 Welcome everyone who is watching this as a recording. We have had a welcome already from Ellen Wood and a prayer from elder Sheila. And now we're going to have a reflection from Dave Saud. Welcome Dave. Hi, thank you. It's good to be with you. I thank you for this opportunity to share in your Cairo's observance, exploration, consideration, celebration of sacred water. I thank you for the opportunity to join you across the distance coming today from Calgary, Alberta, and to find a place with you on the shores where the waters meet. I'm sure that there are plans being made right now to mark a similar occasion with a similar gathering in Alberta later this month. And I thank you that I have the privilege with Elder Carolyn to introduce the day and I follow her lead setting the tone, perhaps with spirit. To make your ambitious agenda I anticipate that there will no doubt be shared screens sharing facts charts graphs with development described and defined. And you have exceptional people to do that. I look forward to learning from them and from you all. But before this happens may I take you outside, at least in your imagination. May I take you back in time to when our ancestors gathered where the waters meet. And may I take you from the mind into the heart. We gather where the waters meet. It has been so since time immemorial. Where the waters meet goods and services are exchanged. It has always been so. As long as the goods flow life will be full and people will be satisfied. Perhaps the water say differently, the waters flood and subside. The waters meet and part and meet again. I wonder if it was not so much the goods as the good that beckoned the people gathered the people satisfied the people. The stories, the wisdom, the dancing and sharing. Goods break and wear out and get lost. The good goes on. The exchange of respect, hospitality, gratitude and aid. There are greater things than goods. There is good. Follow the good and all is followed. The waters know this. That is why the waters continue to flow. Sit here by the waters, the waters of imagination and memory. Watching your mind's eye the rhythm of the waves. The sweep of the river. Listen. Here with the memory of the heart, the burbling of the current, the whisper of the waves balance. Respect, reciprocity. The autumn colors remind us that the seasons are changing. It is time to sit again where the waters meet to exchange goods, to exchange the good balance. Respect, reciprocity. This autumn season, remember the spring rains and the summer beaches. The land is work, the seeding is done. It is time for seed and soil and shower to work their magic. So the children splash and play where the waters whisper. Rest. Respect. Respect, hospitality is exchanged. The guest is received, not so much a stranger, but a relation. And faces and feet are washed and thirst was quenched. There was sharing when there was abundance and there was gratitude at the hospitality. Respect was offered and respect was received. There was the ebb and flow of hospitality. And there is peace where the waters meet. And if, as it sometimes happens in due season, if there is scarcity, then what is shared is an even greater gift. Received with an even greater gratitude. There was joy in this gratitude. Balance, respect, reciprocity. You could see it in the eye of the child, a grandmother, the loon and the fish. Respect, balance. When the waters abound, respect abounds. Here is creation and recreation. The water has refreshed the land and the people. The lessons were taught about how to protect the fish and the water birds, the cattle and the riverbank, how to respect the water and the waste, but sometimes in due season. The squeal of the children playing in safety is lost to the shriek of tragedy accident and loss. Balance is lost. The drowning is not the time for review. This is a time to lament. So the people gather where the waters meet tomorrow. Next week, there would be time to again teach respect for the current, the boat and the swim. Today, when the waters are dark and the currents are trouble. There is time to rescue what can be saved, to rebuild what can be replaced. That is the respect for today. Tomorrow the waters will recede and abundance will return, gratitude will return, though it will be different. Hospitality will be restored, but it will taste somewhat bitter. A joy, a different joy will return and be seen again in the eyes of the children and grandmothers, the loom and the fish. Today it is respectful to mourn the great loss until tomorrow. However, when tomorrow comes and tragedy returns. When the water remains dark and currents remain troubled, when the water is polluted and access is denied, it is not just the loss of water, it is the loss of respect. Someone no longer a relation but treated as a stranger, no longer has a place at the riverbank, no longer a place in the community. There is no regard for the persons downstream in the flow of the river or the flow of time. Now the cry of loss is greater, deeper, longer, a cry of terror and of rage. And the deafness of neglect is the greatest disrespect. Privilege, follow the mind, follow the blood and follow the waters. What is ours becomes what is mine. And respect for life is denied to others in the pretense that it is mine. Gratitude dissolves into restlessness. Trusting abundance shrivels in the fear of scarcity. Balance is lost along with respect and reciprocity. There is a storm on the horizon. Today we gather at the meeting of the waters to witness the flow of seasons, the flow of rivers rising and falling, seeking balance, preserving life. We seek the flow of the water unrestrained and the unrestrained flow of gratitude and the unrestrained flow of respect. I invite you to sit in silence for a moment and let the flow of the river wash over you. Perhaps in the reading there was a word or phrase that stays with you, hold it. Hold it before it slips between your fingers like water. Prepare yourself now for the rest of the day that follows when you hear words of balance, respect and reciprocity drink deeply and be refreshed. When you hear something that brings you gratitude say thank you in your heart to the speaker and to the water. And when there is something that darkens the water and troubles the current. Consider whether what troubles you is greed and privilege and the absence in the moment of hospitality. Thank you for your time and your attention. And may you be refreshed by this day. Shannon. Thank you Dave. Alan. Thank you David. I'm very pleased to be able to introduce the interchurch hydro just the justice group and Ellen Cook. She's also known as Dr. Ellen Cook, and she's also known as Elendor Ellen Cook, and she's also a sister of mine, Ellen. One of the things Manitoba Interfaith Justice Hydro Justice Group is got a sturgeon marking Manitoba program. And I got creative and made some sturgeon. They look like sturgeon don't they. Save the sturgeon from Manitoba hydro dance. And I invite you take one whole and to look up the website. There's more to the marking program. And you might want to take part in it. I never know what Ellen's going to talk about so I'm just going to leave it to Ellen and please take one of these when you go home or whenever you feel like taking one. Thank you. Thank you Ellen. Thank you Ellen. Well, I am. I read the agenda last night and I found out I was supposed to speak for 45 minutes. But you know I never have. I'm never short of anything to talk about. I just wanted to start with, with the photos that we carry brought along. These were done 10 years ago we went through all the hydro impacted communities and we, we took pictures along the way. And we interviewed elders. And every elder in those communities mentioned that they miss sturgeon, because that was our fish because sturgeon is what we call optimal foraging because you only need one sturgeon to feed a family. There's no bones in there just cartilage. So children can eat it. It's a very healthy fish. And so that is what the elders missed. And every once in a while when we get a fetus surgeon we celebrate and invite friends to come over. The community was flooded and this is how I got involved with this work. I've been with the inter-church council, I believe, since 2004. But first of all, to fill in some time. Our rapids disappeared in 1968 or to 67 somewhere around there. Beautiful rapids that thundered between high limestone cliffs where the cliff swallows nested. And then when the river was damned, the swallows disappeared along with the rapids. And every once in a while when they open up the spillway gates with all the elders, but remember what the rapids was like. They flow down to the rapids bed and they descend to the rapids roaring between those limestone cliffs again. Although it's not the same as it was before because it's all manipulated by Manitoba hydro. This is some of my musings that I had written. One day you had it gone down there with my sisters and watched the river flow again. Absorbent thought, I stand atop high limestone cliffs gazing across the divide at a shoreline that mirrors the one upon which I stand. Looking downward to the space beneath, dry riverbed. Full of shrubs and willows, struggling to go on a bed of rock where wild rapids once danced. There you ran eager to reach the end of your journey, having passed by mountains, prairies and forests, now morphing into something much grander as you merge with the calming depths through the vast lake. And you continue on your journey. Mighty Grand Rapids, wilder than any I have seen in my lifetime, where every summer, father, expert boatsmen would load us up to take us for a summer gathering, harvesting, preparing for winter, picking berries, digging root, drying fish, smoking loose meat, sleeping in prospector tents, spirited Grand Rapids, so alive, full of energy, singing waters. You allowed many a child to sleep since time began. Tanigamuma Gatenipia, heard in the distance. In the therapy, the voices of our ancestors softly speaking and singing their song. As you left and danced over limestone rocks. Father understood you, knew your rhythm, went to slow, went to go faster, went to cross to the other side. Perfect, so perilous, churning whirlpools and eddies, where spirits of ancestors whisper in the sound of the swirling water. Amazing Grand Rapids, so full of life since time began, thundering over the same riverbed, white waters, so wild, so loved by those who knew you. You were our identity, we were you and you were us. Absorbed and taught, I stand atop high limestone cliffs gazing across the divide at a shoreline which mirrors the one upon which I stand. I call out to the cliffs our grandfathers. Nemusumak, will you help with my sadness and share the pain as I breathe for the thundering Mr. Pareski. Waters which cascading between your cliff walls since the beginning of time. My memory remains in my heart and will remain there till my spirit joins with yours at another place of time. No more dancing and singing, no more leaping and jumping over limestone rocks, vanished so quiet, gone to sleep. So, my name is Ellen Cook. Gwytnus, where the stick has been. My name is Norseman woman. And I am a water protector. I'm in our waterkeepers. We are obligated to protect the water. We protect life in water within us during the first nine months of our child's life. And when water breaks a new light comes into the world. The word in our language for baby is uski awasis. It means new and awasis comes from the word of awasis. This one has a bright light. And it becomes awasis from the word awasis. And whenever I speak to teachers, I always say it is up to us as adults and as teachers, parents, grandparents to make that light shine brighter and brighter as the child gets older. And after working in the North End for 25 years as a teacher, I've found that the lights not didn't grow brighter and brighter about many of our children, but slowly dimmed as they became older. And by the time they reached adolescence, due to their circumstances and the life that they lived, that light shone less and less. And what do we do? What would we do to save our children? Because it's our job as adults to do that. So when our baby comes, we don't get babies delivered. That's Amazon that delivers babies. We don't have a word for delivery in our language. We say New Apamaoasun, which means I will see my child. New Apamaoasun. When a woman is going to have her baby, we say Apamaoasun, now she's going to see her baby. We don't say the baby is going to get delivered. I don't know where that came from. I don't think Amazon delivers babies. So the reason why I got involved with this hydro issue is because of my father. Because he must have been terribly saddened when he saw the thousands of hectares of forest that was flooded and I get very emotional and I speak of my father because he never talked about it. But he must have felt a lot of sadness when he saw thousands of hectares going underwater. This is the result of that. 55 years later you see the result of that forest in that picture with my brother. I started working with, I didn't start with ISCH till 2004, but I was working with Shryer and Roblin, not Roblin, Shryer and Filman were premiers. I was taking around petitions when the mantle of hydro started talking about compensation. I wanted them to do action rather than give out money because that money is long gone now. But I wanted them to do things to preserve some of the areas that they damaged like the marshes, the summerberry marsh for example, the dikes should have been built there to prevent the flooding of that marsh land. Because the marshes act as kidneys for our waterways like netley marsh is affected by the Lake Winnipeg regulation, the summerberry marsh is affected by the Grand Rapids hydro station. And I also wanted them to build dikes so that the graves wouldn't flood. No years later people, the fishermen will start finding floating coffins in the water because those, those graveyards of Easter were flooded. So I took around a petition, I got 300,000 signatures to ask Manitoba Hydra to do action rather than give out money, but nothing came of it. In 2004, my sister and I were presenting at a forum at the University of Winnipeg, we had a PowerPoint and we showed pictures like that of what happened in Grand Rapids when Manitoba Hydra did their generating station up there. So I started gathering at Hugo Unraw, who was then chief, chief. Maybe he thought he was chief, but he was chair of the ICH at that time, but at that time it was called Interfaith Task Force on Northern Hydro Development. And I was really relieved because I didn't realize that there were people working on this issue. And I thought I was a lone voice in the wilderness. I was happy to join. I was recruited. And I have been co-chair for about 14 years, maybe more, I know, maybe 18, I don't know. And our advocacy has kind of changed over the years. We've done different kinds of things. The first inception in 1975 was it 7675, I think, during the northern flood agreement when a group of clergy pressured the Manitoba government to do an inquiry into this when the indigenous people up north were trying to come up with an agreement to be compensated by Manitoba Hydra. And this group of clergy gathered together, I think, was Manitoba Regional Rights Coalition at that time, and then later became Interfaith Task Force on Northern Hydro Power. She named changed over the years. But the church is routed behind the First Nations to force the government to conduct the same fiery on the northern flood agreement. But our focus has changed over the years, three years ago. We had a kukums gathering in my community to discuss how we as women could help our communities heal, especially with the young children, because there had been rashes of suicide in these hydro impacted communities and his friend lost his son two weeks after he graduated from, from high school, he went down to the Lakeshore was just as a genetic hydro station was impounding the water that means holding back the water to so the water would rise. This young man who was a real avid hunter and travel, beautiful young man, beautiful soul, who already had a father who was grieving the loss of the land because they were already three or four other generating stations in their area. This young man went down to the lake, Lakeshore and shot himself through the heart. And he was discovered by his grandparents. So it has been devastation everywhere that hydro has been. So these kukums began a process which was then interrupted by COVID of course like COVID interrupted so many things. We were going to meet again the following year than every summer after that. And to see what we can do and take action to help our communities heal, especially our young people. We had our plans kind of thwarted at that time because at that time, those two fugitives were being sought by the police up north at Fox Lake and Gillum. So many of the grandparents weren't allowed to travel. Grandmothers weren't allowed to come to our gathering but we still have 15 anyway from Easterville Nelson House split lake and Grand Rapids. So there were a few of us anyway and we had a nice gathering carry was there as a grandmother. As a recorder. Now the Interchurch Council on hydropower has joined the several other organizations to do action against hydro. I was recently put on a brand new hydro accountability board, and we're going to make hydro accountable for decisions that they make, especially with what is going on. What is going on that was a public utilities board. So our some of our members have been involved I had joined a couple of the meetings around the public utilities board and the bill 36 I don't know if you've heard of bill 36, but it's anonymous on the bus bill that the provincial government is bringing forward, and it's supposed to be in the house. Now as we speak but they've been holding standing committee hearings on it, and some of our members have spoken, I believe at those standing committee meetings. And we are working to oppose the bill through several reasons, because bill 36 could raise the price of hydro electricity for Manitobans, even though Gertzens says no but I never believe politicians. Bill 36 allows current and future government, any current and future government to create new rules on how electricity rates are set without having to justify it before the legislative assembly. And bill 36 also this disproportionate impact vulnerable Manitobans as it strips the public utilities board of its impartial oversight role in setting hydro hydro natural gas rates for Manitoba. Bill 36 muzzles them up the pub PUB from being able to critique governments actions, and it also limits hearings from a live in person setting to strictly written presentations, and or is that behind those doors. Bill 36 also makes major changes to hydro before the results of two major reviews of its operations have been completed. It's a complicated bill and I think it's a step towards privatization. The NDP have have postponed it until October because it came into the house a few months ago and the NDP postponed it. So we need to take action and stop this government from muscling the public utilities board. So, Ellen mentioned the surgeon marketing project and this has been around for three years I think going on three years, an awareness campaign intended to bring attention to the impact of hydro generating stations on the, on the surgeon population. The population is being severely depleted, especially on the Churchill River, because the Churchill River, I think is down to, is it 20% flow or 30% flow, because the dam up the Churchill River. This is just up to their last week looking at those, those control structures that they have, because natural hydro has reconfigured probably 95% of all the rivers and lakes in our province. And they continue, they want to continue to do so. So, surgeon symbol if you see a surgeon symbol on hydro poles, you know who the culprit is. It's a public utilities board so it belongs to us. The hydro poles are ours so we can mark them up. That's our justification. So, you see, the interchance on hydropower has launched an initiative called mama we go ask you to start that. Let's work together to make it right. Inviting Manitoba churches to partner with indigenous community groups in process and seek to reverse those harms and distribute to communities with communities, communities resilience live the goods healing and wellness and safety for children and use. Thank you so much. And Robert Miller and, and sorry, Amanda slipped my mind, Amanda Leighton are very much involved in this and we did go up to Easterville and we met with the teachers and other folks in Easterville to talk about this. They were very willing. And the church groups in the spirit of reconciliation to roll up their sleeves to give you time and skills, raise funds if needed, and work with our indigenous neighbors on projects where communities are in the driver's seat. The way our resources are being exploited is just not sustainable. It's just awful what happens in our communities I don't know how many of you realize the damage that Manitoba hydro has done, not only to the environment but to our psyche sour. Fifty five years later I still tear up when I think about what was done in my community and how it must have affected my parents, even though they never spoke of it but it must have hurt. The water is sacred. It contains the spirit of our ancestors, and we sit when we sit by the river and we listen to water. It is the spirit of our ancestors talking to us. It is very sacred to us, but corporations don't know that. Corporations in their breed are constantly appropriating, abusing, destroying our waters, fracking, mining, tar sands extraction, hydro dams, taking free water and bottling it and selling it back to us. How wrong is that? You know the water is basically free to them and they're bottling it and people still continue to buy water. It's terrible. And global warming is also drying up our lakes so we will eventually run out of water. There's already millions of people in this world that have no water to drink. And corporations are the largest water users with nearly two thirds of all water consumption going into producing ingredients for corporate supply chains. Our mother earth is not going to allow us to continue. You know, our mother is alive. She is the one that sustains us. Everything that we eat comes from Mother Earth. And I often tell the students, when I talk to students, I just talk to a couple of groups of students in the last couple of weeks and I spoke at the learning lunch down town talking with the, speaking with the, speaking to homeless people and office people that came to the Air Canada Park to listen. And I often say, you know, that earth, we are sacred. I tell the young people, you are sacred. Creation is sacred. And you are creation, therefore you are sacred too. Everything we eat comes from the earth. So the earth is inside of us. We are earth, therefore we are sacred. And it's, you know, we need to tell our youth that so that they don't waste their lives away. Mother Earth is not going to allow it to continue. She's showing us droughts, floods, just as she shows us extreme storms, wicked winds, fires, earthquakes. Some other earth has been using her four elements to try and speak to us. And who is this thing? She has used earth in the form of earthquakes and volcanoes. She has used the wind and the air in the form of those wicked storms that we have experienced hurricanes, typhoons. She has used fire. The fires in the West fires all over the place last summer. And she has used water and floods and drought. And it is time to listen to our mother when she speaks. It is time for everyone to listen. The sun, global warming, the heat destroying the glaciers, the polar ice cap. I remember 30 years ago, an Inuit man came from Greenland and spoke to us in Grand Rapids. And he said when he was a youngster, he must have been about 70 years old at the time. He said when he was a youngster, they played on the glaciers and there wasn't any water to be seen. And he said that then when he was a teenager, they started to see trickles from those glaciers. And by the time he was 70, the water was rushing from the glaciers. So the polar ice cap is melting there for the water, where is the water going to go. This is a crucial time and I'm not sure whether we have the time to correct our ways in order to save ourselves. Someday the corporations, the corporation heads will find their hearts, brains and conscience. On the day that they discover this, it will be the day that Mother Earth will stop sending messages through her four elements, the earth, wind, fire and water. Teach us one of these. Teach one of these. Each one of these have the ability to help or hurt, fire can hurt, water can hurt, earth can hurt, and air can hurt. But what happened when we all had to wear masks for two years because there was disease in the air. Mother Earth, the one we refer to as Tigawi now. That's what I call my mother, Tigawi. Tigawi now means all of our mother. May it take it upon herself to ease the droughts, refill the lakes that have dried up, stop the floods, the super storms, the global warming, glaciers melting, forest fires and then begin to heal herself because she is badly damaged and we have hurt her terribly. As a child I was often told to be respectful to creation. If I did anything wrong, it would affect me, I was told. We have a saying, we did not weave the web of life, we are mere distraints in it. Whatever we do to our brothers and sisters in creation we do to ourselves. And I have a very good example of that. One day my father when I was about seven or eight years old, I can't remember how old I was, but I was pretty small. And I was walking with my father and I picked up a stick and I saw a really beautiful spider web with all the angles and all the, you know, rock ripens, whatever uses spider uses to make these webs. And I picked up that stick and stuck it into the center of that spider web and started twirling it around. And my father was never one to raise his voice, but he said my daughter, why did you do that. Well, don't you know that spider set the net just like I do so I can feed you so we can eat. He said that's what the spider does. The spider sets that net very carefully so you can catch food to eat. And you know what the spider eats, those bulldogs and those flies as you always complain about. And I'll tell you, while those flies could have been talking about spider web that you distributed. My father was a great teacher. He taught me many things about how we respect the environment. And that's the lesson behind that is watch your actions and you was always going to talk about the same name. Very important concepts in our language, the respectful of creation. Our original law is based on this premise that whatever you do to your brothers and sisters in creation you are doing to yourself. The concept of us to know and pass down when are very strong in our culture. Watch your actions in your words, let's just come back to you. I'd like to tell that to the corporation, but I don't think they believe me. Anyway, I better need some time for Kerry. Kerry speaks fast so I'll try and speak slow. Thank you for the talk really long Ellen was the one that we shared a lot and I really, really appreciate Ellen and sharing and also just to say that one of the ways that we work that we I hope that we continue to work as the role is to be listening to those who personally to those who've been impacted in their communities and that's a high priority. I'm just going to share a little bit to help clarify hopefully a little bit about some of the advocacy work that we're doing specifically around the Churchill River diversion. I'm curious, how many of you have a good sense of what the Churchill River diversion is. So, but I think it's one of those things that many of us in Manichoe but don't have a good sense about. So, I'm just going to show a bit of a slide here so you can see the lower Churchill River up by the blue arrow, when in the 1970s when the, I'm just going to turn this this way I can see it, when hydro decided that they were going to develop the Churchill River diversion. They put in place something called the Misty Falls structure, right there. And what ended up happening is the lower Churchill River became essentially the flow became really bright up. That's what Ellen was mentioning, and that's the area where a lot of the surgeon that used to be a part of that are right now really engaged because there are parts that the flow gets completely cut off at times. And so they're, they're spawning and their ability to go through up to the Nelson River is sorry up to the Hudson Bay is completely cut off at times and other times. So if there are huge flows where there's an excess of water, then they'll flush it out and then it'll completely flush out the sugar whatever. But what happened is, when they develop this Misty Falls and the low they made the lower Churchill flow really slow, then communities like upon a few one creation or something in late were flooded over by the rising flood waters. Then they re diverted the water south through the Rat River, and then into the Nelson River system. And in that Nelson River system what they did then is created a lot of extra flow in order for them to be building a whole series of dams. The most recent one of course which was just finished recently last year was Kia, and kind of whoppers another proposed one whether it happened we don't know, and hoping it won't. But that so that's basically what a Churchill River diversion did. And in the process, when they started the original license. They said we're only going to raise and lower the light the levels, a little bit. But in fact then they started doing something called the augmented flow program, which meant that they, the waters of something started going up and down a lot and caused a lot of damage, like some of the damage that you see in these images. And this became known as the Churchill River diversion. And right now one of the things that we're doing with the Churchill River diversion is to advocate, is the word I'm looking for, on behalf of those particularly in the north, particularly folks like, I know I saw you can see an example of the high rises and falls between low this is this pictures taken the same day. I would certainly like between and you can see how much that follows. So, trying to advocate like with folks like last I start from South Union like to say this is something that isn't isn't really helpful way of doing. In fact, it's causing a lot of damage, it's causing a lot of damage to the fish, it's causing continued erosion of shorelines, it's causing of methyl mercury continued to be in the water, and was causing a lot of damage to the area overall. And so when the South Union like was moved less was one of those when he was a child that when it was in 1971 was moved to 71 that lost his home because of that, as did many others and as well as his father, Dave. And so, yeah, working on trying to raise awareness that in 2026, there will be a permanent license renewal for that and less has been working really hard to say this is something that we need the hydro needs to be consulting with their communities communities that are affected by this and because they basically say it's, they can do whatever they want with this meant to flow with the water fluctuations, and the license would then sort of set that permanent. And we're trying to say, you know, hydro needs to be consulting with people who are affected by that. So that's basically what I wanted to say. Robert Spence is another partner from Split Lake or Stasby Accordination. He's an artist who did the two paintings that are here, you can see them as well. He's also a counselor and he's also been working really hard around raising awareness around the lower surgeon, sorry the surgeon in the lower Churchill River, and the effects on them. And also, it happens to be from a community split Lake where they're continuing to have to boil water, even though they have a treatment plant in their community and this part of the results of that continuous extra flow of water that's coming through the lower the Nelson River system because of the CRD. So I'll just end with this quote, but just to scroll along like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream from Amos, the prophet Amos because that's what we need is justice. This is just an image of what we, the surgeon marketing project and family wants to join. We ever once in a while we have some marketing days and we're also just beginning to put on some CR or QR codes is their call beside them so that people can get to this website and the website that we created as well, surgeon marketing on it's over dot com that talks a bit about why we're doing this and why it's important and what what's happening with the search. I'll end there because I think we're, are we out of time, we are doing time. Do you want to say anything else on. Yeah, good. Yeah, questions for if you want I also have a song for you. I want to mention about the augmented fruit flow program. If you ever hear about CRD and AFP augmented flow was something that the hydro was given by the mentor but government parameters to which that they're supposed to stay in the raising and lowering water levels, but the augmented flow program has allowed them to deviate from those so they can raise and lower the water levels to their advantage whenever they want more water to flow through their generating stations. They can lower the water levels. Yeah, thank you yeah. Essentially, they massively just reengineered the whole landscape in the north. Yeah. The virtual river flowing to the Rat River and then Rat River into the Birdwood River and the Birdwood River into the Nelson River, so that they can maximize the potential of their hydro stations. So this I'll just play it while we're doing this and this song is a song that we put together around hydro and put it together as a group singing so here we go. Sing along. Sing along. Not that long ago. Some of you might even remember. Hydroelectric project of North. Gather a little attention. In the middle of Chihuahua with the North to South India. The plan to guarantee our generation. The church, the river, which was both strong or 1200 meters per second. It was used to a trickle to turn around and channel in another direction. The community was flooded and forced to relocate. Their livelihoods cannot be replaced. The cost of this decision can never be paid. For life there can be no compensation. So we at Hanatoba, if we were your home, what would you say? That self-induling was made to protect the life of this population. In a background conversation it was immediately changed to allow for major slow-up petition. The rise and fall of law charged at the station. Wonderful presentation with lots of information, lots of challenges, and very much a connection with Mother Earth, the sacred water, with all the creatures, with each other. And I probably missed a few things. And also to Carrie, who's our technical person, as well as an act triumvir on the Interfaith Council of Hydrojustice. I'm pleased to be able to introduce our next speaker, Janice Bone. I have a little write-up about her. Janice recently defended her master's thesis, Water Dreams and Treaties. Agnes Ross, Stories of Treaty Number Five. And she explores hydrodevelopment and Treaty Five negotiations. Her talk is entitled Hydrodevelopment and the Treaty Relations in Treaty Number Five. And she's here, and I just ask that you welcome her. Where did she go? Good afternoon. My name's Janice. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Native Studies, Criminology and Sociology. I have a Bachelor of Nursing degree from the U of M. I also am a foot care nurse. I have a Master's of Arts in Native Studies. And I have an obstetric certificate from University of British Columbia. I presented my research at Western University Linguistic Conference. And my thesis was titled Water Dreams and Treaties. Agnes Ross is my Meg Westwood Stories in Treaty Number Five. Regna Darnell from Western University and Gerald McKinley. I've agreed to supervise my PhD research in sociological, cultural, linguistic anthropology at Western University in London, Ontario. So my uncle, Hubert McDonald, he's a medicine man, and he performed a ceremony for me to receive my spirit name. He told me, Don't be afraid, he said. During the ceremony, my grandfather came and told me, My grandfather told me my Indian name was Northern Lights. My clan was the wolf, and the black bear was my keeper, and that I was the dance, the jingle dress. When I was a child, my book, Negigan Enemy, Umisimhanic, Kamaki no Misthugusu, and then Nukina. Kainimanuta, Motsinuta Kaganasi, when she told me, You're an Indigenous person. You're going to learn the language. You're not speaking English in my house. She told me, Nimosu, Kiyachimo, Mistake, Kiyachimo, Nimosu. My grandfather told me lots of legends when I was a little girl, and I can't repeat them in English. Kikuski, Taunina, Tantawi, Wettito. He was a good medicine man. People used to call him. And when I was a child, he would teach me medicines. Anuts, Motsawia, Kuski, Tautapus, Wutswina. He said, Today I don't see medicine men like him. My mom, Pauline, Ross, Ross only went to grade four, but her grandmother, Naomi, my kukum's mom helped raise her. She said, Before they used to have arranged marriages, you needed permission to take a woman from her parents. So I was immersed. And she told me that two men from Moose Lake came to ask her grandmother for her aunties. One was a Pachinos. And one was a Umperville. She said, that's why you see Umperville's and Cross Lake Pachinos and Moose Lake. That's the way it was. You had to ask permission for a woman. You couldn't just take her. So I was immersed in my language. Because my mom only went to grade four, and she couldn't really speak English. My, my late uncle Stanley Ross said, we had a treaty with the anyway. He said, that's why we got dog team. Plus, we're a musketeer. He said, that's another term. We call ourselves swampy Cree. Well, they also live on the Hudson Bay. Prior to my nursing school, I worked in Chesterfield in the hospital, founded by the great nuns, worked with handicapped children. We had a similar culture. I became close friend with Judy Summer took her family, took me hunting on the Hudson Bay and accepted me into their family. Judy's dad always said, he liked your Nishmonias. My aunt Christina and Kukum said to me, you can go to school. She said, when you leave for school, remember you're a real Nishonabe, because we raised you. You don't need to go looking for your culture or language anywhere else. Nina, she said, I raised you. Treaty five is known as the Winnipeg Treaty. It was entered into an 1875 at Barron River and Norrie House by the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. And the Soto and the Swampy Creek tribes. And as long as the river runs, Jay Maljam said, and seeking interpretation of the treaty five, one does not have to go further than to the written text of the treaty to find the statement that is taken to lie at the root of crown arrogance towards interpreting treaty five. And the treaty, the Indian signatures agreed to hear by seed release surrender and yield up to the government of the Dominion of Canada for Her Majesty the Queen and her successors forever. All their rights, titles and privileges whatsoever to the lands in the following limits, page 44. Through the treaty five, the Crown secured title to their land in the southern part of Manitoba in 1875, 1876, and the Northern Adhesions in 1908, 1910. As Jay Maljam said, has described in his book as long as the river runs, treaty five signed in 1875. And then it said, Hegins signed in 1908, 1909, 1910. The initial treaty process was related to the need to secure land for settlement, as well as important transportation corridors. The adhesions were more related to natural resource use. In 1929, this message of this well known statement seemed to be clear to the Crown and Canadian common law practice, especially since indigenous nations were not mentioned as founding members of Canada and forgotten in the Constitution of 1867. The indigenous people became a judiciary obligation of the Crown, and in the days 2009 denying the source, the crisis of First Nation Water Rights States, astonishing the Constitution Act of 1867 and section 9124 said so, that the federal government has full and complete responsibilities for Indians, and land user for Indians. This put the indigenous nations under the power of the Crown, and the assimilation policies that followed, instead of placing them as equal partners in forming Canada. This compounded the unjust and unequal relationship after the treaty negotiations. It was not until the enactment of the Constitution Act 1982, that indigenous culture was protected in law. In that tunnel of time, 1867 to 1982, the state created policies to oppress indigenous people. They indoctrinated settlers into the belief that indigenous people needed to be assimilated. Indigenous culture after enactment of Constitution 1982, is now protected in law, can cause people now to ponder, what is the written text, is the written text the reality of what took place at treaty, or is it a distortion of the truth, because of the unilateral interpretation of the Crown and her laws. Should we not give the oral interpretation of the indigenous history of the treaty making process, the same value as the written text, if our culture is protected in the Constitution? Amy Kraft in her book, Breathing Life into the Stone Ford Treaty, Anishinaabe Understanding of Treaty 1, Amy Kraft 2013 discusses, why is it that the current elaboration of the foundational intention rests primarily in the Crown's understanding of treaty? Why is it that the Anishinaabe oral version of the treaty systematically discounted and practiced by courts in the Crown, should only one system of law that were relied on for the negotiation of the treaty form the framework of interpretation, or should Anishinaabe legal principles both procedural and substantive informed interpretation and implementation of the treaty today, page 14. Peter Kilczewski, Professor of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba, argues in his book, Unjust Relations. In spite of the fact that the Anishinaabe lost the case, the college decision was seen by many as a major victory in the struggle for Aboriginal title. Six Supreme Court justices had agreed that Aboriginal title existed in law when it was not extinguished continued to have force, a persuasive defense of the concept of Aboriginal title, including a powerful argument that that title could not be extinguished unless the sovereign showed a clear and plain intent to do so was recorded in Hall's dissenting opinion. These are views which were eventually adopted by the Supreme Court. In the treaty negotiations, there were three languages spoken, Soto, Cree, and English. Why is only one given precedence over the other? Harold Johnson, two family shares the same theory of the language barrier and treaty. According to Johnson 2007, the misunderstanding of my ancestors at treaty was linguistic and conceptual. We did not understand your language and your concepts of property. When Commissioner Alexander Morris explained the written terms of the treaty, through interpreter my ancestors likely did not understand the underlying concepts that would be familiar to your family. It is not certain that he did explain all the terms of the written text. His journals and letters do not indicate that he explained the meaning. Your family associates with words, seed, release, surrender, and yield of all rights, titles and privileges. Page 41. As well, my family oral history does not coincide with seed release, all titles and privileges to the land, as it is shown in my thesis titled Water, Dreams and Treaties. Agnes Ross has made my Western stories in treaty number five. However, it does discuss stories about the land. Like Neil McLeod 2007 discusses in his book titled The Native Memory from Treaties of Contemporary Times. He says the connection people have to the land is housed in language through stories and words. We hold the echo of generational experience and the engagement with land and territory. Page six. My great great grandfather to pass them. The one who radiates like Donald William Sinclair Ross was born in 1805 and passed away in 1881. He signed treaty number five in 1875 in Norihos, Manitoba. My mother is Pauline Ross Ross. Her mother is Agnes Ross. Her father was Edward Thomas Ross. His dad was Johnny Ross Papamato Gama walking boss. His father was the past then. He signed treaty for Papamato Gama. He was called the pagan Indian Alexander Morris account. That's Alexander Morris's account because when the pasta and went to negotiate. He negotiated for our language, our culture and our traditional way of life to be protected. He was born in 1981 and the pasta died in 1881 and this 100 years gaps brings to mind Louis Real's famous quote. My people will sleep for 100 years, but it'll be the artist to awaken my people. When I was a child, my late uncle Howard Hawkel told me I would speak for the rights of our people. During the pandemic, I did my research and my uncle Dion Prusis told me that Kukum was passing her treaty knowledge on to me. My Kukum told me her act, her Kisigosida Hamilton was a direct witness of the signing of treaty five in Norihos in 1875 and passed her knowledge on her. She told her lots of stories on the history and she told me the treaty story and our language. That's written in my thesis and that's published online. Treaty five was first signed MMEZ being barren river and the book bounty and benevolence Ray Miller and tough. It's stage chief barrens reasoned when we made this treaty, it was given us to understand that although we sold the government these lands, yet we might still hunt in the woods as before. The fish and the fish and the water should be ours, as it was in our grandfather's time. Although this statement was made some 15 years after the treaty negotiations at barren river. It was made by a participant participant in those negotiations. And it is there for strong evidence that assurances were made about livelihood page on 29. And this, this is strong evidence that water was never surrendered. The present narrative made by Willie parents, my common law partner, a direct descendant of chief Jacob parents, I treat, said that treaty there was no land surrender made treaty. They never sold the land to the government. The same narrative holds true for permit you come back as well, because the past then and who was famously called the pagan Indian went to Noreen host to secure our language culture and traditions, he never sold the water. They'll miss a way of life is to protect the land of water and animals. When I was a child I was told you must learn the white man's ways, but we will never give up our hunting fishing trapping language or traditional way of life. I was told you have to learn your ways. I never to leave home, but just to go to school. I miss interpretation at treaty, because Manitoba Hydro is violating our way of life, because we can no longer pocket though, catch lots of fish, my cook said, before hydro, Nikki pocket me gun. I could catch lots of fish, just like Puget of Wagon, that calls Puget of Wagon means to fish. That was a fishing town before hydro, they're affected to. It's not a vibrant fishing industry. Hence the word Puget of Wagon, which means to put your fishing rod down to catch fish. If you read as long as the river runs treaty five First Nation communities tried to stop the Gen Pay Dam Nelson House South Indian Lakes but Lake Noree house. It was in Cross Lake at the negotiations. And the chief said, why would we accept hydro when we already live well off the land without difficulty. Because of this dam South Indian Lake lost their fishing industry, people used to live like upper class citizens. They had the biggest white fish population in the world. Manitoba did an environmental assessment. The report stated the dam was going to create the biggest man made swamp in the world. Then Manitoba Hydro hired another company to do an assessment. And they said that indigenous people were in need of civilizing and modernization. To the less be a lawyer for permission to go back. His research shows in 1874, the people of Rossville and Noree house near Cross Lake asked for a treaty. When the treaty party included Lieutenant Governor Alexander Morris the translator James McKay arrived in 1875 at the Rossville mission. The people of Cross Lake came down to join the negotiations. Morris arrived at Noree house and when he asked the band to elect a chief as Lindsay points out to past them. And the permit to come back people had to decide to negotiate a treaty with Morris on their own behalf. The past and I'm was the leader of what Morris called the pagan Indians. And so the past and I'm was and why his, why his presence was significant. And summer, but my family's had each their trading locations, mostly on the shores of Seap West Lake, each had a kassay man, the past and I'm was such and was the most respected of them. He was the best hunter, a medicine man, and a spiritual leader seen as close to the creator. For these reasons he had temporal as well as spiritual authority. And my book on sadness equals either Hamilton to witness the treaty are going to guide that I'm going to give my child to send you a key. So we see people to keep us from not treating a week depending on that. He must say you will be good start to go show you go start to go show and you'll keep us there. Depending on that treaty, he's not going to decide in our own treaty. I'm going to sign his own treaty. So what happened was my aunt told my grandmother that at treaty time, there was a medicine man from Norringhouse, and he was bad. He was trying to own that treaty. He wanted to be in charge, and he knew how to kill people. And people were afraid of him, because he knew medicines, but my grandpa, the past and then papamute said, we're not afraid of him, we're going to go there ourselves and we're going to sign a treaty. If you go there, you're going to see people are going to be scared of that old man. They're going to come from all over and they're going to give him tobacco and shake his hand and go under the Norringhouse treaty. But us, we're going to go I'm going to go there he said, and I'm going to go, and I'm going to shake his hand but I won't give him any tobacco, and I'm going to call him a stinky ours to make him mad. And I'm going to go sign my own treaty. And that's what happened if you look at Alexander Morrison's account he was expecting only one chief, but a second chief, the past and came, and he signed a treaty separate from Norringhouse. And this story is politically significant significant today because all the five communities who side the northern foot agreement from it to go back and brand river, never relinquished any of their treaty rights to the province. And if the past and and papamute never secured their own treaty separate from Norringhouse, the northern foot agreement would be illegitimate today. It was a modern day treaty and it was passed in the Manitoba legislator at the same. Thank you. Always when we thank you on behalf of our pyros gatherings or your words for the teachings from your ancestors and maybe we'll see if there's questions for you. Thanks. Other questions. Well, my grandmother, they just wanted to be partners like the past and I was already accepting the church. It was allowing them to build a church there. And they wanted to, they wanted to live off of the land. They wanted to keep fishing, hunting, trapping, have dog team. Just sure they didn't want any development. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm going to send out an email. Yeah. I think it was shared online already somewhere. I think Shannon. It's actually going to be published on Amazon. Yeah, but it's just the publishers just working on it right now. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a good thing that we've got writing about stereotypes about this whole scientific racism that this idea that we work like when you're reading a word, you know, stop it. Yeah, I think it's a good thing that we've got some stuff that carry over into the relationship, which, you know, it's interesting people is all over the world. I will continue. There's pieces. Sure. You're really amazing. Thanks. I have other great, great ideas on so hydro being a provincial for providing and treaties being with the federal government with the crown, but you know, negotiated via the federal government like that is that tension between, you know, offloading like you had mentioned at the end that you knew you'd never sound signed anything with with the land was in the province like that tension between, you know, negotiating treaty with provincial with the federal government and policy. You have any thoughts on that or is that that come up at all? Well, the original treaties, why do we have to sign more treaties like we the original treaty. You have to look at it. Why are we trying to make a man. We, that's the read the treaties you have to look at. And the northern flood agreements are rich document but there's no way to implement it. Like there is but they're, they're, they're not implementing it. And there isn't a commitment on the part of the province or government to do that. The treaty partners to the NFA they were supposed to all gather together all the treaty nations they weren't supposed to do it individually, because we're all together in that treaty. We have to look at the original treaties. The northern flood agreement. And is it translated into the languages of the people at now. I think I said in the presentation that Amy Kraft makes the point that there was two treaty partners wise, and now that our, our culture is protected in the Constitution, we should be founding members of Canada. We should have our, our legal indigenous ways put side by side with the crown. And they're both sovereign nations. Prostlate. And very different sign the first treaty to so they have a say they're affected by hydro because they're a holding bed for late when it takes a holding bed. They have problems with, with flooding and fluctuations and I'm a nurse in the community and I talk to people and they tell me that there's hardly any more fish, the fish look sick, like there's issues with their fishing industry. So, can I ask, what is the relationship with China? Well, we, the northern flood agreement, they're not even implementing it. They said they were supposed to eliminate mass poverty. And in our community, we have a section in Sagittarius called the Bronx, like people are living in poverty. We have a bronze doing good. Water, like people don't even want to swim in the water. Like if kids swim in the water and they have like a bug bite, they develop in the table. That's a bacterial infection and then you know, it's not good to give so much antibiotics all the time, because it affects kidney function. And in Barron River presently, there's a water, water boil advisory. Even in our community, well, my cool, come used to feel sorry for us when we were kids. She say, get them out and she says it feels sorry for you guys because of the water you have to swim in. It's brown. Before my mom said I could see right to the bottom. It was clear blue I could swim across and I'd see everything. And even you'll see debris like the wood in the water. Like, and then sometimes the water fluctuates and, and it affects people with their boats. And my cousin Ambrose, he was a hunter. And he always told my brother to be careful with hydro because they open up the dams in the winter. And then it causes the ice to break. And my tragically he passed away. He was on his four wheeler and they flooded and he went through the ice. So it's affecting like, we're just with their trees like we're disposable, but we're not. So it's the same story everywhere. The same story. So. What do you think the solution is or what is some, what might be some solutions, because you know, like I just started email. I think it's like a fossil fuels or you know hydroelectric energy or you know, it's over electricity and yet we're connecting with the community. Do you see any short term or long term solutions or something like that? Well, I think that. Like, right now, like as a short term, I think they should actually, because I also have a certificate from predates tool where I studied water quality on reserves and they said that they're one of the PhD students said that the way that they deal with water on reserves is they would never meet the provincial standards, like they give them sisters, and those sisters are plastic and in the wintertime they crashed and then bacteria gets in there. And as a nurse working in the First Nation community, like in the city it's different. There's not many exposures to bacteria, but on the reserves like kids take a bath and your skin's like a sponge. And if you got bacteria in there, you can get sick so there's more infections with kids, like because that's like strep throat and because the water's bad. Like the short term is that they should bring our water standards up to the Canadian provincial standards. They can start by doing that like we create mantle behind was a billion dollar industry, and they should be compensating us. I would think that it would be the pyros that's possible in this industry that's putting water in the water. Like we don't, our lagoon system is not even up to standards, and it goes into the lake, like they need, we need a proper lagoon, and we need proper water, like they don't have the money to pay to keep a water works, because it's expensive but Manitoba Hydro makes billions of dollars. And it sells lots of these, lots of electricity medicines. And yeah, and Manitoba Hydro, they give their employees nice housing, and they give, they build them so that they don't use a lot of energy. They also have a two meter system, right? And I know you've got an office, there's two meters in the high houses, so they want to pay for the electricity and then feed this something like Manitoba Hydro, like others like that in other places for the employees. And Bernd River, an elder told me when Manitoba Hydro went there, they said, you'll only have to pay for a light bulb, that's it. And we have the highest hydroelectric bills. Like if you live in a house, you pay over 600 a month every month. Like a lot of people just say it's better for me just to go on welfare and let hydro pay it. And is that connected to the quality of housing that's provided? Yeah. The heating costs are higher and there's no assistance with that. And how about for all term solutions? Well, we need universities. We need universities in our communities. We need high schools. Like Bernd River doesn't even have a high school and, you know, kids have to leave home. That's not safe. And it's really a shame that, you know, this lab that is indigenous, that we have so long and that we made the treaties with the indigenous people. But everything in the treaty is that they, you know, their resources and your revenue. But the other unfortunate thing is if you read The Other Is Me by The Other Is Me, she's a professor at U of M. And she talks about the colonial relationship and how La Rock, Emma La Rock. So she talks about how colonization works is the victors, they write the history. So what they did is like Ryerson Meagerson, young, he came and he studied my grandpa and my family, and he wrote. But what they do is they denigrate our culture and our people. And they write that in there like they're filthy with worms. They created stereotypes about us. So our people are kind-hearted. Like Loretta de Koon, her parents were non-indigenous, but she grew up in our community and spoke our language and same with them a lot. And they speak our language and one of them married my cousin. And like people need to be re-educated about who our people are. We have to tell who we are, tell our story. Like if you read the McMacken Court Act, the Catholic Church had the same teachings as our culture. Like in the Bible, it talks about the Virgin Mary. And my cook told me, my grandfather, he told me as a child that to keep your virginity, you'll be strong, powerful. That's why they only had arranged marriages. And that's why it's important for kids to stay with their grandparents and their parents because they protect them. When kids come out to school here, they're not protected and there's stereotypes about our women that aren't true. And that's how my grandmother raised me. Like we're not what they say we are. Like if you go into, well, that's why I survived in Chesterfield because the way I was raised by my cook, I went there to work. I didn't go there to, you know, sleep with men in moments. We have standards, we're respectful people. If you look at Eagerton Ryerson Young, he talks about the diplomacy and the respect in the communities. Thank you so much. I'd like to welcome you to the annual general meeting at Northwest Ontario and Manitoba Kairos. I would like to just open by saying that, like all other organizations, we have been deeply affected by that COVID-19 outbreak and so it's taken us a while to move into zoom meetings. It was the last year, the second year of COVID, we did get into zoom. And over the last year, we did have a webinar that was from Brandon, Manitoba, and it was the theme was Indigenous connection to land. And it was just before the Kamloops discovery of the unmarked graves were, and we had an elder from Dakota First Nation, and she talked about the idea of unmarked graves at the Brandon residential school site. And if you've been reading in the paper, you know that there was a Catholic site and owner who some of those graves were believed to be part of that campground. And after some negotiations, the campground owner and First Nations were able to come to agreement to mark those unmarked graves. So it's been allowed that penetrating radar can be used to seek out the locations of children who died. We also had a second webinar, and it was held by Kairos West, and it was sacred water, and very good program. So Kairos in this region is always doing some educational or some information. And so if you go to Kairos Canada website, we'll see what each regional group is doing. And there are regional groups right across all of Canada. So there was just a little highlights of the, of the last year. Ellen Ross is our longtime treasurer, and she is not able to be here. I want to thank Ellen. She is the outgoing treasurer. And she and I were trying to get together to find a financial statement for August 31, 2021 to September 1, 2022. Last night she dropped it off quite late, and she put it in my partner's car. I happened to take my car, and the financial statement went with him, who is going to another meeting. And so I've just finished talking to Ellen, and I'm just going to read the financial statement. It's not a long financial statement. So our annual statement is from August 31, 2021 to September 1, 2022. So our opening bank balance as of August 31, 2021 was $204 and 64 cents. We received income from September blanket exercise of $380. We received our national grant from Kairos Canada of $1,000. From Lakeshore school division, we received a check and some other donations of $587. And that was for a blanket exercise as well. And in July, we made a deposit of $640 for the book sales of Bob Haverlach's court case of the creatures. And so the closing balance for the income was $2,607.50. Our expenses, November 21, 2021, was $200, and that was for a blanket exercise, probably to pay the elder, or I think to pay the elder. And another deposit was made of $527.50 and that also was from a blanket exercise. And so the total expenses for the annual report is $727.50. Taking all those numbers into account, our closing balance is $2,084.64. And we have a savings account, which is very large, $172.94. It's important to have a savings account because we get at least a penny. I don't know why they don't round it up to five cents. Anyway, so I would move the financial report. Is there a seconder? Mary will second that. Any questions about the financial report? If you would like a written copy of this financial report, you can email me or Debbie. And we'll send you a written copy of the financial report. So paper of the financial report. Any opposed? That's carried. So you've got some thumbs up. So, as you can tell, we continue to do the Kairos blanket exercise. And Karen. Carol is the coordinator that walk works on our behalf. She's also the past chair of our regional committee. And Sheila works with a number of people who help her. And Carolyn Moore is the elder usually at those blanket exercises. We have done many, many blanket exercises in the province and have gone outside of Winnipeg. Gary also does blanket exercises and moves around the province as well. So people are still requesting the blanket exercise. And we're just really delighted that we have people who are committed. Debbie also does blanket exercises in around Brandon. So universities, organizations, schools, church groups, individual community groups have asked for the blanket exercise. And it's usually the first introduction to, to indigenous history and what and colonial history, and how the two of them have interacted with each other. It's a very powerful two to three hour presentation. And if you haven't already been part of a blanket exercise, I really encourage you to be part of one. And you can be part of a blanket exercise many times because you'll learn many different things. It's a very good exercise. It's also a very good way to introduce reconciliation, colonialism privilege. So it's a great way to bring within First Nations, particularly in Manitoba, but it also extends across Canada. So I have nominations and Karen is not able to normally she would do this, and she's not able to be here because she happens to be in Ireland. I don't know why she selected Ireland to be away at this time, since we're so important. I have nominations, and according to nominations, I open the floor for nominations. And I'm asking for different people to nominate either themselves or somebody else they think might be open to being part of the cocoa executive, and also the coordinating committee. So I will ask three times for nominations, and then I will, if there are no further nominations from the floor, I will close the nominations. So I'm stepping back from being the chair of the regional group. I've had a really great time with this regional group and I have learned so much. And I'm very thankful to be part of it, and I will continue to be part of Kyros, and just not going to be in a leadership role, which is a break for me. We just need a little bit of description of the coordinating committee dust. Oh, okay. Our coordinating committee is, we actually have about 20 people on our coordinating committee, and people. We ask, we seek people from different denominations. Kyros has 10 denominations that make up Kyros at the national level. So we try to mirror that. But as things go, as you know, we don't always have reps from each denomination. We don't ask the denomination to nominate somebody to our regional group. We seek individuals and approach them individually. So what we do as a coordinating committee is Kyros Canada has a number of campaigns that they're doing. And so the coordinating committee looks those over once or twice a year, and we decide which campaigns we're going to take part in. For example, one just after the TRC was released, we took part in a petition to ask that section of the Education Act be changed, and we collected over 2,000 signatures. We presented that to the Minister of Education, and we did a lot of education with people why this was important. And I think it was called an action 68.1. So we spent a lot of time on that. We have moved into doing education around the doctrine of discovery. Stone and lands. Hydro justice. Many interest groups and each person that's on the committee has an interest that they are pushing or would like to see us move in. And so it makes it really a good committee. So if you really want to be with a group of people that talk very openly, very honestly about issues. I think it's important for you to consider being part of the coordinating committee up to during the pandemic we met through zoom. We're hoping to meet in person, we usually meet in Winnipeg. So if you live outside of Winnipeg, we also do a hook up with zoom, so that everybody can be part of the discussion. So that's briefly what we're about. We usually every year decide that we're going to do two campaigns fall, fall gathering and a spring gathering, in which we invite people to come in and then learn and participate network all that kind of stuff. So, as I say, because of COVID-19, we have been challenged just like many other organizations to get back into the swing of things, but it's slowly coming along, and we've learned that we can reach out through zoom and invite lots of people from different areas so we have people from Thunder Bay can aura Brandon. Is there any other places? Winnipeg? So long. Ellen, where she is? And it's also important for sharing what would be other churches where our churches are doing. Yes. And so that we can invite, you know, Yeah. Good point. Mary's just saying that we also bring in our social justice from our own denominations and what we might be involved within our own church. We bring that discussion into the mix as well. So it's a sharing. We try to get community groups to pick up the issues campaigns that Kyros and ourselves are working on, but we also pick up campaigns that other groups are bringing to us that they want us to partner with them. And hydro justice is one of those groups. They're, we do a lot of work with newcomers and welcoming newcomers. We've done work with children, family services, school boards. Just trying to remember here. So you can see there's quite an exchange of ideas and partnerships that we really try to work at. Enough said. Okay, so I'm going to open nominations. And since I'm stepping back as the chair. And Karen has asked these people if they would let their name stand. So for chairperson Debbie dandy has offered herself to be chair of the coordinating committee. Do I have any other nominations. I don't know if John up here. Other nominations. The third call. Are there other nominations. So I would declare that nominations for the chair are closed and we welcome Debbie. Carrie has been our vice chair for some time now. We've also been a member of the coordinated committee for a long time. And he has agreed to let his name stand for the vice chair position. And also, if need be, we'll take the minutes to kind of owner us to take minutes but it is helpful for the coordinating committee to know what they talked about last month. We usually meet once a month for two hours. So, you're okay with me now. Yeah, although, are we calling it the secretary or are we calling it the vice chair or what are we calling it. What am I, what am I. Vice chair with added on responsibilities. Oh really. As delegating responsibilities. But one thing I should say is Carrie worked a lot with his midnight church. Canada. And, and, and so he's not able to move from the vice chair position to the chair position. But he will, you know, the chair is absent or not available. Carrie will step into that role of course, we call on him to do a whole bunch of stuff for us. So I'm going to open nominations. First call, any other nominations for the vice chair. Second call, any nominations for the vice chair. Last call, any nominations for the vice chair position if I got somebody this. Is there anyone. Anyway, I'll close the nominations for the vice chair. So we have elected. Carrie, are we stated for our vice chair position. Thank you, Carrie. For our treasurer position as Ellen Ross has is our outgoing treasurer. We need to appoint a new treasurer. This is usually a one year position. And it can be renewed for a number of years. And Karen has talked to and we Macintosh is over here. And she has offered her name to stand as the treasurer. And I make the first call for nominations open to the floor. Second call for nominations for the treasurer position. Third call for nominations for the treasurer's position. And I make sure that those nominations are closed and and we Macintosh will be a problem. I might just call for a nomination for separate for secretary position. We don't have one. And it's not an onerous task. Carrie and I and Debbie and other people have taken notes. I say these notes are helpful from month to month because they remind us what we talked about the month before and what we want to continue to talk about in the months ahead. And it does require attending regional meeting once a month for two hours usually on a Saturday morning. And can join in through zoo. Are there any nominations for the secretary position. Everybody looks away. Would like, would somebody like to volunteer for the secretary position. I was really bad. I'm very nice. Trying and rotating. Okay, I will call nominations closed then we're gonna rotate. So I do want to thank Karen crow for approaching people past chair is responsible for nominations. And she does a really good job on that and is always looking for new people to join the group or to be a divisor to our group. Ellen click is one of those advisors. She's also a very active member of the coordinating committee, as is Yvonne bearable from Canora. She is one of our consultants and also an active member of the coordinating committee. I also want to thank Ellen gross for the work that she has done as the past treasurer. She's done a good job. And she and I live in the same community so it's been handy to get reports from Ellen. And so now you'll know there's three Ellen's on coordinating committee so Ellen cook keeps us up to date with Cree words, which he's still trying to teach me. And I'd also like to thank the members of the regional coordinating committee, as well as the group. committees. There's Northeast justice and peace. There's Winnipeg South Kairos group, Winnipeg West Kairos group. There's a connection in Thunder Bay, and also canora and also with Brandon. There are some other connections to the and they come and go as they need to. I have a question. I was just going to say, I would volunteer to write a thank you note to. That would be great. Thank you. I also want to just close by saying thank you to Shannon new felt. She is from Kairos Canada she is that working coordinator, and she's been very helpful to us and patient with us. She encourages us and gives us lots of guidance and suggestions, and we always appreciate Shannon's contribution to, to our regional group, as well as to Kairos in general in this region. So thank you Shannon. Here she is. So, I'm married to Matt, if anyone doesn't know me and I keep an email list to which I send notices about reconciliation and indigenous events happening in the community so if you would like to receive emails about that then just come give me your name and I will add you to my list. Thank you. Thank you. We often refer to Mary as our communications network person. And, and, and she is, she does an amazing job reaching out to so many people and talking about a variety of events that are happening across the province as well as in Winnipeg. So, keep up the good work Mary. So, I would declare that this annual meeting adjourned. Do I have somebody who will motion that. Okay. Actually, you can just adjourn meeting. We don't need a motion and second. Okay, we're going to move into our speaker for the afternoon. I would like to introduce Natalie Pops. JD, now I'm not sure this JD party their name. I don't know what it's. Dr. What does it say about yours? You can tell I'm not a lawyer. I don't go to court very often either. And she's going to talk about water power, the legal world between indigenous water stewardship and hydroelectric development. And Natalie, I hope you will give a little bit of background information. So please welcome Natalie to our meeting. Hi everyone, we're just going to get my presentation on the screen. I'm going to take that as a yes, not a huge room. So, well, thank you so much for having me today. This is a really exciting topic that I love to talk about and love to share my role, John. I'm going to be talking for about an hour today and then saving the last 15-20 minutes or so for questions. But if anything that I'm talking about when we get the urge to ask a question, please just do so. I'm not intending for this to be too formal. And that goes as well for the folks that are online. So please feel free as well to engage with me as the presentation gets going. That worked. So a little bit about myself, generally and professionally. My name is Natalie cops. I'm a lawyer here in Winnipeg. I work primarily for the public interest law center, which is a branch of legal aid. The public interest law center does work primarily in. Well, it really bought the public interest. So we do work in environmental law and constitutional law rights law, some consumer protection work, and as well legal work that involves indigenous communities, asserting rights as well. So in my practice, in general, I focus on environmental indigenous and Aboriginal law. So I'm using both Aboriginal and indigenous law as two separate very distinct types of law and lawmaking. So we get into that a little bit later, but I want you to kind of stay tuned and be aware to the differences in that terminology. Now, before we get too involved, I'm hoping I'm not going to get to legal ease. And at any point, I'm confusing or talking a little bit too much as though you all have legal training. Please stop and ask clarification questions. I'm happy to answer those. But to begin, really the best way to engage with the topic of of water power of indigenous water stewardship of water law in general, is to give you some fundamentals of Aboriginal law and treaty making. Of course, we heard some really moving words today and some story from Janice, and you have been, of course, aware of the fact that we're a treaty territory and we have a variety of number of treaties in Manitoba. So we'll be speaking a little bit about treaties in general. And then I'm going to move on to this idea of Crown authority and the duty to consult. So, but pretty simply, it's how can the Crown with the government, so it's the federal and commercial government profit and exploit water. So on that, and within that I'm going to be talking a little bit about how the licensing regime works because it's pretty approach and some pretty outdated and I think that a lot of folks including myself up to about a few years ago weren't aware of the extent to that. Moving on from that, we're going to kind of flip over to the other side of the legal coin. So we'll be talking about indigenous water law or indigenous water laws generally. And I also use the word law to mean something a little bit different. So it is a very distinct and different legal order and structure so we're getting into that as well. And then we'll finish with hopefully something a little outlifting and a little hopeful. I know these talks can be very hard to get through. But we're going to be talking a little bit about the legal rights for nature and promises water. So we're covering a lot today. And I hope that it's interesting and you guys have questions and you can engage with the material. So before we get to that, I wanted to share a little bit about my family. So my family is my tea, particularly on my mother's side. And this is a photo of my great grandfather and my husband's name and so our family name is largely and we come from revenue for initially, but over the years and moved to and settled more in and around in the Toba in that tree five area. And I wanted to share this photo because this is my great grandfather on this, one of the last puts took to our trap room that ended up being flooded bottom to the hydro. So I raised this because it's rather intentional that we were going to have speakers today that have been impacted by higher development and particularly in treaty by territory. So I wanted to raise this and to bring it to your folks attention because these kind of developments have been impacting individuals people in so many different ways for so many different years. And I also wanted to dedicate my talk to my great grandfather and hopefully the work that I do is making a graph. So this one is for. It's also a pretty cool picture that I want to share. Okay, so I promise we will talk a little bit about the basics. We have a few kind of key terms that I'll be referencing throughout the talk so we have this idea of Aboriginal and indigenous law. So I'm going to be talking generally about treaty rights entitlement. I'll talk about the Constitution Act and section 35, this idea of crown extinguishment, and then as well, inherent sovereignty and inherent jurisdiction. So essentially every one of these topics is probably take a full master's course one. But pretty simply, Aboriginal law is the colonial interpretation of Aboriginal rights and title. So essentially, it's when, for example, the First Nations group goes to the colonial courts to assert certain rights, let's say, to have a right to harm the profession of certain area, and the court interprets those rights within the Western legal framework. That's Aboriginal law. So for the most part, that's what lawyers practice. So if they're going to court, it's Aboriginal law. And then there's the really, for lack of a better word, indigenous law. So it's laws and legal orders and traditions that come from particular nations. There is no such thing as pan indigenous law. So it's not, it's the image of a water law and DNA water law, the same different principles rooted in their language, rooted in them to remove them in the land. And those laws aren't, they don't come from a Western tradition, they come from that particular nation's tradition. And I hope to give you some examples of that, of course, because the examples that I'm going to be giving aren't from my community. Of course, I'm an expert and I want to speak those languages. So I hope to point you towards scholars involved who do have that expertise if you want to learn more about response. So that's generally the two differences. So for the most part, the beginning of my presentation will be talking about Aboriginal law. Now, treaty, we know about treaties, we've been talking about those today. So we're going to be discussing the number of treaties. So those are the Western treaties. We are a tree one manitoba has variety of treaties 123456 and 10 will also be discussing Aboriginal rights so that's when first nation person or indigenous person is exercising a particular right so that's when we talk about the right to find the right to harvest the right to trap. So there's a variety of rights that fund, not only from treaty, but from this idea of inherent jurisdiction and inherent sovereignty that are actually. And then there's Aboriginal title, which is control of land and resources. Those are some of the main topics and main ideas. Now, since 1982, we've had the Constitution, some of you may be familiar with section 35. And that section defines Aboriginal and treaty rights within the Constitution and intends to protect them. Now, I say intends, because like a variety of charter rights as well, the government is able to impringe Aboriginal rights, provided that they can justify, and they justify in various ways, including saying well we can't consult with them so you know, we don't have any intervention we have a stress about, but all that law is found within section 35. So if any indigenous person is going to court generally he'll be involved in section 35 rights. And using the term the crime really often so far and the crown is of course, both the federal and provincial governments. It's also managed hydro, because manager of a hydro is a crown corporation, and they are what's known as an agent of the crime so anything that they do is done as if the crown was doing it. And that raises some really interesting questions. And because they should be held accountable to, or for the harness that they cause just as much as the government should be held accountable. And I think that's also quite important that I think a lot of folks kind of, it makes sense when you tell them that they might not know that kind of right off the top. Now I want to get into this idea of inherent jurisdiction and legal society. So what does that mean. What it means fundamentally is indigenous people prior to colonization had and continue to write and title to land to waters many of them are without. And these rights only be extinguished or removed by the family through a few number of ways so until we found a separate. And these rights and these titles continue to exist. There is a lot of good research on the internet to solve government. So that indigenous people are part of the sovereign and can govern themselves, how they can follow us down yourself so this idea that inherent jurisdiction and inheritance are to continue to exist, even when you sign the treaty. So these are all really big kind of complicated concepts that I hope I made a little bit, but I want to talk to you today a little bit about the document discovery I know it's kind of been in the news lately. Frankly, it's a legal fallacy. It comes from people bulls issued hundreds and hundreds of years ago, essentially allowing European violence, the legal authority to colonize and to promote Catholicism at that point. And for the Christianity across colonized areas, and within the document discovery is this idea of Ternullis or that the land is empty and last there's Christian people on it, which we of course know is not true. And this is something that Supreme Court has recognized. So I have a few little quotes from a very important Aboriginal title case that came out about eight years ago. And this is a very important, where allegedly, we're going to Supreme Court under this doctrine, the crown world radical and underlying title to all lines. So basically they showed up, there's a lot of proclamation is issued, and they got some, which doesn't really make a lot of sense. And the Supreme Court has acknowledged that, but it hasn't gone far enough to say it doesn't find me, because if they were to go that far than that would put into question all crown legitimacy. So they, they're prepared to kind of dip their toe in the water and say it doesn't really make a lot of sense, but not to deeply engage on a doctrine or level with that. So what we talk about in law is this idea that the crown title is what exists when the Aboriginal title is subtracted from it. So Aboriginal rights, Indigenous rights are always when the crime is doing anything. And if the crown wants to do so in a justifiable and legal way, those rights need to be engaged. So the doctrine of discovery, very tenuous, I think many of you go scholars would argue that that doesn't really have strong legs to stand on. But it's what the court continues to uphold. It'll probably have to be something from the government to really get the Supreme Court to move on that. But they can recognize it doesn't make a lot of sense, but don't really do much about it. So this is a real tension in Aboriginal law where we can all kind of recognize that there's something fishy. There's something rotten at the core of it, but we haven't gotten to the core point. So on the flip side of that is what I've mentioned already before inherent sovereignty rights and title of Indigenous peoples. And it is people have held rights and title before colonization, and many of these rights and claims to title continue to exist. And they continue to exist at law and are effective at law up until the crown quote unquote extinguishes these rights. And so how does the crown extinguish rights well, the most common form is by agreement by tree. And that's where the parties come together and agree to share the land and resources in particular ways is traveling particular rights and particular responsibilities. So before the Constitution Act in 1982 at the crown was also able to extinguish rights, unilaterally, provided they did so on a very clear legal footing so they could issue a piece of legislation specifically saying that these roads were extinguished and I take issue with that I think a lot of people will take issue with that if you're saying, Oh, we can extinguish some by agreement, but we can also kind of do it ourselves when we want. Again, there's something here that isn't quite fitting on a legal level. I think I'm raising these concepts because eventually I'm going to get to how the ground and how the government is able to control and pop it off water the way that it does on a legal foundation. So if we remember that, you know, it's really kind of shaky at its core rotten at its core, I think it, it speaks to how and why having been on continues to be so terrible for indigenous people particularly in my understanding but this idea of treaty I know that Janice gave quite a lot of really beautiful and valuable information this morning on treaty file, but treaties generally contain a variety of important topics so first and foremost they're a sacred relationship between the crown the first nation signatories and created and created itself. It contains written promises, but it also contains those important moral and contextual promises. And that's why it's so important to hear from knowledge keepers from elders and from individuals like Janice who are doing the work of showing and telling the story that comes with treaty making beyond their intent. And this is something that the Supreme Court recognizes as well when they engage with treaty interpretation that anything written in the treaty is really only a small part of the story. Treaties also outlined the mutual promises between the parties, including the rights responsibilities and the respect between those notions. Many treaties in Manitoba, actually all of them in Manitoba to a certain degree containing various clauses that invoke the surrender of land or extinguishment of title. Now, some communities that I've worked with, you know, can test that idea that they ever surrendered moments, because they, there is no land to own, you have a relationship to the land, we don't possess it in a way that we understand Now that really hasn't been flushed out in the courts in a legal way, but I think that speaks to the importance of when we talk about treaty that there's so much more to it than what's written down on the page. Now here we're going to get into the water. So none of the treaties in Manitoba, specifically reference rights over water to control water and dispensable from. They often contain, particularly the later ones contain references to other types of reasons like forestry, like traveling, like learning, but none of them contain any kind of the water power clause. And that's really important to remember and to be attention to, because if the treaty defines what the crown can do and what kind of relations that they have with First Nations people, water is missing, and water is not there. And that means that we, that means that indigenous people still holds, for lack of other words, title to water. Now I think, again, a lot of people would push back and say, well, none of them owns the water, but they there's a responsibility and a relationship to the water that hasn't been extinguished by treaty. So, how can the crown regulate and bottle off of water. Well, in Manitoba, and in the very provinces, we have something called the natural resources transfer for the transfer agreement. When the treaty applies in Manitoba, it was drafted and signed in the late 1920s, early 1930s that essentially transferred the control of natural resources from the federal government to the process. And initially, water was not included in the agreement. And it was eventually included later about a decade later as an amendment. So, before that, the federal government was simply just profiting off of hydro expansion and hybrid development and the problems without any kind of agreements or consultations conducted with indigenous communities whatsoever or indigenous nations. Again, the legal basis for this transfer, there's no explicit extinguishment of indigenous rights or responsibilities to water. So how can the crown justify its ownership control and exploitation. And I would put to you, it can't. And it continues to do so, you know, not really. We also heard from Janice about the northern flood agreement for northern first nations in Manitoba. And that for many people is also a constitutional element. And while it may have limited the scope of rights to water and north, it also came with really important responsibilities that have been upheld by government. Now in legislation, we have a very extremely outdated act that allows for the licensing of hydro projects. It's called the water power. And it was drafted right around the time when the natural resources transfer came into being so we're talking about almost 100 years ago. And it really hasn't been updated since or now. Now it's current manager of a hydro water projects undergo much more scrutiny than previous ones did. So we have some environmental assessments that have to be done consultation. But for the vast majority of hydroelectric dams in the province. None of this was ever done. So the water power act doesn't contain any requirements for environmental assessments it certainly didn't contain any requirements for consultation or compensation from hydro projects. For example, the hydro projects along Winnipeg River, the seven systems down area, those would have been licensed simply under the water power act. The like Winnipeg regulation, which is, I believe, more in the northern area of Winnipeg that came into being in the 1970s, also strictly under the water power act. They operated on an interim license for almost 40 years. So we'll get into licensing in a little bit. It's a little bit. Probably boring for some of you folks, but effectively, the water power act really doesn't have any kind of proper oversight that we need when we're having these big projects that change the land and the water and such primal water flows. So we've talked a little bit about consultation. Now, the duty to consult comes up at a variety of stages now. But again, previously, really up until the past 20 years or so, consultation wasn't necessary wasn't really seen as all that legally necessary so it was more important in the network. But currently, the duty to consult is really triggered whenever the crown decides to regulate or take up lands related to indigenous rights and title. So that can come in really kind of at a variety of stages. It can be something similar as you know, building a dog where the First Nations next door needs to be consulted on it. So that would require usually what the court says is a lower level of consultation so things like that. And then we have the other side where pipelines are being built through First Nations territories for indigenous land. That requires a really good consultation. But consultation doesn't guarantee an outcome. So a First Nations group could be consulted and they can be heard and then none of their recommendations be adopted. And that when the courts often satisfy that duty. So it's not necessarily ideal. So when we say consultation, it's an extremely important part and it can be very effective, but it can also be simply a way for the government to continue to justify its infringing combo, which it does. So, getting back to the specific projects in Manitoba, I like to call them legacy projects. So these are the high ground animals that have been developed prior to any requirements for oversight or consultation. So they often operate with those internal or short term licenses. So basically what happened is they would get their license to start construction under this internal license, and then the plan would be operational. And then they would operate on that first initial license for decades. And then only when that license was about to expire. The Crown would say, Oh, I guess we got to do something about this and then they would issue a final license. And that's when there's more scrutiny than the product. But then at that point, it's already been going on for decades, so nothing's really going to change. And the harms that those dance costs have already been happening for decades and decades. And even once that final license is issued, then it can be renewed for another 50 years. So we don't really have any legal mechanisms currently that can help us when it comes to those legacy projects. We're working on some where there's talk of redoing the ends. And on current projects and others, they're not great. They have some level of engagement with the community. We can talk about that kind of on another day, but most of the projects that have had very significant impacts never even hit that. So that's important, I think, to bear in mind, because it really shows just how unjustified and how unthoughtful so much of the higher development in Manitoba has been. And really explains the consequences that Indigenous people, conversations people in particular are facing still to this day, like what we heard from Genesis. I know it's been a lot of legal talk and a lot of pretty tough topics, but I want to take us to some alternatives, because I think the alternatives are really how we chart a path forward. While we can seek to make some changes on statute level, changing legislation, change the way we regulate, we know that fundamentally there's some there's some sickness at the middle of what the government is doing. And so I would suggest we need to look for for different ways to engage with water to understand our responsibilities to water. And I'm going to present just a couple alternatives for you today. There's a virgin field of law, called water law. Now, I want to talk about when we say Indigenous law. And I was speaking with Janice and Joseph was lunch. This idea of Indigenous law, it's not something that you can. That's a perfect analogy to Western or colonial ones. Indigenous law. It doesn't exist, as I mentioned, across all First Nations and Indigenous communities, it comes from those communities themselves. It comes from the language. And if you don't have a place in that community, you really can't understand the extent of those laws. And so when I'm going to be talking a little bit about Anishinaabe water law, I want you folks to know that I'm not an expert on it. And I hope that I do some of the work justice, but I would directly towards the Anishinaabe scholars and elders that are doing that work, if you want to learn a little bit more. I'm raising it as an example, because I think it's really valuable. It helps us change the way that we think about water in general. But I'm no expert and I can't believe it. So I'm going to be talking about two different kinds of Indigenous water law. So the first is called the Water to Change Project. Now this is out of, I believe, the University of British Columbia, and it has a really fabulous website. I would urge you all to go to it. It's Water to Change. It's a project that's actually across Canada, where a variety of Indigenous legal scholars work with elders, key storytellers to tease out some key water teachings. And I'll go to those now. From the Water to Teachings project, and through the story, through language, through the experiences of people in those different communities, the project has nine teachings that it speaks to. I was hoping to be able to show you some videos from the Water to Change project today, but I know I'm younger, but I couldn't figure out how to embed a video into my presentation. There you go. So I would encourage you folks to watch those videos and read the stories that are on that website. Because they really show the depth and extent of water law in different First Nations communities. Now, the second type of water law teachings are some that come from this territory, the Anishinaabe Water Principles, the Nivi in a clinic gave them, and I'm sorry if there is an Anishinaabe speakers with us, and I hope that I have done that justice. But the Water Law Principles come from work done by Professor Emma Craft. I know that Janice mentioned Emma Craft this morning. She's an amazing scholar. I would recommend you all to take a look at both her publications and the research that she's doing, particularly for an older herself. And I'd like to read from one of her articles, where she is citing Alder Mary delivery about what an Anishinaabe Water Law means. So she writes, in other systems of law, water is treated as a subject or an object, often to be owned or used in Nivi in a clinic gave them so that's water. Water is treated as an actor in a relationship. It does not start to distinguish between land and water. The two are connected, their jurisdictions are complementary, mixed and overlapping. For example, we are taught through our creation stories that the land is our mother and the rivers are the veins of our mother. All of this belongs to and composes a spirited being that we personify as the original mother in accordance with our creation stories. Our relationship with her is the foundation of our relationship with all creation. Bodies of water or waterways are also independent entities with spirits who look after them and who are acknowledged and named in ceremonies and prayer. So I think that passage really shows how deep and how complex Anishinaabe Water Law can be and is. In that article as well, Amy has listed a variety of water law principles. So we say water is a spirit, we do not own water, water is life, water can heal, we must respect the water and its spirit, water can suffer and water needs a voice. And so if we're looking at these two different types of teachings, you can see there's a lot of overlap, you can see that there's some distinctive and different, pardon me, laws that guide how we interact with water. And I would say, you know, indigenous water laws can help us explore again how we act and how we have, you know, how we continue our responsibilities to water. And it also helps change the way that we think about water. We shouldn't think about it as, again, a particular resource that needs to be exploited. So water is so much more complicated than water. So that's just a very brief overview of some different ways that we can start thinking about water differently. And then if any of you want any more resources on this type of law, I'd be happy to provide them. I'm also directed towards Professor Aaron Mills. He's at the University of McGill, and he does a lot of really interesting work, not just on water law, but on Anishinaabe constitutions and law in general. And he's a fabulous writer, so even if you're just interested, his work is excellent. And lastly, another alternative that we have is this idea of legal rights for nature. So often these go hand in hand with indigenous communities, but in particular, it's this idea that part of nature or in this case a body of water should have the same kind of legal rights and legal standing as other legal entities. So, for example, corporations can go to court and sue, estates can go to court and sue, but why can't bodies of water and why can't parts of nature that are being impacted by development and by filming wasn't going through for their lives. So it's a new and it's a burgeoning area of law, a lot of it so far has been done through agreement. So, for example, you know this is happening globally, I'm just giving an example. In Quebec, in last February, since February 2021, the Indian community in Northern Quebec, and then the local municipality signed an agreement and issued joint resolutions, protecting and giving legal rights to the many part of the board. There's many of those right, there's nine in total. Some of them included the right to sue, the right to work, the right to family gardens but also the right to flow, the right to biodiversity, and a variety of other rights intended to protect the health, spirit and well being of the river. So that's, it's very early stages. There's no support yet. Likely in the next few years, we're going to see more and more of this and it'll be tested by courts. But a lot of these agreements are happening across the world. Now New Zealand, for example, is a leader in this area of law, and often it's between the government and the Mali, and you'll see rivers and mountains that have been protected and have been given these legal rights. And what will happen is, particular elders will be given the role of a legal guardian over the particular body of water in this case, and then that would allow them to go to court from the capital. Another increasing case that's ongoing actually right now is just south of us in northern Minnesota, the White Earth Band, which is where it has issued a declaration on the rights of law rights movement. And they've been trying to assert those legal rights outside of their travel to the court. Now they haven't had much success yet. But there's some really interesting and really creative law making that's going on around protecting these important parts of nature and parts of the world. So, with that, that's kind of it from me. I know I talked about a lot, a lot of complicated different topics. So if any of you have any questions at all. Okay, so you were talking about this is the final title. And instead of the indigenous perspective, nature doesn't go along to us, we're applying the nature. So within the indigenous perspective, what is the land title? What does that mean to the indigenous person to have a land title? I think you'd need to first specify what community, what nation, what it means to them, and that sounds through, you know, stories, through teachings, through serenity. I have knowledge, I can necessarily share that with you. But from my understanding and my work, I know that, you know, we talked about those water teachings that there's a responsibility to water and it's just being and it's not something that can be owned. I think that is something that, you know, would apply to the land. That there's that responsibility there that we live and thrive because of the land and the land that lives with us because of us. Okay, so maybe the relationship and responsibility as opposed to ownership, right? Yeah, yes. And I think again, like I don't want to paint that brush that every indigenous community thinks that particular way, but I'm kind of wrong. It's often the case that it comes down to the responsibility of demolition. Right, so if you don't own it, you can't transfer it. And that just wouldn't really go into my century. Yes, go ahead. I was interested in that. The scripture we have consultation taking place between communities and I know that no recognitions in consultation being taken up. Who gets the final say? Like, why isn't there some other mechanism for so many dating with the power struggle and the power. So technically there is in Manitoba, it'll go through the clean environment condition, usually. And so in on a federal level, it would go through the National Energy Board, the National Energy Board now the Canadian Energy Regulator. So these are administrative boards and tribunals that hear evidence from variety of different actors and different people of interest, and then they'll issue their report and recommendations. And often it's the case it's really a rubber stamp for that development with particular caveats attached to it. And then if a party is unsatisfied by them and by the extent of consultation, they can seek a judicial review so they can't go to court. But it's expensive. And exactly and the thing too, it's a judicial review doesn't give you money and doesn't stop the project really what it does is the court says okay for the consultation was insufficient go back and do it. So then you're just back to doing the consultation. And in some cases that can be effective they might be fighting over one narrow issue. But it's, again, it doesn't guarantee any kind of outcome, it guarantees a process. So it's, it really depends kind of on who's at the negotiating table and how seriously they take that to be. It's not so legitimate. Less so I think we're, I would argue more litigious when it comes to Aboriginal law than the states. But we are litigation doesn't result from the same kind of monetary settlements often that you get in the states. Yeah. Really impressed by the youth and I think it was the Northwestern US who sued their local governments for the period of the air. Mm hmm. So like you are responsible for allowing us to live. And so I love the notion of giving an interest to nature as, you know, as an entity rather than do that. And I think a lot of people would agree. And it just kind of makes intuitive sense that there's this whole voice and perspective that's really the one most impacted by these decisions and it's not up to table. There's a similar case going on that was just heard in Ontario by a group of young people who are arguing that Ontario's climate targets, they reduce them and that that reduction is infringes their charter rights because it means that they are going to be put in a much worse position. And that their security, the person, their liberty is at stake. And so it's a really interesting case that's going on right now, it'll probably go all the way up. And it will be interesting in the next few months to see what the Ontario Ontario Superior Court has to say about that. But yeah, so it's, it's all kind of starting now it's been in the past few years that people are using legal tools like this. I think they wouldn't think it should sue. I know, right. That's not a bad idea. So that's something that hopefully some people are interested in. Yes, any other questions? Thank you. We're trying to find out. I don't have a number on my head, but it would be it should be in the annual reports of manageable hydro. I know they give the province. I'm not sure if it's just some water rentals but like hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it just irritates me that they went, you know, because it's the same government, right. Exactly. And there's really no excuse that they can get one there. Other than that, we want to keep the money first. Yeah, I know there are some people that have made a lot of money. Yeah, yeah. So the consultation that assessment being done when they were first built is, and now they're just going to keep operating even though they contribute so much. And lastly, isn't the picture, you know, this, you fill out. Yeah, just that much every year, they take people to clean the shoreline. But that side of that recipe for you never be able to clean on the shoreline so every year it's a clean amount of years for their sale 55 years later. I've been wondering where the law is. I think so. And my dad was trying to save. Yeah. Yeah, it just doesn't stop when you're continually flooding. I have a couple of questions I'm wondering. Well, first, because I'm relatively new to the area so I was wondering, can you explain how the act of 1930s much about how the only one store for the now, but how does it interact with the water. So, from my understanding, and I have less familiarity with the natural waters act is that the NWA, like it can, it requires certain things to happen on waters that are used as roots, moving along so it can be some rivers, some lakes, but it doesn't relate to profiting or like exploiting our ownership. So, it's kind of like a false distinction like at the end of the day is water and the government is involved with it. I would like the hydro products themselves wouldn't trigger the rain water that we're now. Prior to 2012, because in 2012, the government changed the definition of what a natural water is. But back when it was the like, you know, the community with it was the definition. All that water that we've been natural and that should have triggered. Yeah, so from my understanding, the construction of those stands kind of in the late 19th century, it would have been the federal government doing it in general so they would the natural waters act if it was in force at that time. And we all kind of would have been the same government probably saying, Oh, yeah, we found these exactly they're just signing off their elections. But that's a good question I'm not completely certain how that works together, especially with those changes brought about. I was wondering. So, I do you can solve because I had a signatory to like international on the international labor organization and once it's nine. Like, they do a declaration towards indigenous people. So, like, how does the free prior that it could like the concentration you're having go and then traditional you consult definitely informed people. But how are they interpreting like three prior. Yeah, so you're talking about the free prior informed consent like F pitch as it's known. So Canada adopted under a few years ago, we have our own under and under doesn't necessarily guarantee those rights in the same way that the Charter guarantees rights for the Constitution Act guarantees rights. And then it's intended to inform how the government like exercises and performs its duties. So, because it's so new it hasn't fully been tested really like, you know, Indigenous peoples often bring this up in court and they bring up and drip and then ports just find a way to not talk about it because again it's like the you know, if you're talking about it and we're saying, we've adopted these laws and this is important to us and it is now an active parliament enforcing it challenges those underlying structures that mean, you know, the current community wants so long story short I think it kind of goes back to the other question about the duty to consult where it really depends on who is at the table on behalf of the current. To what extent they take their duties seriously, unfortunately. There's so much written on under it. But we really haven't seen its full effect. Any other questions today. Um, when you say that you say ultimately I think right so the crown is the state. It's not only that no government. It's also when the government is acting. It's really the crown is what gives both the province and the federal government the authority to do what they do. So when we say crown. Sometimes it's, you know, delineated between federal crown and provincial crown, but that distinction is kind of a distinction without much of a meaning for the most part. So there's the crown authority that then was delegated to the province so the authority remains the same it just allows the province to conduct certain affairs in certain ways. And then that authority is then delegated by the province to the crown corporation as an agent of the crown so other agents of the crown include the individuals who are negotiating. They were an agent they had all of the authority and that and responsibility and duties associated with the crown. It's, it's one of those like bizarre legal principles that when you really drill into it it doesn't totally make a lot of sense like we'll hear federal crown think okay that's something totally different from the provincial crown but it's fundamentally on a legal level. Other than like what jurisdiction they operate in there isn't really much of the fundamental difference is my understanding of it. So for example, like the Constitution operates down with the provinces have come a little over the feds have control over. But it's still within that kind of umbrella of the crown in general just divides it a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I mean so there's also like only certain things that the federal government can do that the provincial government can't so you can think of like the federal crown is the top. And then there's been certain things that have been delegated to the province that they can do. Yeah, but treaty making, that's federal. Because they're kind of at the top of that pyramid for that. That's part of what happened when the drinking water standard and earlier part of the issue is the providing drinking water is a provincial jurisdiction insurance standards that's provincial jurisdiction. But the province has no jurisdiction over indigenous communities because they have a federal jurisdiction for the federal government that have an education department or a health department or a water department the way the province does. Because they don't have jurisdiction over those things for the rest. And so, therefore they don't have. So, so when the water and then go back constantly for the house to seven and make sure that people have a sense of water. But on the water and here with that. There will be something. The federal government that the past year. The federal government and what did the federal government do. They're sending. I think what is it 40 gallons of water. A bottle of water. But now they have to meet the fight for water now they're, they're going to be building up with two kilometers. Yeah, but the one happened to the bottom. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, well, we're, I mean, indigenous people are separate. And so, you know, the federal government is going to be building up with the federal government. So there's provincial crown attorneys and federal crown attorneys so it depends kind of like what jurisdiction they operate under. Do you know which one? Yeah. Yeah, so that's the thing that crown, like, there's things that the federal crowns do and then the provincial crowns do. Yeah, I'm with you on that. Maybe just get rid of the crown. Just to section. If you just reflect on your learnings and experiences. What would you suggest to Cairo's campaign. One being colonization. And the other being the rights of nature. And it's such an enormous thing to do on. And the rest of them would come from discovery. And so on. Treat the reconciliation costs. But we're just, we're not getting down to the degree of. The government that operate in a colonial fashion. And when we go to see the state of elected representatives, they're operating on that mindset. And so how do we kind of get that you know, not a complicated way. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think for the rights of nature. I think that raising awareness about these ideas is really kind of like the beginning that we need to be convincing people that this is a good and effective thing that we can do. Because even if we go to court at the end of the day, if you're saying, yes, we should have legal rights for like Winnipeg, the judge still has to buy that. We can do some work in the in advance of that by convincing and bringing in community members across Manitoba to start thinking about that, you know, maybe the judge and their free time will have read a little bit about it or be a bit more familiar about it and maybe more open to that. Of course, the law is not quite that subjective, but you know there's a certain amount of interpretation that goes into it. So I would say consciousness raising on on legal rights. I would also really suggest, and I'm sorry I'm not as familiar with the organization so I don't know how it can actually with different for stations communities you are. But I would, I probably, I always err on the side of better to ask and connect with those communities with the, what kind of health and what kind of advocacy work that they need done, rather than saying okay we're going to work on this we're going to work on that. I think both can be effective but I think they're more effective when different groups who are really pushing for one and some things bring their voices together. I don't necessarily have one strategy that I can suggest that I think you know reaching out to some of the first nations organizations here in Winnipeg. It doesn't start or the areas that your extensive so I heard Brandon and over the Thunder Bay as well. And building that relationship in those sections and then maybe doing some kind of job campaign could be really effective. But I don't necessarily have one answer for a problem. Unfortunately, I think if I did, we'd be a better place. Does that answer your question and you look at the like kind of one particular. Having heard the justice issues, colonization such evil framework. Yeah. And not only first nations. And it also made people and also set their people and however separate people are privileged often, they have money, they have position. And they have. Very long. Yeah, so that's very nice. Yeah. And so it's that bubble that I'm just sort of wondering about. And I know we haven't looked at all the parameters and levels. For example, if Congress went in and made a presentation to the judges. They do through the National Judicial Institute. So it might be worthwhile reaching out to them. I don't know what kind of like external presentations they get but you know that's definitely something that would be worthwhile to pursue on colonization in general. I think like, for me, what I find really effective is raising these topics that challenge the fundamentals of how we got here. You know, challenging like you said the document discovery with a terminology. The ideas that support our current systems and raising awareness about those. It's difficult when you are in a position, like in the provincial government, where we have also like legal obligations to uphold, like you have duties to the crown. So it's pretty. I, you know, I don't really have a good answer for you, unfortunately. Um, I was just wondering. So, I'm going to have a brown corporation and stuff, but we're looking at how the police is also like supposedly upholding the Constitution. But then the court when it comes to injunctions are often granted injunctions to corporations, which are not in order to pay in like a hydro or high fines. I think it's people who should be protected by to be are like, are resisted because of it. So can you speak at all to like why it's a court, or what are the injunctions around like granting injunctions. And how is our team just buying for the corporation. So, first and foremost, the RCMP was founded as a way for the crown to assert its control over indigenous peoples. And they also, well they have those duties to uphold the Constitution. Fundamentally, they're meant to be that arm of the crown. They don't work for all sleep. They don't work for indigenous peoples in the way that, you know, perhaps you would like them to. They are also going to protect economic interests. So, when we have that in mind. It makes a little bit more sense why they're protecting corporate interests rather than indigenous interests. There's a really interesting paper on injunctions by the Yellowhead Institute. So if you're interested in that it's really easy to read it's like a couple pages. The Yellowhead Institute is out of the Toronto Met University, and it's run exclusively by indigenous epidemics and they did a breakdown on injunctions, and around natural resources, and when first nations people are involved and when a first nation, when an indigenous organization, indigenous peoples assert their rights and try to bring an injunction, they're successful about 20% of the time when a corporation does, they're successful about 80% of the time. So there's also a real bias in the law itself around injunctions, because one of the things that the court would consider is precedent but also what the economic impact would be. So that's part of that legal test. So if they're saying, well you know the government gave this corporation a license to do what they're doing. And it's going to impact their ability to exercise that license, then the injunction needs in favor means in favor of the corporation so unless there's like explicit wrongdoing or the corporation is doing something outside of their license. It's really difficult to be effective. So long story short, this is what happens when we have colonial court system, and the RCEP really unclog those two, you know, up holds those structures. And if they're being shot by the whole whatsoever situation, that's equivalent. You know, this deciding we're going to put a pipeline in part of the United States territory. And we got a mountain. And I think the Americans from stopping is doing it. I mean, it's just like, I mean, they shouldn't be protecting the indigenous people's sovereign territory as opposed to money, and they did actually give the alternate rules that they could use, you know, and consultation, you also have to have, you can't just say, oh, this is what we want to do. You have to bring like, at least how many is it three or four or five or something alternate. It's not just one. Otherwise, it's not a valid consultation. And then they usually don't bother with consent, like we had a way from the hydro work that they were doing. They had consultations with the Convention Center a few years ago. They had all these brochures and all these indigenous languages, but you know, this one person I know, the person I was like, yeah, that's a rubber stamp, right. I over here we had that question about, well, you know, I was talking about the Clean Environment Commission, and then the National Regulator, like those boards and tribunals can do good work, but often they're pretty beholden to those corporate interests. The National Regulator is a project by the federal government, usually the people who were in the past. Yeah, and it's the same with the CDC here and the Clean National Regulator. Yeah, I think I'm going to be spoke so we have a similar issue in the following weeks, right. Yeah, they're usually forward, you know, to finally ask companies deciding where to go off. Yeah, not a good suggestion. Sorry. No, I'm just wondering if there's any questions from our people on the on the on Zoom online. Yeah, I'll take some questions from folks on the online if there's any very can you. I don't see any. We can hear you asking for questions, and I don't know that we have any, unless we're going to speak up. Natalie, I want to thank you very much you opened up a whole other discussion on this topic of sacred water and I really appreciate it and we all appreciate it. Thank you very much. We have a presentation with Shannon from Kairos Canada and Shannon I don't. We also have Allison Cox in our gathering here. And she would like to talk about 10 minutes about her trip to Kairos 27 and I didn't know if you have that included in your presentation or how you'd like to handle that. Well, I actually have a picture of Allison in my presentation, but I would rather have her speak live so she's there in the room. Yes. Allison, would you like to go first or do you want to be the conclusion. I want to go later. Okay. Okay, sounds good. So you can invite Allison to join us after you're done. Excellent. Great. I'm going to spotlight you. All right. Well folks, I have done quite a number of zoom presentations, but not one where there were only a few online and I can't see the most of you in the room. Good. It's nice to see you there. So I wanted to say a little bit about Kairos campaigns that are going on and I'm going to start a presentation. So hold on a second while I share my screen. There Kerry, are you folks seeing the, the full presentation. Not yet. So you started sharing that as a monitor. Okay. All right, hopefully I can maneuver my notes and the slides to. The theme for climate action month, which has been happening every September. And for the last three or four years. This year is decolonize climate action. And that theme will extend throughout the year. Of course, it is a theme that needs to be looked at all the time. So I'm going to go to many issues. And so we will be focusing on decolonizing climate action throughout this year. So I have a question for you since we started this campaign at the beginning of September already. Let's look at the few that are online and try to gauge the room. Do we have some hands up if you have already written to your member of parliament about ending sacrifice zones. We had a couple of letter writing sessions on the 8th of September. Paul was raising his hand there. I can't see you're too small on my screen to see if anyone else did in the room. That's great that we have a few and I look forward to encouraging the rest of you to do the same. So let me go into a little bit more detail to start out with, I have a question for you a question that has been asked of me. How do you imagine an environmentalist or a climate activist, just literally get a picture in your mind. So I want to give you some perspectives from my colleague, Radia Bangu. And she wrote an article, a great article called decolonization is at the heart of effective climate action. She's basically starting with this question that have been highlighted elsewhere how do you imagine an environmentalist or a climate activist. And then depending on sort of your situation in life. And how you find yourself myself as a settler as a white cisgendered queer person in a major urban city with education. Those are all things that impact how we move in the world. And how we think of ourselves. In particular when we're talking about decolonization we're talking about racism. And we're. And so I ask you also to think about, do you or I speak on behalf of impacted communities. Do we make space for diversity and a decolonial lens through our work. There are some unequal power structures that highlight one voice to the detriment of non white climate activists. Here I sit using my voice. It's a very valid question. And how do I, and you profit from resource extraction and climate change. I found all the links that I referenced to you can have a copy of this slide presentation. So there are just a few people probably getting them online but you will get them later. So do check out Radia's article where she makes a few important points in her voice here. Let's face it, the environmental movement has always centered white voices. So think of a clap climate activist who do you envision, and would it surprise you that millions of people engaged in greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation live in African nations, and that many of them are women. This is the Cairo's Africa partnerships coordinator. And she points out that environmental racism persists everywhere because it has deep, very deep roots that stretch back to slavery. A white supremacist narrative supports it and patriarchy enables it. And it's generated by resource extraction, including by Canadian companies and policies as we've already heard today. Colonization is an extractive relationship with exploitation at its center. So what then is decolonization decolonizing climate action begins with recognition that colonialism is still active in our world. And colonialism is when one country exerts full or partial control over another country. So a couple of examples military political bureaucratic economic and ruling ideas so we've been talking today mostly about closer to home provincial jurisdiction and some federal. It's also an issue among nations in the on the international stage forms of colonization that occurred during the age of European imperial expansion have profoundly shaped the world to this day. Many forms of injustice and inequality are associated with European colonization and have often been based history have often been adapted by other countries. Colonization has shaped the ways that climate policy is negotiated and implemented, because it has shaped the power relationships between nations and peoples. To decolonize climate policy means to recognize the ongoing effects of colonialism on international and Canadian climate policy, and to take action to change and reverse these effects. Decolonization is about much more than just wider inclusion. So that's a little bit and just a little bit more on environmental racism before we go into what we can do. Environmental racism refers to environmental harms that are disproportionately distributed along racial lines. I'm sure you can imagine many different situations where this is the case just as we have heard already today. A little quote from the Smart Prosperity Institute. Black and other racialized communities are disproportionately vulnerable to environmental pollution and climate change due to socio economic and political structures that decrease their capacity to build resilience against environmental hazards, to participate in decision making that affect the exposure levels to pollutants of their communities. So environmental racism is in Canada, it's across the globe, and it's directly harming Indigenous communities and all racialized communities. There is a bill before the Canadian Parliament that is an act respecting the development of a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism. This is a bill that we want to support. This bill was tabled for the third time. This is the third time that someone has put forward a private members bill on the issue of environmental racism. And this bill was tabled by Elizabeth May, the MP for Sandwich Gulf Islands, and it has passed second reading already. And in addition to that, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change stated in the House of Commons that the government supports this bill. So we are hopeful that this bill will become law, but as is the case with every bill, a little bit of support goes a long way. And so we're inviting you to write letters in support of this bill. There are two other bills in the House that we are less certain will become law and that really need our advocacy at this point. And so we suggest that you talk to your MPs about all three of the bills together because they are a package that would really serve to address environmental racism in strong ways. The others talk about corporate accountability. Global partners, you know, have repeatedly reported on the harms caused by extractive companies and called on all of us Kyros included to take action. In particular, women, environmental human rights defenders, those that are on the forefront of land and water protection are routinely harassed, targeted, attacked, even murdered for their efforts. We want effective Canadian federal laws. And one that is in the house at this point is Bill C-262, an act respecting the corporate responsibility to prevent, address, and remedy adverse impacts on human rights occurring in relation to business activities conducted abroad. If you've been around Kyros for a while, you may think that this sounds familiar. It should be. We have been campaigning for decades for this sort of thing. And this is talked about as mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. This is an effort to get Canadian companies operating abroad to clean up their act. And for the Canadian government to see that they do that. This bill has been supported by many organizations, by church leaders, by global partners. And you can read about it on the Kyros website. We are less certain that it has much support from MPs and we urge you to talk to your MP about the importance of this. This is what will help us break environmental racism that Canadians are responsible for in the global scene. A second bill that accompanies it is Bill C-263, an act to establish the office of the commissioner for responsible business conduct abroad and to make consequential amendments to other acts. So this is the one that we talk about as giving the core, which is the commissioner for responsible business conduct. I've got those letters in the wrong order there, but giving this position some teeth. There was much fanfare a number of years ago about when the Canadian ombuds person for responsible enterprise was introduced. And so there is an existing position that is responsible for the actions of Canadian corporations. However, those corporations are not obliged to cooperate. It is their choice whether they abide by any recommendations that the ombuds person might make. And so there really is very little power in that office and Bill C-263 aims to change that. So this is our call. These three bills that I have mentioned, Bill at first one is Bill 226 on ending environmental racism in Canada. And then Bill 262 and 263, which are sort of partner bills around corporate accountability. And we have put together some information that talks about all three of these so that you can share with your members of Parliament how important each of them is in ending racial environmental sacrifice zones. So there is an option and we will send you this link to just click on a link fill in your name and address and send off a letter and it is valuable to do that and we would ask you to pass it around and see if you can get everyone in your congregation, everyone in your local group and whatever communities and networks you have to do that. But I would also invite you to write your own letter or call your MP or even better make an appointment to visit your MP and really explain the importance of these bills to decolonize climate action. I want to share a few other announcements with you so that ending sacrifice zones is the core of our fall campaign. But we are also building to support a delegation of people who are heading to COP 27 in Egypt this November. And so I wanted to Ali will maybe tell you about a little bit more about it from her perspective. But Kairos and for the love of creation together are supporting this delegation, which will be in Sharma cheek for about 10 days. We're raising the voices of Indigenous voices, women's voices, African voices, youth voices. All of those people are represented in this delegation. We're very excited to see them go. We met many of them. Excuse me on in the middle of September through some interviews. And we will be able to meet with them live. I think I have a slide about that. So just hang on a second. But we are also doing a number of things to build the awareness and to build the momentum of this delegation going to Egypt. So I invite you to join in and support and circulate and publicize any of these initiatives that I'm going to talk about now. So the first one is the 2022 Kairos Youth poster contest. We did a poster contest last year. The first one was on our 20th anniversary of Kairos, and we've decided to make it an annual event. So if you know any artists, if you know any teachers or others that have direct relationships with students or young adults, please talk to them encourage folks to to enter their art in this art contest. The sunflower that you see on the side there was the Kairos Choice winner from last year by a great, I think a grade 11 student, Adri Gronsteg and St. Michael's Catholic secondary school, and she titles her work Love What We Have Before It's Too Late. Something else that is a month away but you will want to start thinking about it now is an invitation to hold vigils for climate justice. Candles for COP 27 is an invitation that goes out to groups all across Canada, and we invite you. So I really hope there'll be some in Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario to gather with whatever size of group you might have in a public space and hopefully perhaps you would let the media know that you'll be there but really the most important part is to gather with whoever wants to to join hearts and minds and send good energy to COP 27. Think about our delegates who are going to be there. These vigils may be religious spaces, faith spaces where we will offer our prayers, hopefully many of them will be that way. Others may sit in reflection in other ways. We are working on getting a map of Canada up where you can note your vigil and so I will send you a link with all the details and just start thinking about it in your group. It doesn't need to be huge where there are half a dozen people gathered in a park or on a street corner or in front of an MP's office or wherever you think is important to talk about climate justice and to reflect is an important point. The date is chosen because it's halfway through COP. COP is a two week session and this is the middle weekend. Another opportunity is for individuals to join the animators circle. This group of people will be supporting the delegates and supporting our communities in learning more about these United Nations climate conferences that I have been short handing with COP 27. I hope you folks are all well versed in that language. This animators circle will be a group of people who are committed to animating and uplifting communications from the delegates and from other COP 27 information. So people who are comfortable with with writing with posting with using social media. Not everyone needs to be comfortable with social media. We need some writers and we need some people to be watching what's going on and offering information and and pieces that we can share. The first meeting of this group will be on the October 26 and you're all invited. And there will be a chance to talk with the delegates. November 3. Now this is a global delegation. And so the time that worked best for all of the delegates in eight different time zones was 830 in the morning, November 3. This will be translated in three languages. We hope that some of you will be ready to get up in 730 Manitoba time. If you're not, there will also be some later recap as well as a recording of that live session. And thank you to the gathering to you Ellen and everyone who is involved in the planning for taking this time. And you know, encourage you to take a look and open up that email when you get that big list of links there's all kinds of things ways you can get involved. Thanks everyone and I look forward to seeing you next time hopefully in person. Thank you, Shannon really appreciate your contribution. And we've asked elder Ellen to come and close our gathering today. I gave you my nation. I have a real one at home and I know it is. Don't you like my artistic. Hey, we can stand. I am the eye. I am the eye damage. I don't mean to talk. Oh, God. There's a new saying, I can't even remember what it is that they're saying now instead of saying I am yet. It's a different word that they're using and I asked my cousin, why are they saying that I would not. Why are they not using that word they have me at home because that means that we talk. It's not what we do when you create. He said we talk to the creator. It doesn't make sense anyway. Let's start. Thank you for this day. We thank you that we're able to see each other again because we didn't see each other for a long time in person. We ask that you be with us on the radio when we go back to our families and see the ones we love. And then ask my cousin, I thank you creators for life. And it be used to ask you for the earth or mother to go, you know, for five years to do. We thank you for air. You can all hurt and they can also, we can also not be without them. We ask that you find a way to start meeting our mother who is suffering from all this exploitation and abuse. Thank you creator for this day, we will finish our work. We also ask you that you be with Alison on our delegation that we're going to be just keep them safe and return them one safety back to us. We ask to be with them and that you. We ask them the wonderful times over there that they will meet people need family over there that they could connect with. That's it. Amen.