep relying on that resilience. And I thought you'd ask me if I'm going to be vaccinated soon and I am, so. You are. That's my good news of the day. I'm gonna- That is fantastic news. Congratulations. At the end of the day, so. At the end of the day, that's great, congratulations. That's a big one. So I know we, I, as we live in this, I mean, crazy pandemic that the, I'm glad to hear that. That's really good news. Congratulations on that. I'm waiting still in Ontario. We're still waiting, but it'll happen soon. We're at the, we're, we see something and at least some bright light there at the end. And I don't say end as a real end, but you know what I mean. So, okay, thank you very much. Thank you for your time. All right, thank you, Vanita. It's been a pleasure. Thank you everybody for staying with us and hanging out and being part of this conversation. There, as you know, there's so much more we could talk about as you know, we could go on for another 45 minutes, but I know we have to stop. Possibly we can do a sequel to this one day because I'm sure there was a lot of conversations that we were cut short due to time, but I'd like to thank Annette and Vanita for, I think, you know, just the remarkable conversation. I mean, I think you touched on a lot of topics and raised a lot of key issues and, you know, to use a term that Annette's used before to enlighten it. I think a lot of people will come away from this more enlightened about a lot of different issues and it gives us the lens to look at these challenging issues differently and to think about them differently. And that's what post-secondary education, that's what we try to do. I really love, I'm gonna walk away from this conversation with the idea of a brave space versus a safe space. I think it's a really good one to keep in mind that we can't keep everybody safe when we're challenging ideas. So thank you for that.