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Vangelis has died

May 19, 2022 By Being, Music 7 Comments

That statement will either mean something to you, or it will mean nothing to you. It might mean nothing to you if washy space-y pretentious prog rock wasn’t your bag in the 1980s. But it was mine.

I have always had an eclectic taste in music and back in the early 1980s when I was 15 my friend Aiden, who was a couple of years older than me got me into all the British prog rock bands like Yes and Genesis and Pink Floyd and Emerson Lake and Palmer who had all done their best work in the previous decade. As a devotee of Queen, I was a bit suspicious of synthesizers, but I have also always had a penchant for drones and atmospheric washes and mystical poetry and stuff like that. Bands like Rush were doing all that, even if Queen, until 1981 anyway, was explicitly rejecting it.

Anyway, my love of Jon Anderson’s voice and Vangelis’ notoriety for the Chariots of Fire and Bladerunner soundtracks led me to an album that for a couple of years was a staple in my Walkman. “Private Collection” was bliss to listen to through the headphones. The following year, they released “The Best of Jon and Vangelis” and that was the extent of their discography that I owned on cassette.

Here is “Horizon” from from “Private Collection” in all of its 23 minute long glory.

Headphones on. Bliss out.

Thirty years on

May 19, 2022 By Being, Featured, First Nations 3 Comments

It was in this day In 1992 that I started my first real job in an office, beginning work as a policy analyst at the National Association of Friendship Centres in Ottawa.

I can remember that day vividly. It was a lovely warm morning in Ottawa and I even remember wearing a light purple collared shirt (it was the early 1990s) and carrying my lunch in a newly purchased MEC fabric briefcase that served me for many years.

The NAFC was small at that time, just an Executive Director, Jerome Berthelette, a financial guy, Brian Stinson, our office manager Mel Maracle, Molly LaFontaine who was the receptionist and EA to Jerome and Marc Maracle who was in charge of different projects. I think my first day was Jerome’s last and Terry Doxtator started the same day I did as Executive Director.

As a student I worked as a researcher for David Newhouse at Trent University and the NAFC was the subject of a set of case studies we wrote on Indigenous-Government program negotiations. Through the work and the material I used in my honours thesis on organizational development I got to know the staff and when I moved to Ottawa with Caitlin in 1991 Marc gave me a chance to come and work for the organization.

Lots was going on in Ottawa at that time. There were events marking the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s journey with many amazing shows and exhibits and productions on Indigenous resistance. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal People was at work and we contributed research and testimony to that. The Charlottetown Accord negotiations were dominating the policy discussions in the city and the talk of what it means to implement Constitutionally protected Aboriginal rights in Canada was everywhere. The fallout from the Oka crisis was on everybody’s mind and the fading years of the Mulroney government and subsequent transition to the Chrétien government threw up many policy challenges and a few key opportunities to our movement.

I worked there for two and a half years. It formed so much of what I went on to do for the rest of my life. I was grateful for the learning I got in the job in facilitating collaborative policy making processes. It was exciting to be in Ottawa during historic constitutional discussions – watching the first draft of the Charlottetown Accord come over our fax machine! – and I got to contribute to things like the Royal Commission, the establishment of the Aboriginal Head Start Program and the renewal and restructuring of the Friendship Centre core funding program.

Thirty years is a long time. And the blink of an eye. And I’m grateful these many years later for all the guidance and support I received as a young guy starting out. I’m proud to still call myself a Friendship Centre supporter and that movement will always have my heart and thanks for helping me get going in the world.

Opposing a new LNG port in Átl’ka7tsem

May 18, 2022 By Bowen, Featured, First Nations

I live at the open end of a fjord called Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound, on the south coast of British Columbia. It is a broad mouthed inlet that narrows as you head 45 kilometers up towards Squamish. It is home to a small archipelago of islands and some small villages and towns. The inlet has been recovering from massive industrial abuse for most of the last 100 years, mostly from horrendas mining and logging practices, and now we have herring, sea lions, seals, whales, dolphins and porpoises and even more important sea life, like extremely rare glass sponge reefs and healthy plankton blooms. showing up in ever increasing numbers. You can read more about this amazing place and its citizen-led recovery at the Howe Sound Marine Guide Átl’?a7tsem/Howe Sound Marine Stewardship Initiative website. This place is so special that last year the inlet was named Canada 19th UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

The inlet forms most of the southern half of Skwxwú7mesh-ulh Temíxw and the Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation Government) is playing an increasingly important role in the jurisdiction and stewardship of this place, as is right. The Nation is the only government whose jurisdiction maps most precisely on the whole of the ecosystem, from mountain tops to the ocean floor from the source to the Strait of Georgia, and they are the government with by far the longest tenure in this place, dating back tens of thousands of years, into time immemorial. The deepest stories about this place extend into the Squamish period of history that was dominated by the Transformer brothers Xaay Xaays and the supernatural beings that formed and transformed the earth.

Next week, the proponents of Woodfibre LNG will be presenting to our Council on Bowen Island. I’m not sure what they will say, but I do know that it is important to be on the record opposing the project. This blog post will be my submission to Council.

I am opposed to any new fossil fuel infrastructure development. Anything that helps add to the amount of fossils fuels being burned is a contribution towards the increasingly likely potential that we will propagate an extinction level event on our home planet.

The Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw has entered into a benefits agreement with Woodfibre LNG and the Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw environmental review process has approved the construction of the project. The company has worked with the Nation to mitigate the impact of the development at Swiyát, which is an especially significant place for herring spawning. I want to go on record as saying that I don’t blame the Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw one bit for this decision. They have been clear from the beginning taht development in the territories needs to to meet their standards, and this development has done that. They have been transparent about their process and they have made decisions in the best interests of the Nation.

Since European contact, the Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw and its constituent communities and leaders have been systemically and deliberately denied the opportunity to benefit from economic activity within the territory. The fact that they have asserted this right and signed an impact agreement worth more than $1 billion is good. In fact, it is surprising and shocking that ANY economic activity at all happens within Squamish Nation territories without some benefit accruing to the Nation.

Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw. is entirely within its rights to review and approve the project from the perspective of their. environmental and economic interests. This is a key part of the principle of free prior and informed consent recognized under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and it stand as an example to all of us who operate in these territories. If you aren’t already contributing something to the Nation as a person who “lives, works and plays” here, then it might be time to consider how you too can share your benefits with the traditional and historic owners of this territory.

The major objection I have to Woodfibre LNG is the fact that it introduces new fossil fuels into the earth’s atmosphere, at a time when we are confronting an existential crises on this planet. Woodfibre LNG will tell you that this is a clean project because it uses hydroelectricity for its operations. However, it fails to take any responsibility for the amount of LNG being shipped through the facility and burned in the world. This is like saying there has never been a fatality in a bomb factory, and therefore there has never been a more benign bomb factory. It fails to take into account the cumulative effect of the burning of new amounts of liquid natural gas over the lifetime of the project. I have asked the company what the estimates are for the amount of carbon added to the atmosphere from the gas shipped through Woodfibre, and if they reply I will update this post to reflect that. At the very least, the facility is intended to ship 2.7 million tons of LNG a year which, when burned, will produce about 2.76 times that amount, or 7,452,000 tons of CO2 without taking into consideration the supply chain emissions, or more importantly direct leaks and emissions of methane into the atmosphere. That Woodfibre is run on electricity is merely one dent an overall supply chain that uses and emits the gas that it mines.

We should not be building new fossil fuel infrastructure at all at this point in time. We have long since passed the the time when we should have stopped. All of us now need to stand in the face of our descendents and the future impacts of life on the planet and admit that at the very least, we didn’t do enough in a timely manner to address this issue. But some of us will need to say more. That even when we knew what negative impact we could expect from the short term gain we championed, we did it anyway.

Sorry won’t pay for this grief.

Using the Societies Act to return stolen land

May 16, 2022 By Featured, First Nations 2 Comments

Many settler organizations in Canada wonder how they can make meaningful strides on reconciliation with Indigenous Nations. Let me show you perhaps the easiest and most meaningful way you can do this. (I am not a lawyer, but there is no reason why this can’t work, and I’m currently working with a couple of organizations to make this happen).

In British Columbia, the Societies Act governs the operation of non-profit societies through which many organizations are operated. The Act has a whole section on what to do when the Society is needs to fold or be dissolved. Section 124 of this Act says that when a Society is dissolved, the assets of a Society can be distributed after all the debts are settled. Societies can make a by-law, kind of like an organizational Will, that specifies who receives these assets: Here is 124.2 (b).

The stipulation is that the entity receiving the asset needs to be a qualified recipient, which means another Society, or a co-op or a charity. And guess what? Most First Nations in Canada are qualified recipients. You can check here.

So what this means is that if your Society owns land as an asset you can create a by-law that says when you are dissolved as a Society the land you own is returned to the local First Nation in whose territory you are operating. You can make that by-law right now. And THAT means that if every Society operating in BC did that, over time, a lot of land would be returned to First Nations when it was no longer used by a Society. Of course you can always give that #LandBack now, but at the very least, you could make a by-law today.

There are many options you have about directing your assets after dissolution. You could simply give everything – land, buildings, and other assets to the local First Nations. Or if you are concerned about a continuity of care or purpose, you might imagine a future where your operations and purpose continue through another operating Society, but the land is returned to the First Nations and rented back, and you could specify that. The key is to work with the local First Nation to plan for that future together and explore what that means for the present day.

So THAT means 2 things:

1. when you tell the host Nation that you are doing this, you enter into a long term relationship that is all about how you will steward this land while you are using it so that as the last settler organization to own it, you return it in a healthy state, because it’s kind to return stolen property in at least as good a shape as it was in when it was taken. And,

2: when you do your territorial acknowledgement you can truly say “we are on Indigenous land and we are in relationship with the local host Nation to return this land to them.” This is such an easy thing to do. You can do it right now.

Imagine if this happened overnight. Over the next few years, land that is currently used to provide services and care for communities would flow back into the hands of First Nations and in the meantime relationships would be strengthened and responsibilities enacted. It’s such a powerful thing to do. And it is probably the easiest way to participate in the most meaningful action you can to engage in the reconciliation agenda. Give #LandBack.

(And here is some good legal advice from lawyers who want to help you dissolve your Society well.)

Another Cynefin teaching game for the online environment

May 13, 2022 By Complexity, Featured, Leadership, Learning, Organization 6 Comments

For about the past ten years or so I’ve been playing with various ways to teach Cynefin to groups. In every instance I start with some kind of experiential exercise to help people notice that there are different kinds of problems and situations that require us to act in different kinds of ways.

I have a couple of posts on different p[hysical exercises you can do with groups when you are face to face, and they are documented here and here. My little obsession with gamifying Cynefin led to being invited to contribute a chapter on this process in the Cynefin book as well.

Working on-line the past few years, I’ve tried a few exercises as well. The other day in teaching the framework I went through these instructions. (Number four I borrowed from Ciaran Camman.)

  1. Find something in your space that you can operate or solve so easily that a child could do it. When you find it think about how you might even automate it.
  2. Next, find something in your space that, if it failed, you would have to call in an expert to fix it for you. Notice how that is similar or different from the previous item.
  3. Now find something in your space that, if it failed, it would be a disaster and whatever you had planned for the day would go out the window, becasue you would have to deal with it. If it did fail, what’s the very first thing you would do?
  4. Finally, find something in your space that you are using for a different purpose other than the one it was intended for. If you were to give it a new name to reflect it’s new function, what would you call it?

Of course the first thing corresponds to the Clear domain in Cynefin where everything is simple and obvious and automation is possible. The second thing is complicated,and requires expertise and analysis to fix. The third thing is chaotic and requires the establishment of immediate action to get a handle on the situation. And the fourth thing is Complex and is an example of exaptive practice and how that changes the identity of a thing to the point where it’s possible that you won’t even recognize it anymore. When I taught this the other day, I referenced a 5 centimeter thick History of Ireland that I used for years as a monitor stand. When I went to lend that book to someone I couldn’t find it, despite that fact that I had been looking at it for YEARS.

i like teaching Cynfin as a framework that helps us to know how to make decisions and act. In the online world it’s often hard to study action in embodied ways, as we are so static and disconnected. But this seemed to do the trick and the participants in the course really got it.

Oh and just a note, I generally do the Complexity exercise last, because when I teach Cynefin, I am usually doing so as an introduction to complexity and so I leave us on the complex domain so we can talk about that more. This is also how I first had Cynefin presented to me – through Dave Snowden’s classing “How to Organize a Children’s Party” in which he actually starts with Chaos.