Media Centre Archives - Page 4 of 29 - Institute for Canadian Citizenship

Meet Canoo member Gauri Suri! She moved to Canada from India nearly 10 years ago and obtained her Canadain citizenship (virtually) in May of this year.

“What I love most about Canada is the kindness of the people,” says Gauri. “Canada is truly a land of opportunities and a diverse nation where I feel that I can achieve anything I set my mind to. I moved to Canada 10 years ago and I feel like I have always been able to achieve all my goals with the hard work and no doubt the kindness that has been bestowed to me from random people whom I call now friends and family.”

Gauri has already used her Canoo app to visit museums in both Vancouver and Calgary, as well as national parks such as Banff and Lake Louise.

“I love the Canoo app!” says Gauri, “What a great idea of providing all new citizens with a great opportunity to know more about the country, its culture and traditions.

“I have had amazing experiences with Canoo. During the summer of 2020, there was not much I could do due to the pandemic. However, being so close to the rocky mountains and being a hiking person, I was able to experience the most beautiful aquamarine lakes, waterfalls and rocky mountains of Banff and Lake Louise. All these places kept me sane and, of course, nature amazes me everytime with its magical moments — I was able to capture the views that are beyond words. Along with that I was able to motivate some of my friends to experience the sunrise hikes that became every weekend’s memories for all of us!”

Gauri believes that nature and culture are important factors to inclusion. “Culture plays an important role as it teaches all of us to learn the good things from diverse ethnicities. Being a land of immigrants, we all are free to celebrate with each other and call this country a diverse nation.”

Canoo gives new Canadian families access to 1400+ arts, culture spaces and parks across Canada. While Canoo is free to use, it’s not free to operate. As a charity, we rely on donations to help keep Canoo available and free for new Canadian citizens. With your generous support, we can help thousands of new Canadians and their family belong. Give the gift of Canoo! Become a monthly donor today.

Meet Canoo member Anique Ellis. Anique Ellis first came to Canada in October of 2007 as an exchange student at Northern Lights College in Fort St. John’s, BC, as part of a cultural exchange program for student-teachers from Jamaica. “That was where I fell in love with Canada,” says Anique Ellis. “The culture [and the people made my decision to migrate to Canada an easy one. When I returned to Jamaica and completed teacher’s college, I wasted no time in starting the process.”

Anique Ellis is excited and proud to be a Canadian citizen. “ I take responsibility for my role as a citizen and ensure that I contribute value to society in whatever capacity I’m able to.”

“Canada is an amazing place to live,” she says.“It isn’t just physically attractive but inclusive, and I appreciate how everyone is treated equally and how all cultures are celebrated and appreciated. To be included is Canadian; to be Canadian is to be included.”

Anique Ellis has visited many provinces and can’t choose a favourite place. “Canada is absolutely breathtaking,” she says, “I have been to Manitoba, Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta, and I’m yet to decide on which is my favourite place! Each province is unique, culturally rich, and has a great deal of things and places to offer, experience, explore and enjoy.”

Typically, Anique Ellis visits venues with her son, and her favourite venue she has visited is the Royal Alberta Museum. “I had an amazing experience at the Royal Alberta Museum,” she says, “I started going in December of 2019 when I took my son. I enjoyed the little areas set up for children to learn and explore, and the different areas to play in the museum. The staff were very kind and welcoming.

“Cultural places such as the Royal Alberta Museum give each Canadian the opportunity to experience each other’s culture, which helps to remove barriers and prejudices, as well as allow for dialogue and acceptance of our differences. That is what makes us unique as Canadians.

“Thanks to Canoo I have gained a deeper appreciation for Canada’s rich history and heritage. Canoo connects history, culture, and entertainment; it has been an amazing experience.”

At a time when the forces of exclusion, discrimination, and hate continue to gain strength all over the world, we must choose inclusion as a pillar for the world we want to create. At our first digital-only 6 Degrees forum, we heard from speakers from around the world — and from our communities — on how we must approach the intersecting crises of this moment, how we emerge from the pandemic with a more equitable society, and how the global movements for racial and social justice can push for meaningful change.

Here’s what we learned, what actions you can take, and how you can connect with our network.

Racism, ageism, misogyny, and inequality are poisoning our societies, and these problems have been laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes we need — in justice, in reconciliation, and in building trusted (and trustworthy) institutions — won’t happen overnight. It will take relentless optimism, determination, imagination, and work. We have already seen how this pandemic has inspired heartening efforts for change. When you are in need of further inspiration, think about the young people in your life — in your family, in your circles of friends, and in your neighbourhood — and the kind of world you want them to inherit.

[icc_block_quote quote=”What am I doing today to make the life of the seventh generation a better one?” author=”Roberta Jamieson” border_colour=”#000000″]

We have to work harder so we leave no one behind. Too often, our policies, our institutions, and even our progressive movements have primarily benefited some, while leaving others in the dust. To ensure that diverse voices are heard, and to ensure that everyone shares in the opportunity to thrive, we must continue to connect, to exchange ideas, to understand one another, and to work together. We have seen examples of our potential for this kind of solidarity in response to COVID-19, and we must build on this momentum.

[icc_block_quote quote=”Fundamentally we cannot move forward without saying that everyone deserves liberty, everyone deserves to thrive in our society. And we will not compromise the lives of our most marginalized people in the name of progress.” author=”Ijeoma Oluo” border_colour=”#000000″]

To make systemic change, we need an army of ethical, imaginative, and enthusiastic people pushing on all fronts. We need people to use their voices, their votes, and their dollars to demand that those on the “inside” work for real change, while celebrating those positive changes. But this is not enough. Institutions of power, and the cultures therein, are not built for disruption even when society demands it. To overcome this inertia, and to overcome the injustices upon which many systems are built, we also need allies on the “inside” willing to recognize when critical structures are failing, with the creativity and energy to replace them with something entirely new. Inside or outside, we need you involved. Now.

[icc_block_quote quote=”There’s this fascination with grassroots, but I have to be bold on this, we need to seize power. We need not to be shy, as civil society, to get into politics.” author=”Renata Ávila” border_colour=”#000000″]

Think big. Part of the multi-faceted crisis in this moment is due to a failure in imagination. We have to think big to make big changes. We have to think hard to make hard changes. Respond to this crisis with ambition, not retreat.

Interrogate what role you play in upholding harmful systems. Systemic racism is far deeper than far-right militias and tiki torches. Well-meaning people can and do contribute to systemic racism in complex ways. Strengthen your understanding. Listen to the oppressed.

Set goals, big and small, and celebrate wins. Progress serves as motivation. Define clear objectives, and make sure you celebrate successes along the way.

Don’t do it alone. Making change is hard work. As The Hon. Murray Sinclair reminded us, it’s important to build a personal support system to protect your own mental and physical health.

“Show up, show up, show up”. Find ways to be an ally, and do them. Figure out how you can move beyond beliefs and rhetoric to action and impact. Repeat.

Litigate. Your rights are enshrined for a reason. If they are infringed, you have a duty to protect them, and to strengthen them. Not just for yourself, but for your community, and for future generations.

Run for office. While flawed, our political institutions are powerful tools for change. A single ethical politician will not change the world, but what about 100? 1,000? 10,000? Be one of the many.

Act now. Literally now. Do one small, achievable thing in the next hour to take a step on the path of inclusion. Find out what is involved with running for a local office. Find a good resource on the Indigenous and/or colonial history of your place. Find an organization that shares your values and whose work you would like to support. We cannot wait until after the pandemic to start creating a more just and equitable society. Start now.

– Read the reports from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Senator Murray Sinclair, act on its 94 calls to action, and listen to Dr. Yvonne Poitras Pratt from the University of Calgary explain the importance of Orange Shirt Day, which recognizes survivors of Canada’s residential schools.

– In his new book, Michael Sandel explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? The Tyranny of Merit is available now!

– Future of Good is on a mission to find and celebrate local Canadian projects that help communities #BuildBackBetter for a thriving decade. Click here to share a project.

– Freidrich Ebert Stiftung partnered with CuriosityConnects.us to bring people from across the political spectrum and across the United States together for conversations on current affairs and identity. Watch the video highlights from Looking for America.

– Listen to the Economics and Beyond podcast. Every week, Rob Johnson talks about economic and social issues with a guest who probably wasn’t on your Econ 101 reading list, from musicians to activists to rebel economists.

– Read TwentyThirty, an online magazine presented by the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt. It sheds light on the social, political, and environmental challenges we face and features inspiring responsible leaders who are working to solve them.

– Read IndigiNews, a grantee of the Inspirit Foundation that aims to debunk stereotypes about Indigenous communities perpetuated by the media.

Couldn’t join us for 6 Degrees? Catch up on who participated here, and watch all of the videos here. 6 Degrees is an ongoing forum, so follow along on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for resources, news about upcoming events, and inclusion news from around the world.

For the last six months, many Canadians have struggled through the effects of widespread shutdowns and isolation at home. Our most marginalized citizens — including BIPOC, new immigrants, and low-income Canadians — have been especially hard hit.

We spoke with the 26th governor-general of Canada and ICC co-founder, The Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson, to discuss the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Canadians, as well as the rise of discrimination and misinformation in the wake of the pandemic.

As a former refugee, Madame Clarkson offers her perspective on why Canada needs to reaffirm its commitment to immigration and refugee needs even during the pandemic.

Sejla Rizvic: Since the pandemic began, many long-standing social issues have come to the fore. What is your perspective on some of the discrimination that’s arisen since the pandemic, particularly against Asian Canadians and the recent Black Lives Matter protests?
Adrienne Clarkson: I think what the Black Lives Matter protests are telling us is that we can’t keep saying, “Okay, let’s try to make things nice, little by little.” We really have to buckle down and say there is systemic racism — not that every single police person or every single person in authority in a certain place is a racist, but that the system, which they represent, was based on a racist model: that white people are better than anybody else. That’s systemic racism, the colonial system in which we all live in, and that has to end now.

I was a young person at the time of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It’s now about 60 years later and it has not unfolded as it should have. We have to take some really drastic action. And that’s where my point of view has perhaps changed in that I now feel that we must take very direct action to get a quota of Black people onto boards of organizations and into structural management. We can’t wait anymore. The inequality is too great and human suffering is too great.

In terms of anti-Asian sentiment, I think it’s most unfortunate that people think that Chinese people are to blame for COVID-19. Of course, it’s a result of total ignorance, bigotry, and hatred — especially seen south of the border, spewed from the highest office in the land. And that is disgusting, reprehensible, and totally unjustified. I read the stories about people of Chinese descent in Vancouver, where there is a very sizable and visible community, who are Canadian and who are being discriminated against. Asian Canadians are actually being attacked or spat upon. It’s absolutely dreadful.

As a former CBC journalist, what’s your take on the alarming trend of misinformation we’ve seen surrounding COVID-19? Is it comparable to anything that you saw during your time as a journalist?
No, and I’d say that is because of social media. Now anybody can get online and say whatever they want. And when you have the leader of the nation next to you spreading the misinformation himself — saying nonsensical and frightening things, even lying that COVID-19 is just going to go away — then it’s not hard to understand why the misinformation spreads so fast. Misinformation has just multiplied: it goes on social media and people end up listening to things that have no basis in facts.

Another issue that we’ve talked about in our series is the impact that the pandemic has had on refugees and new immigrants to Canada. I know that you’re a refugee yourself, and actually, so am I — my family came here from Bosnia in 1995. Global refugee resettlement was paused during COVID-19, but there is still an ongoing refugee crisis. What responsibility do you think governments have to not forget about refugees during this time?
I think this is the time to really be thinking about refugees and about taking in more people. I’m very, very adamant about that. I read recently that immigration will be down by at least 30 percent this year because of COVID-19. That’s terrifying because we need immigrants, we need refugees.

We know from all the statistics that after 2030 we will have no growth in our population except by immigration. We are not having enough children in order to do the things we need to do to keep up our pensions, to keep our universal health care, and so we need immigrants. We need people who came here, like you 25 years ago, probably little, with your parents. Right?

I’m self interested, perhaps, because I was a refugee and I was taken in. It’s not without difficulties — nothing was gold-paved for us in any way, shape, or form. But Canada is a country where if you wanted to live your life, bring up your children, and you had lost everything somewhere else, you can do that. And if we can’t do that because there’s a pandemic, this is a real problem. I think we have to then make up for it as soon as possible after we come out of lockdown.

Obviously, this is a very strange and difficult time to be arriving in the country. What kind of message do you have to give new immigrants?
Well, if you’re just arriving now, this is not the way we always are [laughs]. We would be welcoming you with smiles — you can’t see a smile through a mask — we would be trying to help you.

Some people who arrive are sponsored by a social group, a church group, or a synagogue group or whatever, and my own parish church has always adopted a family. It takes about six or seven families to look after one family that comes because they have a lot of needs when they first arrive because they have to set up an apartment, the children have to go to school. We can do little things, too, like getting them skates to go to the skate rink. All of these are personal citizen touches which we have always done so well in Canada.

The world is a terrifying place and people are thrown out of their homes for no reason, but Canada gives people another chance. I always say that immigration, even without very much, is a chance to be transformed; you’re not going to be the same person that you were even if you had stayed in your own country. Canada is a place for second chances and I think that’s what all of us who have been refugees or immigrants feel about Canada, even if we don’t say it in so many words, that this is a place that gave us the ability to become something else and even more than what we could have been had we stayed in the country where we were born.

I’m interested in looking to the future now and asking what the world might look like in 20 if we’ve handled this crisis in the right way. What lessons should we be implementing now to make that possible in 20 years?
I wish I had that foresight. I’ve always been wrong in anything I predicted would happen [laughs]. What I want to do is to continue to defend refugees and to take in as many as we possibly can, welcoming immigrants and refugees throughout the country, not just in large centers.

We must welcome the people who are coming now, the way we did or the way our grandparents came — starting with nothing but only their hopes — coming to a country that has a great parliamentary structure, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to move anywhere, anti-hate laws. We need people from all over the world because we can transform them into Canadians.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

For the last six months many Canadians have struggled through the effects of widespread shutdowns and isolation at home. Our most marginalized citizens — including BIPOC, new immigrants, and low-income Canadians — have been especially hard hit.

We spoke with the 26th governor general of Canada and ICC co-founder, The Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson, to discuss the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Canadians, as well as the rise of discrimination and misinformation in the wake of the pandemic.

As a former refugee, Madame Clarkson offers her perspective on why Canada needs to reaffirm its commitment to immigration and refugee needs even during the pandemic.

I was a young person at the time of the civil rights movements in the 1960s. It’s now about 60 years later and it has not unfolded as it should have. We have to take some really drastic action. And that’s where my point of view has perhaps changed in that I now feel that we must take very direct action to get a quota of Black people onto boards of organizations and into structural management. We can’t wait anymore. The inequality is too great and the human suffering is too great.

In terms of anti-Asian sentiment, I think it’s most unfortunate that people think that Chinese people are to blame for COVID-19. Of course it’s a result of total ignorance, bigotry, and hatred — especially seen south of the border, spewed from the highest office in the land. And that is disgusting, reprehensible, and totally unjustified. I read the stories about people of Chinese descent in Vancouver, where there is a very sizable and visible community, who are Canadian and who are being discriminated against. Asian Canadians are actually being attacked or spat upon. It’s absolutely dreadful.

Another issue that we’ve talked about in our series is the impact that the pandemic has had on refugees and new immigrants to Canada. I know that you’re a refugee yourself, and actually, so am I — my family came here from Bosnia in 1995. Global refugee resettlement was paused during COVID-19, but there is still an ongoing refugee crisis. What responsibility do you think governments have to not forget about refugees during this time?
I think this is the time to really be thinking about refugees and about taking in more people. I’m very, very adamant about that. I read recently that immigration will be down by at least 30 per cent this year because of COVID-19. That’s terrifying because we need immigrants, we need refugees.

This series is being sent out to ICC’s network of new and recent immigrants to Canada. Obviously, this is a very strange and difficult time to be arriving in the country. What kind of message do you have to give new immigrants?
Well, if you’re just arriving now, this is not the way we always are [laughs]. We would be welcoming you with smiles — you can’t see a smile through a mask — we would be trying to help you.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Physical limitations have accelerated the shift to digital formats, and yet, developing ties with local communities seems more important than ever. As the arts and culture sector continues to focus on these two areas, we look to trailblazers like Indigitization for inspiration.

Indigitization is a program that helps build capacity to digitize and sustain Indigenous knowledge, within Indigenous communities. It is a collaborative initiative between BC Indigenous groups, and academic partners including the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC).

Indigitization began in 2012, and over the past eight years, the multidisciplinary team has developed culturally appropriate access protocols and policies, championed accessible toolkits, and created a community-responsive digitization grant for BC First Nations community knowledge. Indigitization incorporates feedback to continuously adapt its work and approaches participants as partners, convened in 2016 at the Indigitization Futures Forum.

We spoke to Gerry Lawson about this unique model, cultural heritage, culturally appropriate information practices, and sustainable community development.

Let’s begin with some context. Could you tell us why Indigitization was created, and what needs or gaps it responded to?

When the pilot program started, there was very little digitization being done in First Nations organizations, even though there was tremendous need for it. Some community organizations were doing digitization, but it was difficult for them to know if they were meeting digitization best practices. Community organizations hold large and small collections of precious cultural heritage recordings on nearly every format possible. Almost universally there was a feeling in communities that these recordings are too precious to trust to an outside organization. But at the time, there was little guidance on digitization practices and insufficient funding for digitization in general.

Funding that was available to memory institutions often was not available or appropriate for First Nations community collections. These funds required adherence to onerous practices, or providing full and open access to digitized content. Virtually no community-based Indigenous knowledge collection can ethically be made completely openly accessible. On top of western intellectual property concerns, Indigenous knowledge is subject to cultural access protocols, which are unique to each culture. In many ways these protocols had not been implemented in the digital realm.

Additionally, most of the best practices guidelines for audio digitization were written in jargon-heavy language and many were out of date in terms of minimum equipment specifications. Quite simply the equipment specified wasn’t available, the documents were unreadable by anybody other than subject experts, and the “best practices” couldn’t scale into “actual practices”. Community collections managers were paralyzed by both a lack of funding and any clear guidance on how to move forward.

How did Indigitization address these issues?

With the Indigitization pilot project in 2012, we developed an audio-cassette digitization kit that is largely self-contained and is extremely easy to assemble. Accompanying this kit is a (mostly) jargon-free manual designed to help a small organization plan their digitization project and conduct the step by step processes of condition assessments and digitization for preservation. The Irving K Barber Learning Centre (IKBLC), who funded the original pilot project, courageously re-invested in the project to turn the toolkit resources into an ongoing grant program.

We have been able to create a funding process that doesn’t require the First Nations organization to make any recordings publicly accessible. We do ask that communities use their digitized collections as a basis to develop policies for culturally appropriate access. The grant also provides technical training and ongoing support for the duration of their projects. We have been able to modify the grant parameters from cycle to cycle, continually improving it to meet the needs of technical capacity building for these community organizations.

Could you describe what is unique about this program?

I think that our program is unique because of the people who have worked on it. It may look like an academic initiative because of its origins at UBC, but it actually has grassroots beginnings.

We have a core team who stay focused on the changing needs of Indigenous communities. This has allowed for the inclusion of other individuals and organizations to grow the program without losing momentum towards our original goals.

People who have led the development process of our guides, and the program leadership, have had experience working directly for community organizations. The first Indigitization Project Coordinator, Mimi Lam, who assembled many of the guides, got much of her experience at the Union of BC Indian Chiefs. This is where I myself developed many of my digitization practices. Sarah Dupont (Metis) who became the program coordinator after Mimi, used her experience working with community practitioners to develop most of the grant parameters and in-person protocols for our training workshops. Sarah also paid attention to feedback to continually innovate and make the grant process better each round. Erica Hernandez-Read of the UNBC Archives has brought deep relationships with northern communities and helped to develop many new relationships. Lisa Nathan of the UBC iSchool brought her ability to work ethically with students to the project. We have recently welcomed Kayla Lar-son, who has taken over for Sarah as the Program Coordinator. Sarah continues to manage many aspects of the Indigitization Program from her new position as Head of the Xwi7xwa Library at UBC. Many students have contributed real and lasting work to the program, thanks in large part to lessons from early grant funded student involvement.

Cultural heritage is so broad: how do communities determine what they want to digitize?

Cultural heritage is very broad, and even more so for First Nations organizations. There are very few recordings that don’t hold some content related to language, culture and history. Even something as seemingly mundane as recordings of band council meetings will contain prayers, songs and stories.

Some community organizations, such as language programs or schools, also hold very specific collections. This might include recordings of language gatherings, interviews with elders, or structured lessons. Overall, communities have varied collections with structured oral history projects, traditional use study recordings, recordings by linguists or other academics, potlatch recordings or family knowledge recordings. This is exactly the reason why Indigitization targets cultural heritage recordings, rather than “language recordings” or some other more restrictive term.

All of these recordings are important, and we want to allow each community to decide what their priorities are. Communities are all at different stages of addressing the very difficult challenges of language, culture and governance reclamation. Each community addresses these challenges according to local strategies and priorities that will best impact long-term community health. For this reason, communities are in the best position to decide which content in their collections is the highest priority for digitization.

How did you reach communities early on, and how do these relationships evolve as you collaborate through Indigitization?

For the first rounds of Indigitization funding we mostly relied on word of mouth through established relationships and networks. Since there really wasn’t any resource similar to Indigitization when we started, there were many Indigenous organizations who had been looking for this kind of assistance and were ready to start. As the program continued to mature, we reached out through other streams, such as paid advertising through Indigenous technical networks and a radio station in northern BC. Social media is also becoming an increasingly important avenue to connect with our community partners.

We have had many grant recipients, who we like to refer to as partners, receive funding to gain capacities in new areas, or train new people. We have also supported some of these organizations through assistance with other grant applications or letter of support. There are very few organizations that we have worked with that we do not stay in contact with, at least periodically.

In 2016 we organized the Indigitization Futures Forum. A symposium where 23 of our previous community partners joined many of our information management colleagues to talk about successes and gaps of cultural heritage digitization within Indigenous communities. The discussions and feedback from this event have helped us to plan for the future of the Indigitization Program.

How do you bring ethical and cultural appropriate practices into your work? Was this a goal from the onset?

This was absolutely the goal from the start. The ability to implement culturally appropriate practices came from the personal experience of the project team while working directly for or with Indigenous community organizations. Our Indigenous team members also bring a great deal of understanding to the project from very personal perspectives on mechanisms of cultural trauma and loss.

Real culturally appropriate information practices are created by the local community practitioners. I am mostly just omitting the culturally-inappropriate practices from our guides, which have typically dominated the digitization discourse and practice. Things like onerous requirements for funding eligibility, open access requirements, and adherence to western intellectual ownership concepts which do not acknowledge Indigenous rights to access and control of their own cultural heritage.

As a program, we observe many practices and protocols in our communications, and our training workshops that help to build and deepen relationships with communities, as well as to make our community partners feel more welcome and ready to learn while visiting our colonial-academic setting.

Sarah Dupont, our Program Manager through most of our existence, has been the person who fought for, and integrated, most of these practices. Things like having local Indigenous community representatives welcome our participants and participate in knowledge sharing while they discuss their specific projects. Having Indigenous caterers bring the food for most of our shared meals. There are many more examples as this is a core consideration when planning our gatherings.

There is digitization of content on the one hand, and information management of digital heritage as it grows. What is your vision for access to and use of these materials?

Information management is a very expansive field. At the start of our project, we really thought Information management is a very expansive field. At the start of our project, we were helping to address a focused, but critical, part of a larger problem. Digitization has a specific window of success. We will only be able to access equipment to play these formats for a short while longer, and the physical media itself suffers different problems as it ages.

We are currently developing guides to help with other common formats, like VHS, Betamax and open reel audio. These formats are significantly more complicated to digitize than audio-cassette. We are developing more resources to help with basic collections management processes. This is the start of addressing that broader issue of information management. We also have to consider what the scope of our own program should be. We don’t need to solve every problem and many problems are better suited to be addressed by other organizations or teams.

What are some strategies to keep these archives in circulation?

One very important, emerging content management system (CMS) is Mukurtu. Mukurtu is an open-source CMS that focuses on empowering Indigenous communities to manage and share their cultural heritage in appropriate ways. It was originally developed with an Aboriginal community in Australia to manage access using their local protocols, and has since grown to accommodate customization for any Indigenous local protocols. It is far from a perfect system but is a definite trailblazer in helping to scaffold many community organizations into a more structured information management practice. Michael Wynne, a member of the Mukurtu team, sits on our steering committee to better align our shared efforts.

Do you see Indigitization working with other sectors in addition to academia, or with any particular field?

Indigitization began as a multidisciplinary, cross-sectoral project and has always been open to collaboration, where the fit is good. It is a core quality of most of our team members that we challenge the practices that we have been taught. Such collaborations can take the form of structural partnerships, where a new institution becomes a part of the Indigitization team; it can exist as temporary project partnerships where we join with another group to develop new resources or reach new audiences; or it can be an informal relationship where we help each other meet goals without any greater commitments.

The Archives at UNBC has long been a partner, as has the Sustainable Heritage Network based in Washington State University. We have emerging relationships with the First Peoples Cultural Council and with colleagues at Mount Royal University. As we grow and need additional capacities in terms of educational tools, information management systems support and in providing greater reach for our resources, we will likely partner with organizations that have similar goals and are positioned to take on some of these challenges.

Meet Canoo member Angelina Paras.

Angelina chose to move to Canada because “it’s a country that’s both historically relevant yet still nascent in terms of economic and social potential. I feel like there is much for me and my children to learn from and contribute to this country that I chose.”

“What I love most about Canada is its rich ethnic diversity, coupled with an amazing citizenry that has embraced people from all corners of the world. It’s what enticed me to live and raise my children here. In fact, Canada adopts multiculturalism as a national policy. I have felt this from the get go, as minorities’ representation in the workforce and in education is encouraged, added to a plethora of support services for newcomers like me.”

“My favourite place in Canada is my new home and community, because it is symbolic of our immigration journey. But if I had the chance to revisit a place, it would be postcard-pretty Banff in Alberta, because our trip to this picturesque town for our landmark wedding anniversary will always be memorable.”

“I typically visit Canoo venues with my husband and my children, and my mother-in-law who lives in Toronto but stays with us in Winnipeg for a few months each year. The best place I’ve visited using Canoo was the Canadian Human Rights Museum (CMHR). I have visited the CMHR several times in the past, but they always have something new to offer. In July of 2019, I used my Canoo app to see the Mandela exhibit with my friend, who was visiting from Minnesota. That state has its own share of amazing museums, but I was proud to show her around the world’s first museum dedicated to human rights, and we were both fortunate to view the Mandela exhibit which was ongoing at the time. She is an educator, while I work for the Manitoba Legislature, which means we not only have to be curious for personal curiosity’s sake but we need to be updated on all matters political! The effort that goes into curating and researching for these exhibits is remarkable, and as a Winnipeger, I am fortunate to have easy access to this excellent edifice.

“Although I work for both the city and provincial governments, have been summoned for jury duty, volunteered at countless events and voted twice since we arrived, active citizenship can be many other things. It can be as simple as welcoming new citizens to the community or watching a game at your kids’ school. It can be sharing a personal traditional recipe or lending a hand to a neighbour in need. When you keep a mindset of trying to give more than what you take from the society you live in, that, to me, is what active citizenship is all about.

“Inclusion to me doesn’t just mean “tolerance,” which I feel gives it a sense of “putting up with”. Inclusion is a deliberate welcoming of others’ culture — stepping back and having an open mind;to give recognition and genuinely have appreciation for the added value that others can give.

“Cultural places serve as living dioramas, giving us a glimpse of other people’s ways of life. Awareness opens the path to inclusion because people would come to realize that there is a greater society in which they live, and that the languages, abodes, food, beliefs, music, attires, traditions and customs in that greater society are legion. If anything, cultural places are kaleidoscopes of this remarkably diverse world we live in.

“Canoo has opened the doors of not-to-be-missed places to newcomers like me. Through Canoo and others’ generosity, our family has been able to take an introductory peek into museums and national parks, which we would definitely visit again in the future.”

*Some quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

While millions of Canadians remained indoors during COVID-19 shutdowns, our public spaces and how we use them began to subtly shift. In order to meet new physical distancing rules, we’ve also altered nearly everything about how we move through the city, how we work, and how we spend our leisure time. But this moment of restructuring could also be an opportunity, and by pushing these changes just a little bit further we could use COVID-19 as the catalyst to make our public spaces healthier and more inclusive long into the future.

Public transportation was one of the first public spaces to see a sharp decline in use during the pandemic as millions of Canadians stayed home and forwent their typical daily commute to instead work from home. Ridership on Toronto’s TTC was down a staggering 80 per cent in April, although it’s expected to rise to 50 per cent of normal numbers by October. To combat the risks of crowding, city governments will need to invest in their transit systems by adding more terminals, altering seating arrangements, and making other adjustments. To push these changes even further cities could begin providing free fare to all riders — something that an estimated 100 cities in the world have already done — to ensure that transportation is accessible to lower-income riders and to incentivize transit use over car ownership, curbing greenhouse gas emissions and making our cities healthier and safer.

At the same time that some spaces have been seeing declines in use, others have been seeing significant boosts. A Park People survey of over 1,600 Canadians found that 55 per cent of respondents said that their park use had increased during COVID-19 and 82 per cent said that parks had become important to their mental health. Bike lanes have been expanded in cities across Canada in an effort to reduce crowding on public transit and reduce potential congestion on roads as well. Increased usage of greenspaces and more cyclists on the road are both examples of positive shifts in lifestyle that improve the physical and mental health of residents; and with the right policies, these changes could stick.

The 2020 Declaration for Resilience in Canadian Cities, written by urban planner Jennifer Keesmaat, argues that COVID-19 and it’s recovery period represents “a window to act” and implement changes in Canada that could “kickstart our journey toward more accessible, equitable, sustainable, and resilient cities.” The plan takes a holistic view at how cities function, looking to ensure that the most vulnerable — who have been hardest hit by the pandemic — are being well-served by city planning.

People with disabilities, those who are immunocompromised, and the elderly are too often overlooked when it comes to thoughtful city design, which means that countless Canadians are excluded from participating in society because their needs are not being accommodated. With an increasingly aging population (by 2036 seniors are projected to comprise about 25 per cent of the Canadian population) we’ll need to consider how people who have different abilities and needs can be best served by public services, infrastructure, and policies.

People with disabilities have been advocating for many of the methods that have now become much more widespread during the pandemic, including telecommuting and flexible schedules. Before COVID-19, employers were slow to make accessibility a priority, but because of the pandemic, we’re seeing just how possible these changes are.

At the same time that we’re advocating for changes like these, we also need to stay attuned to the complex ways that policies fit together and who they impact. Jay Pitter, an urbanist and placemaker, has urged us not to overlook those living in “forgotten densities” like homeless shelters, senior care homes, or public housing — all of whom are struggling during the pandemic due to inadequate and unsafe infrastructure that puts them in close proximity to other people. As calls for physical distancing increase and density is seen as a risk to disease prevention, it’s important to consider the needs of the many Canadians who, through a variety of circumstances, are not able to inhabit their living spaces or local communities safely.

“Instead of being fearful of increased anti-density bias,” writes Pitter in an April article for Azure magazine, “we need to apply what we know toward a good urban density framework. This framework should be evidence-based and overlap with social determinants of health, such as food security, race, gender and poverty, while being anchored in a strong equity-based placemaking paradigm.” Not only that, but policymakers need to consult meaningfully with both experts and community members in order to make these changes, Pitter states. “Fully undertaking this scope of work is not possible during a pandemic. But we can certainly advance the process instead of diminishing the suffering of those experiencing density-related health challenges,” she writes.

Despite the limitations we’re currently experiencing, there are still plenty of reasons for optimism. Changes that once seemed impossible before the pandemic are already beginning now, and by applying the knowledge we have and truly listening to the needs of the most marginalized, we could take advantage of the momentum created so far and transform our cities, green areas, and workplaces so they are more inclusive for all.