To close our 2025-2026 year of BILD-blogging, we welcome back guest blogger Marlene Hale from the Wet’suwet’en Nation, on the topic of her upcoming film. Marlene was born in Smithers, northern BC, and is a Chef, Activist, and Filmmaker. https://chefmaluh.ca/

Regular blog posts will be back in September!

This blog post includes a linked audio file. Just click on the link below if you would like to hear the post read aloud. Scroll down to read the text.

I am Marlene Hale from the Lak’silyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, in the northwest of so-called Canada. I am an Indigenous chef/activist/filmmaker, based in Montreal since 2012.

On January 8, 2019, I became a full-time activist to fight for my People’s rights and wellbeing. That was the month when the Coastal GasLink (CGL) forced an injunction on our people, to build a pipeline through 22,000 kilometers of Wet’suwet’en territory. Now, the pipeline is threatening the untamed Wedzin Kwa River. These actions threaten the salmon migration that feeds all of the Wet’suwet’en territory. This led me to making this film of “Systemic Racism.”

We live it in our daily lives.

We live systemic racism that shapes our lives. It exists in our healthcare, justice systems, education, housing, child welfare, environmental policies, employment.

At a time when universities are seeking meaningful ways to advance Truth and Reconciliation, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility initiatives, the documentary “Systemic Racism” offers a powerful platform for education, reflection, and engagement. This film is intended to foster discussions that move beyond awareness toward action.

The documentary goes beyond identifying problems. It seeks to create meaningful dialogue about solutions, accountability, and pathways toward justice. By highlighting real-world examples of environmental racism, inequitable access to services, and the ongoing impacts of colonial policies, the film encourages audiences to critically examine how systemic barriers continue to affect communities today.

Systemic racism in Canada is not an individual act or isolated incident. It is a structural reality embedded within the institutions, policies, and practices that shape everyday life. It operates through systems that appear neutral on the surface—such as healthcare, education, justice, housing, and environmental governance—but produce unequal outcomes based on race, identity, and history.

Unlike individual prejudice, systemic racism does not require personal intent. It persists through inherited structures, decision-making processes, and institutional norms that consistently disadvantage Indigenous, Black, and other racialized communities. These patterns are not accidental. They are the result of historical and ongoing processes that include colonization, displacement, exclusion, and unequal access to resources and power.

In Canada, systemic racism is deeply connected to colonial history and the continued impacts of settler-colonial governance. Indigenous Peoples in particular continue to experience the effects of policies designed to control land, limit autonomy, and suppress culture.

Imagine living in a community where clean drinking water is not guaranteed, where housing is overcrowded, where access to healthcare requires traveling hundreds of kilometers, and where history, language, and culture of your people were deliberately suppressed for generations. For many Indigenous communities across Canada, these are historical issues— they are realities that continue today.

These historical foundations continue to influence present-day institutions, shaping how services are delivered, how laws are enforced, and how communities are treated within public systems.

One of the most visible areas where systemic racism operates is within the justice system. Racialized and Indigenous individuals are disproportionately policed, charged, and incarcerated. These outcomes reflect broader systemic patterns, including bias in enforcement practices, unequal access to legal support, and institutional frameworks that do not adequately account for historical and social context. The result is a justice system that often reproduces inequality rather than addressing it.

Healthcare is another critical area where systemic racism is evident. Studies and lived experiences have shown that racialized communities often face barriers to access, delayed treatment, misdiagnosis, and unequal quality of care. These disparities are not simply the result of individual interactions but are rooted in broader systemic issues, including underrepresentation in medical institutions, cultural misunderstanding, and unequal distribution of healthcare resources. The impact is significant, contributing to long-term health inequities across populations.

The story of Joyce Echaquan has become one of the most powerful examples of the challenges Indigenous Peoples continue to face in Canada’s healthcare system.

In September 2020, Joyce Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw mother of seven from the community of Manawan, went to the hospital in Quebec seeking medical care. While in severe distress, she used her phone to livestream from her hospital bed. The video captured hospital staff making racist, degrading, discriminatory remarks toward her while she pleaded for help. She died shortly after. The incident sparked outrage across Canada and internationally. A public inquiry later concluded that racism and prejudice contributed to her death. Quebec coroner Géhane Kamel described the case as undeniably an example of systemic racism and stated that the care Joyce received was affected by stereotypes and assumptions about Indigenous people.

Education systems also reflect structural inequality. Curriculum content, disciplinary practices, and access to opportunities often fail to fully reflect the histories, knowledge systems, and lived experiences of Indigenous and racialized communities. In some cases, students from these communities face higher rates of disciplinary action and lower access to academic support, reinforcing cycles of exclusion and limiting long-term opportunities.

Environmental racism is another dimension of systemic inequality in Canada. Industrial development, resource extraction, and environmental decision-making have disproportionately affected Indigenous and marginalized communities. These communities are more likely to experience exposure to pollution, contaminated water, and environmental degradation, while having less influence over the decisions that impact their territories. This creates long-term impacts on health, livelihood, and cultural continuity.

There’s something in the water:

This film examines the disproportionate impact of ecological disasters on Black and Indigenous Communities in Nova Scotia.

Systemic racism is also reinforced through policy and governance structures. Decision-making processes often exclude meaningful participation from the communities most affected. Even when consultation occurs, power imbalances can limit the ability of communities to influence outcomes. This contributes to ongoing tensions between state institutions and Indigenous sovereignty, particularly in relation to land rights and resource management.

The effects of systemic racism are cumulative. They are not limited to one sector or one moment in time, but instead intersect across multiple systems, reinforcing disadvantage over generations. This interconnectedness means that inequality in one area—such as housing or employment—can directly influence outcomes in health, education, and justice.

Addressing systemic racism requires more than awareness. It demands structural change. This includes rethinking how institutions are designed, how decisions are made, and how accountability is enforced. It also requires centering Indigenous rights, advancing equity-based policies, and ensuring that those most impacted by systemic harm are meaningfully included in shaping solutions.

Ultimately, systemic racism is a question of structure, power, and responsibility. It challenges societies to look beyond individual actions and examine the systems that produce unequal outcomes. Understanding these structures is the first step toward meaningful change—toward building institutions that serve all people fairly, respectfully, and sustainably.

In conclusion, my hopes and dreams for this film are not only to name Systemic Racism, but to make it visible in a way that people can no longer turn away from it. I hope it becomes a space where truth is spoken with honesty, where silence is broken, and where lived experience is finally centered as knowledge.

My dream is that this film will help people understand that Systemic Racism is not about individual moments or isolated events—it is built into systems, policies, and everyday decisions. And because Systemic Racism is created, it can also be changed. I hope that the film will encourage reflection, responsibility, and action. Not only from institutions, but from all of us as human beings sharing this land.

You know, most importantly, I hope it supports Indigenous communities and all marginalized peoples in being heard, respected, and valued—not as subjects of study, but as knowledge holders, leaders, and visionaries of change.

If this film can spark even a shift in how someone sees the world, or how they choose to act within it, then it will have done its work.