Connection. Relationships. Community. Cree Activist, Academic and Author, Dr. Robyn Bourgeois gives us a glimpse at what these things mean in her culture and why we would benefit by embracing them more in ours. A fascinating conversation on survival and moving forward together.
"The Cree understanding is that there’s abundance and we have a responsibility to take care of each other. We're not in this alone. And, we’re all worthy -- simply because we share the common spark of humanity... That’s a really important lesson in leading through crisis, you realize you can’t do it by yourself."
In the Western world, our mantra has been, "Who cares if you feel well! Are you productive? Are you delivering? What is your output?"
That has got to change.
The collective "we" are learning that slowly now.
Tune into this fascinating conversation with Robyn on:
- Cree teachings
- The power of connection, relationships and community
- Our responsibility to each other
- Acknowledging our trauma and telling our stories
- How we survive and move forward together
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Dr. Robyn Bourgeois (Laughing Otter Caring Woman) is a mixed-race nehiyaw iskwew (Cree woman) whose Cree family comes from Treaty Eight (Lesser Slave Lake) territory.
She was born and raised in Syilx and Splats in territories of British Columbia and is connected through her three children to the Six Nations of the Grand River.
She is an associate professor in the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at Brock, where her scholarly work focuses on Indigenous feminisms, violence against Indigenous women and girls, and Indigenous women’s political activism and leadership.
In addition to being an academic, Robyn is also an activist, author, and artist.
- I'm Céline Williams and welcome to the "Leading Through Crisis" podcast, a conversation series exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. So, I'm very excited about my guest today 'cause she's one of my favorite humans who I met last year. And she is fascinating and wonderful, and just her brain is brilliant. So, my guest today is Dr. Robyn Bourgeois, who is a Cree activist, academic, and author. She is an Associated Professor in the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies at Brock University, but is currently serving as the institution's Acting Vice-Provost, Indigenous Engagement. Even just in that intro there's so much cool stuff. I am so happy to have you on the show, Robyn.
Aw, thank you, I'm so excited to be here.
I know I said this before, but truly meeting you last year, I was like, I just need to be best friends with this woman for the rest of my life, 'cause I think you're amazing. So, I can't wait to get into some of what we're gonna talk about.
Oh, I'm excited.
And I always start these podcasts with the big broad question, which is the name of the podcast is "Leading Through Crisis." When you hear that phrase, leading through crisis, what does that mean for you? What comes up for you inside of that?
Wow, that's a great question. And you know what, my first instinct is to go to what it means to be an indigenous person in this country, right?
Please.
Right? Because in your life, you're always in crisis. We talk about, our elders talk about the fact that people are saying this pandemic is a crisis and climate change is a crisis and that this is all catastrophic and we're heading into this period of destruction. And indigenous people are like, "Yeah, we've been living that for several hundred years." Right? And the way that colonialism impacts our lives and that we're always, the system is against us already. So, we're always in crisis in many ways. Not that I, like I didn't wanna paint the picture that indigenous peoples are just always in crisis. We have a lot of resilience and a lot of strength and a lot of courage and we do a lot of incredible things, but we're always facing that. And that's where my mind went first, was that that's really, it's kind of not just leadership in our leadership roles or in our activism, it's in life in general for us. So, it's kind of like how do you navigate the crises continuously is where I went with that thought. Because it is a challenge for us whether in formal leadership, but also in general in life. And I hope people can come to understand what that means for us, because we make decisions and calculations every day that most non-indigenous people, well, I'm not gonna say that. There's certain other groups I would say racialize folks. Certainly, women have to make certain decisions that we have to calculations in everyday life that most other people don't have to make. A great example of that is our kids, knowing the fact that indigenous children are overrepresented in the child welfare system, we make calculations every day. Like we can't send our kids to school without their hair combed because will that earn the call to CAS? If they're absent too much, will that earn the call to CAS? I remember one time the cats got fleas and they were sleeping with the kids and the kids got flea bites. And I'm like, "Oh, is this the of time?" We are constantly making calculations that other people don't have to make. And we do the same in our professional life. So, that's where my mind went with that question, is what does that mean to me? Well, it's a life thing for me really anyways.
Yeah.
Right? And I think for many of us, I'll be honest, I don't think it's just indigenous folks. I think a lot of people are living life in continual crisis and it's not just a pandemic and it's not just climate change. It's constant based on the way society is.
I really appreciate you sharing that because I think it is... Also, I love that you took it there and that that's what came to mind, because it's an experience that a lot of people don't have obviously, but aren't even considering, right? Like it it's an experience that is so far, I'm gonna use an example for a second, I was once talking to a male friend. I am a white woman. I'm not a person of color in any way, shape, or form. I was talking to a male friend and he could not wrap his brain around the idea of as a woman, and I'm a privileged woman, I know this, when I am out in the world, I am calculating is that man across the street a threat to me? How fast do I walk? Who is behind me? Who is in front of me? This is an awareness I constantly have in the world everywhere I go. And he could not wrap his brain around that. And there are a lot more privileged women in the world that are visibly there, whatever that looks like, than there are people of color, other minorities that you can't always tell if someone is indigenous, you can't always tell if a person's a person of color. And yet internally for them, this is something that is constantly on your mind and being navigated.
Yep.
And it's a different way of operating.
Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that I wish people would make that connection. I'm really, one of the things that I value so much is making connections. That's in Cree culture, relationships are everything. They're the primary driver of everything we do. And I wish that when we're talking about race and racism and colonialism, I wish that privileged white women would make that comparison and understand that we're all in the same system. It's the same system. And the things that you do every day for your calculations are things we do only for us. Yes, we have the gender ones as well, but we have colonialism to deal with and racism. And that's what should bring us together, not push us apart, right?
Yep.
I wish we could have that conversation.
Yep. I agree with you. And we were saying this before I started recording, I think a lot of the challenge for that is that I can accept, and not true, but I'm gonna say this, I can accept that my experience is I have to be aware of threats on the street or these particular things, but if I acknowledge that colonialism has affected, first of all, a lot of white folks don't wanna use the word colonialism at all because they somehow, "I didn't colonize anything. So therefore, it's not my responsibility, blah, blah." Not down for that. Just gonna acknowledge right now I do not buy into that. It is a reality and we are just like the patriarchy, we are still dealing with the effects and continued implications that exist because of that. So, I just wanna state my opinion right now. But if I don't acknowledge that that exists, if I don't step into that, then I don't have to think about including other people. And if I don't have to think about including other people or considering their experience in certain ways, then there's more for me then I'm okay 'cause I have my piece in the pie, which is what we were talking about ahead of time. And it's so, it's such a limiting scarcity belief to think, well, if I don't find that connection, it's a different experience. But if I don't find the connection point of the experience and I just pretend that indigenous people aren't having that experience, then everything's fine 'cause I can continue in my little piece of the pie chasing way.
Yep. Yep. And it's the system, right? That's the whole thing. That's why I love being a sociologist, but hate being a sociologist at the same time is because the system has taught us those two. I see two fundamental things. One is that there's scarcity and there's not enough for everybody. Second is that we're individually responsible for our own wellbeing.
Yep.
That flies in the face of everything that, and I mean I think indigenous peoples generally, but I can only speak really specifically as a Cree person, but that's not the teaching in the Cree understanding of the world. The Cree understanding of the world is abundance. That there's abundance. The world has given us all of the gifts that we need to survive. And we're all worthy of those gifts simply because we all share the common spark of humanity. And our creation story talks about how everything in creation, whether it's human beings or animals or water or anything, we're all animated by spirit. And we take a flame out of this single fire together when we all take a flame. And actually that's why, you'll love this, we all put it in, it animates our bodies, so we end up putting it in the back of our head and that's why babies have soft spots. It's the Cree teaching. And then that animates us. Right?
That's so cool. Sorry, that was getting me very excited.
If all things in creation, including us as human beings have that same spark, then we're all worthy and deserving of the abundance that the world gives to us. We are all deserving just on the basis that we are human beings that come from creation. And that not only that, but that we have each other to take care of each other. We're not in this alone. And I'm really I'm heartened by the kinds of things I'm seeing where people are making arguments for community and saying, you know what, the only way we're gonna get through this is not to close our door and purchase our way through this. I'm thinking like all the people when the pandemic started and everybody was panic buying because they were thinking about, "Oh, I'm gonna take care of myself." If you thought about this in a Cree way and you understood that we had a responsibility to take care of each other, we would redistribute well, we would make sure everybody, you know what, we're all gonna have some. We get a deer or something, everybody gets some of that meat or whatever it is. That we take care of each other. I just, it's disheartening to live in a system that says you are ethically or you're fully responsible for you and there's not enough, so you need to make sure you have enough for you and nobody else. Instead of saying, you know what, the way to get through this together is that we are understanding we are all deserving. All deserving. That's why I'm such a proponent of human rights, even though I struggle with the way they're manifested. But there are certain things that we need to survive. Every person on this planet is deserving of those basics, right? Regardless. Regardless, we should not have to worry about where we're getting food, where we're getting water, education, healthcare, housing. Every single person deserves those things. And we need to take care of each other. I just, it's so frustrating. And I just put so much pressure on us and so much anxiety. I think about what it's like to be a nuclear or even a family and you're sitting there being like, "I'm responsible for my family. I've gotta make sure I have rent food, water, and I've gotta do all these things to make this possible." And the stress that puts on each of us, when instead we could say to each other you know what, we got each other. Let's take care of each other. Let's find a way together. And I think that's actually a really important lesson in leading through crisis. You can't do it by yourself. You can't. Like legit. I mean, unless you're like independently wealthy, which we also talked about where you don't have to have these worries. But the rest of us, we do have to worry. And I think the most valuable lesson in that is that when we're facing crises, whether it be in our own home, whether it be at an institution, whether it be things like right now with COVID, we have to come together to take care of each other because that community and those relationships, not only will they provide the things that we need to survive, but more than that, the friendship, the support, the shared responsibility for things. I think it could transform the world if we went that way, as opposed to really fighting for this independent individualism, right?
Yes. And I have so many things I wanna ask, but I'm gonna start here. I couldn't agree with that more. And it's really interesting because I think the myth that we've been sold as, and I'm gonna call it capitalism, is that individualistic, right? Like it's all about me. And I think that as we've grown cities, and this is my armchair sociology, this was what I studied a thousand years ago in university. So, this is fully arm chair, not just vague connections in what I remember gonna call it, but as we've grown cities and populations have become denser and there's more people and I can go outside and see 500 different people in a five-minute span 'cause I live in downtown Toronto, we're actually more and more disconnected. And there's less and less community 'cause we're more and more bought into this capitalism, do it for myself, I need to support these people in this way. And it's so fascinating to me how much more disconnected we are in larger communities now than we were or people are when they're in a community of 50 or 100 people. It's like we've created something that reinforces a lack of connection and individuality not only in terms of the system we operate in, but the way that we live and A to Z, it's reinforced in this way. And-
Yeah. Exactly.
Like it's, I don't even know what the right word is. I think for me, as soon as when I saw it, I was like, "Well, now I can never unsee this." Now I can now ever unsee this and I don't know what to do about it.
Well, and you what, I actually hope that's one of the things that maybe the pandemic will change. Because we have been forced into isolation, no matter where we were. We've all been forced through shutdowns, to be isolated in our homes. And we're struggling. People are struggling. Mental health is that an all time low. We are realizing that the value in relationships, the value in spending time with people and creating community is really hurting us. And that's important. And I really hope that what the pandemic might do is attempt to disrupt some of that. I hope that that's the lesson people will take away from this, is that we perish without relationships. We perish without community. That's the end bottom line. And it's healthy for us. It's absolutely not healthy.
I agree. And I wanna throw a bit of a wrench into this in terms of, because I agree with that. And I know and I'm sure you do, I'm sure most of us do, I know a lot of people who had relationships, whether it's romantic or familial or whatever, that ended during the pandemic. And I think there are a lot of people where for them, it actually reinforced that relationships are temporary and I'm not going to put my time in this way into another person because they might leave, something might happen, whatever the case may be. So, actually I need to double down on just doing me. I think there are unfortunately a lot of people who have had that experience. And I say that because I'm curious. Listen, I have my own thoughts on relationships and transformations. And I'm not a person who thinks that every relationship is permanent in the same way for life. And we need to toss that romantic romcom bullshit out the window right away, please. And thank you. But for those who do think that, and for those who then see any ending, whether it's a death or a romantic relationship or a friendship or whatever it is as a reason to be more individualistic, how do they fair? What is their approach to this? Because I think unfortunately there's a lot of them as well.
I agree. I agree. And actually I might even be part of that category because my marriage ended during the pandemic. And for me, I don't think it was so much, well, yes, it was about, I have to do me, but it was because I realized in the lockdown that that relationship was no longer working for me. And my concern was what am I demonstrating to my kids to perpetuate a relationship that is not even healthy, that isn't functioning well, what am I showing them? And I think, so it is a little bit different because I did choose them and me over that relationship. But I see that. And you know what, I think in some way, I kinda have to give people space for that a little bit. Right? Because you do need to do the work of yourself, right? I think that's really, really important. And as Cree people, we are taught that. That you need to do reflection. It's one of the reasons that oftentimes people will come to me and ask my opinion about something and I'll be like, "No, I gotta sit with this." I have to sit. I have to reflect. I have to do the inner work. I have to do that process. But we're also taught though, that the relationships are valuable, right? That we need friends, we need family, we need our community. Right? And I think that's where we have to encourage the folks who are really like, "You know what, I'm manning this. I wanna be. I'm gonna do me." I'm just gonna, whatever that looks like to say, okay yes, but you still need, yes, that works important, but you also need to look out because you can't do this alone. You can't. We are not going to survive if we retreat into ourselves and don't find those relationships and those connections. I think that's really important. But that's tough. Yeah. I've seen it through this pandemic definitely.
As you said that, what came to mind was it's a yes-and situation. I always go back to this improv game, but it's a yes-and situation where yes, you need to do yourself and need to do the work on yourself. And you do you and you take a step back. And that shouldn't reinforce the overall idea of individualism over community, right?
Exactly.
Like longer-term bigger picture, being in community, having the support of people around you, being a supportive person, whatever that is, that is bigger picture, the ultimate thing. Also, listen, I firmly believe this. We all need to do self work. And the next level of self work is actually in relationship with other people. It's never just you.
Yeah, exactly.
Self-development, the myth of self-development is that you can't do self-development on your own ultimately, right?
Right. Yeah.
So, yes, you need to do that. And then it's about being in the community. At the same time, it's about that bigger picture. You're not just doing it to go isolate and reinforce the individualism, which I think that's what worries. That's what concerns me is the people who double down in that and then they're like, "Well, this is it. Just me at home by myself for the rest of my life building my independent wealth and screw the rest of the world. It's just me."
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's also my here too, that there are people who are headed that way. I think that's significant.
Yeah. And I think for a lot of people, what has happened and this idea of community made them realize that they didn't have a community. And rather than adjusting, I think some people adjust and they were like, "Let me find community." I joke all the time, but now I'm like, like a lot of alums, what the pandemic made me. I really like being on my own. I have cats. So, I feel like that's my community, right? I have cats. I like being on my own. And also now I wanna find community and people that are very beyond, my family doesn't live here, so beyond my family, when I get to see them, who I adore, but they're not here. Who are the people that I really want to spend time with, even if it's in the limited amounts that feel good to whatever it is, but what does that look like? As opposed to, I don't wanna be in any community, or I've lost my community. And I love what you talked about with the Cree beliefs around like this is important, no matter what.
Yeah.
And these things matter, no matter what. And that's not the foundation that I think a lot of people have.
No, I agree. I agree. I absolutely agree. You know what else do I wonder how much, I've thought about this too, is I wonder how much of that too is also a trauma response. Because people in trauma, I mean, as someone who has a pretty violent history and suffers from PTSD, my trauma response quite often when I'm upset is to withdraw and push people away. And I wonder sometimes how many people are just struggling with that and self-isolating and the pandemic has made that a perfectly valid option and are wallowing in trauma. And you know what, we all have to take that time and space. That's one thing I've come to learn about that. My trauma is always gonna be there. It's gonna come up at times. There's gonna be new things. And yeah, you know what, sometimes I just withdraw because I'm like, I just have to hold this for a minute. But the most important part is, and this also comes from my Cree teachings, is you can't hold those things in. If I do, I'm gonna poison myself. When it's let out in a safe way with community, with just support and people create space for that, it changes your life. I've said this about my story because when I was trafficked, I was trafficked when I was in my late teens. And my approach, my strategy after surviving that was, I'm not gonna talk about this. I'm going to... I wanna get on with my life. I wanna make the change I want. And I'm never gonna talk about this. I also believed that I'd be shamed for it. I believed, I mean, rightfully so, we still make jokes about prostitution and hookers and all of those things, right? And I believe the hype of him who was saying, "After this, nobody's ever gonna love you. You're dirty. Nobody's ever gonna believe you." I believed all that in my head. And so, I swallowed that story and didn't talk about it for 10 years. And it nearly killed me. I look back now and I'm surprised that I'm not dead because I self-medicated with alcohol, drugs. I was careless with my life. I was the girl who would walk a round by myself at 3:00 AM in Toronto in the worst neighborhoods with kind of a death wish almost because the pain was so bad. And then when I finally told my story, it changed everything for me. The trauma went whoo. And I found community. And people in community just, oh my gosh, when people were saying to me, I tell my story to them and they'd say, "Oh my gosh, Robyn, I'm so sorry that happened to you. You're so an amazing warrior. And I'm gonna lay down tobacco for you to honor you tonight." I'm like, I didn't know that this was actually what was gonna happen. And that has saved me. And I've seen it save other women. I regularly talk to women who've gone through the same thing. Or even sometimes I won't even be an event like that and I'll mention my experience and talking about it and they will actually say to me, they'll come up after and say, "Thank you. Just hearing, that I've had the same experience and I know I'm not alone now." There's power in knowing you are not alone. And so, I think the trauma, I think some of this individualism that's happening around the pandemic is trauma legit. We're facing a pandemic. We're gonna just pull back from the world 'cause the world is scary and we're gonna just buckle down and be alone. But the lesson in trauma is that the only way to really resolve it, I mean, you can try on your own, but it's a big issue. It's painful. And if you try, sometimes it doesn't end up in a productive way. It's when you let out and you lean on others. And I know that's really hard for people. I am the worst for asking for help. My best friend will tell you that. She's like, I know she confessed to me the other night. She's like, "I know you're really bad at asking for help. So, I'm just gonna offer right now." And I was like, "Okay, I get it." And it's hard for people to do that, but we have to get past that as a society. That we shouldn't be ashamed. But I think that comes back to the individualism because we are supposed to be able to take care of ourselves and asking for help suggests that we aren't, right? So, it becomes a shameful act for so many of us to ask for help. There's a meme I just shared recently that was like, I work so hard to not depend on anybody because I don't have trust in people and I'm scared and all those things. And that's legit. I get it. But at the end of the day, it's such a shameful belief that we shouldn't be able to be vulnerable and ask for help. I think it's the best thing we can do.
So, I agree. Also I'm the worst at asking for help. So, I say this with any one of my friends who are listening are probably like, "Really? Really?" But I do agree. I am terrible at asking for help also. Both things can exist. And I think that part of the challenges that the word, and I'm gonna to talk about trauma for a second, I'll connect it. The word trauma is very activating for people, right? Whatever, people don't wanna use the word trauma to describe their experience. People don't wanna talk about trauma. They don't wanna admit they have trauma. They don't wanna look at anything that could be in the world of, quote unquote, mental health is an issue at all. And when we're not even willing to admit that that is part of our reality or our experience, then we never get to the point of being able to ask for support or look for support. And that to me, is really heartbreaking, the number of people who can't even say, "Something bad happened to me that was traumatic." Or then it becomes the internalized trauma Olympics, "Well, this didn't happen. What happened to Robyn, mine was nothing. My story was nothing like what happened to Robyn or what happened to this person or that person or whoever it is. So, therefore, mine is not traumatic." And so, we deny our reality and we never ask for help and we never ask for support and we never step into that community. And it isn't until we hear someone who has opened up the way you have, who is telling their story, that we even recognize that we're not alone. Because our individualism and lack of willingness to even acknowledge it reinforces that we are alone. That we're the only one. This is the only one. This happened to me. It's not that bad. I'm the only one.
Yep, exactly. Yep, exactly.
I could literally talk about these things for hours.
Well, I think this is the gift that maybe I hope that like the way, and Cree are not the only people who think this way. In fact, we're just gonna do a workshop on this really soon at Brock because of all of the findings or the revealings of graves, our communities are really feeling it. But we're giving a workshop because one of the things that we are taught is balance. And when we're talking about ourself... And actually, I'll just give a shout out to the Director of our Aboriginal Student Services. Her name is Cindy. She just said this the other day. She said when we talked to our students and they're struggling, we ask them if they're balanced. Because in our indigenous teachings in Cree, this is a Cree teaching as well, we are taught that we not only, we have to think about our physical wellbeing, but we also have to think about our mental wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual wellbeing. And if any of those are out of whack, then the whole thing is out of whack. It's all gotta be considered. So, those teachings are yes, yeah, we gotta think about the physical, but also we have to think about how's our mental wellbeing? And being able to talk about like I'm not well, or I'm feeling depressed or I'm struggling with addictions, all of those things, we need to be able to say those things. And we have a responsibility to make sure those four things are in balance. And I think the Western world has no, it's who cares if you feel well? Are you productive? And are you delivering what you're supposed to do to the capitalist system? That's it, right?
Right. Right. What is the output that you are contributing to the world every day? That's it. What is your output? That's what we care about.
Yep, exactly. Yep, exactly. And your wellbeing, we don't care, right?
No.
I mean, the pandemic has even made that worse for me. Like the very fact that we consider some lives more disposable than others and we're willing to put some folks at risk simply because we don't believe this pandemic floors me. It floors me that we are that callous to each other.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think we are seeing the best and worst of people during a pandemic and during these situations, right? Like we get to see some, listen, there have been some absolutely wonderful heartwarming things that we've seen and have happen and it's like that's what this is all about. And also lots of the opposite. It's not just one or the other.
It's funny my partner was actually on a podcast last night. He was doing one about the pandemic. And he got his questions in advance. And one of the questions is who were the winners and losers in this? And I was like, well, how do you answer that? If we're talking about winners, are we talking about people who were kind of our heroes throughout this, 'cause in that case, I'm gonna talk about frontline workers and what they've gone through and the people who have kept businesses open so we can get food. Those are the people I'm gonna talk about. But if we're talking about who's profited, then I'm gonna talk about billionaires and corporations. Right? How do we frame that is what we started talking about because it has, I think I agree with you, it's brought out the best in some of us and the worst in others of us. And I can't believe some of the things that are happening. And I just, I'm sitting there constantly going really, this is where we're at as humanity. Really we're this callous and this disconcerned with the lives and wellbeing of other human beings. Not that that's surprising because I mean, as an indigenous person, I know that's the lived reality and it always has been outside of the pandemic for us. I know that's the reality for racialized folks in this country. But all of a sudden it's just like we are that callous. We do not care about the most vulnerable in our community. That blows my mind.
Well, how could we, because we're so busy looking at things like in a pandemic. We're so busy. Okay, so if we're looking for balance and let's just talk about self-care and let's make self-care the focus. And let's talk about that and forget anyone who it was not even in a place that would... Listen, I think I've thoughts about self-care outside of this entirely. But rather than looking at the people who actually could use support, could use that community, are already on the outskirts of whatever world we're living in and now even more so, no, no, no, let's focus on finding, quote unquote, balance through self-care. 'Cause that's the thing. Just the...
Right. Right. Well, and for me the other one is the health of the economy. I'm so tired of hearing that. I'd hoped that CERB, one of the outcomes of CERB, given how many people lost their jobs and needed immediate support and the government stepped up and gives everybody $2,000, I would've thought that would've been the perfect launching point for a universal basic income.
Yeah.
And basically it's only people who have really have been in poverty for a long time or who are on disability who are still fighting that battle. Everybody else is like, "Those are free loaders, blah, blah, blah." I just thought for sure, that given how immediate that support was and how many people needed it, that Canadians would galvanize behind the idea of a universal basic income that all of us are guaranteed, no matter what.
Yep.
And it's still that individualism. No, it's my own. I just had hoped. I had hoped that that might change. It doesn't seem like it.
No, I agree. I know we're pretty much at the top of our time, but I wanna say one thing and then I'll thank you. The thing that I find so fascinating about the universal basic income, 'cause I'm with you, is the number of people who had CERB, still don't have work, and yet are opposed to universal basic income because it means I'm not gonna, the idea is, well, now I'm not gonna be able to own anything. And now I'm not... What? I'm sorry, when people need universal basic income to have a place to live and have food on the table and have healthcare and take care of their basic needs, you know what they're not thinking about? The fact that they're not gonna be able to own a car or own a house or whatever this weird focus you're having is because you are ultimately privileged and can't find work temporarily or whatever the case may be. And that rhetoric is happening so much still. And I really hate that. I really hate it. And that's one of the things I find disappointing about the lack of rallying around it.
Yep. Yep. I agree with you that yeah, that argument is just to me, ugh, it's gross. It makes me feel gross.
Yep, I agree. I could talk to you for 17 hours. And I recognize that you are a busy woman and you have I'm sure something else backed up on this. So, I wanna thank you for chatting with me. I hope you'll come back 'cause I literally, we could just talk about stuff forever.
My gosh, anytime, I would love it. It's always so much fun to chat with you.
I feel the same way. You are just a gem. And I appreciate you so much. Thank you, Robyn, for chatting with me today and sharing some of your insights.
Thank you. Aw, thank you.
[Céline] Thanks for joining me today on the "Leading Through Crisis" podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.