Stories That Move Us Forward: The Path to Truth and Reconciliation

Everyone’s path to truth and reconciliation can look different, but the first step often begins the same way: listening to the stories and experiences of others.

Stories can challenge perspectives, open doors for meaningful dialogue, and carry important teachings forward. They can also connect us through shared emotions and experiences, encourage reflection, and help us consider our own role in truth and reconciliation.

On this episode of REAL TIME, Mike Downie, Sue Heddle, and Michael Linklater each bring their own journeys and perspectives to the conversation. They share the stories that have shaped their paths as community leaders and storytellers, and why listening and learning is an important place to begin.

Before you listen, here’s a little more background about each of our guests. 

Sue Heddle

Heddle, a REALTOR® and salesperson in Oakville, Ontario, has been in the orbit of the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) ever since she was awarded with the Canadian REALTORS Care® Award earlier this year. 

Inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s sixth principle of reconciliation, “All Canadians, as Treaty peoples, share responsibility for establishing and maintaining mutually respectful relationships,” she recognized an opportunity to make a meaningful difference through hockey. She went on to launch Hockey Cares, a reconciliation project, in 2017 through True North Aid.  

Hockey Cares brings together youth ages 13 to 15 from Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities where participants learn about each other’s cultures and connect through their shared love of hockey. 

She brings both her experience as a REALTOR® and her expansive volunteerism experience to this episode’s discussion. 

Michael Linklater

Linklater, founder of Boys with Braids and Sôhkisiwin Solutions, is the next to introduce himself. Beginning with a greeting in Cree, he says [translated], “I greet you as all of my relations and I shake hands with each and every one of you. It's wonderful to see all of you here. My given name is White Wolf and I'm from Thunderchild First Nations and I'm Plains Cree. In the language, I also shared that I don't speak the language fluently, but I'm doing my best to learn from our elders.” 

He shares that his grandparents were part of the residential school system, and that his mother was a part of the Sixties Scoop. Raised by his great aunt, his cultural values and traditions were instilled in him from a young age. 

Linklater offers a wealth of valuable firsthand perspectives and insights to this episode’s conversation, always with an optimistic message. When it comes to his efforts to share about his culture, he stresses the importance as he sees it of being able to both learn and pass on stories and teachings for generations to come. “When [elders] pass away and they haven't passed on their knowledge, what the old people say is it's like a library burning down and taking all of that information with them.” 

Mike Downie 

Downie brings an entirely different perspective to this episode’s insightful discussion. 

A documentary filmmaker with more than 30 years of experience telling Canadian stories, he cites specific projects that have led him to being more involved with reconciliation work in the past 10 years. From telling human-centred stories about residential schools, to starting a fund to help bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples together, the topic is immensely important to him. 

“Today more than ever, we need to be not only telling [Canadian] stories to each other, but really believing in them, investing in them,” he says. “And, maybe having a bit more of a quiet confidence about those stories and their merit and value today.” 

A special conversation on National Day of Truth and Reconciliation

This month’s episode is linked to the country-wide observed National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. We invite all members of the REALTOR® community to listen to this episode; whether you’re taking the first steps to learn more about reconciliation, or this would be one of many steps, we think that everyone has something to gain from this special conversation. 

The episode is available wherever you listen to podcasts.