This content may be provocative for some listeners. CW / TW This is a sobering listen to the need for policy and law reform on behalf of Canadian elders; intimate partner violence, care and decision making challenges for our elder queer communities, and the need for incorporation of Indigenous laws and practices that currently reside outside of Canada’s current colonial legislation.  I couldn't help but ask how Krista survived the patriarchy of corporate law along the way.  

Merrell-Ann Phare is a master class in Canadian humility, vision & transformation.  She is a powerhouse living into the work & difficult conversations of reconciliation and decolonisation. Merrell-Ann is a lawyer, author and the founding Executive Director of the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, a national First Nation charitable environmental organisation. While Merrell-Ann started her working journey in the 1980's, one of a few women on the Canadian railroad, a tragic near death experience crystallised her vision for a life of purpose and transformation. Porcupines?! What?!  

We kick it off during the hottest of times in British Columbia where global warming is burning forests and heat related deaths & temps are at an unprecedented high.  Donnie shares their take on what that’s like  from Vancouver where the realities are ‘shockingly real’.   Nor could we turn away from the shockingly real genocide of Indigenous peoples as hundreds and perhaps many more hundreds of Indigenous children's remains are discovered in unmarked graves on the sites of BC residential schools.  Oh Canada... We revisit Donnie’s significant first career experience as an elite hockey player, coach and captain who only in retrospect sees the opportunities that opened doors for women in hockey for years to come. Donnie’s current role and scope of professional work as the GM for the Vancouver Park Board encompasses climate action, and an ambitious commitment to the de-colonisation of organisational practices and policies.  The big gift for us here is Donnie Rosa.  They shed light & hope for us many who continue to live in deliberate silence for fear we might hear our own truths. This is Donnie Rosa.  Follow  Donnie Rosa (they/she) @dlr9

Andre Picard is an award winning journalist, investigative health reporter & author. He has received honorary doctorates from six universities, including UBC and the University of Toronto. Despite the deserved acclaim Andre remains humble and is a passionate champion for Canadians. Andre’s recent bestseller is a must read for all ages, Neglected No More - The Urgent Need to Improve the Lives of Canada's Elders in the Wake of a Pandemic.  Andre responds to my question of genocide ongoing against Canada's elders, “Geronticide, the slaughter of  the elderly is what we saw during covid.” Andre shares a bit about what’s important to him now as he commences his own elder journey,  and we chat a bit about my own favourite subject, women.  Merci Monsieur Picard!

Tom Wilson is an iconic Canadian musician, modern Mohawk visual artist, & masterful storyteller.  As a child Tom dreamed of sailing on the back of a large turtle along a river returning to a man he knew only in his dreams until at age 53 Tom learns he was adopted and his birth mother is a beautiful Mohawk woman from Kahnawake along the St. Lawrence Seaway just outside Montreal.  Tom joins us from Hamilton, Ontario where he continues to create stunning visual art and is writing his second book, Blood Memory. 

The failure of the current paradigm of elder community & care In Canada, amplified by the pandemic, seems bleak and without hope.  Whether you are young adults with parents who  are in their late 50's perhaps with their eyes still wide shut, or you have entered your early 60s with eyes pryed open by the undeniable development that comes with age, the work of Sue Lantz is a beacon of hope and opportunity to re-imagine and co-create new a vibrant elder life and a game-changer for later stage care.   

Diane Hache garnered media attention late last year when she stripped and sold copper from old cable giving the final profit of $94,000 to the Yellowknife Women's Society.    A petite woman with a mischievous smile and a French-Canadian accent Diane possesses outsize courage and great heart. Her voracious appetite for life  and adventure challenge many of our ageist ideas about women and life as an elder Canadian.

Bob is an experienced leadership and engagement practitioner, a storyteller and a songwriter.  He led a unique civic engagement initiative when he co-founded the Music Mile arts district in Inglewood and the East Village.  He is an elder and artist in residence with vision for a vibrant downtown Calgary despite vacant spaces once populated with  Alberta's energy economy of days past. Bob is a champion for transformation. At 74 he disrupts the too often bleak Canadian paradigms and stigmas of aging.

Episode 3, recorded during a sunny pandemic afternoon, comes complete with sounds of a neighbourhood dog barking at squirrels somewhere in the background. We quickly settle into the dulcet tones of Ralph Benmergui, renowned Canadian broadcaster, producer,  voice on Toronto’s  JAZZ.FM, a few of his many roles past and present.  Buckle your seatbelt for this rare virtual road trip with Ralph complete with pitstops at some of today’s existential threats and filled with wisdom only a sage mensch is sure to share.

This conversation with Jules brings personal and powerful narratives to the near absent landscape of documentary work with and about elder women in Canada.  The catalyst for this episode is an unexpected powerhouse docu, KaYaMenTa, Sharing The Truths About Menopause, produced by award winning Indigenous documentarian Jules Koostachin whose work is deeply personal & transformational for her audience. We are  invited to consider how together we can change 'herstory'.   https://juleskoostachin.com @jakoostachin