Human Perseverance with Colleen Mooney - Season 4 Episode 6

This was a spectacular conversation with Colleen Mooney. Who if we had a sister she would be it. We could have chatted for at least 2 more hours but this 90 minutes was outstanding.

We talked about wellness, competitive spirit, resilience and so much more.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to another episode of Coughing on Coughing Us, just
Us on justice and other things. That's excellent timing my
idiot brother. I'm Scott Jones here with my idiot brother
on another episode of just Ue. We're giggling because we
had a pre conversation before we hit play, and we
have established boundaries, which should be boundaries anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
So a little rough start here.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'm gonna actually just get us on track that's not
related to anything.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm gonna tell a story from.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Hawaii ocause I got to go to Hawaii with my
family and it was lovely. But this is a jont
so a lot of people are gonna be like, oh
my god, that's so sad and dark. If that's the case,
you're probably this isn't the podcast for you anyway. But
I'm gonna tell a story anyway. So we're driving along, me,
my wife, and my two grown boys. They're in their twenties,
and Maui has sirens that either indicate tsunami or missiles launching,

(00:56):
like they're like death is imminent. Driving along, we hear
the siren and go, oh, it's related to one of
those two things, and then we all just shrug our shoulders, like, yeah,
I guess that's this is how it is, like, not
like not a hesitation, not a oh my god, oh
what do we do?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
We're like, I guess this is how it goes.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
They're probably testing one of those systems, but nobody said that, Hey,
just you know, we're testing the missiles.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
So didn't die. Yeah, but we had all resolved ourselves.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
So if we have it happens on Maui, that it's
been a good run.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Better than it happening on the way to Maui. You're
gonna die.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Oh yeah, you're over the ocean and they go Maui's gone.
You're like, fucking now you have to turn around, the.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Plane crashes, you don't make it there.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah, like at the trip or after the trip, disaster
is fine. I'm like, if I die on the way
away home from somewhere, I want to be like if
I'm sitting there winning the World Series of Poker and
I'm now Doyle Bronson's and I'm sitting there playing and
the plane crashes and I don't get to experience the
nineteen million dollars, I don't get fucked.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
I'm happy that I got to play.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
You play poker.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Do that?

Speaker 5 (02:00):
No, yeah, okay, I count as gambling.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
It's not.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Now we're totally off tracking, and I was doing my
best to get us on track again from fucking So
we obviously have a great guest today who we adore,
Colleen Mooney, who is a sergeant with them in the
police service. She's a biathlete, she is a mom. She's

(02:27):
a very powerful creature who we love dearly. Uh, she's
very nervous, so we're gonna do our best to get
the nerves out. That's why we're being a little bit
more idiotic than normal. So to get us back on track.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Tools if we had a sister, this is.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Her, except she's probably too nice to be our sister.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
We would have we would have worked that out of her.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
She'd be way darker and awful. Her soul would be
far darker and more awful. Yes, and you'll notice that
Mooney has I call her Mooney all the time. That's
just the name, because I know I've known her since
she was a recruit.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
So I call her.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
If I call her Moony, it's not being disrespectful. That's
what I call her. So to get us back on track,
let's go start wherever the hell you want to start.
But you have a very cool story of how you
got to be a basically an expert marks person.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
I didn't say marksman.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Good for me, jender Noustil, good job Scotty. Right now,
I just hurt my arm patting myself in the dock.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, killing it. And when you.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
See her picture, she's one of those like, oh, look
how adorable she is and look at her her cute
curly hair, and then she can shoot like the asse
out of fly from two hundimeters. So let's start. How
can why do you are you able to shoot the
ass out of flies?

Speaker 5 (03:43):
For the record, I've never actually tried to do that,
but I, oh boy, yes, I am a little bit nervous,
so that this is a comfortable topic. I started by
athlon pretty early, which is CrossCountry skiing and rifle shooting

(04:04):
when I was random weird sport pairings that don't make
any sense but are a lot of fun. I didn't
We started a cross country skiing as a family like
pretty early, like I was maybe six or seven, and
I hated it. I hated I thought it was boring.
I wanted to be doing more fun things downhill skiing
where the hill is doing the work for you seemed

(04:25):
like so much more fun. And then one day we
were at a crosscundry ski race and they were doing
an exhibition. There's a fellow named Olie Mattson, and my
mom and my sister tried shooting a rifle and I
was so mad that my mom wouldn't let me try,
like I was too young. And shortly thereafter, my oldest sister, Shannon,

(04:46):
she started competing in biathlon and I was left behind
in crosscunter skiing, and I just I was relentless, I
think in asking to to try the gun side a thing.
I don't know why that was so interesting to me
our household. It's not like I grew up in a
family where firearms were something that were really prevent like

(05:09):
there was no hunting, there was no target shooting in
that respect. So this was like a little bit outside
of the wheelhouse of what my parents had grown up with,
for sure, And eventually they let me try it and
I loved it. And then all of a sudden, cross
when you're skiing was like really fun because I got
to stop and shoot things and then well targets specifically

(05:29):
just for clarity, and as it turns out, I was
pretty good. And I don't know why exactly, but both
my oldest sister Shannon and I were just naturally good shooters,
and so as you put more and more effort into
that and then the skiing side of things. So I

(05:50):
think my grade eight I was on the provincial team,
and then through high school competed and I was in
a distance learning program at Austin Bryan High School, so
I could I was never at school. I was one
of those kids, it's like on the roster but gone constantly.
And early on, I think it it became apparent that

(06:14):
my body maybe couldn't handle the rigors of training, Like
I just didn't have the physical resiliency that a lot
of the other athletes had income But when paired with
how well I shot, like I still held my own
like they're yeah, I was just I was a very
very strong shooter. So, and to give I guess some

(06:36):
perspective for those that don't know a whole lot about Bathlon,
but when you're shooting prone or lying down, you're shooting
something about the size of a of a tuney from
fifty meters away, and there's no scope. You're just shooting
through your basic iron sights, and then your standing target
is bigger. It's about ten centimeters across, so it looks
like maybe skeat the size of like a so and

(06:59):
again like fifty meters, so you're you know, you're coming
in with a higher heart rate. And I really like
the the challenge of forcing your body to relax, like
regulate like this this language that we have now that
we didn't have that of regulating your nervous system, of
controlling your blood pressure and your heart rate, and then
and then achieving a very specific task that requires micro

(07:21):
managing the movements in your body and how you breathe
and you're the trigger pressure and all of that stuff.
And uh, and then windage like factoring in if you've
got an aim off or if you're going to click
your site. So it's it was like it's a very
physical game and there's strategy while you're skiing, and then
it's a very mental game while you're shooting, and you
have to be able to do both while your body

(07:41):
is struggling. And yeah, so I love that.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
Oh that's awesome, and you know what, I think it's
a cool sport. But You're right, it doesn't make any sense.
And every time I think of biathlon, I think of
masturbation and hot wings.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
They just don't go together. That's what I think about
hot sauce, right, It just doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
But I loved watching by athlon, and I do remember
it was mister Kaufman when we went to high school.
He was one of our biology teachers, and he actually
was we were actually high school students, and he was
in the Olympics while we were high school students, which
was kind of cool. I remember we were all all
the school was cheering for him and thought it was
really a cool thing. On the firearms side, he is

(08:23):
going to love this story because it's a stupid story.
I used to love guns. I don't love guns anymore.
I don't own a gun. I'll never own a gun.
I'll never shoot a gun again. But I was a child,
I was like ten years old, and we had a
twenty two long rifle out in the farm and they
let me shoot this gun. And as I inched up
to it, it was a hammer.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
And they kept saying, get your eye closer, you.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Get your eye closer to the site.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
And I shot it and it hit my nose and
caught my nose and the gun was and I was
crying and screaming and they were all laughing. And So
if you wonder why I think of things like hot
wings and masturbation when I think of biathlon, it's because
I was abuse.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
I wonder nobody nobody's wondering at all.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
I wonder what's wrong with you a lot that. Yeah, Okay,
I'm just going to see here by myself and do
my own episode.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
Fuck.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
So anyway, so then you how old were you when
you finished the biathlon?

Speaker 5 (09:36):
Probably nineteen? In nineteen ninety nine, I had a car
accident that was kind of the end of the Yeah,
the end of my my biathlon career at that point
in time, which was really hard initially, but I think
all it did was move something up that was coming anyway.

(09:57):
Like again, I kind of said, like my physical like
I just had a lot of overuse injuries or some
back stuff, and it's like I just couldn't get the
same the same like hours behind training that everybody else could.
And so you can only outshoot people to a point
and then and then like the physicality of that. So
I think as much as we all have big dreams,

(10:19):
and I would have loved to have had my big
dreams for biathlon. Realized the reality of self reflection is
that that was likely never going to be the case.
I did compete internationally, but it was just in like
continental Cups, so yeah, going you know.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
Like it was just no, it's not just that's awesome.

Speaker 5 (10:39):
Well, but I guess.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
When you didn't, you competed and own it.

Speaker 5 (10:45):
You're awesome, thank you. Yeah it was I like, I
loved it. I absolutely loved it. But I think what's
like when I look back at the things that it
gave me was going through high school and part of
university where you are gone all the time. You have
to like nobody's going you know, in grade eight, grade nine, like,

(11:07):
no one is going to wax your skis for you,
no one's going to make sure you pack the right
long underwear, nobody's gonna like. So it really teaches you
to own your if you want to be successful, you
got to own your own process here. And the trust
that my parents had in me to be gone most
weekends and be with like the coaches and the teams.
As long as I kept my grades up, I got
to keep doing fun things. So university or like high

(11:29):
school being gone all the time. As long as my
grades were good, I could continue doing fun things. So
then it really forced you to manage your time. This
is training time, this is and there were other people
that were in the same program that didn't maybe learn
those pieces that then had to be pulled back into normal,
more normal schooling. And so I think that's a life

(11:51):
skill that really translated, you know, as I as I
grew up and into university and things like that. But
so I got I went to u of A, and
I got my phiz ed kinesiology that I'd call it
that now, but ultimately I have a degree in dodgeball
and so which is very useful. But mostly I studied

(12:14):
more of like the growth and motor development of with
children and adapted physical education. That was something that was
always very interesting to me. But I always knew I
wanted to be a police officer, and so everything I did,
whether it was volunteering or like, that's where I was headed.
So although I was working towards becoming a teacher and

(12:36):
getting the dual phyzed ed two degrees in five years,
that yeah, I knew I was always headed to policing. Anyway,
But it was at the end I kind of reached
a threshold where things caught up to me a little bit.
Where I was working, I was still training, a little
bit of denial going on that my ski life was done.

(12:58):
Taking a full course and knowing I never wanted to
be a teacher, I cut my losses at my four
year degree and then I ended up going to I
took this class like play Leadership and met Professor Jane
Valentine who was doing a pilot project doing a pilot

(13:23):
project to Thailand with a program called Play around the World,
and it was ultimately a life changing opportunity for me.
So the basic idea is that we would be delivering
play programming in in locations in Thailand that were specifically

(13:46):
in Pataya that were underserved, so orphanages, street kids programs,
occupational schools dedicated to people with disabilities, things like that,
but where it wasn't frivolous that play was being offered,
like they had the basic necessities of life and like
they're being fed their clothed, there's like that you're not.

(14:07):
It's like they haven't eaten, but we're going in to
deliver free play or you know, have like, yeah, like
the I really felt like the motivation was was was
very beautiful and and because it was the first year
it was going, it was a joint project with the
University of Toronto. So there's kind of four for us

(14:28):
from Alberta and then two from from u of T.
And so we had this idea of what we were doing,
but it was it was a pilot and then of course,
like anything, once you get there, it's not quite what
you thought it was. And this was my first Like,
although I had traveled before, you know, with skiing and
things like that, I certainly hadn't understood the degree of

(14:50):
privilege that I held with my very middle class upbringing.
And I've said this before and I would say it again,
like I won the parent lottery, and if you have
to when a lottery, I won the best one there is,
Like my parents, Rick and Joyce are out of this world.
And so I had this realization very quickly that like

(15:10):
it's like something you you realize abstractly, but when you're
confronted with the fact that not everybody gets a Rick
and Joye, and in fact, very very very few people
get the kind of parenting that I had. And so
that was like devastating on one hand to realize it

(15:31):
or to then like experience it. So we thought we
were going to be working at the main this main
orphanage in Patia, and then as it turns out, as
we learned more about their satellite locations, it was very,
very different. It was a completely different, I guess, situation
than than what we that we had thought, and we

(15:52):
ended up working primarily at the School for the Blind.
Now that would give you to believe that it has
mostly visually impaired people or children there not the case
they sort of at that time, and I think very
this was this was two thousand and one, so a
lot has changed since then in terms of how people
are are i'll say categorized in Thailand, but every physical

(16:22):
or mental disability would have all been lumped in the
School for the Blind, because if visually to look at
you you had some delay, you would have just been
lumped that there's there's something wrong with your eyes and
you're going to your eyes or the window of the soul,
we can't see you were you were not a clear

(16:42):
person to then we're going to put you over here.
And it was something that was very hidden. It was
sort of a shame there was. It was very interesting
to learn this what a kind of a shameful thing
it was to have a person with a disability in
your family, and how a lot of them were hidden away,
and so some of them were very, very lucky to

(17:03):
get to facilities like the School for the Blind where
they were cared. So the people that worked there cared
for them tremendously, like there was but it was a
lot of triage. And I will never forget the first
day that we that we got there, they kind of
touring the sites to see where we would be the
most useful. And there were three different kindergarten rooms at
this location, and each one had like it would have

(17:26):
been twice the size of this room maybe, so like
a twenty by twenty feet type of thing, and there'd
be like twenty kids in there, of all different ages
because they were sorted by ability, not by age. So
you'd have thirty year olds and you'd have three year olds,
and they would just be wearing shorts with no underwear,

(17:46):
and the and the crap would just hit the ground
and then they would roll around in it and they
had open sores and they would because you smelled different
they were like clawing at you and licking your spitting
it like it was just it was it felt like
walking in like again my my very privileged upbringing. And
this then the school system that we grew up in,
where there was a lot of at least the school

(18:07):
I went to where there was a lot of inclusion,
to then seeing human human beings being like this was
being treated well in comparison to what other locations would offer,
and it was it was crushing, and I remember being terrified.
I was terrified. I felt almost frozen that I did
not know how to engage. How how do you do?

(18:29):
Do you pick one up? And then you're covered in
in feces and urine and and and then you go
to the next room, and there's a little bit more
ability in this room, and then you go to the
next room, a little bit more ability, but there's again
this the age spectrum in these rooms was jarring to
see an adult with a with a young child in
the same space, just because their abilities appeared to match up.

(18:53):
And so there was visual like people with visual impairments,
but then the full gamut of of any other disability
that you can think of was also there. I was twenty. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, so that by itself, because you're twenty you.

Speaker 5 (19:14):
Don't know shit, I don't know anything. I don't know anything.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, So how long were you there? And then I
know because I've heard you present about this before, talk
a little bit about the impact that one or two
of those young folks.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Had on you.

Speaker 5 (19:29):
Yeah, so it was like six weeks to begin with
that we that we were there. And one of the
things like we had like the team meeting after that
first day that we were there, because it was crushing
for all of us and it was like, now we've
seen all the facilities, where do we want to spend
our time? And so it was like that that moment

(19:49):
in time where the choice comes, are you going to
choose the hard thing? Are you going to choose to
go where all the normal kids are at the orphanage
where you can play the normal games? And I'm very
proud of all of us in our shop said we
got to go where we're needed, and where we're needed
is at the school for the blind, and it's at
the Street Kids for Boys and Street Kids for Girls locations.
And so so I think there's there's two points of

(20:13):
impact for for me that have been to this day,
Like I would say, I think about them daily still.
One of them was was Boda, and it was a
little girl who she was four uh maybe at the time, uh,
and she had severe autism, or at least that would

(20:34):
be my based on the experience I have now looking back,
I would I would guess that she was severely and nonverbal.
And they are all sort of human gumbies, like when
they're not like people don't exercise, there's like a a
laxity in the muscles where they're like hyper flexible and
very and and she she definitely had that, and but

(20:55):
was also because she was quite severe, was very much ignored.
And so there were just be these kids that they
would kind of lean up against the wall, and then
other kids that were higher functioning they would play with.
And Boda there was something about her that I was
drawn to her, and so over my lunch break I
would always sit with her and I would sing and
I would sing the same sort of song with her

(21:17):
and the staff there, and our communication, like I don't
speak any tie was challenging, but play is a language,
Like you learn to communicate with people through play, which
I why I love this program so much. But they
were like, why are you spending Like there's kids that
will benefit from you. Boda is not one of the
kids that will benefit from from having contact. And I

(21:41):
was like, well, this is my lunch, Like I get
to spend my break time where I want, thank you,
but I want to spend it with her. And she
would pee on me most days. So we all just
needed to bring like extra sets of clothes and stuff
like that. And after about a month she started to

(22:01):
hum and she started to like hum the song that
I would send to her. And it was the first
time that she had shown signs that she outward, signs
that she could give back Like that, there was like
a she could reciprocate, reciprocate the effort that was being

(22:24):
placed into her. And it was this aha moment again.
The people that worked there were incredible, so please do
not take like as a that they were ignoring. It
was triogh the volume of kids to the teachers. I
understood where they were coming from, but it was this
like aha moment of And then after that she started

(22:45):
to like form some some words, and not that we're
like audible yet, but there was like this shift and
it was like just twenty minutes twenty minutes a day,
like an advertisement of like sit with joll for twenty
minutes day and look what could happen. And it crushed
me to leave her when our time was done, I

(23:07):
was absolutely crushed and u And then then when the
students went back the next year, she was very different,
like a in a great way like that there had
continued to be some development, so that was amazing. And
then the other location was the street Kids for girls.

(23:28):
The street Kids for boys. There was like they were
out kind of in the country and and there was like,
you know, one hundred and some boys of various ages
that had been rescued kind of from drugs or prostitution
or things like that. So they had to be held
outside of the city. There was a lot less facilities
are funding for girls. And so the one inside the
city for the girls, there was like twenty girls there

(23:50):
maybe and they were all rescued from prostitution, the youngest
being three. And so that was Nelly, who's a three
year old. And I have this photo. I still have
a photo of Boda and a photo of Nelly in
my house and this photo of Nelly, Like we took
them to the beach one day because they had lived

(24:11):
like not far, but they had never been to the beach,
like the things that we would just take for granted. Right,
And and I have this photo of her like wrapped
up in this towel, and she's looking back at me,
and she's smiling, and there's this like this joy coming
out of her eyes that is like palpable. And she
always held this joy. But to know what she had

(24:34):
already endured as a tiny human to then hold this
space of annoying beauty was staggering to me again at twenty,
not understanding that what I am witnessing is like the
perseverance of the human spirit at a teeny tiny age.

(24:55):
And so both of those I keep as like a
daily reminder to me of of like sort of you
are where your heart, like where you put your heart, energy,
where you put your like what can grow out of that?
So those were, yeah, those were those were two of

(25:17):
the things like the ones that I think impacted me
that the most and changed the way I viewed people
play around the world, changed the way that I policed.
I learned like you play is another language. Like I
know I said that, but I believe this with every

(25:38):
fiber of my being. You can reach anybody with with
play with with movement. You don't have to have words.
And not when I was a constable, but when I
was a sergeant in patrol, I had deployed with two bags.
I had my my all things we have to carry,
the gas mask, the you know, extra amo, all the things.

(25:59):
And then I had my my playback and that I
could go and sidewalk chalk and balloons and and some
like those things that if I saw kids playing, I
could go out and and engage and like that was
was how I bridged those two worlds, because policing can

(26:19):
be really really unforgiving on your on your soul, and
so it's like a way to Yeah, I don't know,
sorry that was the longer.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Don't be sorry. I talked on the podcast around the guest.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, we know we want to hear more from Danny.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
We don't want to hear more from Danny.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
More words from Colleen, less words from Danny, that could be,
but more words from Colleen. Once again, you got to
put your name on the highlights. Of course you do.
So getting us back on track can which is my
long life.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
I did this time.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
So you come back from that obviously very transformative experience,
and I want to get into why. I already know
the answer, but we'll talk about how you maintained such
positivity in the face of insurmountable at time. Odds, I'm
going to park that because I want to kind of
get through this next part. So you said that you

(27:22):
always want to be a police officers, So let's talk
about why do you think that is, and then let's
go into that you apply, get hired, and let's talk
about kind of the early years and then and then
we'll come up with the one barrier that came up
that ultimately led to us being very close friends.

Speaker 5 (27:39):
Like I said, like, policing was always my and I
knew from a very young age that policing was something
that was going to draw me. I had some experiences
earlier on that made me feel like those wouldn't happen

(27:59):
to a police And then so there's this like perspective
you have as a child that's very like not having
a clue what a police officer does day to day,
but that's just like this idea. And then the more
I grew up and understood and and appreciated what policing
did in the community I knew more, and it just
reaffirmed for me more and more that that's where I

(28:20):
was headed. I was very single minded, and my parents
were so like, we didn't have any police center at
the time. Actually that's not true. We had recently found
out that my dad's father was a military policeman, but
we didn't know about that earlier. Otherwise there's like no
other kind of law enforcement, no military, but no no

(28:42):
law enforcement in our family, and and so this didn't
really make sense. And I think they were very much
hopeful that, oh, she changed her mind, she'll change your mind,
She'll change her mind. And I never changed my mind.
And after I came back from from Thailand, or shortly
actually before I went to Thailand, I did get a
job with the Ampton Police Service in the Youth pros Unit,
which was the police Cadets program and the Barney the

(29:04):
Bear program. And I proudly say that was Barney the Bear.
I got to give hugs for a living, and that's
like pretty fantastic. I did receive a great deal of
mocking most of my career for it, but that's just
pleasing for you. But that job was phenomenal and the
kids that I got to work with and the police
cadets were amazing, and so I got to immerge a

(29:27):
little bit more in policing before I finally felt like
I was ready to apply and got hired and was
starting recruit class in I think February ninth of two
thousand and three was when it began. And hard, of course,
but awesome, and I loved like being a part of

(29:49):
the team and learning all the things. And we had
a fantastic recruit class. I was recruit class one on one,
and we had a really phenomenal group of people in
that class, and a lot of them I'm still really
close friends with. And then we hit a we hit
a bit of a snag where I had disclosed on
my my information to get hired that I am anaphylactic

(30:12):
to Peppers, so Bell Pepper's helipanals, Chili's cayan, that type
of thing, like I need an EpiPen, which did make
traveling in Thailand a little bit challenging periodically, but you know,
all lives, life stuard lessons just things you got to avoid.
And yeah, it's I'm annoying. I know, I'm black. Pepper

(30:33):
is good. I can have lots of black pepper. Yeah exactly.
But so I had disclosed this on my form and
I was kind of surprised that nobody would link together,
you know that I can't have Chili's and that pepper
spray and I could be a problem. But I wasn't
going to bring it up if they weren't going to
bring it up. This was my my dream. And so

(30:54):
we got our pepper spray lecture by conspol of Roxanne
McKean at the time, and I pulled ours after I.

Speaker 6 (31:00):
Said hey, and I was like.

Speaker 5 (31:06):
I'm a little uncomfortable, but are there going to be
like paramedics there? Like, I know, I gotta do this.
I have no issue doing this, but I'm a little
concerned with how this might go. Like I am allergic
to Pepperson and for those that know rocksand she's got
a pretty good game face, and even I think her
eyes got pretty wide, and it was just like, how
the did this happen? How the fox creek can this happen? Yeah, hey,

(31:31):
haven't Toddler. Now I got to rain in my f bomb.
So what I didn't understand is that after that, like
a whole can of worms got open behind the scenes,
which you would know way more of than me. But
I think that happened like a Thursday and a Friday afternoon,
chiefs committee was convened and lawyers were contacted, and I

(31:52):
barely held onto my job. That Friday. I was close
to being fired. I managed to hang in there till
the following Monday, but he told me I couldn't come back,
and then I was sent to a labor lawyer. Oh no,
I'll back up. So they came back to me with
a with an option that I had to get sprayed

(32:14):
in a doctor's office if I wanted to keep my job,
because they needed to know how I would react. But
if I didn't get sprayed, I would be fired without
like that was like the end of my career. And
so upon seeing this, the amazing people in training section
that may have had some time on the association had said,

(32:36):
we need this is this is terrible, and we need
you to do so. I actually got to go see
a labor lawyer and the labor lawyer said to me,
this is the worst thing I've ever seen. Do not
sign this, Do not sign this, do not sign this,
do not sign this. And I said, okay, but if
I don't sign it. I'd lose my job if I
don't do this, and he's like, yeah, but do you
want that? And I'm like, this is it for me?

(32:58):
This is like I want this job. I'm doing this,
and so I signed it and then enter Constable Scott Jones.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
At the time.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
At the time while ago a minute or two.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Uh So during that time, I was in recruit training
unit as an instructor and we had just started a
new program. Brian Willis had trained us. Uh and he
still does this training. I actually reached out to Hi
another day to thank him again because I still do
this god it Imagery program.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
So he's the one who brought it forth.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
And guided imagery was basically a system where you have
a script that has a relaxation component and a breathing component,
then has a component of visualization of what it is
the task is going to be, so you visualize your
task and that could be exam anxiety, it could be
firearms in this boxing yeah, could there's a sports component

(33:49):
to it in this one. I whether I was tasked
or I volunteered, however that came to because I don't remember.
I'm like, I'll do one for Mooney and we'll have
one a script for the doctor's office, and then we'll
follow that up.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
With a script for OCD.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
So I don't know how many time they put you
through it, probably because we didn't record them back then.
Now I just do it once or twice, record it,
and the person go on their own. We probably met
I don't know, forty times, at least forty sixty whatever times,
over and over and over again right after.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Class takes ten or fifteen minutes.

Speaker 5 (34:18):
Four class after class.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, yeah, and went through all this, and then I
think you and I went on a weekend to a
doctor's office and they did kind of a graduated like
put some pepper spray on a Kleenex in the room,
see how you're doing, You're good, and eventually working your
way all the way up to I think they actually
put it onto your face.

Speaker 5 (34:34):
Yeah they did. And this is like so funny to
think back on this, but I remember us getting out
of the car on the Saturday when we were headed
to doctor Oshwanda's office, That's who it was. Yeah, And
and we got on a car and looked at one
another and it was like, oh my god, this is trippy.
We've been here like one hundreds of if we've been
here so many times, Like the guided imagery script was
so specific, and I think you'd even gone and done

(34:57):
a reki to make sure that it would like that
what you were to describing the building, the parking lot,
all the things was like was you know, was so
it's like being able to visually put myself there over
and over again and to stay very very calm and
and I just remember that. Uh, and Roxanne came came
to that as well that day, So it was the

(35:17):
two of you with me and then the doctor. And
the doctor was giddy. He was so excited to do
this and that's yeah, yeah, like a in a still
in a professional way, but like who who just gets
to pepper spray somebody like in the in the private
in the like in the normal world of people, like
as trainers, we would you know, spray people, but like that,

(35:40):
that's not like a normal human experience, and so like
there was some excitement and uh and so the first
time he tried to spray me, because it couldn't it
had to be the doctor that sprayed me, like liability wise,
it couldn't be Roxann or Scotty and uh and so
uh he he tried it, he missed, so then at
least we got you got like air worn fi the room,

(36:02):
which it was very very hard on me. But then
Roxanne had to like take him to another room and
do some teaching before he could come back and actually
reliably spray my face. So again, like I think he
just got the best experience ever. But but what was
very interesting is that however pepper spray is made, it

(36:25):
is changed enough that it's actually a little bit easier
on my system than if I were to chew on
a jilipino, And so I still needed like my EpiPen
and hit like all the all the things. But the
doctor split a hair for me, and I will be
forever grateful to doctor Roshwanda for this, because it was

(36:46):
like I am, I'm anaphylactic to anything from the pepper family,
and I have enough time with an EpiPen to buy
myself time to get to the hospital. So I'm okay,
if pepper spray is deployed, I will have enough time
with my air away to give myself an eptipen and
then I just have to attend the hospital after.

Speaker 4 (37:07):
Yeah, so I don't know the answer to this, but
how rare is a pepper allergy. I've never You're the
only person I've ever heard of that has it, So
is it?

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Is it that rare?

Speaker 5 (37:17):
I think what makes pepper allergies tricky is because they're
a natural allergen, Like they're naturally irritating, which is why
as a kid we didn't know it was an allergy.

Speaker 7 (37:25):
Yeah you are, well you're a spicy pepper, sir.

Speaker 5 (37:43):
Yes, yes, that fits perfectly actually, so yeah, I don't
know how it's hard to die because it creates an
inflammation response in everybody. So it just depends on how.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Like I've never or heard of anyone else.

Speaker 5 (38:02):
I know one other person, Yeah, I know of one
other person. Yeah, but that's that's it. I don't think
it's super common. But yeah, and it's very hard on
my system, like it it is like I require an
EpiPen within that like minute mark or But the other

(38:23):
thing that was not anticipated is if I'm in a
situation that requires OC, my natural adrenaline is also maintaining
my airweight in a way we hadn't anticipated, so that like,
so there was some some gifts there that I wasn't
Versus in a restaurant, I'm should hopefully be at a

(38:44):
low level of adrenaline in my system if I'm just
hanging out in a restaurant. So what was I think
the coolest part of all of this is that that
guided imagery script prepared me so fully that it's like
it's it's still locked in a part of my brain
because we did it so often, to the point where
fast forward, you know, I'm maybe seven months into or

(39:09):
eight months into my patrol time and myself and Terry
Shuchak get into a ten thirteen one hundred and eighteenth
avenue and we needed help, and the troops come. Little
do we know there was another ten thirteen that was
happening in the calder area in the same division at
the same time, like four in the morning or whatever,

(39:31):
and so cars were going in different places. Anyway, my
boss shows up to ours and he pulls out his
crowd control foger and just foggers all of us. She'll
remain nameless, And so I had and I won't discratch
like that call will always be one of my favorites
for a lot of reasons, Like it was awful. But

(39:53):
the coolest part was as soon as the OCU was deployed,
whose voice, did I hear in my head Scott John's
that's free, And it was like your calm, relaxing, in control.
You can breathe, you have air, you can feel your
chest expanding, you can feel like I can. I can
hear it. And in that moment it was like instantaneous.

(40:13):
The script came back. And then when that guy was
was stabilized in cuffs or whatever, I had my EpiPen
on my belt. I gave myself my EpiPen and then
I go to the hospital and then I got to
spend eight hours at the hospital getting the drips and
all the things to make sure that that inflammation response
is like cover. But I had enough natural adrenaline that

(40:36):
like it probably was closer to two minutes before. Like
time's funny in fights, we know this, so I don't
know how long it actually was before I before I
took my EpiPen, but I had I was okay, Like
I knew it wasn't good, but I was controlled, I
was communicating, I was doing all the things like training
works training, like being OC is mission critical. I think

(41:01):
beings like these are my personal opinions and all that
we've taught. But like being tasered, right, Like you have
to know how these things feel because you will come
up against them in pleacing, because there is there's nothing
is you can't guarantee you're not gonna be exposed to
that stuff, right, And so I I am so grateful
for the training I had, And I mean that just

(41:23):
cemented our our friendship. And I'm so grateful that I've
you know, we've we've had this for twenty two three
years now, which is like wild, but yeah, And I
think like why the guided imagery was also so effective
for me was because we had done so much of
that in biathlon, so I had already like gouided imagery

(41:45):
is a huge part of controlling your blood pressure, your
heart rate, visualizing success before you even come into the range.
Like I would always visualize the targets going down, the
plates clinking up before I ever gotten the range. And
I feel like this was I was so I already
had base training in that that I think made this
even more effective. And it's just like the mental training

(42:09):
that we have that can overcome kind of anything, even
your body's response of like closing airways.

Speaker 4 (42:16):
So it's funny you talk about pepper spraying and you
talk about the un named sergeant that does that. So
I'm not gonna name this person either, But I come
out with the inspector of Downtown Division and I come
into work and there's fire trucks outside of Downtown headquarters.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
And fans exhaust fans.

Speaker 4 (42:31):
Leading into the into the Downtown patrol area. So I'm like,
what happened in a staff sergeant who will really remain unnamed,
they someone seized a can of bear mace and he
was looking at it and pulled the trigger of this
thing and spray the entire division. Like are you kidding me?

(42:51):
What would what would the take for you? Just to like,
if it was a loaded gun, would you put it
and pull the trigger? And I asked the question that
I asked him actually that days if it was a gun,
would you have pulled the trigger? And I'm thinking, and
I actually immediately thought of you when that happened. I'm like, like,
what if you were in there and the whole place
got you would have been because, like I said, you're
the only person I know that that has that.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
And it's like, but what is what is wrong with
some people?

Speaker 4 (43:15):
And anyone who hasn't been pepper sprayed don't pepper spray sucks.
We actually had a guy when I worked in Federal
Corrections when we were getting peper swe We actually got
pepper sprayed in our hotel rooms in the bathtub, and
then we went and got tear gas later that day. Well,
this guy to peppers ray didn't bug him, so he
bent over and the pepper sprayed his bunghole and not

(43:36):
bugged him apparently.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
But I don't know why you would just pretend, Oh
my god, that's really bad. But he was like being
all he was being all tough. He's like, oh, that
doesn't want me.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
Trum arm pits trumar and piss okay Trump and then
trump bumble. I don't know, and it wasn't It wasn't me.
It sounds like something this irritant would do, but it
wasn't me. And yeah, that was a story in our
recruit class for Corrections that this guy finally felt the peppers.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
So dumb.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
I know, you don't need you. We just ignore it.
It's like an animal in here. Yeah, we all need
a Danny EpiPen. So I'm gonna fast forward through the
first part and then I want to go into your
because you go into training section eventually, so use your
deadly firearm skills and all your empathy and all the things,

(44:27):
then you get to be in training sections.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
So walk us through that.

Speaker 5 (44:30):
Okay. So I had I'd always wanted to, like even
though I hadn't become a teacher, there's still like I
come from a family of teaching or like teachers, and
I do love the teaching environment. And so training section
was always on my my hit list for you know,
places I wanted to go on my career and and

(44:53):
so I had started on the PTO unit side of things,
and then there there was an opportunity to go out
to the range and and so you know, posting and
all of that. But it it it was a bit
of a double edged sword initially because the there had

(45:16):
like there had been other female firearms instructors, but there
hadn't ever been anybody in like female another female in FTU,
and I don't know at the time if there were.
Everybody was necessarily ready for that, and so I did
feel that there was some a little bit of resistance,
but I was like not from the guys in the unit.

(45:38):
They were tremendous. I felt welcomed and supported and given
every opportunity to succeed. The team that was in there
was amazing and we're still all really good friends. And
one of them we've we've recently lost in the last year,
which would be Freddie Blondell, which was a was a
big hit to to me, I mean to all of us,

(46:02):
but Freddie was also a really big part of like
when you talk about those like those champions that you
don't you don't expect, and Freddie was always pumping my tires,
Like whether I was around or not, Freddie was always like, guys,
we're so lucky we have her. She has experienced you
with shooting with like we need to listen to what

(46:22):
she had, Like I've already learned. We need to listen
to what she has to say. Like he was always
like setting the field for me to be successful when
some of those earlier days, like whether it was the
like Carmen qual days or the where you're teaching components
and some of them are kind of like you get
the the guys that give you like the eye roll

(46:43):
or whatever, and yeah, so I found that like a
little bit, and then I got my and then I
got my legs in there, and I love teaching recruits.
I love, love, loved it. I love the foundation of it.
I loved the seeing the growth and progression and seeing
us reprogram their brains, which was like, what a gift

(47:07):
to be able to take somebody who knows nothing about
firearms to then throw at the end of their training,
throw them into a scenario and see them perform perfectly
or have a malfunction on their firearm. And they do
it and they don't even know they did it. They
don't even know they did a phase one. They cleared
their gut, like because we've trained them so well that
they have that they just know innately what to do.

(47:29):
It's a beautiful thing as a trainer to see that
you're sending people out safely. And I feel like there
was also like some people may think, like as a trainer,
you need to be a real hard oss and I
can be, but I feel like I'm also just to
have high expectations and so you can communicate high expectations
without being a gigantic asshole, and that I love that dynamic.

(47:57):
And it was around that time that you know, when
I first came in Glenn Close and I went and
did our SISM training at the same time we both
got onto the our our sism team through wellness and
and he's like, you know, we're I've just kind of
started this reintegration team. And I think you like, you
have all the pece, You've got all that, like you're

(48:17):
a people person, people like you, approachable, all the things,
and then you've got these like you've got this whole
background of firearm skills. He goes, I think this would
be a really good fit. And at that time it
was it was him and Murray Ranger, and I think
they'd been it had not even been a year that
they had that they had been running. And then after
that Murray went back to his career took him in

(48:40):
a different direction, and so it was really just Glenn
and I doing reintegration and to and to back up
a little bit. So after it began with what our
what we call our short term program, which is like
after an officer involved shooting or a major event, before
members can go back to being operational, they have to
come through US and re integration. So what that entails

(49:02):
is they would see a clinician, maybe that clinician not
maybe definitely. That clinician is going to do some processing
with them, utilizing different trauma processing techniques. We don't get
into that today, and then once they're cleared from that,
they come and see us at the range and we're
going to go through I mean, we didn't understand in
the beginning what we were doing with systematic desensitization or

(49:26):
elements of prolonged exposure, where we're hearing about the story,
but we're hearing about it not from like were you
standing ten feet away or fifteen how many rounds? It's
very much from that physiological and psychological indicators of stress
in the moment where they might have experienced things that
don't make sense to somebody who hasn't heard a lot

(49:50):
of these stories or done a lot of reading, for example,
like auditory exclusion, or like or the sound of gunfire
actually sounded like you had cotton in your ears instead
of the big blast we know it is when you're
out on the range, or somebody felt like they were
very close. So there's this slow motion time or fast
motion time. If you don't have a conversation with people
about that stuff, they don't realize that their brain has

(50:12):
just categorized the information. It's storing it in a way that
might be confusing, but your body did what it had
to do to survive that encounter. And so it's a
way of like addressing those things and then starting to
unpack them on the range. Then we do a very
graduated exposure to the sound of gunfires. So we'll back

(50:33):
up before that we'll do we'll go into the mattroom
and so I'll just say that this was a glock.
If it's a carbine, we'll do things a little bit differently,
but a glock will just do some dry fire like
this the first time they would have held maybe their
new gun, their gun if they were one of the
people that fired their gun, their gun has been taken
and they've been given a new one, because now that's evidence,
and so it's important that they get a feel for

(50:54):
that firearm and that we're having them intentionally shoot at
like a sharpie drawn dot on the wall, because the
last time they look down their sites, there's a human
being there. And so really bringing everything back to the
gun and you're handling of the gun, and then we
move to an exposure to gunfire where one of us

(51:15):
is downrange and we're just shooting into the bullet trap.
And gradually that members moving closer and closer for the
sound of gunfire. So they're smelling the cordite, the gunpowder,
they're feeling the concussive force on their chest, they're watching
the gun cycling. If it was a night shoot, we're
gonna maybe turn the lights up so that they can

(51:35):
the lights on the range that they can see the sparks,
and we use street ammo because it sparks a lot
more than our practice ammo. And then we'll have them
like Neil like. So there's just all these stages to
get people comfortable behind the gun again and then they
and then the range is there and they get to
like so we can we can create some of the

(51:55):
situations that were problematic for them or that are running
running on loops in their heads, and then we can
start up as peers pull that apart a little bit.
So after we complete that, sometimes it takes three hours,
takes it takes three days. Sometimes we need to go
back to the scene and do a scene exposure. Then
they go back and see the clinician again. And the
clinician that's who clears them for work. It's not me

(52:17):
or Glenn, are there anybody on the rest of the
team And so that is the is the program, and
it was really Glenn and I and you know, kind
of from twenty ten to twenty fifteen that we're doing
the line's share of work and then our long term
program happened. But I don't know if there's anything you
want to before I So in twenty twelve, December twenty second,

(52:42):
there was a shooting in West Division with four of
our members, and all four of them came through our
short term program without hiccups. But there was one that
both Glenn and I have felt like might have gone
through the motions of little bit. But the whole point
is that it's a member driven. It's their choice, like

(53:06):
you know, how long the reintegration goes, or what they
want to do, like it's not up to us to
to force things. He's very open with his story the
member I'm I'm speaking of, and so I I know
I have permission to speak of this, but he had
a lot of military time before he came to EPs,

(53:28):
and so that was also why we were like, Okay,
maybe he's you know, moving fast, you know through this
a little bit. So fast forward six months, seven months later,
and the cart for this member is falling off. The
wheels and he it comes very close to attempting suicide,
gets the help he needs at the time is going
through the TPI program at WCB through Mallard, so there's

(53:51):
you know, and then he also had a community clinician
and then they reach a point of return to work
and it's like, oh, so you're going to start in
patrol like next next week, and it's just like hold
the phone. I almost like killed myself with my firearm
and you're just like you're done with me, and now
I'm just gonna go out. And they're like, well, we
don't have access to guns or ranges or things. And
he's like, Okay, I know two people. Can I reach

(54:12):
out to them and see what they can do. So
it was him that actually reached out to Glenn and
I and we met with his occupational therapist and clinician
and kind of and we're both like, Glenn and I
joke about this, but we're like, we're just two dumb cops,
Like we have no idea, We're just running people through
a process. So the learning curve for us turns steep
really fast, as we understood at this point that we

(54:34):
were now applying the short term model to a long
term problem. And it took us about eight months of
doing very very graduated exposures to firearms to the point
like where it's in a bag, in a lock box,
cable locked across the room and we're just talking in

(54:54):
a room and we know it's there. That's an exposure
that's enough for one person's nervous system for the day.
And then and the next time, maybe the bag is
a bit closer, and the next time it's like the
lock box on the table, And then the next time
it's open, but it's still cable locked. And then the
next time we take the cable lock off and we're
just like talking, not talking about the gun in the room.
It's just there. And then gradually we went out to
the armory and we pulled that gun down into it's

(55:17):
thirty one pieces and put it back to youther and
took it apart and put it back to other and
learning that it's a hammer, it's a wrench, it's not
the it's just a tool that you have to apply
your will to. It is not this inanimate object that
has control over your life. And I remember that day
the three of us cried in the armory because it

(55:39):
was just like he held an assembled pistol in his
hand again and was like and the goosebumps and the
shivers and the flush and the recede and then and
then he was okay. And then after that, holy mam.
We flew after that, like just doing more and more exposures,
doing car related exposure, doing street exposures, doing and until

(56:01):
he hit a point of readiness to go back to patrol,
and he did, and then gradually we learned. We learned
so much, but he worked himself back into sickness. And
I think that one of the things that we've really
learned in this program is that self regulation members are
so pumped me back to work and to be you
can't see my air quotes, folks, but like be normal

(56:21):
again and to be seen as being fully healed by
your colleagues that you work. They work even harder to
prove they're okay, and then they're back doing the work
that they love. So they're just naturally going. There's risk
of working them back themselves back into sickness, and so
our program very much has evolved over the years to

(56:41):
really focus on sustainability before that pushback. So there's yeah,
but all this to say. He was our first long
term person and I will be forever grateful to him
because what he has begun has now allowed our program
to spread around the world. And he turned like then

(57:04):
word spread, and then number two came to us, a
number three, number four, number five, and gradually, like WCB
was referring to us, clinicians refer interests, and we're just
two cops working at the range, teaching recruits and carbine courses.
Like the organization didn't really understand what we were doing.
We didn't understand what we're doing. We just know there's
people that want to come back to work and we
want to help. And then it turned into a thing,

(57:26):
and then we started training other organizations, and then it
has now blossomed into this. Yeah, this program that's being
adapted and adopted nationally and internationally, and it's kind of
amazing to see it take a life of its own.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
So, yeah, that's an amazing that's amazing.

Speaker 4 (57:48):
But I'm going to actually talk about that shooting for
a second, because that shooting connects all of us in
a weird way.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
So I was a staff.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
Sergeant and I remember because it was the weirdest thing
in the world is I was taking about pulling cars
over that day and I said, everybody, listen to me.
I keep coming to buy you guys, when you're pulling
cars over and you got your heads down, I need
at least one of you to be paying attention because
it's dangerous. Literally five minutes before the shooting occurred, I
say this to these members. The intersection between Scotty and

(58:19):
us is we were actually in homicide and there was
a homicide in the Edpinton Maximum Security Institution and the
guy who came out of that with the shotgun was
incarcerated in the Edmonton Max. He later told us that
he didn't shoot at the police officers. He shot towards them,
but not at them because he wanted them to kill

(58:39):
him because he was in the jail when during the
homicide and he did not want to go back to prison,
and that's what he was. Literally, he was a suicide
by cop attempt. He was shot at, he didn't get hit.
And it's just interestingly how all three of us sitting
in this room have a weirdly connectedness to that event.

(58:59):
And that member who you're speaking of worked for me
and when in the West End and was one of
he is one of the best people I know. And
you're right because I talked to him obviously before he
went after this whole thing happened, and when he came
back to work, and then I watched him work himself

(59:21):
into sickness again. And and I think that's something that
anybody who's in the leadership role. And this is one
of the things that I think gapped in my life
my experience, and I don't know if yours at all
or either of you, is I didn't ever have a
leader that actually talked about my my wellness like they
let you work your way through like me and you

(59:42):
talked about this on homicide. They will let you work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work,
and break. Then they might reach out to you, but
no one stops you in between. And that was one
of the things that I hope to be. I hope
I was when I was in those positions, is I
didn't want anyone to be like me or be like
those people that break while they're working.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
And I think that's important.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
I actually have two bosses who were like that, one
currently Donovan Roe and the other one deb Jolly.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Oh yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
That's only two bosses of the bajillion bosses I had
in thirty some years. There's a different connection to that
homicide as well, because I was actually in homicide when
that happened, and it turned into an armed and barricaded
in Red Water, and I was gonna say, this is
one of a few times I said no to a boss.
That's a total lie. I said that all the time.
I was the primary in homicide. And they're like, hey,

(01:00:30):
you need to go to the scene. I'm like, I
don't understand why. Well, somebody might have been shot. I'm like,
since one is homicide, investigate might haves No, I'm not
going that's stupid, Like let me know if there's something here,
but this is a totally outside of our purview and
I'm no.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
So I said no to my team commander.

Speaker 4 (01:00:48):
And it's also interesting because I get a phone call.
So I was the staff sergeant the first day, I
was the duty officer the next day. And I've been
in the media and I had a bunch of phone
calls from people from Ontario knew me from policing and
they're like, why is this fat inspector and.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
Making fun of me? But I was that's a zero
since and I got a phone.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
I wake up to my phone ringing, and it's the
deputy chief of the time giving me trouble, like, how
come he didn't notify anybody their ed ROD or RCMPM
like I did. And this is his name, Well, how
come how come he didn't notify anybody? I'm like, I
have no idea what he did after I notified him
and did my job. But it's funny how these things

(01:01:30):
kind of get like the it might have someone might
have been shot, how come he didn't not if anybody,
I didn't notify anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
Why didn't they?

Speaker 4 (01:01:36):
And those stupidly enough, it's not sometimes the stress of
the shooting that creates the most impact, it's the it's
the it's the operational, sorry organizational rather than operational stress
that creates the harder times for people and I and
I think that's something that people don't realize, specifically people

(01:01:57):
that aren't in first responder roles. And I think even
when we're in our first responder role, until it starts
to happen to you, that organizational stress piece and you're like, okay,
this makes no sense, Like I've done this, this and this,
and I was fine, but now I have wretching anxiety
because I have to go into a room with people
that I feel unsafe with even though they're on the
same team as me.

Speaker 5 (01:02:17):
Yeah, and I think that's the that's the crux of
it is that we're prepared for these events to happen.
We trained our members for these events to happen. We
don't train them for the breakdown potentially in leadership, the
breakdown in in communication, the silos that occur after shootings.
Like one of the things that I am so proud

(01:02:39):
of has happened in the tenure of our of our program.
And this wasn't due to Glenn and I. This was
a more global approach, but that originally members after they've
been involved in shootings would have to go sit in
homicide and they're they're sitting in the homicide interview rooms
waiting to be interviewed by assert or you know whatever
body at the time, and we have a vault like, so,

(01:03:00):
what's that feel like? You've just done your job, You've
done what you've trained, we've trained you to do, and
now we've taken away your gun and we've put you
in a holding cell and in an interview room that
is for homicide and you are now getting read you're right, like,
it's just a it is what a what a tricky

(01:03:22):
spot to a confusing spot to be for members in
that moment that while the while all of let's talk
about those stress hormones have have peaked, they haven't even
started to recede yet. There's been no sleep cycles, there's
increased amounts of caffeine, maybe poor fueling in terms of food,
Like there's all these recipes that are affecting processes in

(01:03:43):
your brain and maybe how you will end up processing
that event or how you're filing a cabinet starts to
work the next time you actually get a good night's sleep. Like,
So I love now that our ethas off our employee
family Assistant's office on the second floor, which is a
very peaceful place to go. Now all the members, subject
and witness officers go there and we can all sit

(01:04:06):
in the same room. They're not left alone. We're there
with them. There's no chance of you know, we're not yeah,
witnessed nothing. We are ensuring the integrity that the investigation
is being upheld with absolute care, and we can care
for our members in a beautiful way at the same time,

(01:04:28):
the investigation does not have to be compromised to have
really robust wellness after major events. And I think that
that's something that we've done that has grown really really
well over the years. And then just as our program
has grown, and now I mean we've got probably thirty
five or forty people on our greater reintegration team that

(01:04:49):
we're utilizing after officer involved shootings or dog bites or
fatalities or attented disarmings, eye gouges, chokings, like all these
things that happened to us that are outside of the
normal sort of like they're normal for our job, but
they aren't happening necessarily every week. We're now able to
proactively be reaching out to people in offering reintegration. And

(01:05:12):
one of the changes in culture that I am most
excited about is that whenever we have a team engagement,
let's say it's a tactical team, now there's no question
like our if you're we would call the epicenter of
the event, so you were in a position to shoot,
or you saw what occurred for that shooting to happen,

(01:05:33):
you are mandated according to our process. Everybody on the
periphery of that gets offered our process, and so now
we have members that we have offered it to that
kind of will call me up and say, actually, this
is what my involvement was, I should be mandated, and
or we'll have an entire tag team that just goes, nope,
we're all going through. Just put us all in, put

(01:05:55):
us all in. We're doing this, we need to do this,
and this like this culture change that it's not that
the like you know, yeah, there's just there's just been
such a shift that it's that it's for everybody and
that there is such gains to be had, and that
we're preparing people that the next time they go back
out to operational duties they are ready. They're ready. We

(01:06:16):
have ensured that we've gone through in a safe environment
and allowed their body to process stimuli that could be activating,
but doing it in a safe look in a safe
place where they can experience that, not judge it, go
back and see a clinician, and then be cleared when
they're ready to be cleared. And and that's how we're

(01:06:36):
serving the greater community. That's how we're creating safer communities
is by having police that are ready to be in
a position of policing again after major events, and I'm
something I'm really really proud of.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Yeah, yeah, that, and I know you alluded to it,
but it is a program that's nationally recognized and emulated
across the country in different organizations New Z. You guys
went to Hawaii, Like, it's kind of worldwide funny. You
didn't go to Alaska or the Arctic. You just have
to go to Hawaii, No, the oceans. So it is
a remarkable program. I'm gonna pivot again though, So you're

(01:07:13):
a mom. That's a simple sentence, but not a simple
way to get there. And I'm kind of navigating here
because I don't want to ask a question. I would
ask a question, whatever, a question because I know any
laying ask But I'm being very professional on this podcast.
So tell us a little bit about that process because
it was a very trying and unusual way to get there.

Speaker 5 (01:07:35):
Yeah. I think there's some people that are sort of
ambivalent about parenthood in their life, as they like, if
it happens fantastic, you know, or if it doesn't, like
I'll be okay. I was never one of those people.
I knew I have. I've always known that I wanted
to be a mom, and I didn't necessarily care how
it happened from the perspective of like if I needed

(01:07:55):
to adopt, if I need like I just know that
I have so much love to give and I wanted
to be a mom. And I've had a very long
fertility journey. When I was married, we went through two
rounds of in vitro that obviously were not successful, and

(01:08:17):
you know, some some miscarriages, uh and then you know,
pivot to adoption and and that uh fell through towards
the end of my marriage. And I think that there's
oh man, it's it's so hard because infertility in a

(01:08:39):
in a in a marriage, is a is a really
hard thing when when people might have different thresholds of
wanting something, and my threshold for for wanting was was
very very high to be a to be a mom.
And so after that relationship ended, and and I still

(01:09:01):
knew that that was where I, you know, some way,
somehow I wanted to be a mom. And so around
that that time, so there's a few things that that
happened in sequence there. So my time at the range
was coming to a close at like around twenty fifteen,
and I and you know, divorced in like twenty thirteen,
twenty fourteen, the separate divorce Jazz. And then I went

(01:09:24):
to Ukraine on a un mission and that was a
phenomenal experience. But I knew when I came back that
my focus, like I'm getting a bit older, there might
be some cobwebs forming in my like like we gotta
we gotta get on this. If there's like things are
going to work. And and so that was for sure

(01:09:49):
a focus. And when I came back, I was promoted.
I was a patrol sergeant and that is a oh god,
I love that job. I love my squad. It was
so fun. But when you factor in some of the
stressors of like of just the shift work, and then
you know, leading a team and caring as much as

(01:10:11):
I care about people like they are it's just a
different kind of family. It's a family of peers, but
it's still like you care for them like you're they're
your family. And and at the time I was so
this is where I'm getting to where I worked myself
into into sickness here. But so I was still a
full like a full time street sergeant in Southeast Division,

(01:10:35):
and then I was still doing even though I had
left the range or still doing reintegration, So on my
days off or on my non OSM time, like your
OSM times when you're responsible for all the operational elements
of what's happening in patrol, so like any bigger events.
So in the times where I wasn't responsible for that,
I was working with members. So it was like there
was always somebody kind of new coming on my parade that, oh,

(01:10:57):
you're one of Mooney's people. Okay, you know, she'll like
come on on parade. We know, like we don't know
why you're here, but we know you're going to hang
out with her. Like that just became kind of normal
for my crew. But then I wasn't doing there's a
lot of a stargeist job that you got to do
when you're not when you're not being operated, like there's
all the reports. So I was then working probably sixty

(01:11:22):
hour work weeks, sixty seventy hour work weeks, and then
I was still doing play around the world. I was
doing pilot projects. So I would take my month's vacation
and then I would take a group of students to
Peru and get them settled for three weeks, and then
you know, I'm working on projects and so playing so
I'm still playing, and that was sort of my break.

(01:11:43):
But that's not like what vacation is for. And so
I think that in my zeal for doing all the
things that I loved so much, I started to get
a little bit sick and I started to grow a
mass that really started to affect my health and was

(01:12:03):
pressing on nerves. And I remember in twenty end of
twenty eighteen, my legs were starting to not work anymore,
and that was sort of my it's to war thirty
pounds of kit operationally with your legs starting to have
nerve impact and some other things starting to happen. My
body this like awareness of oh gosh, okay, I think

(01:12:25):
I'm in a bit of trouble. And so I had
seen a fertility doctor on my own and he's like, okay,
i'll give you like this thing's growing pretty fast, but
I'm going to give you one month. So you've got
two days to find yourself. Here's the catalog. Catalog, go
find some you know, some swimmers and.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
No everybody who's it.

Speaker 6 (01:12:53):
Yeah, no, I'm not wired. I'm not wired that way.
I'll choose the catalog.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:13:00):
And uh. And so that was like how how do
you how do you do that in two days?

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
You know?

Speaker 5 (01:13:06):
And so that was very stressful, like to to know
I'm on at a timeline, but just the growth uh right,
And we didn't understand fully like what it was at
the time. It was just like, okay, I'll give you
one one cycle to figure this out. And so I did.
I I and it's a little bit like online dating
for uh sperm, I guess like it's like you see

(01:13:27):
pictures like it's it's it's a really trippy experience from
the like I can't, I cannot believe I'm saying this
right now, actually, damn you Jones brothers. Yeah, and it
was very hot. It was. Yeah, it was very hard
because you're you're, you know, choosing the other fifty percent
of the genetic in two days, right, And so I did,

(01:13:52):
and uh it gets like you know, sent to Canada. Uh.
This was from the from the state because we can't
we can't sell your you know, sperm or eggs in Canada,
but you can buy it outside and have it cry
out in And so I did one round of insemination

(01:14:13):
and it didn't work. And then but what we knew
after that made perfect sense that my body was already
really starting to struggle and that there was no chance
that that pregnancy could occur. And it was not like
a lot of women will get fibroids and they can
be very, very debilitating. I'd already had one surgically removed

(01:14:35):
that was very problematic in two thousand and eight, So
that's what we all thought. It kind of was. As
it turns out, it was not. We're just going to
call it a space occupying lesion. That was kind of
the and I was very lucky it wasn't cancerous, but
it was growing really really fast, and it was filling
my pelvic girdle and so it was kind of constrained

(01:14:56):
by my hip bones for space. So then and then
pushing upwards and so basically everything below my belly button.
I had pretty significant impact. And so I had one
other vial of you know, sperm in being frozen in frozen,
not I'm not in my cryo freezer. Yeah, oh god,

(01:15:17):
this is mortifying. I can't believe we're talking about this.

Speaker 6 (01:15:19):
But I did say yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh gosh, okay.

Speaker 5 (01:15:32):
And then the cart really really really fell off the
wheels for a while. I got very, very sick. We
tried one surgery. That surgery was a fail. It had
I'd had an MRI about ten days prior to that
for surgery, and by the time they went in ten
days later, it was a completely different ballgame. And I
was then sort of inoperable, and because I was this

(01:15:55):
middle ground, they couldn't There was just so many complications
I don't, you know, really want to get into. But
I was very, very sick, and my legs weren't working,
and I think the tumor was also like sloughing off,
and so I was just I was throwing up all
the time. I couldn't eat. I was really like there

(01:16:17):
was just like full scale impact, and I'm getting sicker
and sicker, and there's kind of no other options. And
then I get referred to this there's this doctor that
has this experimental sort of we're called it a wand
that it has a very His name is doctor Teale.

(01:16:38):
He's tremendous, tremendous surgeon. But something that kind of will
reduce and like cauterize and reduce in the moment, so
it will it will change the the visual field of
what a surgeon has in the moment when they're dealing
with larger masses, and so they were hoping that this
might be an option for me. So I get referred
to him, but he's got like a two year waiting list,
and so I wrote him and it was probably the

(01:17:01):
most important letter of my life, where I just said, like,
things are getting really bad and I'm I'm afraid and
my body is failing, and I have a lot of
big things I want to do in this world. I
have a lot of like I have a lot still
to give. And from one innovator to another, you are

(01:17:22):
innovating your field of medicine. I am trying to innovate
with a team in terms of mental health and first responders.
I want to keep doing all those things. And I
desperately want to be a mom and I feel that
slipping away, too, feel all of it slipping away. And
he got back to me within twenty four hours after
he got that letter, and he's like, this can't wait,

(01:17:42):
And we ended up having a phone call and he
detailed kind of the surgery. He was thinking. He's like,
the want that's not going to help us, that's we're
too far for that. I want to read to your surgery.
And I was kind of like, well, the first one
did not go, well, what makes you think you can?
And he's just like this is ideal in weird not
weird that he didn't use the word weird, but he goes,
this is this is my specialty. You have your specialty,

(01:18:06):
this is mine. Let me do this. And he is
a world class surgeon and so uh and he's in
in Regina and so my parents. Uh. He he got
me in for surgery within three weeks, which given how
tremendousness and that was like I don't think I'm prepared

(01:18:30):
today to talk about what that time was like going
into that surgery. I think that's something that's very very
private to to me. But ah yeah, I yeah, yeah.
Ultimately the surgery was very like successful, but I had

(01:18:54):
a lot of healing to do after that, a lot
of healing and a lot of retraining my nerves and
a lot of like my left leg had a lot
of function loss and I still don't have a lot
of sensation on my in my left leg. And but
then I got like started to get healthier and healthier.

(01:19:14):
And this is like this is over like a couple
of years that this has taken. And then I finally
I hit a point where I was in a relationship
and we had that like, Okay, it's it's like go
time for me. This is like my last window. Are
you are? We are we out? And and and I

(01:19:35):
have tremendous respect for this man and and it just
it wasn't in the cards for him and I and
so I'm like, well, I a month later booked my appointment,
and it's it's go time. And I knew. I don't
know how I knew. I knew that if I did
it this month, it would work. It would work, and

(01:19:56):
I would I I would be able to sustain a
pregnancy because I had been pregnant quite a few times,
but I just miscarried. And after having such an like
now I'm on my like I'd had three very invasive,
significant surgeries at that point. Whether or not I like,

(01:20:18):
but I just knew, And so I did it and
it worked, and I knew somehow I was having a girl.
I never doubted for a minute that it was going
to be a girl. And and so not the easiest
thing to do by yourself. My pregnancy was really rough.
The first few months weren't weren't too bad. And then

(01:20:38):
the cart fell off the wheels at around my fifth month,
where my daughter Freya was pressing as she grew, was
pressing on all the nerves that had been damaged the
first time around. And so all of the things that
had happened when I had the tumor were back to
back to life. And so it's hard to say this
out loud, but to have a walker for seven months

(01:21:01):
in your early forties, it was hard, like h and
to be single parenting when your body is failing and
catheters and like all the all the things, and then
to have to start that rehab journey all over again
after you have a newborn, and we had and she
had some hell things. She because I had so many
problems while I was pregnant. She had to come out

(01:21:24):
pretty early, not like super early, like you know, six weeks.
But it's still a lot on a tiny human. But
I now have my dream and when I look at
like my health and the how I got here, I oh, man,

(01:21:45):
I can't say I would do anything differently because I
got this perfect little girl who is the light of
my life, and she's the gift I have always wanted,
and she's so fun and precocious and a little bit
wild and and she's everything I've I've ever dreamed of.

(01:22:06):
And so I wouldn't tell anybody else to go on
a fifteen year fertility journey. It's devast like the devastation
over and over and over again. And I think I'm
one of the really really rare cases that I got
my miracle baby, after I got my miracle life. Like
I I I got two of the biggest wins of

(01:22:31):
that anybody could ever have in a pretty short range
of things. And now this last couple of years has
just been healing and getting stronger, and now I'm back
to work full time. I'm not operational yet. Yeah, I
say yet, because I like I just for myself, I
want to end my policing career as I started, which
is fully able in all the ways. So I have

(01:22:56):
I think another six or eight months of work, I think,
and then I'll be back where I want to be.

Speaker 4 (01:23:01):
But that's a long story, No, that's you know what
I will say this, you're a boss like you are
inspirational at all levels.

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
You amaze me. I'm sure you amaze this idiot too.

Speaker 4 (01:23:17):
And you know what, you you actually are a hope
giver because I right now I have a thirty one
year old daughter who's going through fertility stuff and they want,
they really want to have a baby, and it's.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
Not been working.

Speaker 4 (01:23:26):
So she's been getting like acupuncture and hormones, like she's
doing all the things, but she has pcos.

Speaker 3 (01:23:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Sorry, Vanessa, I don't know if you want everyone to
know that you could have done with those singer names.
But never mind.

Speaker 4 (01:23:41):
I've said her name enough times on the podcast that
they would know. But you know, in it is, it's
it's a it's a it's a journey and it's uh,
you know. And and oddly enough, Tara and I had
weirdly had a massive fertility stuff too, like well, we
started out with no fertility issues because we were teenagers
and we had to teach we have teenage pregnancy and boom,
and then seven miscarriages between the girls, and then then

(01:24:05):
our son Nick, who died at birth because he was
born too early. And we found out her tera when
we had a car accident with Vanessa. When Vanessa was
born early because we got to a collision, she had
an incompetent cervix. So all of these things, like and
the reason I'm not I shouldn't talk about my wife
Cervix on a goddamn podcast. But the reason I talked
about it, and we've talked about this on a previous podcast,

(01:24:27):
is nobody talks about it, and everybody who's going through
it feels like they're going through it alone. And that's
unfair because a lot of people have gone through it,
and a lot of people have come through it in
a positive way, like you and Freya, and I think
that it's unfortunate for whatever reason, we've made miscarriages and
you know, children passing away at birth and stuff made

(01:24:49):
it taboo that we don'tant to talk about it when
that's such an impactful thing on your own mental health,
your own family, and I think it's an important thing
to talk about. And that's why I just talk about
my wife, service and my daughter's PCOS.

Speaker 1 (01:25:03):
So one last thing unless there's something else you want
to talk about, because we can keep talking for two
more hours easily. You do such a good job because
you've never been negative. You never get down. I've seen
you obviously ebbed and flows, because i've known you as
long as I have. How did you maintain that kind
of positivity all the way throughout and then be what
do you do to make sure you're looking after yourself?

(01:25:25):
Because also we've had lots of conversations. You're fucking wicked
good at giving out device advice, not necessarily taking your
own advice. Sometimes I know I'm the same. So to
how do you maintain the positivity? What do you do
to look after yourself?

Speaker 5 (01:25:40):
Oh gosh, how do I stay ah positive? I I
think that I feel like I can circle a lot
of that to my family. I'm we have such a
close family, and I am beyond blessed to have this
like un conditional, unwavering support. That again, I it is

(01:26:04):
heart wrenching to me that not everybody has a rick
and choice, and so I think that that's my foundation.
My parents have always been the kind of people that
are like you, you always have a plan, b you
always find your ways. You have your sad moments, but
we pick ourselves up, we dust off, and we keep going.
And so I feel like that was embedded in me

(01:26:28):
early on. I think that player around the world utterly
changed me in the most profound ways of understanding the greater,
the greater picture of things. And and I'm not a

(01:26:49):
religious person, but I'm a really spiritual person, and so
I think in helping other people in service is how
I feel I recharge. That is recharging to a point

(01:27:10):
and then and then I actually need to be a
bit of like most people would look at me and
be like, oh man, she's very extroverted, and I can be,
but I'm actually like, I love my own company. I
love my own company. I can be alone for a
very long period of time and I'm I am thrilled
to hang out just with me. And so the walking.

(01:27:35):
I've done a ton of traveling by myself, which I love,
and I think that like for me meditation, I have
a very strong meditation practice. Sometimes it's like three minutes
a day and sometimes it's an hour and a half,
and that is regulating me in in all all the

(01:28:00):
ways I need. Like work can be stressful and home
can be and single parenting a toddler is stressful. But
there's been this like aha moment I had when I
had Freya, and it was that nobody's going to take
exquisite care of me. I am the only person that
can take exquisite care of myself, and if I don't

(01:28:22):
do it, I am not giving the best of myself
to everybody else in my life. I'm not if I
don't take great care of me, I am not going
to be the best mom that Freya deserves. And especially
since I'm doing it on my own, I don't have
another person in the house to go, oh, go for
a walk right now, go. I don't have that. So

(01:28:44):
I feel like play has been my co parent, meditation
has been my co parenth, and taking like such good
care of myself and setting boundaries in a way I
never have before, setting boundaries for work that I never
did before, Like I utterly worked myself into sickness. I

(01:29:07):
know that I will never do that again. My health,
my wellness in all aspects is now my priority because
if I look after me, then when I meet with
a member, I get to give them my best version,
and that's what they deserve. I get to be the
best mum that Freya could ever hope for. If I

(01:29:31):
have managed my sleep and I have meditated, and I
am fueling myself well, and I am working out, and
I'm seeing a clinician like we have to also continue
to destigmatize that I see a clinician regularly one to
two times a month and that is essential for my
well being. It's exercise for my brain. I'm working out
my brain. I'm working out the things that have that

(01:29:52):
have accumulated over over a career of being a first responder.
And to be really frank, like, there is Alzheimer's in
my lineage, and as an act of love for Freya,
I have to process anything that is problematic for me

(01:30:14):
now because if someday I do end up getting some
form of dementia, we can't have latent like PTSD, like
me responding as if things are happening in current time
on top of dementia, Like how cruel is that for
a child? Like knowing that that is even a remote possibility.

(01:30:36):
And so as I come to the I'm not ending
my policing career, but I can retire in a year
and a half. I have no idea what I'm going
to do. I will. I have a toddler, I'll likely
be sticking around, but I owe it to her and
to myself to leave policing with a beautiful slate of
mental health and that I will just keep working on

(01:31:01):
that proactively throughout, you know, the rest of my life.
That's just part that's like going to the gym, and
I think if anybody else has that recipe, I challenge
you to think about what you were willing to put
your children through as you age. If you have not
done the processing work on the trauma that you know

(01:31:23):
is lurking in there, what are you signing your kids
up for as you age? And so that would be
my point of like, if you're not willing to maybe
do it for your self or your spouse, or you're
not willing to open some of those And don't get
me wrong, it is uncomfortable. It is hard to sit
in a room and have somebody open up your brain

(01:31:44):
and how you feel. And is the freedom on the
other side of it absolutely worth it? Yes it is,
Yes it is, So please do.

Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
It before we close. I just listened to a podcast today.
I haven't even finished it yet, and along the lines
ofty and negativity and all that, Arthur C. Brooks, he's
I think he's like a Harvard business prof for that, Like,
he's very smart dude, PhD from a long time ago.
And in his he has a happiness class that he teaches,
and during the happiness class he has his students whenever

(01:32:14):
you fail at something or something goes bad. I want
you to write it down, which is kind of weird.
It's the drops of a gratitude journal. But then he's like,
I want you to write it, and then I need
you to leave two spaces. Why did it upset you
or impact you whatever? Write that and then give it
a few days. And now I want you to write
down what did you learn from it? And then after
a few days what actually came up instead? That was

(01:32:37):
positive because of that negative. So you're training your brain
to actually almost look forward to the next failure because
something good is going to come from that. Like it's brilliant,
it's crazy awesome, and I just heard that today, So
that's why I dropped that in before.

Speaker 2 (01:32:50):
We close up.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
This is has always just the opinions of Scott, Dan
and Colleen, nothing to do with where we work in
the past, future present, just our amusings, et cetera. And
I will have it over to incompetent cervix or Pepper
or no.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
I'm I'm adding to it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:09):
I'm I'm a space space space occupying.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
Mass, space occupying mass.

Speaker 3 (01:33:19):
You know, it's funny.

Speaker 4 (01:33:21):
I was looking back through pictures the other day and
I saw a picture that me and you I took
when I was with you in p e I, and
it was my favorite quote, try fail, try again, fail better,
And that's kind of similar to what that doctor you're
just talking what was saying. Anyways, this has been a
lovely conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:33:35):
Thank you for being here.

Speaker 4 (01:33:36):
I just want to say and acknowledge that we are
in three six territory and my Land acknowledgment can be
a little different today because we did lose another really
important person in Edmonton, Elder Margo from the Esquayo, her
son Benny Swanson, who owns the Panther Gym, and I've
been friends with Benny for years and her daughter Bunny,

(01:33:58):
who works at a squaiale as well well, And just
rather than in the Land acknowledgment, I just want to
acknowledge the amazing work that Margo has done. We are
it's the day after International Women's Day today, and Margot
was She was a hugely impactful person with Indigenous women
in the province of Alberta and probably across the country

(01:34:18):
and she will be greatly missed and I just wanted
to use that as the land acknowledgement today. So anyways,
with that love you do