Humans, On Rights

When Dr. Lorena Sekwan Fontaine was a child, her aunts and uncles would turn their backs or leave the room whenever they spoke Cree. She thought they were hiding something from her. They were: the language itself, learned the hard way in residential schools, where speaking it meant being hit. That memory sits at the centre of this conversation with Stuart Murray, a wide-ranging look at what Fontaine calls linguicide, the deliberate killing of a language, and what it means for Canada's human righ

Winnipeg designer, artist, and storyteller Lennard Taylor joins Stuart Murray to talk about clothing as identity, not just fabric. Lennard traces his path from a soccer career cut short by injury to two decades of painting, sewing, and dressing people out of his studio and boutique on Sherbrooke Street. Lennard pushes back against fast fashion, arguing that most people have lost the basic skill and instinct of dressing themselves with intention. He talks about his "bloodline" signature, a red

Johise Namwira joins Stuart to talk about what it means to bring the National Black Canadian Summit to Winnipeg, and why she sees it as a movement rather than a moment. Namwira came to Winnipeg as a child after her family fled the Congo War, and later studied African studies at Oxford, a path that shapes how she talks about displacement, memory, and who gets left out of Canadian history. This is the furthest west the summit has ever travelled, and Namwira is direct about why: Winnipeg has a r

Indigenous Tourism Manitoba's work runs in two directions at once: on one side, indigenous business owners who need support getting market ready, connected to funders, and connected to each other. On the other, a public that often can't name a single indigenous-owned business. As CEO, Holly Spence has spent her career building the links on both sides, work she ties directly to what reconciliation actually requires. We're talking: Holly's own experience learning to walk between two systems, f

Kate Sjoberg has been calling for more housing in Winnipeg since long before she became Executive Director of Resource Assistance for Youth (RaY). With over two decades in community development and nonprofit leadership, including prior roles at the Wrench, North Point Douglas Women's Centre, the Spence Neighbourhood Association, and Main Street Project, she's seen the city's homelessness response from nearly every angle. Her assessment of the city's encampment policy is blunt: the map of wher

What does it mean to "age out" of a support system? For Manitobans with disabilities, it means renegotiating your entire life at 18, at 21, at 65 - arbitrary ages set by government departments that don't talk to each other. David Kron, executive director of the Cerebral Palsy Association of Manitoba, joins Stuart Murray to talk about “Equality, Dignity, and Belonging: Building a Better System for People with Disabilities in Manitoba” - the landmark report he helped steer through a five-year p