Demand:

That UCalgary Cares Indigenous Engagement and Leadership program leads be fully remunerated for their time and energy, from interviews to pre-departure planning and workshops to the trip itself. This would involve a salary and overtime pay if/when applicable. 

Background:

We, former participants of the UCalgary Cares Indigenous Engagement and Leadership program, are releasing this petition because of how poorly the University has treated our incredible friend and mentor Tessa Bailey, who ran the UCalgary Cares Indigenous Engagement and Leadership program for five years without pay. This is completely unacceptable and reflects poorly on the University of Calgary. 

The UCalgary Cares Indigenous Engagement and Leadership program is a popular co-curricular program run through U of C’s Leadership and Student Engagement Office. Its purpose is to give UCalgary students the opportunity to “learn from Indigenous Elders and honour Indigenous peoples’ stories, knowledges, and traditions as well as gain a better understanding of the history and worldview of Indigenous peoples in Canada.” This program, however, fails to respect Indigenous peoples in one key way: it does not remunerate its Indigenous team leads for the hundreds of hours of work they put in to make the program a reality. 

As a program lead, Tessa, who is Indigenous, organized five years worth of 10-day trips (in addition to numerous group interviews and dozens of pre-departure workshops). Each year she took 10-15 U of C students (most of them non-Indigenous) to her home territory in the Yukon and taught them about topics including Indigenous peoples, Indigenous ways of knowing, and colonialism. On these trips, Tessa was active with participants 13-16 hours a day - organizing, teaching, guiding, caring, and energizing (not to mention driving for multiple hours each day) - and responsible for them (and on call) 24/7. At times, this was no easy task due to having to navigate numerous participants' emotional well-being. For example, On the 2018 trip, there was a particular participant that was difficult and aggressive with almost everyone, including leadership. This proved to be a strenuous task on Tessa as she constantly had to remove herself to handle various situations involving this participant to protect everyone’s safety and the mentioned difficult participant. 

Tessa's contributions cannot and should not be reduced to volunteer work or a "professional development opportunity", especially considering the hazards that come along with navigating numerous students in an unknown to them environment. Once again, Tessa did all of the work described in the above paragraph without any pay from the University of Calgary, this at a time when she was experiencing financial insecurity. One year, Tessa actually had to take time off work in order to run the program; this meant that running the program actually cost her money. That same year, Tessa requested that she be paid a very modest $1500 for her hard work as program lead. This amount was approved by HR, but ultimately and callously denied by Student and Enrollment Services.

The University’s treatment of Tessa and other UCalgary Cares Indigenous Engagement and Leadership program leads, besides being exploitive (unpaid internships come to mind), reeks of settler entitlement to Indigenous knowledge and energy. It blatantly contradicts not only common decency, but also the University’s key Indigenous strategy commitment to “establishing a welcoming, inclusive, and culturally competent campus community that respects, includes, and promotes Indigenous ways of knowing, teaching, learning, and research” - failing to remunerate Indigenous people for the knowledge they contribute to the campus community is the opposite of respectful. It is also worth noting that the UCalgary Cares Indigenous Engagement and Leadership program is cited as an example of “Transforming Ways of Connecting” in that section of the university’s Indigenous strategy, in which the University expresses a commitment to supporting “the Indigenous principle of community reciprocity.” There is nothing reciprocal about expecting Indigenous people to work for free.

Next year, another Indigenous youth is expected to run the UCalgary Cares Indigenous Engagement and Leadership program. Once again, they are being asked to do this for free. Tessa has spoken out about her experiences in hopes that this individual and others like them will not be subjected to the same disrespect and devaluation as she was in her time as program lead. This cycle of exploitation and depreciation cannot be allowed to continue in good conscience. We demand better from the University of Calgary and for all UCalgary Cares Indigenous Engagement and Leadership program leads.

Signed:

Jackson Campbell (2017 participant)

Alix Devlin (2018 participant)

Tanisha Henry (2018 participant)

Justine Keefer (2018 & 2019 participant)

Kaylee Novakovski (2019 participant)

Savana Roy (2018 participant)

Elizabeth Venton-Parnell (2019 participant)

Jaime Wood (2019 participant)