BC MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, Adam Olsen begins by describing his experience of growing up on Reserve under the Indian Act and how this experience helped to draw him into political service. Olsen also shares some of the creation stories of the Coast Salish, highlighting relationships of mutual care-giving between human beings and the animal and plant beings. This leads him to the question: are we looking after them in the same way they have looked after us? Olsen describes how the colonial perspective understood the natural world very differently, as resources for the Crown. Olsen then turns us to good news: the interests of Indigenous people and the broader community are the same. Olsen continues by giving a beautiful and heart-felt reflection on the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples while dispelling myths about it. And finally, he concludes by declaring that we find ourselves in a moment of beautiful possibility, if we choose to walk together.
