Podcast
RAVEN (DE)BRIEFS: A PODCAST
RAVEN DeBriefs are conversations between Indigenous thinkers, legal experts, organizers and community leaders exploring the shifting legal landscape upon which moments of crisis — and opportunity — are built.
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A new series on Mining Justice
Welcome to Plunder: True Crimes, Canadian Mines. This is a show that looks beneath the surface of mining in Canada, a country that’s home to 60% of the worlds mining companies. For all the glittering office towers that you might be used to seeing in Toronto and Vancouver, Mining has a dark history, and — you’ll discover — a controversial future.
We’ll travel from the earliest days of colonisation, fuelled by gold rush-style plunder, to the toxic era of uranium mining that contributed to the Manhattan Projects’ development of the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to today, where hunger for critical minerals continues to drive colonialism deep into the heart of Indigenous lands: in Canada, and around the world.
After centuries of exploitation, the drive to get rich quick is baked into Canada’s DNA, with extractive industries still given preferential treatment by government. Despite a lot of talk about reconciliation - allocation of resources is still very much done without proper consultation or consent of the Peoples who have stewarded these lands and waters since time immemorial.
Season 4, Episode 1
Welcome to Episode 1 of RAVEN’s new mining justice podcast series, Plunder: True Crimes, Canadian Mines. This is a show that looks beneath the surface of mining in Canada, a country that’s home to 60% of the world's mining companies.
For all the glittering office towers that you might be used to seeing in Toronto and Vancouver, Mining has a dark history, and — you’ll discover, a controversial future. We’ll travel from the earliest days of colonization, fuelled by gold rush-style plunder, to the toxic era of uranium mining that contributed to the Manhattan Projects’ development of the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to today, where hunger for critical minerals continues to drive colonialism deep into the heart of Indigenous lands: in Canada, and around the world.
After centuries of exploitation, the drive to get-rich-quick is baked into Canada’s DNA, with extractive industries still given preferential treatment by the government. Despite a lot of talk about reconciliation - allocation of resources is still very much done without proper consultation or consent of the Peoples who have stewarded these lands and waters since time immemorial.
We’re going to start the series by looking at how mining actually begins. Even today, anyone with a laptop and $25 can stake a claim without even bothering to inform the First Nation whose territory they’re staking. We take a deep dive to look at how Gitxaala Nation dealt with illegal discharge of tailings from the Yellow Giant gold mine - a project that Gitxaała said from the beginning they did not want. After the company devastated Banks Island’s salmon-rich creeks and near-shore areas, Gitxaała decided to go to court to change the outdated and unjust Mineral Tenure Act in a case that has fundamentally shifted how mining will be done: not just on Gitxaała territory, but everywhere in B.C.
Season 3, Episode 7
This episode of RAVEN (De)Briefs, we’re talking with Bryant Doradea — HK aka Higher Knowledge. He’s a youth worker, activist and multimedia artist who joined RAVEN first for the Canned Salmon festival in 2021, and most recently brought his storytelling and teachings through hip hop to our Vancouver Festival Afloat concert .
As we celebrate the landmark settlement of Cindy Blackstock's class action lawsuit, we're taking a look at kids in foster care. There are, right now, more Indigenous kids in the social welfare system than were ever at residential school at any given time. It’s a reality that has led many to observe that the foster care system IS the new residential school, for how it both pulls kids away from the land and their culture, and how it perpetuates the colonization of Indigenous families.
Illuminating the path he's taken, that builds power — not in spite of, but from out of — the deep well of his own struggles, HK shares about how he uses his hard-won learnings to help Indigenous youth - in the inner city, on the 'rez, and on the land.
Season 3, Episode 6
Season 3, Episode 5
On this episode of RAVEN (De)Briefs we're looking at the roots of Gitxaała Nation's court case challenging the outdated and unjust Mineral Tenure Act (MTA) in B.C.
Join host, Andrea Palframan, as she breaks down what the MTA is, and why we need to act in solidarity with Gitxaała Nation to reform mining in their territory, and all across B.C.
You'll hear from Chief Nees Hiwwas, Tara Marsden, and Jamie Kneen on this final instalment on the Gitxaała court case taking place throughout the month of April 2023.
Season 3, Episode 4
It’s not every day that you get a chance to change the nature of big industries, like mining, but that’s what’s happening at the BC Supreme Court this April. On our third and final guest episode from the legal experts at Ng Ariss Fong, Ruben Tillman interviews legal counsels for two of the Nations who are intervening in Gitxaała Nation’s groundbreaking case, which takes aim at B.C.’s outdated and unjust Mineral Tenure Act.
It’s been a long strange journey, from the fallout of a rogue mining company who despoiled sacred watersheds in Gitxaała territory to the assembling of a coalition of diverse yet committed intervenors who, one by one, have taken the stand to denounce the casual and discriminatory way mineral claims are handled in B.C. Protecting this one salmon-rich island, on B.C.’s north coast, is important enough: but if Gitxaała and their allies win, it will change mining regulations everywhere in B.C.
Support this case by donating or fundraising online.
Season 3, Episode 2
This April, Gitxaala Nation will be in court, pushing back against British Columbia’s outdated and unjust mining claims regime. The case has garnered national attention as it is the first to put legislation based on implementing UNDRIP to the test.
As part of our work raising legal defence funds for Indigenous Nations, RAVEN gets to work with Nations like Gitxaala who are applying their own legal frameworks at the same time as expertly navigating colonial courts. Today on the podcast, we’ll hear about how those intersecting strategies come to life, from the powerhouse legal team of Ng Ariss Fong.
Support this case by donating or fundraising online.
Season 3, Episode 1
We sat down with Doreen Manuel, a Secwepemc filmmaker and one of the organizers of the historic Constitution Express. From her office at Capilano University where she mentors a new generation of Indigenous media producers, Manuel shared stories and personal reflections from what was one of the most important indigenous led movements, ever.
Season 2, Bonus Episode
Private corporations with the power to police and jail peaceful land defenders. Oil and gas interests ordering the violent arrest of Indigenous peoples.
We'll dive into the shady world of corporate injunctions, lawsuits and prosecutions in this special bonus episode of RAVEN Debriefs, featuring guests Kai Nagata and Kris Statnyk.
Season 2, Episode 8
Terri-Lynn Williams Davidson – lawyer, singer, knowledge keeper and weaver of worlds. She hails from Haida Gwaii, a wild archipelago off of Canada’s west coast where bears, whales, otters and eagles all dwell in a lush coastal rainforest soaked in rain and salt water.
We asked Terri Lynn about her story – how she became the counsel for the Haida Nation- an expert in both Canadian common law AND in the indigenous laws of the Haida people. She talks about how she brought the stories and laws which she was raised with into the courtroom when her Nation challenged powerful logging interests in the landmark Haida case at the Supreme Court of Canada.
She also shares her perspectives on the defeat of Enbridge and on RAVEN’s role in bringing together 8 Indigenous Nations to fight – and beat – the tar sands pipeline and tankers project.
Season 2, Episode 7
Right now, across Turtle Island, we are experiencing a flowering of anti-racist activism. On the other hand, we still contend with a system where Indigneous Peoples make up 5% of the country’s population but more than 30% of the prison population. As an organization dedicated to seeking justice, RAVEN is joining the conversation about those gross inequalities.
To begin, we reached out to Judge John Reilly, the bestselling author of Bad Law: Rethinking Justice for a Postcolonial Canada.
Reilly’s 33 years of first-hand experience as an Alberta provincial court judge brings credibility to his call for the radical reform necessary to mend a broken justice system.
Reilly has become an outspoken proponent of Indigenous legal frameworks, including restorative justice circles as an alternative to the punitive approach of Canada’s criminal courts.
Season 2, Episode 6
For Part 3 in our series on Indigenous Foodways, we spoke with celebrated author, distinguished professor emeritus and outstanding botanist Nancy Turner. She shared her perspectives from the decades of work she’s done travelling around the Canadian west, writing dozens of books and articles and, most importantly, cultivating friendships with Indigenous knowledge keepers.
Turner combines a botanists’ understanding of classification and an ethnographers’ attunement to human culture. Here, she reveals the intricacies of interspecies dynamics that form the basis of Indigenous People’s deep affinity to the lands and waters.
Season 2, Episode 5
For Part 2 in our series on Indigenous Foodways, we speak with Ed Jensen.
Just as his Nation embarks on an historic Title Action to assert Indigenous sovereignty over traditional territories that were never ceded through treaty, Jensen is involved in practicing, teaching and breathing life into Secwepemc hunting traditions. Grounded in Secwepemc laws that were taught to him by his uncles and grandfather, Jensen is bringing those traditions forward by teaching new generations of Indigenous - and non-indigenous - people about stewardship practices grounded in reciprocity and respect.
Season 2, Episode 4
For Part 1 in our series on Indigenous Foodways, we’re talking with Jess Housty, executive director of Q'qs Society, from her kitchen in Bella Bella. Jess shares with us the story of her community’s Granny’s Gardens: an Indigenous food sovereignty project that is rooted within the traditions of Heiltsuk Nation on British Columbia’s central coast.
Season 2, Episode 3
Our guest on this episode is pioneering human rights lawyer and trailblazer on the path to Indigenous sovereignty, Dr. Judith Sayers. We spoke with Judith just as her community was reeling from the violent murder of Chantal Moore at the hands of police. Hear from participants in the Indigenous Justice Summit who gathered in the wake of Chantal Moore’s killing.
Sayers also shares her perspectives on Indigenous power generation; as President of Clean Energy BC, she is leading the wave of Indigenous solar, wind and run-of-river producers in the province.
Season 2, Episode 2
RAVEN (De)Briefs is a podcast that jaywalks across the intersection of Indigenous and common law. On this episode, we took a walk with the director of the world’s first Joint Degree Program in Indigenous and Common Law, Val Napoleon, and her colleague Rebecca Johnson. Meet Juliana Alexander, a Secwepmec elder and research partner with the Indigenous Law Research Unit, and soon-to-be trans-systemic lawyer and student researcher at ILRU, Carolyn Belleau. Hear from this dynamic team of passionate women as they share what it's like to unearth, restore, revitalize and breathe life into Indigenous legal traditions whose wisdom and values show a way forward for living in right relationship with each other, and with the land. "Law is a verb: so is love." Check out the show and don't forget to share, review and subscribe!
Season 2, Episode 1
Chief Russ Myers Ross saw his Nation through one of the most historic periods of the past century. Elected chief at just 30 years old, Ross witnessed the Supreme Court's recognition of Tsilhqot'in Title, helmed the largest Indigenous-led solar project in the province, successfully defeated Taseko Mines in court, and was present for the exoneration of chiefs in the Canadian Parliament - a act of redress that was 100 years in the making. Ross illuminates the struggles and joys of working for his community at a time when Indigenous sovereignty is on the rise. A must-listen for anyone wondering what it's like to walk in the moccasins of a modern-day Indigenous chief with a vision to lift people up while keeping grounded in ancestral customs and laws.
Season 1, Episode 1
This first episode is a conversation between Jeff Nicholls, RAVEN’s board president, Indigenous lawyer and member of the Raven Clan of the Tsimshian Nation, and Shoshona Kish, founder of the Indigenous Music Summit and front woman of the band Digging Roots. Music by: Digging Roots, Kinnie Starr, and Amanda Rheaume. Used with permission.
Season 1, Episode 2
The next generation of activists, scholars, poets and players are forging a new way forward grounded in Indigenous traditions and motivated by a longing for justice. This episode features Saul Brown who is pursuing a law degree in Canadian and Indigenous law, spoken word from Zoe Pricelys Roy, Jayden Whitfield Williams, Jordan Smith, Takaiya Blaney, Sarain Fox, and Rebecca Wolf-Gage.
Season 1, Episode 3
In this episode, Aboriginal Law scholar and practitioner Bruce McIvor speaks to the promise, and challenge, of pursuing Indigenous rights through the courts. We’ll look at the recent decisions on the Trans Mountain pipeline cases, backed by RAVEN supporters, and hear Bruce’s thoughts on how recent Wet'suwet'en decisions failed to honour the spirit of the Constitution.
Season 1, Episode 4
Find out how Wet'suwet'en Nation are pushing back against fracked gas with a legal challenge calling out Coastal Gas Link for failing to care for the Indigenous People in whose territory they operate.
Season 1, Episode 5
Immerse yourself in the poetic worldview of Canada Research Chair, Dr. John Borrows. His discourse on the intersection of Indigenous and colonial law is richly adorned with the shapeshifting sounds of Jeremy Dutcher, a classically trained musician who takes 100 year old wax cylinder recordings of his Wolastoq ancestors, and sets them to soaring strings and vocals. Enjoy a special Earth Day edition of RAVEN (De)Briefs - an affirming podcast that's sure to open hearts and arouse minds.
Season 1, Episode 6
This week we have a live recording of the “We Are the Stronghold” benefit concert at Toronto’s Great Hall with Serena Ryder, Chantal Kreviazuk, Cris Derksen, and many more luminaries. Get a glimpse of the strength, unity and power that underlies the Indigenous resurgence that is challenging oppressive systems and remaking Canada.
Season1, Episode 7
Nikki Iyolo Sanchez has been a wilderness guide and environmental educator in the Nuu-chah-nulth territory of Clayoquot Sound for over 10 years, and is currently overseeing the first ever Indigenous Storyteller edition with Telus STORYHIVE; a project to provide funding and mentorship for emerging Indigenous filmmakers in BC and Alberta. All of this while she pursues a PhD with a research focus on emerging visual media technology as it relates to Indigenous ontology.
