(Middle) “I lived on Galiano Island for twenty years. There, I met Indigenous community members and started to vaguely understand some of their issues. When I came to Vancouver, I was really exposed to the Downtown Eastside and to Indigenous community members who were very interested in walking us through some of the realities of the history of so-called Canada. I’m part of an environmental activist group called Extinction Rebellion, and we watched the Indigenous communities during the Wet’suwet’en uprising and the Shut Down Canada Movement. We realized that they have been doing this for a while. I started learning everything I could about activism, ceremony, respect, and relationships. I feel like a sponge. I feel a little naive and I admit that I’ve lived a pretty ignorant life in terms of issues that our First Peoples have faced for hundreds of years, so I come here with great humility.

(Left) “As settlers, we always want to be right, and we have a really hard time with discomfort. The reality is as settlers learning about colonialism and Indigenous cultures that we will be uncomfortable, and it’s hard, but you’ve got to step up and keep going and keep learning. There’s a lot to change in our society to correct the wrongs.

(Right) “My mum worked as a nurse on Indigenous reserves forty-five years ago. I grew up understanding there were these people who lived here before the settlers arrived. Fast-forwarding to now, the story has been “There are so many problems facing Indigenous people.” These are actually settler, colonial, imperialist issues. We just have aeons of training about how we think is the right way to live, and it’s so at odds with a liveable planet – or any kind of wholesome or functional community. As people who have arrived freshly to Canada in the last five-hundred years, we’ve got a lot of work to do. When Indigenous people are left to their own devices, they’re totally fucking fine, so it’s our fucking problem. I think it’s been twisted to be like “Oh we need to help them”, but no, we need to help ourselves. In some ways it feels more powerful to see what the problem is – the problem is us.”