Massey Lecture on human rights to come to Fort St. John

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Current image: Connie Greyeyes talked about Red Dress Day on the latest episode of Before the Peace (Indian Residential School Survivors Society) — Connie Greyeyes will be a speaker at the Massey Lecture ‘Understanding Human Rights: In Fort St. John and Beyond’ scheduled for October 4th at the Lido Theatre. (Indian Residential School Survivors Society)

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — A lecture series exploring complex contemporary issues will make a stop at Fort St. John’s Lido Theatre in early October.

Created to honour former Canadian governor-general Vincent Massey, the Massey Lectures were established in the 1960s and regarded as “the most important” public lectures in Canada.

The event, featuring thinkers, writers and scholars exploring ideas, is promoted by the CBC.

This year, the theme will centre around universality, or the core commitment to human rights in the wake of the devastation of the holocaust and the Second World War.

The 2025 edition of the Massey Lectures will be hosted by activist and former secretary of Amnesty International Canada, Alex Neve.

Its first event took place in Toronto last week, and between stops in Edmonton on October 1st and Newfoundland on October 15th, a stop in Fort St. John will take place.

Scheduled for October 4th, the date will coincide with the National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).

The Fort St. John event will also feature both Connie Greyeyes and Angela White from the Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS).

Greyeyes is the murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls and two-spirit (MMIWG2S) coordinator with the IRSSS, and says her friendship with Neve goes back several years.

Greyeyes describes Neve, a lawyer and philanthropist, as “everything amazing and good in this world.” Their bond dates back to when a report examining gender and Indigenous rights and energy development, ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind,’ was published by Amnesty International Canada in 2016.

“We have always maintained a friendship,” said Greyeyes. “He had messaged me and said: ’I’ve got some big news to share.’

“He got on the phone, and he told me that he was selected to do this year’s Massey Lectures for CBC and the theme around it is international human rights.

“He said: ‘I would love if in between the five major cities, we could do one in Fort St John.’”

The lecture will examine where “human rights are applied selectively, withdrawn on the whims of political leaders or ignored altogether, and the broken promise is palpable in humanity’s darkest moments, not only in violent conflict, but also in the economic, political and social structures of our fractured world,” according to its website.

Greyeyes, whose parents were residential school survivors, feels even basic human rights are often misinterpreted in 2025.

“You wouldn’t believe how many people mistake what human rights violations really are,” said Greyeyes. “When Covid happened, people were like, these are my human rights.

“It was so frustrating. Being the daughter of residential school survivors who were taken to schools and abused, those are human rights violations.

“When are we going to evolve? When are people going to evolve into understanding that we don’t have to be the same. We don’t have to be alike but you do have to be a kind human being.”

The free event, ‘Universal Human Rights: In Fort St. John and Beyond,’ will take place on Saturday, October 4th. Doors open at 12:30 p.m. at the theatre at 10156 100th Avenue. The event will last from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

To reserve a spot, visit the event’s website.