Join us this week or the Nibi Debtaagwaad: Third Annual Voice of the Water Symposium.
Session 1: Protecting the Great Lakes from Enbridge Line 5
Over its lifespan, Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline has experienced dozens of spills, releasing millions of liters of oil into the surrounding lands and waters. Recent developments on the legal front have brought this pipeline into the spotlight as an urgent issue for all water protectors and advocates.
Join us for this important information session where you'll learn more about the impacts and implications for our Great Lakes.
Speakers: Sean McBrearty
Sean McBrearty
Michigan State Director, Clean Water Action
Sean learned the importance of protecting drinking water and our environment from a young age, growing up in a community devastated by perennial droughts and poor water and air quality in California’s central valley. He worked briefly as a firefighter before leaving California to attend school at Franciscan University in Ohio, where he studied History. Sean married his wife, Rose, in 2010 and moved to Grand Rapids, where he worked retail before joining Clean Water Action in Lansing in 2011.
Sean started out as a canvasser, became a Field Manager, then Senior Field Manager, and became the Canvass Director of the Lansing Office in July of 2013. From there Sean moved into program, policy, and legislative work, spending many years as Legislative and Policy Director before becoming Clean Water's Michigan State Director in 2023.
In his spare time, Sean enjoys woodworking, restoring and playing various musical instruments, reading, and teaching his two-year old daughter, Mary, to love and appreciate the Great Lakes and the beautiful natural world that surrounds us.
Moderated by, Michelle Woodhouse, Canada's National Observer
Michelle Woodhouse
Michelle is a Métis Nation and British-Canadian water protector who resides in Tkaronto/Toronto, Ontario near the shorelines of Lake Ontario and she has spent her whole life living in the Great Lakes watershed. Her Métis roots come from a place called Manitou Sakahikan (man-i-doo sa-ga-hi-gan) meaning 'spirit of the lake', also known as Lac Ste Anne in Alberta. During university and beyond Michelle has been involved in activism for water protections, Indigenous sovereignty and justice, and climate justice, including pipeline resistance. Michelle has a BA in Environmental Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Toronto and obtained her MASc in Environmental Applied Science and Management at Toronto Metropolitan University. Over the course of her Master’s she focused on water governance issues affecting the Great Lakes and Ontario. She has worked as a researcher and analyst for organizations such as the Great Lakes Policy Research Network, the International Joint Commission, and the Canadian Environmental Law Association. Michelle also served for three years as a Great Lakes advocate for Environmental Defence Canada and focused on resisting the Line 5 pipeline. Michelle now works independently as a freshwater and Great Lakes protection specialist and advocate. Michelle believes the Great Lakes are an important living relation for all who reside near these freshwater seas. Her hope is to see a shared reality for these water bodies where Indigenous Nations and settlers come together to ensure the restored ways of living in harmony with the waters that is in alignment with the Seventh Generation Principle.
Session 2: Tasha Beeds
Speaker:Tasha Beeds
Tasha Beeds is an Indigenous scholar of nêhiyaw, Scottish-Metis, and Bajan ancestry from the Treaty 6 territories of Saskatchewan. She is a kôhkom, a creative artist, a poet, a Water/Land Activator, Water Walker, and a Mide-kwe from Minweyweywigaan Lodge out of Roseau River First Nations and Wiikwemkoong Unceded First Nations. She is a traditional daughter to Daabaasanaqwat (Peter Atkinson), Turtle Clan from Baagwaanish Giiziibii. Tasha’s work highlights and celebrates Indigeneity while promoting Indigenous nationhood, sovereignty, and care and protection of the land and waters. She asserts Indigenous intellectual bundles, cultural legacies, and spiritual traditions have survived and will continue to flourish.
Tasha has been recognized for research/academic excellence with multiple scholarships including the CGS SSHRC for her M.A. on nêhiyaw writer Edward Ahenakew and her Ph.D. research on Indigenous knowledges with a focus on Indigenous relationships with the Water. She was a successful co-applicant for three other SSHRC Grants and two Ontario Council of the Arts Grants. Her latest research on Midewiwin Scrolls, garnered her 2 fellowships from the Bibliographic Society of America and an invite to become an Emerging Scholar. She will be presenting her work to the BSA and their Harvard affiliates in November of 2020. This fall she was selected as a Sovereign Futures Indigenous Environmental Leader by a Seattle-based Indigenous organization known as Na’ah Illahee and she has been short-listed for the NdN Changemaker Fellowship from the NdN Collective, another Indigenous based organization located south of the Medicine Line. Finally, Tasha was invited to apply to become a Fulbright Scholar. She has various creative and academic publications in addition to numerous research projects. Tasha is excited to be teaching and researching with the Indigenous Legal Orders Institute on many of the themes reflected in her life work.
Session 3: Elder Myrna Kicknosway - Water Teachings
Speaker Bio:
Boozhoo Aanii Sago Tansi,
My Shognoshi Nozwin is Myrna Kicknosway. I’m a Bodawatomi/Odawa Anishinaabe Kwe of the Loon Clan. I originate from these lands and waters that are part of Bkejiwanong Territories. I reside at Walpole Island upstream from Detroit/Windsor on the St. Clair River. I’m a mother, grandmother and great grandmother.
My background and skills have led me to work professionally and voluntarily if the fields of education, counselling, economic/employment planning, federal corrections, environment activism and community development.
My life journey, my personal learning and healing are providing me with an ever-expanding appreciation/gratefulness for who I am, and the knowledge and wisdom of the ancestors who walked on this creation before me. Helping others is my life purpose opening endless possibilities/ opportunities for resiliency, compassion, joy and forgiveness.
I acknowledge all those men and women, many of whom have passed into that beautiful Spirit realm, who have helped me on my journey. This journey has lead me towards recognition of the inter connectedness of all humans, the significance of culture, language, traditions and all those elements that help sustain life here, this place I call my mother.