14 Anti-racism and Intercultural Vision with Adele Halliday

02/08/21 • 61 min

Meet Adele Halliday, the Anti-Racism and Equity Officer, for the United Church of Canada. Adele has served related positions at the national offices of UCC for 15 years. In this conversation, Adele explains clearly the differences between racism, racial justice, anti-racism and what it means to hold an “intercultural vision” in the United Church context. She offers concrete examples of areas of racial injustices that are happening in the church. This conversation reflects how important it is for local communities of faith to be engaged in anti-racism work. Adele shares some of the spiritual grounding that keeps her going in this work: “It’s my calling.”

This new position was created in response to the United Church’s commitment to becoming an anti-racist denomination. In this role Adele will help the church live into its commitment, which will take continuous effort, reaching out to all parts of the church, equipping leaders, engaging with anti-racist practices, building on past efforts, weaving together theology and concrete strategies.

We are blessed to have Adele choosing to share her passion and her skills with us in these times!

Your portal to UCC anti-racism resources and actions is https://united-church.ca/social-action/justice-initiatives/anti-racism.

In the conversation, Adele reads from "A Vision for Becoming and Intercultural Church". The full document can be found here: https://united-church.ca/community-faith/being-community/intercultural-ministries/vision-becoming-intercultural-church

We are gradually building a list of resources related to racial justice issues in our eastern Regions. You can find that list here: https://ucceast.ca/justice-mission-outreach-2/racial-justice/

You can reach us by email at [email protected] .
Remember you can always find more what’s happening with Justice, Mission, and Outreach by visiting the website, https://ucceast.ca/justice-mission-outreach-2/ and by joining the Facebook Group, Justice and Mission – UCC Atlantic.

We are blessed to have Adele choosing to share her passion and her skills with us in these times!

Your portal to UCC anti-racism resources and actions is https://united-church.ca/social-action/justice-initiatives/anti-racism.

We are gradually building a list of resources related to racial justice issues in our eastern Regions. You can find that list here: https://ucceast.ca/justice-mission-outreach-2/racial-justice/

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13 Nancy Hartling: The Senate, Guaranteed Income, Faith and Justice, and more!

Senator Nancy Hartling has deep roots in frontline work for social change. In this conversation, we hear how even as a child she was seeking to understand the experiences of others and wanting fairness for all. She offers us a short primer on the role and function of the Canadian Senate. Then she and Laura discuss Guaranteed Livable Income and why this idea is an important conversation for Canada today. Senator Hartling is a member of the United Church and is a living example of how faith, and hope, and political life can be well integrated.

Nancy J. Hartling was appointed to the Senate as an independent Senator for New Brunswick in November 2016. With a career focused on families and social issues, she is well versed on mental health, poverty, violence against women, and affordable housing. She has advocated extensively for socio-economic issues facing families, particularly single parents and their children. Senator Hartling is a dedicated proponent of social justice and human rights and is an advocate for issues relating to mental health, diabetes, and Basic Income.

Get involved:

As the movement for a Guaranteed Livable Income continues to grow among the people of The United Church of Canada, an emerging Guaranteed Livable Income network is seeking individuals to come forward to help grow the effort further as they plan actions in 2021! The network's co-chairs area Barry Morris and former Moderator and retired Senator, the Very Reverend, the Honorable Dr. Lois Wilson. In the eastern Regional Councils, this work of this network is supported by another former Moderator, the Very Reverend Dr. Marion Pardy. Please contact Lori Neale at [email protected] for more details, and to join the network.

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15 Environmental Racism with Dr. Ingrid Waldron

Systemic racism may seem challenging to understand, but with examples from Dr. Ingrid Waldron’s research and her lively explanations of how threats to land and water, climate change, and the pandemic negatively impact Black and Indigenous communities, it becomes very clear.

Dr. Ingrid Waldron is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health at Dalhousie University and the Director of the NGO Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project (The ENRICH Project). As the Director of the ENRICH Project over the last eight years, Dr. Waldron has been investigating the socio-economic, political, and health effects of environmental racism and other public infrastructure inequalities in Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities.

The ENRICH Project formed the basis to Dr. Waldron’s first book There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities, which received the 2020 Society for Socialist Studies Errol Sharpe Book Prize and the 2019 Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing.
The 2020 Netflix documentary There’s Something in the Water is based on Dr. Waldron’s book and was co-produced by Waldron, actor Elliot Page, Ian Daniel, and Julia Sanderson.

The ENRICH Project also formed the basis to the creation of the provincial private members bill An Act to Address Environmental Racism (Bill 111), which was introduced in the Nova Scotia Legislature on April 29, 2015, and the federal private members bill a National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism (Bill C-230), which was introduced in the House of Commons on February 26, 2020 and moved to second reading on December 8, 2020.

At the end of 2020, Dr. Waldron co-founded the National Anti-Environmental Racism Coalition with Naolo Charles from the Black Environmental Initiative. The Coalition has brought together organizations in the environmental and climate change sector across Canada to collaborate on projects and share expertise and resources to address environmental racism and climate change impacts in Indigenous, Black, and other marginalized communities across Canada.

Find out more about The ENRICH Project.

We are gradually building a list of resources related to racial justice issues in our UCC eastern Regions. You can find that list here: https://ucceast.ca/justice-mission-outreach-2/racial-justice/