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A conversation with Pam Palmater on COVID, racism, and Indigenous communities

Speaker: Dr.Pam Palmater, Mi’kmaq lawyer, professor, activist and politician. Interviewed by Stephania Varalli, Co-CEO, Head of Media at Women of Influence 

 

Within the first few minutes of the conversation, one thing is clear: it is impossible to understand the impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous people living in Canada without knowledge of the centuries of struggle that came before it, and the racism, oppression, and genocide that they were experiencing already.

On these topics, Dr. Pamela Palmater is an authority — a result of more than 25 years of focus on First Nations issues, studying, volunteering, advocating, and working as a lawyer, Associate Professor, and the Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University. A Mi’kmaw citizen and member of the Eel River Bar First Nation in northern New Brunswick, Pam has spoken internationally on Indigenous issues and authored three books on the subject; her latest, Warrior Life: Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence, just became available for preorder.

We spoke with Pam on June 3, the one-year anniversary of the release of the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. On the same day, Pam published an article that shows through statistics that Canada has a racism problem, and Chantel Moore, a 26-year-old from Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, was fatally shot by a police officer during a wellness check.

And so the conversation started not on COVID, but on injustice.

 

 

 

Minutes

Description

1:30

June 3, 2020 – one year of Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

2:30

COVID as an excuse

9:00

Lack of sex and race data collection during the pandemic 

14:00

The most at-risk group without a plan and funding

17:30

Delays in the pandemic within First Nations communities

20:30

Indigenous land, the pipeline and a violation of basic human rights

28:30

Equal rights for everyone

29:30

Growing up in Canada without knowing about the genocide and racism around us

33:15

What is a good Canadian ally?

39:00

Lifting other voices and why change does not come overnight