Episode 57: What Brings You Hope?

Ahkameyimok Podcast with Perry Bellegarde

As National Chief, Perry Bellegarde has always focused on the importance hope: "Always leave more hope in a room than was there when you arrived."

Over the 57 episodes of the Ahkameyimok Podcast, no matter how difficult the conversation or the issue, he always ends by asking his guests this question:

What brings you hope?

As his time as National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations comes to an end, after choosing not to seek re-election, we are looking back at some of his favorite answers to that question about hope.

They are inspiring, thought provoking and speak to a better future for First Nations.

01: 18 -- Chief Willie Littlechild - former TRC Commissioner, Member of Parliament, lawyer, social activist and author of the first draft of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

02:24 Dr Lorna Williams - Canada's leading expert on the promotion and revival of Indigenous languages.

4:14 William Prince - Award winning and chart topping country music star

6:30 Rt Hon Brian Mulroney - Canada's 18th Prime Minister

7:40 Dr Dan Longboat - Founding Director of Trent University's Indigenous Environmental Science Program

10:42 Marion Crowe - CEO of the First Nations Health Managers Association

11:41 Wade Davis, best-selling author, film-maker, explorer, UBC Anthropology Professor

12:32 Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond - fmr judge, law professor, children's advocate

14:27 Jagmeet Singh - Leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada

15:13 Bobbie Jo Greenland-Morgan - Grand Chief of the Gwich'in Tribal Council

17:40 Kevin Loring - Artistic Director of the Indigenous Theatre, National Arts Centre, Ottawa

19:40 Elder Wilfred Buck - leading First Nations astronomy and star lore expert

21:52 Senator Kim Pate - international expert in legal and prison reform

24:01 Brigadier-General Joe Paul, the highest ranking First Nations officer in the Canadian Armed Forces

25:12 Brad Regehr - The first First Nations President of the Canadian Bar Association

26:21 Louise Bernice Halfe - Canada's first Indigenous Parliamentary Poet Laureate

28:05 Dr Alika Lafontaine - the first Indigenous person elected as the President of the Canadian Medical Association

30:03 Romeo Saganash, former Member of Parliament, and leading advocate for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

31:41 Conner Roulette, First Nations gold medal winning junior hockey star

33:09 Chief Cadmus Delorme, Cowessess First Nation, home to 751 unmarked graves found at the Marieval Residential School

34:30 Tom Jackson, actor, musician, social activist

36:36 Marie Wilson, former Commissioner, Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The Akhameyimok Podcast is produced by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions

Theme music is by the Red Dog Singers, Treaty 4 territory, Saskatchewan

For more on the work of the Assembly of First Nations, visit AFN.ca