November 18, 2025 • 49 mins
Season 3 Episode 1
Welcome to She They Us a podcast about making room in housing for women and gender-diverse people, brought to you by the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing.
In this first episode of Season 3, host Andrea Reimer welcomes listeners back and in conversation with producer Linda Rourke introduces a new direction for the series. Over the past two seasons, we’ve been talking about how to fix housing so it works for women and gender-diverse people — but what if the system is working exactly as it was designed to? This season, we explore the deep history of housing for women and gender-diverse people in Canada through cultural and historical lenses.
This episode begins at the beginning: the experiences of First Nations women and how colonization, land displacement, and restrictive legislation continue to shape their access to safe and secure housing.
We travel to Manitoulin Island to meet Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat, an Anishinaabe kwe and Chair of the National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network, who opens up about her own experience of being evicted from her homeland and what it took to fight for her housing rights. She talks about the limits created by the Indian Act, the lack and decline of safe housing on reserves, and how First Nations women are often the ones pushed out first when resources are scarce.
Marie also shares her personal path toward finding safe housing again, what “home” means through Anishinaabe teachings, and why she’s committed to helping Indigenous communities return to building homes with natural, traditional materials.
Marie’s resilience, wisdom, and clarity provide a powerful starting point for the season.
In the next episode, we continue exploring the housing experiences of Indigenous women and gender-diverse people, from the perspective of the over 80% of Indigenous people in Canada who no longer live on their homelands. .
Guest: Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat, Chair National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network
Music: A special thank you to Reid Jamieson and CVM for providing some of the music throughout the episode. www.reidjamieson.com
Your host, Andrea Reimer, is a housing advocate, educator, and former Vancouver City Councillor who’s experienced homelessness firsthand. Since 2019, she has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Andrea has spent her career at the intersection of power, policy, and courage to catalyze transformative change and here, she brings that passion to the stories of women and gender-diverse people, and housing across Canada.
In the Season 3 opener of She.They.Us., host Andrea Reimer is joined by producer Linda Rourke, who pulls back the curtain on how this season came together. We then travel to Manitoulin Island to meet Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat, an Anishinaabe kwe and head of the National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network. Marie shares her deeply personal journey — from being evicted from her family home on reserve to fighting through multiple levels of court, only to be ordered off her own homeland. This is not a story of despair. Marie invites us to imagine something different: Indigenous women and gender-diverse people reclaiming their role as home-builders.
Guest Bio
Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat is an Anishinaabe kwe originally from Whitefish River First Nation and now a member of Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island. She serves as the Chair of the National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network, where she advocates for the rights, safety, and housing security of Indigenous women, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse people. Drawing from her own lived experience of being evicted from her family home on reserve and navigating multiple court systems to defend her right to remain on her homeland, Marie brings a powerful blend of leadership, humility, and vision. Her work centers Indigenous self-determination, community-led housing solutions, and the reclamation of traditional building knowledge.
Resources & Ways to Get Involved
- Learn more about the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing: pcvwh.ca
- Follow and tag us on social media: @voice4housing
- Share this episode to help amplify First Nations women’s leadership in housing justice
- Support the work of the National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network - https://womenshomelessness.ca/nihn/
- Interested in sharing your own story or building your advocacy skills? Explore PCVWH’s training programs for women and gender-diverse people: pcvwh.ca/training
- Whether you have lived experience of the housing crisis or stand alongside those who do, your voice
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
Welcome to She They Us, from the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women's Housing.
Your host, Andrea Reimer, is a housing advocate, educator and former Vancouver CityCouncillor, who's experienced homelessness firsthand.
Andrea has spent her career at the intersection of power, policy and courage to catalyzetransformative change.
(00:36):
And here, she brings that passion to the stories of women and housing across Canada.
This...
Is She They Us?
A podcast about the women and gender diverse people living at the front lines of Canada'shousing crisis.
We need to end poverty.
We are matriarchs.
We are the life givers.
(00:56):
We are the pillars of the community.
You can't just go willy nilly evicting us.
I feel like we honour our ancestors when we make an effort to remind a new generation whatthat path has been.
We've gone so far beyond the boundaries of what's...
humane and it has to change.
There's so many people that are trying to do just that.
(01:17):
Our hopes for African Women's Alliance is that housing in Canada becomes truly inclusive,accessible.
Home is much more than four walls.
It's safety, stability and a place where I can just be myself without fear, where I canlive with dignity.
(01:42):
Welcome back to She They Us and the first episode of our third season.
I'm your host, Andrea Reimer.
I'm a former city councillor for the City of Vancouver, an adjunct professor of practiceat UBC's School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and a housing advocate.
She They Us is a project of the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women's Housing.
(02:05):
And in our first two seasons, we explored the specific housing crisis
that households led by women and gender diverse people experience in Canada from a varietyof perspectives and through the voices of the women and gender diverse people living at
the front lines of Canada's housing crisis.
This season, we're going to do something a little bit different.
(02:26):
And to help me tell you about it, I'm going to bring in our producer, Linda Roark.
Welcome, Linda.
Thanks for joining me.
Can you tell people a little bit about your background and what a producer does on apodcast?
I'd love to, Andrea.
I have spent most of my career uh in media producing really lifestyle content.
So helping people really tell their story in whatever capacity is what I love to do.
(02:52):
as a producer, you bring all the pieces together.
So you try to keep things moving, support hosts and guests, and basically shape the mostpowerful storytelling.
possible as you're putting it all together.
And I'm always looking for ways to bring a podcast to life so we can use, you know, soundsand words and emotion especially.
And I'm going to end with saying right now, you know, working on something as meaningful,really truly as meaningful as She, They, Us has been really special for me.
(03:20):
You know, you do all kinds of things through your career and then every so often you getan opportunity to work on something that just really tugs at the heartstrings and this
definitely has done that.
So as I mentioned, this is Linda's first season on the show, our second with everythingpodcast.
We actually self-produced our first season, which was an experience, but I am so glad it'snot what we are doing this time and that Linda is here.
(03:46):
Part of the process of working with a producer is being able to bounce ideas off someonewho's not a subject matter expert, but who does understand how expertise is communicated.
And so about halfway through season two, I realized that when we think about the housingcrisis in Canada in general, it's often framed in a way that suggests things used to work
(04:07):
just fine and now they are broken and we just need to get back to when they worked.
Of course, they didn't actually work for everyone, even in the old days, and I thought itwas worth asking the question about whether it had ever worked well for women and gender
diverse people.
And knowing a bit about the history of public policy as it relates to women in Canada, Ifelt like the only way to trace the history was by breaking it down into some broad
(04:33):
cultural groups because the experiences of women from different places, includingIndigenous people, has been so different.
I pitched this idea to Linda and the rest of the production team.
What did you think when you first heard it, Linda?
Well,
I really loved the fact that we brainstormed this a bit and you came up with this conceptAndrea, because I really did find it extremely powerful.
(04:57):
Like the way this podcast, you know, brings our history to life and helps us see how wegot to where we are today.
That is super special.
Hearing the voices of women and gender diverse people from across this country, like wehear their strengths, their struggles, their hope.
Like it really did, like I have to say each time I got goosebumps right now as I talkabout this because it really touched me.
(05:21):
And that's a special experience as a producer when you listen to these stories ofresilience and courage.
And then also see how hard the road still is for so many who are trying to find theirplace.
And it really did make me stop, listen and think.
you know, and I hope it does the same for our listeners.
(05:43):
And that's why I think this season is so special and this idea that you brought in.
My next question was going to be, how's it going?
Because it's one thing to like an idea and another thing to see the implementation, but Ithink you've already sort of covered that off.
So I'm curious about like when you hear it, because this is your first season on it.
I had the same experience in season one and two, but.
(06:06):
When you're listening, what's the call to action?
Like, what do you feel compelled to do as a result of listening to the women?
like I'm telling you, it is to be able to sit back, you see, because as the host, you'reimmersed in the conversations, right?
And for me as a producer and the role that I'm playing in this is unique and amazingbecause I can really sit back and listen to these stories.
(06:33):
Some of it's made me angry, you know, where I'm like, what?
It's surprised me, it's shocked me.
I listen to, you know, what people are saying and I have to tell you, like, I am a proudCanadian, but some of these conversations have left me feeling at times just sad, you
know, like tears, teary.
(06:53):
Like I've teared up a couple of times listening because there's still so much work to do.
so much change that's still needed.
And if we're truly going to move the housing crisis forward in this country, we have tomake these changes and everybody needs to be aware of this, you know, not just people who
are living it.
And that's, think, one of the problems that we have right now.
(07:13):
we, this, these voices need to be heard by everyone.
And this podcast really truly is a start because it's opening hearts, it's opening eyes.
And I hope that it will do that for others because it certainly did for me.
And I hope it inspires everyone who listens to take action and really help create thechange that's needed.
Okay.
Well, I can't tell you how grateful I am for you to be here.
(07:36):
There's many hours for those that haven't done podcasts.
There's a lot of hours to pull together something.
But having someone there who...
Sometimes I'm editing at one or two or three in the morning and I start really secondguessing my choices, but knowing there's someone there who has as much experience as
Linda, it just, makes a world of difference in terms of feeling confident about treatingthe stories with the care they deserve and then being able to compel that call to action
(08:06):
that is really what this podcast is all about.
It's a pleasure to be here.
So again, welcome to season three and we are going to start at the beginning.
with the experience of First Nation women in Canada.
A word before we dive in, there is not a universal Indigenous experience in Canada.
There are First Nations women like Marie living on reserve, but many First Nations womenand gender diverse people end up living off reserve, what are often called urban
(08:36):
Indigenous people who have different rights and different realities.
Then there are the Inuit,
with four distinct regional governments and the Metis, which has a complex set ofprovincial organizations and in some cases, regional and settlement governments, in each
case with their own identities, histories and relationships to land.
(08:57):
Together, they represent a diversity of experiences that could fill far more than oneepisode or even one season of this podcast.
Over the next two episodes, we will do our best to give you a sense of their experiences.
So what do I need?
I need safety, security, privacy, access to water, the firewood for heating in the woodstove.
(09:18):
I need access to a roadway.
So I found all of that at an abandoned lumber mill site.
And I started with a tent.
Let's meet Marie.
My name is Marie McGregor Pidawanakwat.
I'm originally from Pugwaskinnagaw.
In English, it's called Whitefish River First Nation in Birch Island on the north shore ofManitoulin Island in northeastern Ontario.
(09:42):
And now I'm living at Wiquamcong, in English is Wiquamcong, eastern peninsula ofManitoulin Island in Lake Huron, northeastern Ontario.
Marie is the head of the National Indigenous Women's Housing Network.
And alongside the advocacy she's done for many others, she's also been vocal about her ownhousing situation.
(10:05):
I asked Marie to tell me a bit about it.
I need to preface that with my statement that
It never, ever, ever occurred to me that I could not live on my own homeland.
It was never a question in my mind.
And so when I worked in towns and cities across the country, I never thought about buyingland because my thought was, buy land when we already own it?
(10:31):
So I never did that.
And I always knew that I would come back home to my home territory.
And so I spent my...
career living and working in towns and cities, uh post-secondary institutions, teaching,counseling, administration.
And then in 2011, I went back home to my home community.
(10:54):
My parents were still alive and I spent their last couple of years with them.
During that time, they told me that they were giving me their old house in quotes.
They had two houses, one's called the new house, which is a banned house provided by theFederal Department of Indian Affairs as it was then known.
(11:16):
And they had the old house, which is a house built by my father and his relatives usinghis own materials and without any banned funding.
So I was happy about that.
And so they put it in writing.
And then a year later, my mother passed away.
And then maybe five weeks after that, my father passed away.
(11:39):
And so I lived in the old house for a couple of years, renovating and repairing and veryhappy to be in the original family home.
And then I'll call him the youngest former male sibling was living in the new house.
He didn't like that I was living in the old house.
(12:01):
So he made moves to have me evicted.
over which he was successful.
What he was relying on was the Indian Affairs document called the Certificate ofPossession, or CP for short, which he held for the new house and the property.
So I've since discovered the real meaning of the CP.
(12:23):
But anyway, long and short, I was evicted from the original family home in 2015, and thenI went to an emergency shelter for a few weeks.
During that time,
I also thought that, no, I'm not going to go racing back out into towns or cities anywhereto go and rent something because I've done that all my life.
(12:44):
During my lifetime, I lived in 39 different places in 50 years, five zero.
So I wasn't going to do that anymore.
Housing on First Nations reserves is complicated.
and made more complicated by the fact that there is not one First Nations experience inCanada, even though they've all lived under one Indian Act since 1876.
(13:08):
The Indian Act is the legislation that moved people off their homelands and onto tinyreserves.
There are currently over 630 recognized First Nations governments or bands across Canadaand many more nations that likely existed before Europeans arrived on their land.
(13:29):
When Europeans first arrived in what's now Canada, there were between half a million andtwo million Indigenous people living across these lands.
Exact numbers are hard to come by since introduced diseases moved faster than the invadersand in some cases whole communities were wiped out before Europeans even knew people were
(13:49):
there.
What we do know is that these nations had many different cultures and family structures,distinct forms of government, laws and customs,
and complex economies, not to mention diverse architecture and approaches to communityinfrastructure.
And layered on top of that are many historical treaties that promise different things andtook different approaches as colonization moved westward.
(14:14):
And finally, the most westerly province, British Columbia, where over 200 of those630-something First Nations are located, had only two historical treaties that covered
tiny slices of the province and only has a handful of modern treaties.
For those that are wondering, the certificate of possession is basically a document thatproves a First Nation member has the legal right to use a piece of reserve land under the
(14:41):
Indian Act.
You can think of it kind of like owning a share in a company, except in this case, yourquote unquote share gives you the right to use the land.
But here's the twist.
The government of Canada still holds the actual titles to the land.
So even though you can use it, you don't technically own it in the way we usually thinkabout land ownership.
(15:02):
And not every First Nation uses certificates of possession or CPs.
First off, they are only used on reserves governed under the Indian Act.
And even then, only if that First Nation chooses to allow individual land holdings.
Some nations use CPs widely, others don't use them at all.
(15:23):
Some nations are creating their own land codes or governance systems through things likethe First Nations Land Management Act, which gives them direct control over their reserve
lands without Ottawa's approval for every transaction.
All to say that the experience that Marie describes may not occur in the exact same way inevery community, but the general arc is not uncommon.
(15:46):
Underinvestment, a paternalistic attitude, a glacial government pace,
and a steadily growing population has created dire need.
An Auditor General report released in 2024 showed that there are over 55,000 new housingunits needed to provide housing on reserve for every First Nations member who needs it and
(16:08):
an additional 80,650 housing units in urgent need of repairs or they will becomeunlivable.
Hearing the statistics is one thing,
actually living through it is another.
I asked Marie to talk a bit about what life was like growing up in her home community.
Yeah, my home community was based on the mainland and its original name was Birch Island.
(16:35):
So the island part, the community was actually on an island and this was in the 19thcentury.
And what they lived on, what the people lived on during that time was cutting trees,
to sell to the steamship companies because steamship companies were traveling back andforth over the Great Lakes.
(16:57):
And Birch Island was one of the places they stopped at.
And then when the steamship companies life cycle went out of fashion, then came steamengine railway systems.
And so the people still made a living cutting trees to provide wood for the steam enginesfor the railway.
(17:17):
And so when that finally went out of fashion, society was now turning to using vehiclesfor going up and down the roads and highways.
And this is when the community left the actual island and moved to the mainland.
And so what people did for a living in those days was to do a bit of hunting, a bit oftrapping, a bit of fishing, some farming, and then working for the tourist outfitters in
(17:43):
the area.
So my family was very lucky in that they had a 100 acre farm that my parents used toprovide a living for us.
They had nine children.
I'm the oldest and we are all still surviving.
So our everyday lives were things like being able to, you know, run around in the bush andplay and also help them with the gardens and taking care of the livestock, things like
(18:12):
chickens and pigs and
They had two horses.
And so it was a rural kind of semi-bush lifestyle.
And then we ended up going to what's called Indian day school from grade one through tograde six.
And then in those days, what became popular too was what's called integration or attemptsat integration.
(18:35):
And so our people were sent off to day school.
in a nearby town for grade seven all the way through to the end of high school.
So in our adolescent and teen years, we were taking the bus every day to go to a nearbytown, half hour each way, spend the day in town at schools, being instructed in English
(18:59):
and all of the usual topics that are taught in senior elementary and high school.
So that's what our everyday life was like.
Busy, crowded, happy.
None of Marie's life has been easy, but the juxtaposition between the world she grew up inand what's happened to her as an elder is a lot to take in.
(19:21):
I asked Marie to tell me a bit more about how her challenges with housing have impactedher life.
Well, I'll tell you this right now.
I don't go anywhere in any building, inside any structure, down any street or lookingacross a field without looking at that building.
whether it's an institution or oh industrial building, commercial, residential, orwhatever.
(19:45):
And I look at that building and I ask myself, what is it made of?
How long has it been there?
Who built it?
What materials were used?
Including homes.
And so that's really, really, really important because it informs the work I'm going to bedoing when we start training people to build our own homes again.
(20:07):
And I never used to think about it like that.
Those questions are paramount, they're important.
And I ask them everywhere I go.
And the reason that that happened was because when I was evicted from the original familyhome, and then I found myself in an emergency shelter for a few weeks, and then I
(20:29):
realized, hey, I have a right to live in my own homeland.
I'm going to go back there and I'm going to look for a place to live.
And I did that.
And this is where you ask yourself what you need comes into the picture versus what youwant.
So I asked myself at that time, what do I need?
(20:49):
I need safety.
I need security.
I need privacy.
I need access to water for drinking, cooking, and washing.
I need access to firewood for heating in the wood stove.
I need access to a roadway so I can connect to highway and drive to work.
So I found all of that.
at an abandoned lumber mill site.
(21:10):
And I started with a tent.
And then a few weeks later, I saw an ad in the paper and it said, shed for sale, eight by10.
So I went and bought it.
And I brought it to my site and it became a sleeping bunkee.
A few weeks later, I saw another ad and it said, garage for sale, eight by 14.
(21:30):
So I went and bought it.
And a few weeks later, had it brought to the site I was staying at,
And I had help with friends and relatives who helped me put the two buildings together,insulate them, and install a wood stove.
Now I had this really cute tiny two-room home.
And then in 2016, I took a carpentry course.
(21:53):
And from what I learned, I used both salvaged and found materials as well as new materialsand added on an eight-by-eight room to my two-room tiny home.
Now I had a three-room tiny home.
And I lived there successfully for three winters, safe, secure, no problem.
(22:14):
And then eventually the band council found out about it.
And this is where all the litigation stuff came into play.
I have been through several courts in Ontario, starting with the Small Claims Court, theOntario Superior Court, the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Federal Court of Canada, all of
(22:35):
whom denied that there is such a thing as Indigenous Alodia Land Title or Original Titleor Underlying Title, denied that I had a right to live on my own homeland.
The only concession that I got was from the federal court where the judge ordered me
to go to the band office and apply for housing.
(22:56):
So I did, I had to, I was ordered to.
So I went and did that.
And I sat in front of the housing manager at the band office and I looked at that form.
In fine print at the bottom of page two, that form said, anyone who already has aresidential unit cannot apply for housing.
(23:16):
So I thought immediately, I already own.
the original family home my late parents gave me.
I already own my three-room tiny home.
I have two residential units.
I cannot apply for housing.
And again, I'm torn because the judge ordered me to go and apply for housing.
So I read through the form, filled it in, and I signed it.
(23:39):
And then promptly tore it in half, and I put the pieces down in front of the housingmanager and walked away.
There was no other way I could do this.
They didn't even know what was on that form.
know, anyone who already has a residential unit cannot apply for housing.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have bothered entertaining my application.
(24:00):
I got a formal eviction backed up by a band council resolution ordering me off the reserveentirely.
Thank goodness I have such good friends.
One friend invited me to bring my tiny home and install it on her property.
She has a,
150 acre farm on Manitoulin Island.
(24:21):
So with the help of friends and relatives, I moved my tiny home and put it in the bush atthis 150 acre farm and that's where it still is.
But I thought to myself, this experience was so heartbreaking, so grief ridden.
There was such despair and there was such anger.
(24:42):
I thought, I cannot let this happen to any other female, any other indigenous female.
I've got to be able to talk about it.
I've got to be able to explain.
I've got to be able to say, this is not how we're supposed to be treated.
We are matriarchs.
We are the life givers.
We are the pillars of the community.
(25:02):
You can't just go willy nilly evicting us, you know?
That's my thinking.
So Marie, this episode looks at the challenges First Nations women face when it comes tohousing and how historical events have shaped those experiences today.
It's something you've experienced personally, but also through your work as chair of theNational Indigenous Women's Housing Network.
(25:24):
Can you talk a bit about what housing access looks like for First Nations women and how itdiffers from the access that First Nations men have?
I want to preface with some numbers, some statistics.
And I talk about these because I want to illustrate to people I talk to about the sheersize of Canada.
(25:47):
And then we drill down into Indigenous peoples' experiences with living in a country thissize.
So Canada's landmass is 9,984,000 square kilometers of land from coast to coast to coast.
It's the second largest landmass in the world.
(26:08):
The only one bigger is Russia.
And that landmass is where Indigenous peoples have lived since time immemorial.
So that's the backdrop.
And so over time and throughout history, Indigenous nations across Canada were able toprovide for themselves economically, socially, technologically, culturally, and also
(26:31):
international relations between themselves and other Indigenous nations.
The current highway, I-75, that connects north and south between Sault Ste.
Marie, Ontario, all the way through to the Florida Keys,
was built on the trading routes used by Indigenous peoples.
(26:51):
So those were established by the time the Europeans got here.
So that's what I'm saying about how long we've been here, what our customs were, what wewere able to do, and about the idea that nations were able to sustain themselves and carry
on nation-to-nation relationships with other Indigenous peoples.
(27:12):
And so fast forward to
2025, where one third of one percent of Canada's landmass is Indian reserve land.
Less than one percent of Canada's entire landmass is Indian reserve land.
And those are lands set aside by the federal government for the use and benefit ofIndians.
(27:38):
The other statistic that's important is that there are 1.67 million Indigenous people inCanada.
which includes the status, non-status Inuit and Métis.
Of that 1.67 million, 600,000 are status Indians.
And of those 600,000, only 40 % live on Indian reserves.
(28:01):
In other words, 60 % of the 600,000 live off reserves other than on First Nations lands.
And so that says to me that
That's not enough land to sustain our people, which is a very young population, and it'salso the fastest growing ethnic minority in Canada.
(28:24):
so the pressure is put on uh chiefs and councils, governments on Indian reserves toprovide housing for their people.
And I don't have the latest numbers on this, but there are waiting lists everywhere.
And it's years and years before anybody on the waiting list gets a home.
And the other thing that I've noticed is that when it comes to Indigenous women, females,it is so easy to evict us from our own home territories, whether that's through an
(28:56):
Indigenous woman's spouse passing away and she's not on her original First Nation.
Then that band council can evict her because her spouse is no longer living and she's notan original band member from that territory.
There are other instances where I've heard about Indigenous women leaving their homes inNorthern territories and moving to cities because they were abused domestically, spousal
(29:24):
abuse, domestic violence.
And so they've moved away, moved to cities looking for safety and security.
They also want homes for their children.
They also want access to education.
They also want access to adequate employment opportunities and housing.
Housing is big.
It has now become a national issue.
(29:46):
Housing is a national crisis, and it includes Indigenous peoples.
When you think of the word home, what does it mean to you?
Yes, very interesting that the word home is not just four walls and a roof.
And I'm an Anishinaabe kwe.
I'm a Dogon kwe from Dogoning.
Dogoning is the English, is the name for South Bay.
(30:08):
Dogon kwe means I'm a South Bay woman.
and I'm registered now to Wiquemcong.
In English, it's Wiquemcong, unceded territory.
So for us, home is not just a place to live, but it's a place to connect with yourculture, your language, your history, your clan, your community, with the animals, the
(30:30):
birds, the fish and the trees, your ancestors buried deep underground since 130,000 yearsago, and also with the cosmos.
with the spirit beings who are connected to us through the sun, the moon, and the stars.
We're all connected and interrelated.
And all of that boiling down to where we live uh under a roof and within four walls,that's home.
(30:58):
But it's not just a physical space.
It's spiritual, emotional, psychological, It's very multifaceted and very complex.
I asked Marie where she is living now.
I've been very, very, very, very lucky.
When I was evicted from my home reserve, I applied for membership in my mother's homecommunity, and I was accepted there.
(31:26):
One of the three most important words I heard that year was from the membership clerk atWee Kwe Mkwem when she said to me, welcome back home.
It was so touching.
And I went to see one of my cousins and asked him if I could use a log house that wassituated nearby.
(31:47):
This log house is 100 years old.
It was built by his family and we're related.
We're cousins.
And so he said yes.
And the understanding is that I can live in that home for as long as I wish.
And the other understanding that I have with it is that as long as I take care of theplace, we're good.
(32:09):
We don't talk about rent or anything like that.
So that's where I'm at.
Marie, you're just, you're so resilient.
And I hate that word because it means that you've been, somebody's tried to beat you downand you've gotten back up again.
And yet you sort of epitomize that spirit of being so focused on purpose.
(32:33):
How do you do it?
Like, are there days where it feels like...
It's not going to work or are you just, are you an eternal optimist?
Like how do you keep your energy up for it?
I'm sorry.
I need to know.
Yeah.
The way I see it is, okay, the long and short of it is if you're given lemons, makelemonade.
(32:57):
But there are many twists and turns and ups and downs and challenges attached to that.
uh
And you know, when I was going through that whole experience, I remember people saying tome, you're the laughing stock of the community for daring to do what you did.
Then I remember going into an office and here's what happens to women.
(33:22):
We're uh judged negatively.
When we speak in a loud, firm voice and you want to make your case and you do that infront of authorities,
They misinterpret it so easily and they come back and say to you, you were screaming atthe staff.
And I'm thinking, I never scream.
(33:45):
I don't need to do that.
But that's how they judge us.
That's how they misperceive Indigenous females who are standing up for our own rights.
And the other thing about it is, however many obstacles there were while I was living inmy home community,
There were all kinds of dumps.
(34:06):
But once that door opened and the universe capital you said, you're going to be able tohelp other people with their housing challenges.
It was as if uh the floodgates opened and now there were allies, there were supporters,there were networks, there was new information.
There are sources of funding, there are projects, there are architects, there are tradespeople in training who are interested in learning how to build.
(34:34):
our own homes using materials that are not necessarily housed inside building supplycompanies.
And that's one of the things that makes this effort just a little bit different.
I want to help people learn how to build our own homes using natural materials, materialsthat are right in front of us on the ground.
(34:57):
So you can do things like stone, straw bale, log, timber frame, cordwood, stack wood.
You can even do mud and adobe type homes.
The materials are right there in front of us.
We used to do in the old days before, you know, building supply companies and having to dothese three bedroom bungalow things like the Martha Stewart Home and Garden magazine.
(35:22):
And I looked down on the ground one day and I saw stones and rocks.
And then I looked across and there was a field with grass growing in it.
Looked across the other way and there's trees.
So that told me that the materials are right there in front of us.
We just need to learn when to harvest them, which ones to use, what kind of ceremony touse to ask them respectfully if we can use them, what to do to offer uh gifts in gratitude
(35:53):
for being able to take these materials, because that's what's missing.
We don't...
take materials anymore respectfully.
We go to the store and we throw a bunch of money on the counter and we walk away withtruckloads of whatever, whatever.
And those poor pieces of lumber, has anyone ever thought to say thank you to them whenthey were still trees?
(36:16):
For the trees to give up their lives so that they could be converted into lumber so thatpeople could use them to build homes.
That's what's missing.
So we need to take that back.
to go back to ceremony, however simple it is, to go back to gratitude, ask those materialsif we can use them, and then what gift would they like in exchange?
(36:38):
It's always an exchange.
Offer something for what you need, for what you're going to take, for what you're going tobe using.
And so those kind of approaches, I think, will really help to re-instill in us, Indigenouswomen in particular, Two-Spirit and gender diverse, that
We have the capacity.
(36:59):
We can exercise agency.
We can exercise independence and self-reliance once we learn how to do these things againand provide homes for ourselves like we used to.
I was going to ask Marie about her hopes for the future of households led by First Nationswomen in Canada, but it feels like she's already begun to paint that picture.
(37:23):
Still, it made me think that building homes is one thing, but what about what happensinside them?
What are the hopes for the lives, the connections, and the possibilities those homes canhold?
Because building homes is important, but it's not the whole story.
What else needs to happen to truly support First Nations women and their families?
(37:43):
Here is what Marie said.
I think what's needed too is the family unit, according to Canadian society, is mom anddad and 2.5 children.
We know that that's not real.
So that's the nuclear family.
And what many Indigenous nations have, used to have, still have, are multi-generations ina family.
(38:10):
So children, adolescents, teens, adults, the parents and the grandparents, the aunties andthe uncles, and even the great grandparents.
And in some indigenous societies, there's the biological family, and then there's also theadopted family.
So there may be a whole group of people who we regard as family, but we are notbiologically related to.
(38:35):
So I know of some societies that do that.
And so they'll have a name for that family, could be XYZ family.
And in there too are the grandmas and grandpas, the parents and the children, the niecesand the nephews.
So what that says to me is that there's clan connection, community connection.
So what a home needs to become again is a gathering place for the multi-generationalfamily, as well as welcoming visitors who come for community purposes.
(39:07):
uh
And homes need to be able to allow for things like cleaning fish or scraping heights ormaking pottery or preserving or cooking, washing, telling stories, doing crafts, all kinds
of things like that.
The homes that exist now, and I see this all the time, the living room window curtain isnot drawn.
(39:34):
and you see this four foot long by three foot high TV sitting there showing all theseimages of fluttering back and forth.
that tells me that people are not talking to each other.
They're not connecting with other human beings.
They're not speaking in their own languages the way we used to.
(39:58):
We're not reading.
We're not.
We're we're not cooking, we're not preserving, we're not hunting, we're not fishing.
And if you're doing that, you don't have time to sit in front of a four foot wide by threefoot high television.
So we need to reconnect again to family, clan, community.
The birds, the animals, the fish and the trees and all of the living plants.
(40:22):
And I wondered, have things been getting better or worse?
Some of the stuff I'm hearing talks about
the situation as it currently is, not just for Indigenous people, but nationwide.
Two times in a statement called the Build Canada Homes initiative, two sentences, Canadais in a national housing crisis.
(40:44):
So it's not just Indigenous people, it's across the country.
And I believe that when we realize that A, we need to recapture our own agency,
that we need to relearn a whole big bunch of things, and that when we realize that we canbe self-sufficient, and when we realize that we need community in order to help us
(41:09):
survive, and when we realize that Indigenous women can learn how to use the materials,when to gather them, how to process them, and how to transform them into homes, I think
that things will get way better than they are now.
And the other important thing is that we really, really, really need to distinguishbetween need and want.
(41:35):
Want is looking at the magazine and it tells you you need 4,000 square feet and athree-car garage and a swimming pool and absolutely perfectly manicured landscaped front
yard.
That's want.
That's the home and garden magazine.
Need is when you ask yourself, what do I...
(41:56):
really basically minimally need.
I need protection from the elements.
I need to sleep quietly and peacefully.
I need a place to prepare meals.
I need a place to relax and read and rest.
I need a place to play with the family pet and accept visitors, children, grandchildren.
(42:18):
And if you think about the space that's needed to meet your needs, it's going to look verydifferent from that.
magazine cover, you know, with the splashy front and big windows and lake and all thatkind of stuff.
And I think if people start to think about, yes, I will work with what I need, then thehousing situation will become way better than it is now.
(42:43):
And that the skills and training and knowledge will be disseminated uh at lightning speed,if you will.
Once we get the idea that, it's cool to learn how to do this stuff and
Hey, I can show other people how to do this and other people show other people and on andon and on.
So it spreads like wildfire and we learn how to take care of ourselves again.
(43:06):
And that's the legacy of our 130,000 years of existence and life on Turtle Island, BP,before present.
That's what we've got.
And we just need to relearn it.
I asked Marie about what non-Indigenous people need to understand about Indigenous women'srole in her vision.
(43:30):
I'm remembering times when I've had non-Indigenous men say to me, you can't do that.
You wouldn't understand anyway.
And I just walk away from them.
And if I were to meet non-Indigenous women and start talking about this stuff, I just say,this is what we're going to do, and we'll do it.
(43:53):
And we're not going to stop until it's done.
And looking back at the indigenous societies in the Americas on Turtle Island, and I seeimages and I read the history.
And in many indigenous nations, it was the women's responsibility to build the homes, tomaintain the homes, and in some instances, even move the homes.
(44:21):
I see an image of planes.
Indigenous woman, whether it's Dakota or Cree or what other nation.
She's standing beside a horse.
The horse had this big wooden harness on it called a travois.
On the travois is strapped the buffalo hide that used to be the skin of the tipis.
(44:41):
So that told me that it was her job to move that home.
And then I see another image of a tipi raising.
And you see the pole standing there all joined up together at the top.
And then around on the bottom, are uh
several women in long dresses.
And that tells me that it was women that raised those tipis.
And I'm not saying that that was true for all Indigenous nations.
(45:05):
It was true for many.
And so if that was true for many at the time, then something happened between then and nowwhere Indigenous women's skills and knowledge and capabilities were diminished, demeaned,
negated.
Invisibilized and destroyed.
(45:25):
And we need to recapture that.
And not that, you know, my mother used to say, it took 500 years for us to get to where weare now.
It'll take another 500 years to get back to where we're supposed to be.
And I remember that, and I know that it's going to take time.
(45:46):
But if we start, then, you know, then it's a growth process.
It's like a plant growing, you know, a little by little, bit by bit, and it just keepsgoing and going and going.
And that's the way it has to be, I think.
I'm always grateful for the women and gender diverse people who come on the podcast,taking not just the time, but the energy it takes to talk about some of the worst days of
(46:13):
their lives.
But I am especially grateful to Marie.
Her story carries the weight of generations and the hopes of so many possible futures.
Honor her journey and amplify her message by sharing this episode, tagging us at voicefour, the number four, housing on social media,
(46:34):
and joining the movement to support women's housing rights by visiting the Pan-CanadianVoice for Women's Housing online at pcvwh.ca.
To close today's episode, I want to thank the women and gender diverse people across thecountry who had the vision to create the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women's Housing and the
(46:55):
tenacity to keep it going.
Because of you, we can imagine a future without the violence,
poverty and uh
(47:31):
Your story is one of the most powerful tools we have to drive change.
You can speak at a city council meeting, join a local housing advocacy group, or meet withyour member of parliament or provincial representative.
And if you haven't personally experienced the housing crisis, we still need you.
As many of our guests have said, allies are essential, and that means you.
(47:53):
Share this podcast, use your voice, and help others raise theirs.
Thank you to Everything Podcasts for bringing She They Us to the next level.
Shout out to Jordan Wong, our sound engineer, Linda Rourke, producer and writer, LisaBishop, senior account director, and Jennifer Smith, the executive producer.
Also, a big thanks to Reed Jamison and CVM, who generously provided some of the music youheard on this episode from The Pigeon and the Dove.
(48:22):
We're on a shoestring budget and so grateful for their support.
And my final two thanks, first to my partner on the She They Us project, Anne Chvalentiniwith the Strategic Impact Collective, and finally, the project coordinator, Monica Dang.
I'm Andrea Reimer.
Thank you for listening to She They Us, a podcast from the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women'sHousing.
(48:45):
You can find other episodes wherever you get your podcasts.
You're my sister, brother too We're all under the same moon There's still something we can
(49:11):
Another Everything Podcast production.
Visit everythingpodcast.com, a division of Patterson Media.
Welcome to She They Us, from the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women's Housing.
Your host, Andrea Reimer, is a housing advocate, educator and former Vancouver CityCouncillor, who's experienced homelessness firsthand.
Andrea has spent her career at the intersection of power, policy and courage to catalyzetransformative change.
(00:36):
And here, she brings that passion to the stories of women and housing across Canada.
This...
Is She They Us?
A podcast about the women and gender diverse people living at the front lines of Canada'shousing crisis.
We need to end poverty.
We are matriarchs.
We are the life givers.
(00:56):
We are the pillars of the community.
You can't just go willy nilly evicting us.
I feel like we honour our ancestors when we make an effort to remind a new generation whatthat path has been.
We've gone so far beyond the boundaries of what's...
humane and it has to change.
There's so many people that are trying to do just that.
(01:17):
Our hopes for African Women's Alliance is that housing in Canada becomes truly inclusive,accessible.
Home is much more than four walls.
It's safety, stability and a place where I can just be myself without fear, where I canlive with dignity.
(01:42):
Welcome back to She They Us and the first episode of our third season.
I'm your host, Andrea Reimer.
I'm a former city councillor for the City of Vancouver, an adjunct professor of practiceat UBC's School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and a housing advocate.
She They Us is a project of the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women's Housing.
(02:05):
And in our first two seasons, we explored the specific housing crisis
that households led by women and gender diverse people experience in Canada from a varietyof perspectives and through the voices of the women and gender diverse people living at
the front lines of Canada's housing crisis.
This season, we're going to do something a little bit different.
(02:26):
And to help me tell you about it, I'm going to bring in our producer, Linda Roark.
Welcome, Linda.
Thanks for joining me.
Can you tell people a little bit about your background and what a producer does on apodcast?
I'd love to, Andrea.
I have spent most of my career uh in media producing really lifestyle content.
So helping people really tell their story in whatever capacity is what I love to do.
(02:52):
as a producer, you bring all the pieces together.
So you try to keep things moving, support hosts and guests, and basically shape the mostpowerful storytelling.
possible as you're putting it all together.
And I'm always looking for ways to bring a podcast to life so we can use, you know, soundsand words and emotion especially.
And I'm going to end with saying right now, you know, working on something as meaningful,really truly as meaningful as She, They, Us has been really special for me.
(03:20):
You know, you do all kinds of things through your career and then every so often you getan opportunity to work on something that just really tugs at the heartstrings and this
definitely has done that.
So as I mentioned, this is Linda's first season on the show, our second with everythingpodcast.
We actually self-produced our first season, which was an experience, but I am so glad it'snot what we are doing this time and that Linda is here.
(03:46):
Part of the process of working with a producer is being able to bounce ideas off someonewho's not a subject matter expert, but who does understand how expertise is communicated.
And so about halfway through season two, I realized that when we think about the housingcrisis in Canada in general, it's often framed in a way that suggests things used to work
(04:07):
just fine and now they are broken and we just need to get back to when they worked.
Of course, they didn't actually work for everyone, even in the old days, and I thought itwas worth asking the question about whether it had ever worked well for women and gender
diverse people.
And knowing a bit about the history of public policy as it relates to women in Canada, Ifelt like the only way to trace the history was by breaking it down into some broad
(04:33):
cultural groups because the experiences of women from different places, includingIndigenous people, has been so different.
I pitched this idea to Linda and the rest of the production team.
What did you think when you first heard it, Linda?
Well,
I really loved the fact that we brainstormed this a bit and you came up with this conceptAndrea, because I really did find it extremely powerful.
(04:57):
Like the way this podcast, you know, brings our history to life and helps us see how wegot to where we are today.
That is super special.
Hearing the voices of women and gender diverse people from across this country, like wehear their strengths, their struggles, their hope.
Like it really did, like I have to say each time I got goosebumps right now as I talkabout this because it really touched me.
(05:21):
And that's a special experience as a producer when you listen to these stories ofresilience and courage.
And then also see how hard the road still is for so many who are trying to find theirplace.
And it really did make me stop, listen and think.
you know, and I hope it does the same for our listeners.
(05:43):
And that's why I think this season is so special and this idea that you brought in.
My next question was going to be, how's it going?
Because it's one thing to like an idea and another thing to see the implementation, but Ithink you've already sort of covered that off.
So I'm curious about like when you hear it, because this is your first season on it.
I had the same experience in season one and two, but.
(06:06):
When you're listening, what's the call to action?
Like, what do you feel compelled to do as a result of listening to the women?
like I'm telling you, it is to be able to sit back, you see, because as the host, you'reimmersed in the conversations, right?
And for me as a producer and the role that I'm playing in this is unique and amazingbecause I can really sit back and listen to these stories.
(06:33):
Some of it's made me angry, you know, where I'm like, what?
It's surprised me, it's shocked me.
I listen to, you know, what people are saying and I have to tell you, like, I am a proudCanadian, but some of these conversations have left me feeling at times just sad, you
know, like tears, teary.
(06:53):
Like I've teared up a couple of times listening because there's still so much work to do.
so much change that's still needed.
And if we're truly going to move the housing crisis forward in this country, we have tomake these changes and everybody needs to be aware of this, you know, not just people who
are living it.
And that's, think, one of the problems that we have right now.
(07:13):
we, this, these voices need to be heard by everyone.
And this podcast really truly is a start because it's opening hearts, it's opening eyes.
And I hope that it will do that for others because it certainly did for me.
And I hope it inspires everyone who listens to take action and really help create thechange that's needed.
Okay.
Well, I can't tell you how grateful I am for you to be here.
(07:36):
There's many hours for those that haven't done podcasts.
There's a lot of hours to pull together something.
But having someone there who...
Sometimes I'm editing at one or two or three in the morning and I start really secondguessing my choices, but knowing there's someone there who has as much experience as
Linda, it just, makes a world of difference in terms of feeling confident about treatingthe stories with the care they deserve and then being able to compel that call to action
(08:06):
that is really what this podcast is all about.
It's a pleasure to be here.
So again, welcome to season three and we are going to start at the beginning.
with the experience of First Nation women in Canada.
A word before we dive in, there is not a universal Indigenous experience in Canada.
There are First Nations women like Marie living on reserve, but many First Nations womenand gender diverse people end up living off reserve, what are often called urban
(08:36):
Indigenous people who have different rights and different realities.
Then there are the Inuit,
with four distinct regional governments and the Metis, which has a complex set ofprovincial organizations and in some cases, regional and settlement governments, in each
case with their own identities, histories and relationships to land.
(08:57):
Together, they represent a diversity of experiences that could fill far more than oneepisode or even one season of this podcast.
Over the next two episodes, we will do our best to give you a sense of their experiences.
So what do I need?
I need safety, security, privacy, access to water, the firewood for heating in the woodstove.
(09:18):
I need access to a roadway.
So I found all of that at an abandoned lumber mill site.
And I started with a tent.
Let's meet Marie.
My name is Marie McGregor Pidawanakwat.
I'm originally from Pugwaskinnagaw.
In English, it's called Whitefish River First Nation in Birch Island on the north shore ofManitoulin Island in northeastern Ontario.
(09:42):
And now I'm living at Wiquamcong, in English is Wiquamcong, eastern peninsula ofManitoulin Island in Lake Huron, northeastern Ontario.
Marie is the head of the National Indigenous Women's Housing Network.
And alongside the advocacy she's done for many others, she's also been vocal about her ownhousing situation.
(10:05):
I asked Marie to tell me a bit about it.
I need to preface that with my statement that
It never, ever, ever occurred to me that I could not live on my own homeland.
It was never a question in my mind.
And so when I worked in towns and cities across the country, I never thought about buyingland because my thought was, buy land when we already own it?
(10:31):
So I never did that.
And I always knew that I would come back home to my home territory.
And so I spent my...
career living and working in towns and cities, uh post-secondary institutions, teaching,counseling, administration.
And then in 2011, I went back home to my home community.
(10:54):
My parents were still alive and I spent their last couple of years with them.
During that time, they told me that they were giving me their old house in quotes.
They had two houses, one's called the new house, which is a banned house provided by theFederal Department of Indian Affairs as it was then known.
(11:16):
And they had the old house, which is a house built by my father and his relatives usinghis own materials and without any banned funding.
So I was happy about that.
And so they put it in writing.
And then a year later, my mother passed away.
And then maybe five weeks after that, my father passed away.
(11:39):
And so I lived in the old house for a couple of years, renovating and repairing and veryhappy to be in the original family home.
And then I'll call him the youngest former male sibling was living in the new house.
He didn't like that I was living in the old house.
(12:01):
So he made moves to have me evicted.
over which he was successful.
What he was relying on was the Indian Affairs document called the Certificate ofPossession, or CP for short, which he held for the new house and the property.
So I've since discovered the real meaning of the CP.
(12:23):
But anyway, long and short, I was evicted from the original family home in 2015, and thenI went to an emergency shelter for a few weeks.
During that time,
I also thought that, no, I'm not going to go racing back out into towns or cities anywhereto go and rent something because I've done that all my life.
(12:44):
During my lifetime, I lived in 39 different places in 50 years, five zero.
So I wasn't going to do that anymore.
Housing on First Nations reserves is complicated.
and made more complicated by the fact that there is not one First Nations experience inCanada, even though they've all lived under one Indian Act since 1876.
(13:08):
The Indian Act is the legislation that moved people off their homelands and onto tinyreserves.
There are currently over 630 recognized First Nations governments or bands across Canadaand many more nations that likely existed before Europeans arrived on their land.
(13:29):
When Europeans first arrived in what's now Canada, there were between half a million andtwo million Indigenous people living across these lands.
Exact numbers are hard to come by since introduced diseases moved faster than the invadersand in some cases whole communities were wiped out before Europeans even knew people were
(13:49):
there.
What we do know is that these nations had many different cultures and family structures,distinct forms of government, laws and customs,
and complex economies, not to mention diverse architecture and approaches to communityinfrastructure.
And layered on top of that are many historical treaties that promise different things andtook different approaches as colonization moved westward.
(14:14):
And finally, the most westerly province, British Columbia, where over 200 of those630-something First Nations are located, had only two historical treaties that covered
tiny slices of the province and only has a handful of modern treaties.
For those that are wondering, the certificate of possession is basically a document thatproves a First Nation member has the legal right to use a piece of reserve land under the
(14:41):
Indian Act.
You can think of it kind of like owning a share in a company, except in this case, yourquote unquote share gives you the right to use the land.
But here's the twist.
The government of Canada still holds the actual titles to the land.
So even though you can use it, you don't technically own it in the way we usually thinkabout land ownership.
(15:02):
And not every First Nation uses certificates of possession or CPs.
First off, they are only used on reserves governed under the Indian Act.
And even then, only if that First Nation chooses to allow individual land holdings.
Some nations use CPs widely, others don't use them at all.
(15:23):
Some nations are creating their own land codes or governance systems through things likethe First Nations Land Management Act, which gives them direct control over their reserve
lands without Ottawa's approval for every transaction.
All to say that the experience that Marie describes may not occur in the exact same way inevery community, but the general arc is not uncommon.
(15:46):
Underinvestment, a paternalistic attitude, a glacial government pace,
and a steadily growing population has created dire need.
An Auditor General report released in 2024 showed that there are over 55,000 new housingunits needed to provide housing on reserve for every First Nations member who needs it and
(16:08):
an additional 80,650 housing units in urgent need of repairs or they will becomeunlivable.
Hearing the statistics is one thing,
actually living through it is another.
I asked Marie to talk a bit about what life was like growing up in her home community.
Yeah, my home community was based on the mainland and its original name was Birch Island.
(16:35):
So the island part, the community was actually on an island and this was in the 19thcentury.
And what they lived on, what the people lived on during that time was cutting trees,
to sell to the steamship companies because steamship companies were traveling back andforth over the Great Lakes.
(16:57):
And Birch Island was one of the places they stopped at.
And then when the steamship companies life cycle went out of fashion, then came steamengine railway systems.
And so the people still made a living cutting trees to provide wood for the steam enginesfor the railway.
(17:17):
And so when that finally went out of fashion, society was now turning to using vehiclesfor going up and down the roads and highways.
And this is when the community left the actual island and moved to the mainland.
And so what people did for a living in those days was to do a bit of hunting, a bit oftrapping, a bit of fishing, some farming, and then working for the tourist outfitters in
(17:43):
the area.
So my family was very lucky in that they had a 100 acre farm that my parents used toprovide a living for us.
They had nine children.
I'm the oldest and we are all still surviving.
So our everyday lives were things like being able to, you know, run around in the bush andplay and also help them with the gardens and taking care of the livestock, things like
(18:12):
chickens and pigs and
They had two horses.
And so it was a rural kind of semi-bush lifestyle.
And then we ended up going to what's called Indian day school from grade one through tograde six.
And then in those days, what became popular too was what's called integration or attemptsat integration.
(18:35):
And so our people were sent off to day school.
in a nearby town for grade seven all the way through to the end of high school.
So in our adolescent and teen years, we were taking the bus every day to go to a nearbytown, half hour each way, spend the day in town at schools, being instructed in English
(18:59):
and all of the usual topics that are taught in senior elementary and high school.
So that's what our everyday life was like.
Busy, crowded, happy.
None of Marie's life has been easy, but the juxtaposition between the world she grew up inand what's happened to her as an elder is a lot to take in.
(19:21):
I asked Marie to tell me a bit more about how her challenges with housing have impactedher life.
Well, I'll tell you this right now.
I don't go anywhere in any building, inside any structure, down any street or lookingacross a field without looking at that building.
whether it's an institution or oh industrial building, commercial, residential, orwhatever.
(19:45):
And I look at that building and I ask myself, what is it made of?
How long has it been there?
Who built it?
What materials were used?
Including homes.
And so that's really, really, really important because it informs the work I'm going to bedoing when we start training people to build our own homes again.
(20:07):
And I never used to think about it like that.
Those questions are paramount, they're important.
And I ask them everywhere I go.
And the reason that that happened was because when I was evicted from the original familyhome, and then I found myself in an emergency shelter for a few weeks, and then I
(20:29):
realized, hey, I have a right to live in my own homeland.
I'm going to go back there and I'm going to look for a place to live.
And I did that.
And this is where you ask yourself what you need comes into the picture versus what youwant.
So I asked myself at that time, what do I need?
(20:49):
I need safety.
I need security.
I need privacy.
I need access to water for drinking, cooking, and washing.
I need access to firewood for heating in the wood stove.
I need access to a roadway so I can connect to highway and drive to work.
So I found all of that.
at an abandoned lumber mill site.
(21:10):
And I started with a tent.
And then a few weeks later, I saw an ad in the paper and it said, shed for sale, eight by10.
So I went and bought it.
And I brought it to my site and it became a sleeping bunkee.
A few weeks later, I saw another ad and it said, garage for sale, eight by 14.
(21:30):
So I went and bought it.
And a few weeks later, had it brought to the site I was staying at,
And I had help with friends and relatives who helped me put the two buildings together,insulate them, and install a wood stove.
Now I had this really cute tiny two-room home.
And then in 2016, I took a carpentry course.
(21:53):
And from what I learned, I used both salvaged and found materials as well as new materialsand added on an eight-by-eight room to my two-room tiny home.
Now I had a three-room tiny home.
And I lived there successfully for three winters, safe, secure, no problem.
(22:14):
And then eventually the band council found out about it.
And this is where all the litigation stuff came into play.
I have been through several courts in Ontario, starting with the Small Claims Court, theOntario Superior Court, the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Federal Court of Canada, all of
(22:35):
whom denied that there is such a thing as Indigenous Alodia Land Title or Original Titleor Underlying Title, denied that I had a right to live on my own homeland.
The only concession that I got was from the federal court where the judge ordered me
to go to the band office and apply for housing.
(22:56):
So I did, I had to, I was ordered to.
So I went and did that.
And I sat in front of the housing manager at the band office and I looked at that form.
In fine print at the bottom of page two, that form said, anyone who already has aresidential unit cannot apply for housing.
(23:16):
So I thought immediately, I already own.
the original family home my late parents gave me.
I already own my three-room tiny home.
I have two residential units.
I cannot apply for housing.
And again, I'm torn because the judge ordered me to go and apply for housing.
So I read through the form, filled it in, and I signed it.
(23:39):
And then promptly tore it in half, and I put the pieces down in front of the housingmanager and walked away.
There was no other way I could do this.
They didn't even know what was on that form.
know, anyone who already has a residential unit cannot apply for housing.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have bothered entertaining my application.
(24:00):
I got a formal eviction backed up by a band council resolution ordering me off the reserveentirely.
Thank goodness I have such good friends.
One friend invited me to bring my tiny home and install it on her property.
She has a,
150 acre farm on Manitoulin Island.
(24:21):
So with the help of friends and relatives, I moved my tiny home and put it in the bush atthis 150 acre farm and that's where it still is.
But I thought to myself, this experience was so heartbreaking, so grief ridden.
There was such despair and there was such anger.
(24:42):
I thought, I cannot let this happen to any other female, any other indigenous female.
I've got to be able to talk about it.
I've got to be able to explain.
I've got to be able to say, this is not how we're supposed to be treated.
We are matriarchs.
We are the life givers.
We are the pillars of the community.
(25:02):
You can't just go willy nilly evicting us, you know?
That's my thinking.
So Marie, this episode looks at the challenges First Nations women face when it comes tohousing and how historical events have shaped those experiences today.
It's something you've experienced personally, but also through your work as chair of theNational Indigenous Women's Housing Network.
(25:24):
Can you talk a bit about what housing access looks like for First Nations women and how itdiffers from the access that First Nations men have?
I want to preface with some numbers, some statistics.
And I talk about these because I want to illustrate to people I talk to about the sheersize of Canada.
(25:47):
And then we drill down into Indigenous peoples' experiences with living in a country thissize.
So Canada's landmass is 9,984,000 square kilometers of land from coast to coast to coast.
It's the second largest landmass in the world.
(26:08):
The only one bigger is Russia.
And that landmass is where Indigenous peoples have lived since time immemorial.
So that's the backdrop.
And so over time and throughout history, Indigenous nations across Canada were able toprovide for themselves economically, socially, technologically, culturally, and also
(26:31):
international relations between themselves and other Indigenous nations.
The current highway, I-75, that connects north and south between Sault Ste.
Marie, Ontario, all the way through to the Florida Keys,
was built on the trading routes used by Indigenous peoples.
(26:51):
So those were established by the time the Europeans got here.
So that's what I'm saying about how long we've been here, what our customs were, what wewere able to do, and about the idea that nations were able to sustain themselves and carry
on nation-to-nation relationships with other Indigenous peoples.
(27:12):
And so fast forward to
2025, where one third of one percent of Canada's landmass is Indian reserve land.
Less than one percent of Canada's entire landmass is Indian reserve land.
And those are lands set aside by the federal government for the use and benefit ofIndians.
(27:38):
The other statistic that's important is that there are 1.67 million Indigenous people inCanada.
which includes the status, non-status Inuit and Métis.
Of that 1.67 million, 600,000 are status Indians.
And of those 600,000, only 40 % live on Indian reserves.
(28:01):
In other words, 60 % of the 600,000 live off reserves other than on First Nations lands.
And so that says to me that
That's not enough land to sustain our people, which is a very young population, and it'salso the fastest growing ethnic minority in Canada.
(28:24):
so the pressure is put on uh chiefs and councils, governments on Indian reserves toprovide housing for their people.
And I don't have the latest numbers on this, but there are waiting lists everywhere.
And it's years and years before anybody on the waiting list gets a home.
And the other thing that I've noticed is that when it comes to Indigenous women, females,it is so easy to evict us from our own home territories, whether that's through an
(28:56):
Indigenous woman's spouse passing away and she's not on her original First Nation.
Then that band council can evict her because her spouse is no longer living and she's notan original band member from that territory.
There are other instances where I've heard about Indigenous women leaving their homes inNorthern territories and moving to cities because they were abused domestically, spousal
(29:24):
abuse, domestic violence.
And so they've moved away, moved to cities looking for safety and security.
They also want homes for their children.
They also want access to education.
They also want access to adequate employment opportunities and housing.
Housing is big.
It has now become a national issue.
(29:46):
Housing is a national crisis, and it includes Indigenous peoples.
When you think of the word home, what does it mean to you?
Yes, very interesting that the word home is not just four walls and a roof.
And I'm an Anishinaabe kwe.
I'm a Dogon kwe from Dogoning.
Dogoning is the English, is the name for South Bay.
(30:08):
Dogon kwe means I'm a South Bay woman.
and I'm registered now to Wiquemcong.
In English, it's Wiquemcong, unceded territory.
So for us, home is not just a place to live, but it's a place to connect with yourculture, your language, your history, your clan, your community, with the animals, the
(30:30):
birds, the fish and the trees, your ancestors buried deep underground since 130,000 yearsago, and also with the cosmos.
with the spirit beings who are connected to us through the sun, the moon, and the stars.
We're all connected and interrelated.
And all of that boiling down to where we live uh under a roof and within four walls,that's home.
(30:58):
But it's not just a physical space.
It's spiritual, emotional, psychological, It's very multifaceted and very complex.
I asked Marie where she is living now.
I've been very, very, very, very lucky.
When I was evicted from my home reserve, I applied for membership in my mother's homecommunity, and I was accepted there.
(31:26):
One of the three most important words I heard that year was from the membership clerk atWee Kwe Mkwem when she said to me, welcome back home.
It was so touching.
And I went to see one of my cousins and asked him if I could use a log house that wassituated nearby.
(31:47):
This log house is 100 years old.
It was built by his family and we're related.
We're cousins.
And so he said yes.
And the understanding is that I can live in that home for as long as I wish.
And the other understanding that I have with it is that as long as I take care of theplace, we're good.
(32:09):
We don't talk about rent or anything like that.
So that's where I'm at.
Marie, you're just, you're so resilient.
And I hate that word because it means that you've been, somebody's tried to beat you downand you've gotten back up again.
And yet you sort of epitomize that spirit of being so focused on purpose.
(32:33):
How do you do it?
Like, are there days where it feels like...
It's not going to work or are you just, are you an eternal optimist?
Like how do you keep your energy up for it?
I'm sorry.
I need to know.
Yeah.
The way I see it is, okay, the long and short of it is if you're given lemons, makelemonade.
(32:57):
But there are many twists and turns and ups and downs and challenges attached to that.
uh
And you know, when I was going through that whole experience, I remember people saying tome, you're the laughing stock of the community for daring to do what you did.
Then I remember going into an office and here's what happens to women.
(33:22):
We're uh judged negatively.
When we speak in a loud, firm voice and you want to make your case and you do that infront of authorities,
They misinterpret it so easily and they come back and say to you, you were screaming atthe staff.
And I'm thinking, I never scream.
(33:45):
I don't need to do that.
But that's how they judge us.
That's how they misperceive Indigenous females who are standing up for our own rights.
And the other thing about it is, however many obstacles there were while I was living inmy home community,
There were all kinds of dumps.
(34:06):
But once that door opened and the universe capital you said, you're going to be able tohelp other people with their housing challenges.
It was as if uh the floodgates opened and now there were allies, there were supporters,there were networks, there was new information.
There are sources of funding, there are projects, there are architects, there are tradespeople in training who are interested in learning how to build.
(34:34):
our own homes using materials that are not necessarily housed inside building supplycompanies.
And that's one of the things that makes this effort just a little bit different.
I want to help people learn how to build our own homes using natural materials, materialsthat are right in front of us on the ground.
(34:57):
So you can do things like stone, straw bale, log, timber frame, cordwood, stack wood.
You can even do mud and adobe type homes.
The materials are right there in front of us.
We used to do in the old days before, you know, building supply companies and having to dothese three bedroom bungalow things like the Martha Stewart Home and Garden magazine.
(35:22):
And I looked down on the ground one day and I saw stones and rocks.
And then I looked across and there was a field with grass growing in it.
Looked across the other way and there's trees.
So that told me that the materials are right there in front of us.
We just need to learn when to harvest them, which ones to use, what kind of ceremony touse to ask them respectfully if we can use them, what to do to offer uh gifts in gratitude
(35:53):
for being able to take these materials, because that's what's missing.
We don't...
take materials anymore respectfully.
We go to the store and we throw a bunch of money on the counter and we walk away withtruckloads of whatever, whatever.
And those poor pieces of lumber, has anyone ever thought to say thank you to them whenthey were still trees?
(36:16):
For the trees to give up their lives so that they could be converted into lumber so thatpeople could use them to build homes.
That's what's missing.
So we need to take that back.
to go back to ceremony, however simple it is, to go back to gratitude, ask those materialsif we can use them, and then what gift would they like in exchange?
(36:38):
It's always an exchange.
Offer something for what you need, for what you're going to take, for what you're going tobe using.
And so those kind of approaches, I think, will really help to re-instill in us, Indigenouswomen in particular, Two-Spirit and gender diverse, that
We have the capacity.
(36:59):
We can exercise agency.
We can exercise independence and self-reliance once we learn how to do these things againand provide homes for ourselves like we used to.
I was going to ask Marie about her hopes for the future of households led by First Nationswomen in Canada, but it feels like she's already begun to paint that picture.
(37:23):
Still, it made me think that building homes is one thing, but what about what happensinside them?
What are the hopes for the lives, the connections, and the possibilities those homes canhold?
Because building homes is important, but it's not the whole story.
What else needs to happen to truly support First Nations women and their families?
(37:43):
Here is what Marie said.
I think what's needed too is the family unit, according to Canadian society, is mom anddad and 2.5 children.
We know that that's not real.
So that's the nuclear family.
And what many Indigenous nations have, used to have, still have, are multi-generations ina family.
(38:10):
So children, adolescents, teens, adults, the parents and the grandparents, the aunties andthe uncles, and even the great grandparents.
And in some indigenous societies, there's the biological family, and then there's also theadopted family.
So there may be a whole group of people who we regard as family, but we are notbiologically related to.
(38:35):
So I know of some societies that do that.
And so they'll have a name for that family, could be XYZ family.
And in there too are the grandmas and grandpas, the parents and the children, the niecesand the nephews.
So what that says to me is that there's clan connection, community connection.
So what a home needs to become again is a gathering place for the multi-generationalfamily, as well as welcoming visitors who come for community purposes.
(39:07):
uh
And homes need to be able to allow for things like cleaning fish or scraping heights ormaking pottery or preserving or cooking, washing, telling stories, doing crafts, all kinds
of things like that.
The homes that exist now, and I see this all the time, the living room window curtain isnot drawn.
(39:34):
and you see this four foot long by three foot high TV sitting there showing all theseimages of fluttering back and forth.
that tells me that people are not talking to each other.
They're not connecting with other human beings.
They're not speaking in their own languages the way we used to.
(39:58):
We're not reading.
We're not.
We're we're not cooking, we're not preserving, we're not hunting, we're not fishing.
And if you're doing that, you don't have time to sit in front of a four foot wide by threefoot high television.
So we need to reconnect again to family, clan, community.
The birds, the animals, the fish and the trees and all of the living plants.
(40:22):
And I wondered, have things been getting better or worse?
Some of the stuff I'm hearing talks about
the situation as it currently is, not just for Indigenous people, but nationwide.
Two times in a statement called the Build Canada Homes initiative, two sentences, Canadais in a national housing crisis.
(40:44):
So it's not just Indigenous people, it's across the country.
And I believe that when we realize that A, we need to recapture our own agency,
that we need to relearn a whole big bunch of things, and that when we realize that we canbe self-sufficient, and when we realize that we need community in order to help us
(41:09):
survive, and when we realize that Indigenous women can learn how to use the materials,when to gather them, how to process them, and how to transform them into homes, I think
that things will get way better than they are now.
And the other important thing is that we really, really, really need to distinguishbetween need and want.
(41:35):
Want is looking at the magazine and it tells you you need 4,000 square feet and athree-car garage and a swimming pool and absolutely perfectly manicured landscaped front
yard.
That's want.
That's the home and garden magazine.
Need is when you ask yourself, what do I...
(41:56):
really basically minimally need.
I need protection from the elements.
I need to sleep quietly and peacefully.
I need a place to prepare meals.
I need a place to relax and read and rest.
I need a place to play with the family pet and accept visitors, children, grandchildren.
(42:18):
And if you think about the space that's needed to meet your needs, it's going to look verydifferent from that.
magazine cover, you know, with the splashy front and big windows and lake and all thatkind of stuff.
And I think if people start to think about, yes, I will work with what I need, then thehousing situation will become way better than it is now.
(42:43):
And that the skills and training and knowledge will be disseminated uh at lightning speed,if you will.
Once we get the idea that, it's cool to learn how to do this stuff and
Hey, I can show other people how to do this and other people show other people and on andon and on.
So it spreads like wildfire and we learn how to take care of ourselves again.
(43:06):
And that's the legacy of our 130,000 years of existence and life on Turtle Island, BP,before present.
That's what we've got.
And we just need to relearn it.
I asked Marie about what non-Indigenous people need to understand about Indigenous women'srole in her vision.
(43:30):
I'm remembering times when I've had non-Indigenous men say to me, you can't do that.
You wouldn't understand anyway.
And I just walk away from them.
And if I were to meet non-Indigenous women and start talking about this stuff, I just say,this is what we're going to do, and we'll do it.
(43:53):
And we're not going to stop until it's done.
And looking back at the indigenous societies in the Americas on Turtle Island, and I seeimages and I read the history.
And in many indigenous nations, it was the women's responsibility to build the homes, tomaintain the homes, and in some instances, even move the homes.
(44:21):
I see an image of planes.
Indigenous woman, whether it's Dakota or Cree or what other nation.
She's standing beside a horse.
The horse had this big wooden harness on it called a travois.
On the travois is strapped the buffalo hide that used to be the skin of the tipis.
(44:41):
So that told me that it was her job to move that home.
And then I see another image of a tipi raising.
And you see the pole standing there all joined up together at the top.
And then around on the bottom, are uh
several women in long dresses.
And that tells me that it was women that raised those tipis.
And I'm not saying that that was true for all Indigenous nations.
(45:05):
It was true for many.
And so if that was true for many at the time, then something happened between then and nowwhere Indigenous women's skills and knowledge and capabilities were diminished, demeaned,
negated.
Invisibilized and destroyed.
(45:25):
And we need to recapture that.
And not that, you know, my mother used to say, it took 500 years for us to get to where weare now.
It'll take another 500 years to get back to where we're supposed to be.
And I remember that, and I know that it's going to take time.
(45:46):
But if we start, then, you know, then it's a growth process.
It's like a plant growing, you know, a little by little, bit by bit, and it just keepsgoing and going and going.
And that's the way it has to be, I think.
I'm always grateful for the women and gender diverse people who come on the podcast,taking not just the time, but the energy it takes to talk about some of the worst days of
(46:13):
their lives.
But I am especially grateful to Marie.
Her story carries the weight of generations and the hopes of so many possible futures.
Honor her journey and amplify her message by sharing this episode, tagging us at voicefour, the number four, housing on social media,
(46:34):
and joining the movement to support women's housing rights by visiting the Pan-CanadianVoice for Women's Housing online at pcvwh.ca.
To close today's episode, I want to thank the women and gender diverse people across thecountry who had the vision to create the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women's Housing and the
(46:55):
tenacity to keep it going.
Because of you, we can imagine a future without the violence,
poverty and uh
(47:31):
Your story is one of the most powerful tools we have to drive change.
You can speak at a city council meeting, join a local housing advocacy group, or meet withyour member of parliament or provincial representative.
And if you haven't personally experienced the housing crisis, we still need you.
As many of our guests have said, allies are essential, and that means you.
(47:53):
Share this podcast, use your voice, and help others raise theirs.
Thank you to Everything Podcasts for bringing She They Us to the next level.
Shout out to Jordan Wong, our sound engineer, Linda Rourke, producer and writer, LisaBishop, senior account director, and Jennifer Smith, the executive producer.
Also, a big thanks to Reed Jamison and CVM, who generously provided some of the music youheard on this episode from The Pigeon and the Dove.
(48:22):
We're on a shoestring budget and so grateful for their support.
And my final two thanks, first to my partner on the She They Us project, Anne Chvalentiniwith the Strategic Impact Collective, and finally, the project coordinator, Monica Dang.
I'm Andrea Reimer.
Thank you for listening to She They Us, a podcast from the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women'sHousing.
(48:45):
You can find other episodes wherever you get your podcasts.
You're my sister, brother too We're all under the same moon There's still something we can
(49:11):
Another Everything Podcast production.
Visit everythingpodcast.com, a division of Patterson Media.
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