Behind the Mic: 100 Episodes of Human Rights in Winnipeg

Stuart Murray  0:00  
This podcast was recorded on the ancestral lands, on treaty one territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji Cree Dakota and the Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Metis nation.

Amanda Logan (Voiceover)  0:19  
This is Humans, On Rights, a podcast advocating for the education of human rights. Here's your host, Stuart Murray,

Stuart Murray  0:32  
so I've just got to my 100th podcast episode, and it occurred to me that it might be interesting to have somebody who I respect in this community, kind of turn the table and have a conversation with and so I'm thrilled and delighted that Dan lett, columnist, Father, hockey referee, you know, very involved in the community for many years, has has agreed to come on to this conversation and kind of have a conversation with me. So Dan, thanks for doing this. 

Dan Lett  1:00  
Thanks. I'm as you know, as a fellow podcaster, I am, of course, honored and awed a W, do, E, D at, you know, 100 podcasts is a an incredible accomplishment. It really is.

Stuart Murray  1:16  
Well, I mean, and again, as you know, we just as what's always great, as you say, as a as a fellow podcaster, and I know you and again, and the Lone Ranger, do some really interesting things in the community. And what's great about is, you have a great reach, you know, I've kind of focused more down on, you know, human rights educators, advocates that are kind of Winnipeg based, versus kind of that broader platform, which, which you have, which is, which is great. And of course, I think you've got somebody coming up for your new podcast, a guest that's going to be very interesting in light of what's happening in the world today. Yeah,

Dan Lett  1:50  
we're just about to start. Would would be, I guess, our fourth season. We're a little bit behind you in the total number of episodes, but we'll be talking Trump and tariffs with former Manitoba Premier and Canadian ambassador to the United States, Gary Dewar, who is a good friend of both myself and and Stuart and might be the single easiest interview to say that he is plug and play would not do justice to you just let him loose, and he, you know, he makes you smarter. Yeah, no,

Stuart Murray  2:25  
he's, he's, he's, he's great at it. He's had a great career, and he's one of us. He's a Winnipeg, he's a Manitoban. And to have his ability to bring that, that voice of of reason, and you never know when he's going to, you know, start singing a country western song, because that's what he heard when he was up in The Pas. You know, he's, he's a great friend.

Dan Lett  2:45  
Yeah, it's funny. You would remember that that reference that of all the things, yeah, Garth Brooks, right? Totally, friends in all the low places. Yeah, it was a moment that, if you weren't there, you wouldn't believe it could happen. But anyways, but anyways, yeah, 100 episodes. So if we're going to, you know, kick this off, like looking back on such an enormous body of work, what would you say that you know now that you've learned that you didn't know when you started off doing the podcast,

Stuart Murray  3:17  
yeah, you know, Dan, when I started. And the way it got started, frankly, was that I had met this young woman by the name of Christy McLeod. She was at University of Winnipeg, a global college, and she had started this Human Rights Hub at the university because she was concerned there were so many things happening in the city of Winnipeg around human rights, but there was no calendar. There's no way to let people know, in other words, they'd bring in a great speaker to the University of Winnipeg. University of Winnipeg, and you know, you'd have a class of people there, but you know, how do you share that information with others? So she started this Human Rights Hub, and I got to know her, and she since went on to become a lawyer that is out in BC, doing legal work for indigenous peoples. But during the main during that conversation, I talked about the fact that, what are you going to do with this hub when you leave? And she said, Well, I don't know what to do. So I took on the hub on behalf of what Christy McLeod had started right at COVID. And of course, there were no events, no anything going on. So that's how I morphed into creating a podcast, just thinking, Well, when I was at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. I was surrounded by so many human rights experts that I thought that this would be good opportunity to go and explore and find out what's going on in in Winnipeg. And so, yeah, the human rights, humans on rights podcast was started in 2021 and I guess the thing looking back to your question, Dan, is that, you know, I've in essence, talked to 99 other amazing advocates, experts on human rights here in Winnipeg, and I've only scratched the surface. And so, you know, it's been amazing to me how many people are so passionate around the issue of human rights, whether it's an individual or an organization. Yeah. And in particular, I guess the the one element that that always is is it kind of brings it home, is how underfunded, understaffed these, these organizations, people that they are, they keep their head down. They do amazing work. And so every time I try to give people an opportunity to talk about what they do on the podcast, a, I learned something, and B, it gives them a platform to really talk about what it is that Winnipeg or should be aware of what's happening on the human rights front.

Dan Lett  5:28  
I'm gonna take you back a little bit to it's the origin story of the podcast, but it's also the origin story of Stuart Murray in the world of human rights. So you were president and CEO of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and at the time, and I promise I won't be too cheeky, but there were sort of like people asking how a man with your varied resume could end up as the chief executive of what was one of the most unique cultural institutions in the country. So you know, both in terms of what you've learned to the podcast, but what did that job do to your understanding of the world of human rights? Because I think that that's underlines what you're doing now.

Stuart Murray  6:13  
Obviously it's it's all public. I was a political appointee by at that time, Premier or Premier, Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and I think that their approach was, is that they were looking for somebody that was just going to oversee this, the construction, the content and everything that was there, understanding that I wasn't an expert. And so I surrounded myself with with human rights experts, Dan and that that was, I guess, kind of the eye opening opportunity to me to to know that there's all of these incredible people that are so passionate about these human rights issues that were happening in the world, and to know that we could try to put them into a narrative. Is what the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was like. You know, I'm Scottish heritage, and I sort of joke and say that, you know, we've got our issues, the whole potato famine, everything that happened in Scotland. There's been lots of books written around Scotland. And, you know, I had some of my Scottish friends saying to me, how big is our room going to be at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights? How large is it going to be? And it was like, It's not about rooms, it's not about large it's about a narrative. It's about a Canadian lens on human rights, about how we started, what we've learned as a country, what's happening in the world. And I think that that was an eye opening opportunity for me to be exposed to the stories, you know, for example, here we are in black history month. I you know, Viola Desmond. I'd never heard of her before I took this that gig. And, you know, Rosa Parks, I pretty much could tell you a little bit about on the American version, but not the Canadian. And so for me, it was a really eye opening opportunity to really learn more about our country and be exposed to a lot of people who are passionate about human rights. And so, as you know, and you were kind enough to kind of help me work through what was not exactly a great departure from the Canadian Museum of human rights. What I took away from that is that that there's there's more to be done, there's more voices to be heard. And so that was kind of the genesis of the podcast, as you've been working

Dan Lett  8:19  
on the podcast. And I mean, obviously, you know, you do you focus a lot on Canadian issues and the way Manitobans connect to issues around the world. How would you describe the average Canadians grasp of human rights? Like when they say human rights? What do you think they think of because I've long had a theory that we never really went through something a parallel to the civil rights movement that the United States had. We certainly had our like our issues. But I tend to believe that a lot of Canadians think of human rights as an issue somewhere else, but not an issue at home. Is that unfair to No, I

Stuart Murray  8:57  
think Dan, you know, I think it's, it's very accurate, and, and, and I think you can get a little specific and say that, you know, after the Truth and Reconciliation and, you know, there was that an issue where they started to find grave sites in in Kamloops, at some of these residential schools. You know, I think a lot of Canadians when they came through the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and saw the story about residential schools and what took place there, I think a lot of people looked at that and said, that is horrific. Where did that take place? Well, it's in our backyard. It's part of our history. It's part of who we are. And so I think that we, as Canadians, we generally think that, you know, we're kind of the aw shucks, kind of, you know, we're the apologists for the world in many ways. I'm sorry, you know, stand in front of me, that sort of thing. So when it comes to human rights, you know, we do have, like all countries, we have a part of our history that's a little dark. We haven't really had that conversation. And I think when you talk about the, you know, the issues of truth and reconciliation, you know, I remember having this conversation with one. With former senator, former amazing Canadian author, etc, Marie Sinclair, who had so much hope for what that might do. And you know, I just, you know, trying to give him my perspective. And again, not from a human rights academic or expertise at all, Dan, but it just, you know, occurred to me that when they kept talking about the seven generations that took us to get to where we are, and it's going to take seven generations, perhaps, to get us out of it, that the majority of people would look at it and say, Well, okay, you've got to report, we've had a conversation. There's been a commission. You know what this thing will be done in like, a weekend or a couple of weeks of conversation. And I think that, in itself, to me, was a real eye opener to say these conversations need to happen, and if, if you're not uncomfortable with them, you're not understanding what we're trying to prove. And I'm

Dan Lett  10:55  
wondering this is, you know, probably again, because you're talking to people that have both domestic and international perspectives, the people you've had in your podcast, but you know, they're definitely south of the border right now, there seems to be, there's a backlash against that phenomena or that that you just described, that, you know, we don't want to study critical race theory. We don't want to study, you know, the the our past mistakes or atrocities. And I get this in from readers all the time, enough is enough, like, or when is enough enough? And I'm sure, like, I'm going to bet that, that as you move through the community, you hear that question, you know, when are we going to stop talking about reconciliation? When are we going to stop talking about residential schools, you know, like, what perspective have you gained through the PP you've talked to like, how do you answer that question? Well,

Stuart Murray  11:48  
you know, one of the first things I say to people is is, first and foremost, appreciate your your point of view always. But just put it in, have you? Have you read a treaty? You know, these are not 400 page Tomes. A treaty is a very straight ahead document that really talks about relationship and partnerships, and there's signatories to the bottom of the treaty. Why don't you just take 10 minutes and read a treaty? You may not change your mind, but to understand that there's signatories on a treaty. And maybe one of the signatories being, you know, goes back to the at that time, the King of England, way before this curtain, King before Canada was a country. And then when Canada was a country, the signatories from Canada are at the bottom of this, of this, of this agreement, along with First Nations. And you know, when you look at what the partnership was meant to be on that agreement, one part of that group is holding up to their ability that they're allowing people to explore their lands, or allow people to go onto their lands and look for oil and do all sorts of things, use water, potentially harm the water. But the other side of that agreement is not really been fulfilled by government, and so when you get the idle, no more movement, you look at that and say, What are they trying to prove? Well, they're trying to bring back to all these people that say, haven't we had enough of this to say we haven't actually, really started so to me, you know, it's a sobering moment. Dan and I, I've had conversations with people that you know, and you never know, they grin and nod when you talk to them, and when they walk away, and they might say something else under their breath, but you know, from time to time, there has been, there's, you know, on a summer weekend, you know, at deacons corner, they stop, and they're trying to sort of halt traffic simply to hand out a pamphlet to say, you know, here, Here's what we're trying to Pro. We're trying to provide, it's an education piece. You know, what's happening with treaties? How are First Nations being treated? And, of course, the first you know notion is people are, they're, they're, they're outraged. This is unbelievable that they would do this. I mean, this is crazy, and I get it. I understand that, because we drive that way to our cottage. But if you're maybe taken out of context, you you have to sort of, you're not going to get your cottage in two and a half hours. It might be an extra half hour because of the slowdown. And they give you this information. But part of me that takeaway is, like these people that are handing these pamphlets out, did any of them have a cottage that they're trying to get to? Are they, you know, sort of so blessed that some of us are, can we not take a moment and at least try and understand what they're trying to explain? So, you know, I just look at all of these conversations, Dan, and you make the reference of what's happening south of the border. You know, these voices that have tried so hard to be heard at the table and are being successful. In my mind, it's not going to be easy, but they will not be shut down. You

Dan Lett  14:46  
know, it's interesting, as I was thinking about our conversation this morning and what's going on in the United States right now. And you know it invariably, I went back to the big series I did on the creation of the museum. Am the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and it's fortunate for you that you would do this podcast here, because this is the place where a single man planted a flag on the idea that we needed to confront some of the uglier parts of our you know. And I'm talking about the origin story of the museum in his diaspora, and the the whole idea was, he was going to build a museum which told the straight unvarnished truth of Canada's role in the Holocaust. And it's there was some good moments, but there was some, some really awful moments too, where we turned our back on people, and even in the 2000s when the museum was coming to fruition. People, really, they react harshly to the idea that they would be asked to remember these things. You know, it really makes Winnipeg the perfect place, really, to have the kind of conversations you're having on your podcast.

Stuart Murray  15:56  
Yeah, we've got a great number of you know, communities, immigrants, refugees, you know that have really done amazing work in establishing what Winnipeg is as a community and and you know that that notion always that, you know, as we, as we talk about, you know, issues around the Holocaust, or we talk about, you know, things that happen as we during Remembrance Day. And you know, it's so easy to utter the words, never again, but those words ring hollow because it's, it's happening as you're uttering the words. We see it very much happening today, particularly, you know, the anti semitism. It just doesn't seem to ever, ever want to go away. And yet, Dan, you know, when you talk to many people from the Jewish community in every major city in the world, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. In a lot of parts of the world, there is either a Jewish quarter that was part of that community, or there's a there's a holocaust memorial that is part of that community. And, you know, they're simply telling us that we need to understand the importance of what took place. And we, when we say the words, never again, can we put some meaning behind it? And I just, you know, I guess I just fear that it's just so easy to go back and and, and, you know, I guess the comment that somebody said to me, if, if you can teach hate, you can certainly teach love. And where do we do that with this bigger conversation that we see in particularly, you know, Winnipeg is a very vibrant Jewish community, and they have been tremendous in terms of advancing everything good about what this what, why we're proud to call Winnipeg home, but I'll just share with you, you know, Dan, one thing that you know at the Canadian Museum of human rights, and it's kind of you sort of, you know, poignant because of what's happening over in Gaza. But the comment we had, or that was given to me by people, those saying, Oh, you're going to have a real tough time with the Middle East. And I said, Well, I suspect you're right, but why are you saying that? And they would say, Well, you know, your biggest donor is a Jew being the Asper family. And I said, No, I think that's pretty well known, and I don't think anybody's trying to hide that in any of your very transparent but I said, I think the what the journey that we're hopefully wanting to talk to people about is the education on the issue, not who's right or who's wrong, but what is the human rights lens, the education on this issue? And I think we, I think we were successful to some extent, to to use that as a bit of a benchmark, and that's why I always use the word education when you talk about human rights. It's not about right or wrong, it's about the education or the advocacy on the issue. We're

Dan Lett  18:43  
in a period, though, where the distance between what people think right and wrong are has seemingly grown. The war in Gaza is a very good example where those of us, and I'm raising my hand figuratively and literally, you know, who are appalled by the Hamas attacks and equally appalled by the magnitude of the response in a civil, responsible way, we should be able to speak about both things. We like. We should be able to talk about both things. It seems that that's going to be increasingly difficult as we go forward. But recently, I wrote a column about a new exhibit at the museum love in a dangerous time, about the official government purge of LGBTQ people from the federal civil service, military, RCMP. And, you know, I was trying to decide whether I wanted to write about it and whatever. And then the thing that got me was the purge, which was official government policy to root out people of different sexual orientation and terminate them, ran from the 1950s to the 1990s and it just like it was just like that. Old slap across the face, you know? And I just thought, like, this isn't his, like, this is an ancient history, you know, this is is current events really? You fear it's going to be increasingly difficult for either the museum or for the community as a whole to really have that civil discourse about this thing. Are we? Are we entering an even more difficult time than when the museum was first created?

Stuart Murray  20:26  
From my perspective, the the the hope to try to sort of bridge that gap is, it's, it's really done through conversation and and, and having, you know, panels, discussion with thoughtful people. I mean, you know, you can see, you know, it's emotion. A lot of these conversations are so emotionally driven that they red line very quickly. And so it has to be done in a way that is, is is thoughtful, and it's, again, it's not a matter about right or wrong. It's about perspectives. Share your perspective, be open to hear the other perspective. And my hope, Dan, is that you know, through the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and other venues that they, they continually talk about conversations, the opening conversations, because, I mean, social media is, is rampant, and it is, I think, one of the progenitors of why we have such a bad, you know, kind of toxic, kind of environment, whereas, you know, if you can bring in speakers that have an education on the issue and a different viewpoint and want to debate it, and then in the audience, I mean, there's one thing to say. I'm sure that most people might go away saying, you know, I did learn something. I sure I've changed my mind, but I did learn something, and that ability to learn and to have the opportunity to feel that there's an education around these issues. You know, I might be a bit of a lone voice, but I really believe very strongly that that's what we need to do.

Dan Lett  21:55  
So you look back on on the body of your podcast work, and I know that, like when people ask me about our podcast, you know, you immediately a couple of interviews or a couple of moments sort of stand out. So what would you sort of say, or the the one or two sort of seismic moments where you personally were affected by the the person you were talking to? Yeah,

Stuart Murray  22:18  
and I'll just just say that every one of these podcasts, all 99 that I've done, and I'm sure, after listening to you a little bit on 100, I've learned something in every one of them, for sure. Take away, it's unbelievable. I remember I did one with a woman was podcast number 14. Her name was Dilly Knoll, and she is the executive director of the Anders street facility. And, you know, she's in a community in the north end where she's really trying to make sure that, that she talks about, there's two kinds of families, there's your blood family, and then there's the community family, and they have to be strong and stay together. And the part down that struck me was, you know, when she started, she was always wanting to make sure that there was food in the community center for the kids. And at the very beginning, she was getting food from, and I won't name the stores, but you know, the bigger stores, the food stores in Winnipeg, who were in the process of almost putting it into the garbage because the best before date, etc. And so, you know, she was taking that food, but at one point, as she talked about, it occurred to her, I'm feeding human beings here, like I'm going to go back to these stores and say, Don't give me the garbage. Give me food that I can honestly sit in front of people and say, this is food that you deserve, that we're trying to build this community, and you're a part of building the community. Rather than feeling, well, we were going to throw it out anyway. And so I thought, wow, here's just this little, you know, sort of Spitfire of a of a woman who understands the the dignity is all about being able to eat a proper meal. So, I mean, I thought she was, was fantastic. And the other two people, I just want to make reference to. One was Levi Foy talking about from sunshine house. And again, you know, Dan, part of it is, you know, I have a bit of a small editorial group that helps kind of ferret out some of these people, because I didn't know Levi, Levi, and of course, getting him onto the podcast, and then finding out about the mobile overdose prevention site, their mops program, the mobile program, those things, again, it just happened to be in the news recently. But those sites, those organizations that are and I loved it because, you know, he always calls sunshine house the Museum of love. And you know, it talks about the passion that these people in these organizations have for the part of our society that just seems to sometimes get kicked to the curb. And, you know, we need to make them feel like they are human beings. And so I really learned a lot from from Levi and and then the the other one, that was 96 was Evelyn Fauci, who. Who talked about a basic annual income, and she was so compelling. And I now am trying to do a little bit more research on that Dan, to start talking to some of my friends about it, and just to kind of get their feedback. But as you know, there's experiments that were done here in Manitoba under the Schreyer Liberal government called men come and, you know, so many people. And I think one of the problems with some of these programs, when they get named a basic annual income, you can see people pushing away saying, oh, yeah, more welfare. I mean, come on, what do we need? No, no, stop for a minute. That is really not the essence of the program. The essence of the program is to provide an opportunity for people to feel that they can survive in this world and on the other side of it, which was proved out. And I need to do a bit more research on this, Dan, but what caught my ear is when Evelyn talked about the fact that when they did this in Dauphin, they had an 8% reduction in health care costs. Okay, now you've got my attention. Now, this has real legs, in my opinion, so let's explore it more. So, you know, there's just a couple of of opportunities that had an impact on me.

Dan Lett  26:06  
You know, I think that in the work that you've done with the podcast, you know, I think it parallels a lot of the work I've been fortunate to do at the free press, which is talking to interesting and knowledgeable people, it occurs to me that at the heart of human rights and what drives people, I think, to champion it, we actually know how to make progress in all of the worst problems that face in society. We know how to do it cheaper with better outcomes, but we we somehow get lost on the way. You know, like supervised consumption sites don't just save lives. They reduce crime rates in the areas where they are. So why wouldn't you want to do that? It makes the neighborhood safer, saves lives. Sometimes, you know, man, we get, we get tripped up by all the crap kicking around in our head and but I think that's it's why it's so important for you to keep raising good ideas and raising examples and trying to inspire people you know, once again, like 100 podcast, man there, there ought to be, there ought to be a metal of something you know, like, you know, maybe, maybe that's we should. We'll create a metal. Yes,

Stuart Murray  27:17  
we will. We'll bronze the earphones, or something, you know, just, just on that Gan because I, you know, I thought you wrote a very good article, a column on on that, and according to it's very, you know, it's topical because it's happening today. But, you know, one of the people that I interviewed was Jacob Kaufman, who, you know, he was an addict. He's now a community activist. And I'm going to try and get this name right, because he oversees those the is part of the washroom project that's on Main Street. I think the proper name for it is Gammon. And you know, when I brought a group of business people together to have him talk about his experience, because so often in these conversations, Dan, I find that there's what I would call the choir. You have a conference on homelessness, and you look around the room and everybody is either working for or has experienced or has been a part of it. And, you know, I just call it the choir, and we need to get more of non choir members in to hear this conversation. And so specifically to Jacob Kaufman and talking about safe injection sites. He worked in one in Vancouver, and you could see people's kind of eyes open wide when he said, Look, I was a user. I'm no longer a user, but I respect that people want to use. They should do it in a safe site. And he said, I want to tell you that in Vancouver, I would sit across from members of the Canadian Football League. I would sit across from lawyers who I know were highly regarded in the community. And he said, I just think that part of this is that people look at this and say, It's just for, you know, those that that you know you would consider on the spectrum of society, sort of at the lower level. Well, you know, he brought this home to a fact of saying, No, there's a lot of users out there that you know you might be sitting across a boardroom table from, and when you start to get that conversation, at least people starting to hear it, you realize it has a much broader play than just sort of what, what you know people want to hear the word safe injection sites. Oh, more drug, more crime, more this, more that it's like, just, just stop for a minute. Just just, let's at least have the conversation again, always with the understanding you can disagree, but please listen to the more salient and factual things about saving lives that these sites can actually do. Yeah,

Dan Lett  29:37  
salient and factual is a life pursuit, right? Yeah, exactly. So that's what we're all chasing. Exactly.

Stuart Murray  29:45  
We'll make the T shirts up and see how they go. Absolutely. Merch, human rights. Merch this.

Dan Lett  29:52  
Let me congratulate you once again. I mean, I think people who know you know that after your experience at the museum, you. You. You were always involved in the community, but I think you returned to supporting positive things in the community with a renewed ferocity. I think that anything that even has a inkling of a modicum of a sliver of a chance of increasing empathy is is noble work. So congratulations on your noble project. Thanks

Stuart Murray  30:22  
for that, and thanks for taking some time to jump on to this conversation like you. I appreciate what you do in the community. I mean, as you and I talked about, we may not always see eye to eye on things, but you know, we live here, and we're just trying to see what kind of contribution we can make. So thanks for doing this, and thanks for your words. Much appreciated. Yep, anytime. Okay, you take care.

Matt Cundill  30:44  
Thanks for listening to humans on rights. A transcript of this episode is available by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode. Humans on rights is recorded and hosted by Stuart Murray, social media marketing by Buffy Davie, music by Doug Edmond. For more, go to Human Rights hub.ca produced and distributed by the sound off media company you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai