Indigenous Affairs, Border Services and the Path of Dialogue in Canada - Peter Hill

For most of us, the term “border services” likely brings to mind protected boundaries, secured borders and the regulated movement of people and goods between nations. This would be true for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) as well, but it would not fully encompass the emerging partnership between Indigenous Peoples and the Agency, nor the role I am proud to play as CBSA Champion of Indigenous Peoples. It also would not describe the central place of dialogue in our work.

The dialogue intervention I’ll be describing in this paper consumed a year out of my life and went deeply under the surface of my own consciousness with an impact that still reverberates. It was an intense, whole-system engagement focusing on dialogue within a long-term healthcare facility. Although the intervention was conducted almost 22 years ago, it ofers a perspective that is still relevant today, as it focuses on the intensive use of dialogue, eventually taking in a whole organization. In using dialogue extensively in ensuing years since this experience, I’ve found that many of the issues and the aspects of this intervention remain constant across the various types and depths of interventions.

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