UNBeknownst Podcast Episode 29
Lea Nicholas MacKenzie (BA’91) is a trailblazer for Indigenous rights. She’s the former special advisor for Indigenous issues to the UN, former chief of staff to former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, and past chief of staff to the National Chief at the Assembly of First Nations. She also served as director of aboriginal participation and chief of protocol for the Four Host First Nations during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
A member of the Wolastoqey Nation at Tobique, New Brunswick, Lea has extensive experience in international relations focused on the human rights of Indigenous Peoples. In 2021, she was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women.
In this fascinating conversation, Lea speaks with host Katie Davey (BA'17) on her experiences at the national and international level and why Indigenous rights movements are giving her hope.
Listen to the full episode and read highlights below.
Katie: If we turn our attention back here in Canada, it’s been around 10 years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report was tabled. We have, in some ways, seen quite a lot of progress, but in other ways, very little or no progress at all for the human rights of Indigenous peoples here in Canada. So, I’d love for you to take a second and just reflect on some of the things over the last few decades where you’ve seen the most progress and some areas where you feel we’re not making any progress at all or it’s much slower.
Lea: Yeah, that’s a great question. What I would say is that it’s taken centuries to get us to where we are right now. It’s probably going to take a long time to turn this particular ship around. That being said, there are advancements that I’ve seen that give me hope. The devil is always in the details, of course, but if you look at the province of British Columbia, where I live now, they passed legislation in 2019, which requires the government to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
We’ve also got a federal government that now has legislation to do the same. If you think about the progression, Canada in 2006, when it was on the Human Rights Council, voted against the UN Declaration, along with the Russian Federation. Those were the only two ‘No’ votes at that particular human rights body. Then, the declaration came to the General Assembly, where Canada voted against it again, along with Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Now, all of those countries have since adopted or endorsed the UN Declaration. Australia, in fact, has just named an ambassador for Indigenous issues, which is really exciting. As a group, Canada works with Australia, New Zealand, and the US fairly regularly, and generally, they can push each other to do better. So, I think they are working together well on issues related to the human rights of Indigenous peoples. But when I said, the devil is in the details, we’re now at a point where we’ve got a draft action plan to implement the UN Declaration at the federal level that Indigenous leadership are not happy with. So, we’ll see what comes out of that. I’m withholding judgment a bit, but I would say that over the years, we have seen quite an extraordinary change when it comes to even the development of legislation. We went from things being done for us as Indigenous peoples to things being done for us as Indigenous peoples, but without our input, to now many things being done together.
For example, the development of legislation over languages, although people like my mother would say that the legislation is lacking, at least we have a starting place to work from. Legislation over child welfare that was co-developed between Indigenous peoples and the government. It used to be that the government would say, “Oh no, we can’t share legislation with Indigenous peoples, and now we’re at a point where we’re actually co-developing it. That makes me feel like we are doing things differently. If a new government comes in, it’s going to be hard to turn that particular ship around. So, that’s very good.
Katie: What’s exciting you most these days or what has you optimistic about the future?
Lea: I am excited about the possibilities of the UN Declaration legislation, both here in British Columbia and across the country. As I said, we’ll see what happens with the national action plan, Canada-wide. I would say that I’m very excited. There seems to be a real resurgence of Indigenous pride, language, and culture. Indigenous peoples are becoming much more prominent Indigenous creators, fashion designers, artists. It’s really important to me that young Indigenous people see role models very visibly. We’ve got a governor-general who is Indigenous, we’ve got Indigenous actors, performers, songwriters, you name it; and so, it’s that prominence that is important. But there are a couple of things that I’m involved in that I’m excited about, and one is a project that I’ve been working on. It’s an initiative of Fulbright Canada, called Honouring Nations Canada, and basically it is modelled after the Harvard Honoring Nations project, where they honour examples of good governance in Indigenous nations, and so we are doing something very similar in Canada.
We just launched the call for nominees on Monday, and I’m really excited about this opportunity to uplift these very inspiring stories and help inspire other nations to know what’s happening elsewhere across the country. Hopefully, it will inspire non-Indigenous governments, as well, to say, ‘these are people doing amazing things,’ whether it’s in finance, economic development, human rights, or environmental protection. It’s exciting to be involved in the early days of such an amazing project. And it’s also nice to talk about Indigenous excellence. We too often talk about the challenges, and it’s very important to talk about the challenges; we face so many of them, and the challenges are so great. But at the same time, there’s some amazing stories out there that are really uplifting and inspiring.
