In the current political climate Canadian identity has been front and centre in this country. We have a lively conversation about some of the things that make us Canadian and what we love about Canada. Canada is multicultural, welcoming immigrants and their cultures as well as the knowledge that they contribute to the growth of Canadian culture. We are a peacekeeping nation and value that role in the world. We share our own stories of being/becoming Canadian. We speak to the matter that not all have felt welcome to be part of Canada. We also explored the tension we experience between thinking globally and particularly trying to balance world issues with our local and provincial lives. Climate change, for example, takes a world effort and is being challenged in that effort by nationalistic boundaries, although the scientific community is one that cooperates beyond those boundaries. Listen as we touch on Justice Murray Sinclair's four identity questions: Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Who am I?

A mantra that we hear a lot today is that everything is broken. How do we respond when we hear that Canada is broken, or the climate is broken, or the relationship is broken and the only way to fix it is to throw everything out and start over? The notion that despair generalizes, and hope particularizes can be applied as a fundamental truth to help us look beyond the ‘everything is broken’ mentality to what is true about a situation. Looking at all sides of an issue in all its complexity helps to break it down into smaller components identifying those things that aren’t working and revealing those things that are working just fine. Listen as we share our thoughts and experiences on the topic that goes from fixing things, to complexity, to hope and despair and finally to being human.

How important is hope in our lives? How do we maintain hope as we grow older? What supports hope day to day? Through our conversation, we grapple with what hope means to us in our daily lives. As we share our stories, it becomes evident that having a community is crucial to having hope. From immigrants hoping for a new life in freedom, to moving forward together after the death of parents, hope is nurtured in the presence of others and is stronger when shared with others. Caring for others is a hopeful act, listening, sharing food, or sitting with someone can instill hope. Corporate and institutional worlds can and do build in hopeful strategies to support community and connection. To continue to hope in the face of world events or personal challenges takes courage and it is as essential to us as air, food and water.