We sat down with Carol Off, former guest on the podcast and longtime co-host of CBC Radio’s As It Happens, to talk about her new book, True Patriot Love: Reporting from the Frontlines of Canadian Sovereignty. How does a reporter who watched nationalism tear apart the former Yugoslavia come to say, out loud, that she truly, patriotically loves this country?

We’re talking:

• The difference between nationalism, built on shared blood and heritage, and civic patriotism, built on an idea
• Why loving Canada has to include its colonial history and unfinished business rather than paper over it
• Who speaks for Canada as separatist movements grow in Quebec and Alberta, and the anti-immigrant current Carol sees running through parts of both
• Why cultural sovereignty (our own news, books, film and radio) matters as much as steel and oil

Carol traces her patriotism back to Mrs. Barchuk’s Grade 4 class in West Kildonan, where the students drew flag designs in crayon while Lester Pearson was being booed by veterans in Winnipeg for proposing a new one. Decades later, she sat on a bench outside the same school, looking at a flag that didn’t exist when she was a student there, and thought about everything it had come to carry: the convoy, Quebec’s rejection of it, its colonial weight for Indigenous peoples.

Her conclusion is that Canada’s defining trait is the ability to hold all of that at once. It’s also why visitors to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights sometimes leave frustrated that they couldn’t find a single national story. Carol’s answer: that is the story.

Catch Carol in Winnipeg on November 25th to talk about her book with Niigaan Sinclair at McNally Robinson.

True Patriot Love: Reporting from the Frontlines of Canadian Sovereignty is out now.

Victor Mondaca once slept by the river in Winnipeg with nothing but the clothes on his back. Today he works in executive leadership in community-based housing and co-founded Nahuen Consultation with his partner Amanda, training frontline workers, librarians, students and everyday Winnipeggers in de-escalation, harm reduction and how to reverse an overdose.

We sat down with Victor, who is Mapuche, to talk about what actually makes a community safer, and why pushing people out of sight makes things worse.

We’re talking:

• Recovery as something built over time through culture, family and purpose, and the role shame plays in keeping people from help
• What reconciliation between police and Indigenous communities would actually require
• How science can break down stigma around substance use, and why we treat some substances so differently from others
• What real community safety looks like, and who gets left out when we push people out of sight

Victor’s argument is simple and harder to practice than it sounds: if we want safer neighbourhoods, the people most at risk have to be part of the “we.” He has responded to multiple overdoses while out in our city because the person was in plain view. Move people out of sight, and outreach workers can’t find them either.

As Victor puts it: “If the end goal is safety, then we need to look at the most vulnerable and ensure their safety too.”

Victor Recommends:

• Reading: Drug Use for Grown-Ups by Dr. Carl L. Hart, which challenges common assumptions about drugs, drug use and drug policy.
• Reading: “Anatomy of a hush-up: How Health Canada buried the safe supply expert reviews” by Euan Thomson at Drug Data Decoded, an investigation into expert reports on safer supply that Health Canada never released.
• Watching: “Connecting to Culture,” a three-part series from the First Nations Health Authority on Indigenous harm reduction, told by Elders, peers and youth.
• Watching: “The Power of Addiction and the Addiction of Power” by Dr. Gabor Maté, a talk on addiction, trauma and disconnection that asks what has happened to someone rather than what is wrong with them.

Learn more about Nahuen Consultation—including upcoming harm reduction training opportunities in Winnipeg—on their website.

After years in a gang, addiction and 17 months in custody, Sean Rayland-Boubar, an Anishinaabe entrepreneur from Sagkeeng First Nation, built Red Rebel Armour, a Winnipeg streetwear company that hires people leaving the justice system. He's giving others the second chance he had to fight for, while still facing many of the same barriers they do.

Sean tells Stuart why the gangs have always had one advantage over every employment program: they'll put you to work the day you get out. Red Rebel Armour is his attempt to match that low barrier to entry with work that leads somewhere better.

We're talking:

• Why transportation, not a criminal record, is often the biggest barrier to employment
• How flexibility and accountability work together in second-chance hiring
• How jail can feed gang recruitment instead of ending it
• Reconciliation, from treaty obligations to residential school denialism online
• The personal costs of being a cycle breaker

Sean also shares the story behind Red Rebel Armour's Every Child Matters design, which creates seasonal jobs each September and funds donations to local organizations.

He closes by reflecting on the documentary about his work with Elder Lionel Houston, with a message for anyone in prison who believes their life is over: "Whatever you're going through is just a season."

Watch the "Pain into Purpose" documentary

Visit the Red Rebel Armour website