Soup, bannock create community at New West City Hall

Editor's note: this piece makes mention of residential schools. 

It's a cold Wednesday afternoon outside city hall, but as I step into the old building along Royal Avenue, I'm greeted warmly by Christina Coolidge, the city's manager of Indigenous relations—and guided to a room on the second floor. 

I'm finally able to make it to a soup and bannock event, which are held weekly, usually around lunchtime. I'd heard about it a few times: once when I interviewed her in September, and again during a city council presentation in October. 

If you had to give a more formal title to this initiative, Coolidge previously called it the Elder-in-residence program—though the event is far from formal. It lasts a couple of hours, and city staff can drop in, grab some soup and bannock, and stay to enjoy community and conversation. The Elder is also available for one-on-one time, and since September, he's sat in on meetings, offering guidance from an Indigenous perspective. Coolidge says the point is for everyone to find a creative, unifying way forward when it comes to truth and reconciliation.

"The firefighters made the soup today!" Coolidge says elatedly. "I've usually made it, but they wanted to contribute."

I'm shown into a room that's not a cafeteria—it's a boardroom—but it smells delicious. I immediately pinpoint green onions in the air, which add another layer of life to the space. 

Boardrooms can be very austere. In this moment, this one is not.

"So, the soup is over there," says Coolidge, pointing to a massive pot on a table at the back left corner of the room, "and Bill brought his famous bannock. But let me introduce you to Bill first."

We make our way past about two dozen people, some of whom I recognize. Some of them give me a wave hello, while others are embedded in various degrees of conversation. We make it over to William "Bill" Nelson, the Indigenous Elder who is listening and laughing while two other city staff members talk about how excited they are for the upcoming December holidays. 

I introduce myself to Nelson, letting him know I've been looking forward to our interview since I talked to Coolidge about her plans to help with reconciliation at City Hall. 

"Oh, you can do the interview, no problem at all," says Nelson, "but first, soup and bannock," he adds with a laugh, pointing to the table. "My niece made the bannock."

I give in with a chuckle, and head over to the table to grab a bowl of soup and a couple of pieces of bannock. Before I know it, the soup and the bannock I'd placed in front of me are pretty much gone—I'd essentially inhaled it while people watching the room. Yes, it was delicious. 

While I take the last bites of my bannock, Nelson—a residential school survivor—and I get to talking: his mother married into a Nisga'a family, but his original line is Gitxsan. "The old village is Gitanmaax, that would be Old Hazelton," he explains, noting that he currently lives in Vancouver. 

"Listen," he says intently, leaning in to really underscore what he's about to say next, "I'm a sham." I'm shocked when he says this, because nothing could be further from the truth. I ask him to explain. 

"I'm riding on the coattails of a very strong young lady," he says with a hearty laugh, pointing to Coolidge, who hears the back half of his sentence, and looks at him with wide eyes, then smiles warmly. Now the two of us are really committed to hearing what Nelson has to say. 

"My true belief is this: if there's something so impossible to do, give it to the women. If you disbelieve that ... think of the mother. And I believe that all the garbage we go through, I thoroughly believe it's going to be healed by the women," Nelson explains. "I'm either going to be alongside [the healing] or get the heck out of the way."

Nelson says he was inspired to get involved knowing that Coolidge was doing important work. "It was just a commitment to help her and what she wanted to create."

Coolidge previously acknowledged the juxtaposition of being Indigenous and working in a bureaucratic institution with ties to a colonial past. 

“This is the first time I’ve ever worked in a colonial government setting, and so you hear many different things as an Indigenous person that it’s very challenging, and a lot of Indigenous people are really harmed by these positions,” Coolidge told New West Anchor in September. Her main goal at the city is to guide and help facilitate the steps required for the city's reconciliation efforts. 

“I found that the more that I give, the more [my colleagues] return," Coolidge said at the time." It becomes this reciprocal thing where they’re letting their walls down a little bit, and bringing their mental, emotional, spiritual beings into the room with me, rather than just their professional hat.”

Nelson says he shares that same sense of giving: while he's on hand every Wednesday to enjoy food and conversation with those at City Hall, he says there's more than just guidance from him that happens. 

"What is declared is a huge healing within myself, and within the people of the room here."

And what better way to continue to foster that relationship, Nelson asks, by breaking down more barriers through food?

"The soup and bannock, it has dissolved all these walls. It has given them the opportunity to see each other. In all our Indigenous societies, food has been an important factor in anything that has to be done because the food not only nourishes the body. It warms the heart. When we get going to whatever we have to do, our hearts [are] in the right place for sure."

Nelson doesn't shy away from speaking about an "us and them" mentality he's previously carried, noting that the food has led to conversations that have allowed him to reflect on the difficulties in life that he's faced. 

"I'm a product of residential school. I know firsthand of the abuses, and knowledge of what happened after me, after I got out of school. All of those I carried around, and you focus on a group of people. You find some comfort in blaming them, and it was easy, because [to me] they weren't human beings with feelings. Then you meet everybody, and you realize they have all the same hurts, the same joys," says Nelson. 

That kind of openness transposes into a policy for everyone who attends the soup and bannock lunch: Nelson simply asks that everyone leave their titles outside the door and to come in with an open heart and mind, whether it's the mayor, a city inspector, or a clerk. The secret to the entire thing, Nelson says, is that the food is the vessel for something bigger than everyone.

"Soup and bannock is soup and bannock. What makes it unique in this place is you bring your own unique flavour. That's what makes it special. You each bring your own unique flavour."

And Nelson wishes other municipalities would do something similar. 

"Find a Christina," he says. "Less thinking. More doing."