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R e f l e c t i o n s o n a CONFERENCE Délibérément audacieux J a n . 3 1 - F e b . 3 , 2 0 1 8 T o r o n t o , O N 34 Ontario School Library Association February 1 st, 2018 was the day I anxiously anticipated since last year. My annual participation in the largest library conference in the country, organized by the ontario Library association, has been a constant source of education, energy and inspiration to implement the best practices and innovative technologies used by library and information professionals. as usual, I was not disappointed. each year, the conference focuses its program around a theme. This year, the theme was "fearless by Design". The theme alone covers a whole array of issues, from ensuring access to facts and truth in the era of "alternative truths" and "fake news", to empowering libraries and librarians to take risks in providing the right to information, literacy and education for all, to quote oLa President, Leslie weir. The important part of the conference was finding your own voice and telling your own story. all conference speakers called for the courage to share one's own narrative, no matter how painful the past and how prejudiced the audience. I was especially impressed by these three speakers: Jesse wente, Jael richardson, and naomi Klein. Below are my observations and notes from their lectures. Thursday Keynote Speaker: Jesse Wente, Ojibwe Broadcaster, Curator, Producer, Activist In 2012, wente curated the world's largest retrospective of Indigenous films, titled First Peoples Cinema: 1,500 Nations, One Tradition and its accompanying gallery exhibition, Home on Native Land. he is currently producing his first film, a screen adaptation of Thomas King's best-selling book, The Inconvenient Indian. he has recently become the first head of newly created Indigenous Screen office. negative portrayal of Indigenous people by the media is Canada's storytelling issue. It reflects how the larger community relates to indigenous issues. wente has called for a cultural appropriation debate in Canadian literature. he pointed out that it was public policy to steal native stories for 70 years, and there is still a fear to change from people who are told they cannot do things the way they used to. The debate also concerns authors who write about Indigenous issues without innate knowledge. wente refers to them as "cottage country natives". he also talked about the amendment to the Indian act whose Potlatch Ban outlawed all Indigenous ceremonies. In the aftermath of that, all stories and artifacts were taken away from their rightful owners to be placed in museums and archives. wente reminisced about his grandmother norma who only spoke ojibway when she was taken to a residential school in Spanish, ontario (St. Joseph school for girls) when she was six. She spent ten years at the school where all stories were taken away from her. In the process, she was taught to be ashamed of her heritage. when she moved to Toronto after finishing the school, she claimed she was Italian. To add insult to injury, she worked at the albany Club - a private club founded by Sir John a. Macdonald. That narrative gap was appropriated by sports clubs and cinema as well. for example, football mascots created at the time bore such names as Cleveland Indians, washington redskins and Kansas City Chiefs. Once Upon A Time in the West, High Noon, Rio Grande, are just a few movies from the whole "western cinema" genre created at the time that used "Indian" motifs to steal or change the narrative. Despite efforts to right the wrongs over the last few years, Canadians are radically misinformed by these stories. wente proposed de-colonizing libraries. he went on to say that in light of cultural appropriation of Indigenous history, we have to question everything. we need new people in the newsrooms to get different perspectives. a well-functioning ecosystem is, in his view, needed for natural sustainability. we should listen to nature and diversify to get different perspectives. To illustrate his point, wente said: "anishinaabe have lived here for 15 thousand years and Canada just celebrated the sesquicentennial 'birthday thing'." Society needs to overcome a fear of what it means to reconcile.