 We want to start by expressing our sincere gratitude that we're able to meet together here in this place and on this land. This land in which the Mi'kmaq people made peace and friendship treaties with settlers who have arrived in need of good relationships in order to be well and flourish. Settlers both English and French. We stand here today on an unceded Mi'kmaq territory as a treaty people still seeking to live into and learning to honor our treaty commitments of peace and friendship. In Nova Scotia the depth of our learning to honor our treaty commitments of peace is, in Nova Scotia the depth of our learning to the Mi'kmaq is perhaps nowhere as obvious as in our vision and work with restorative justice. And so we're very mindful of this and we're particularly grateful to have Elder Judy Gugu with us today from Waipoba in Kipra. I don't know whether you've traveled here today but thanks for coming and we're going to ask Elder Judy to come and offer a prayer as we begin our gathering. Judy? I'm going to ask Elder Judy to come and offer a prayer as we begin our gathering. I'm going to ask Elder Judy to come and offer a prayer as we begin our gathering. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for having such a beautiful day today and bringing all the people here today and take home all our teachings and everything that goes along with it to help our people that come towards our path and walk on our path. Thank you so much Elder Judy for serving us in a good way. My name is Jennifer Llewellyn and I'm a member of the organizing committee and I also work at the Schulitz School of Law. And it's my pleasure to add my word of welcome to you here as we start out on the next two days together. So you've all traveled from across Canada and I meet some of you who are beyond that and to be here together as part of this community. That's committed to visioning and nurturing the future of restorative justice in Canada and in the world. And to consider the important opportunities that are before us. We need to be able to ensure that we can realize the potential or restorative vision of justice to contribute to the work of reconciliation and in solidarity and support of Indigenous law and justice ways to support proper and appropriate recognition in their communities and in our country. To support meaningful reform in the criminal justice system to secure access to justice and better justice for all Canadians and in the process to continue to support our efforts across this country and in support of other nations to pursue restorative justice and overarching collective aspirations we have for justice societies. As we gather at a time where there is for the work where there are these incredible opportunities, we recognize that they exist because there is such a depth of need for justice in our world. A world that is so divided and where the failure to act, to work actively for justice, to secure justice in our relations is no longer an option or something about which we can take our time. We meet with a common interest and commitment and with the richness of diverse experiences and perspectives that will be needed for the journey of the laws ahead. And we hope this will be one of those steps in our journey altogether. In designing the symposium, maybe we feel we took the road less traveled, how we designed this year a little differently. Typically we gather and have these wonderful opportunities to be together and we want it to maximize that. We want it to ensure that if we're all going to be together we make the most of the knowledge, experience and vision that's present in the room and flip the symposium so that the plenary sessions are explicitly in service of the dialogue that we want to have with one another. It's that depth, I think, of connection and conversation that keeps people coming back to the symposium or to similar gatherings around the country year after year. And we want to move all of that energy from the margins and the coffee breaks and the lunch tables where they sometimes thrive most clearly into the center of our gathering. And it's okay, you're still alive, have fun at lunch and coffee. But we also wanted to benefit from the depth of expertise and capacity within this community to learn and work with one another in ways that reflect our restorative principles. So we've leaned upon a large number of them, actually, and we'll lean on even more of you as we ask you to participate regularly and often and deeply in your dialogue groups. We've asked people to facilitate to take notes, to spark plenary panels and provoke and inspire discussions, to organize our time and to take care of our needs. So we wanted to pay special attention to what unites us in this work and not its different expressions, different models, different practices. A particular importance to us was to create a space to consider the common cause of cross restorative justice and indigenous justice ways. Our common values, commitments and questions about the way justice is being done and needs to be done so that we might be able to learn together and support a vision for a just future. So I'll invite you to come up and to introduce our plans for the dialogue groups and then introduce other groups.