Candice Pete makes a book club part of a bigger picture

Candice Pete believes that books and dialogue are the way to bridge issues.

It’s not your standard book club, but it is a step towards realizing a dream for Candice Pete.

Around a big boardroom table, at an aboriginal law office in Saskatoon, Pete sits with a handful of people. It’s a cold Saturday afternoon. Some attendees are lawyers, there’s a law student, and at least one person has no background at all on the topic of duty to consult.

But, the titles and backgrounds don’t matter – that’s not the point.

“The point is, we talk about change,” said Pete.

“Dialogue will lead to other positive things … leads to building capacity in aboriginal communities.”

That is her goal; capacity for First Nations communities.

She worked towards that as a manager with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. She’s since moved on to being a director with the Indigenous Peoples Resource Management Program at the University of Saskatchewan and is still looking to help communities grow.

“I still like to talk about things like duty to consult, land regimes and systems of policy and how do we become familiar with those systems to that we can maneuver through and within them,” Pete said.

“I like to read and so I thought, I should start a book club.”

She talked to some friends and her aunt, and realized there were others who would be interested.

“So I thought why don’t we start getting together and start to talk about these things, and maybe by talking about these things we can teach each other and start talking to other people … and work in some way that will help build capacity within our community and individuals,” Pete said.

“It’s basically for anyone who is interested and wants to have open discussion.”

But the book club, which has met twice with different people attending each time, just the beginning for Pete.

She sees the information sharing getting bigger going into the future.

Pete sees there being volunteer opportunities for people – policy people teaching communities how to develop process or lawyers taking the time to create briefings from decisions that will impact communities.

There has been a workshop on how to read financial statements, and Pete in her job is working on developing an aboriginal executive series to offer training for new chiefs and council.

The time between work and life blurs, but that is the way Pete likes it.

“I like to read and I like to keep myself busy. This is a positive way to keep myself busy,” she said.

“That’s what I was taught, my dad always used to talk about helping people … he helped so many people, but he never expected anything back.”

The first book is finished, and the group is emailing to decide what’s next.

Pete said her aunt suggested a book on administrative law (and she’s not sure if it’s a joke). It might not be a standard book club pick, but for Pete it’s just another opportunity.

“We need to start to build information on getting to know what the systems are.”

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