From Grassroots NGOs to Federal Politics with Rayna Sutherland

In our fifth episode, of “From Campus to Career: Development Practitioners in Action,” we are in conversation with Rayna Sutherland.

Rayna Sutherland (she/her) is a current BCL/JD Candidate at the McGill Faculty of Law. She recently spent four years in Canadian Parliament and the federal government. She began as a Parliamentary Intern working with progressive Members of Parliament across party lines and ended as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. Prior to politics, she worked with grassroots social justice organizations including MVIWATA Manyara in Tanzania, Natural Justice in South Africa and Resource Africa’s global office. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto and is an alumna of the International Development Studies (IDS) Co-op Program at the Scarborough Campus. Across law, politics, government and social justice work, the critical thinking skills and anti-oppressive lens of the IDS Program continue to serve her today.

Join us to learn about Rayna’s journey, from her international development work in grassroots social justice organizations to her career in Canadian politics, and the lessons she’s learned along the way. 

The Knowledge Equity Lab's Season 4, podcast series, "From Campus to Career" features conversations with some of the stellar alumni from University of Toronto’s International Development Studies Co-op program, uncovering the stories behind their careers in global development. From the classroom to the field, these conversations trace the choices, pivots, and passions that shaped their journeys and continue to inspire new ways of thinking about global and local development.

Transcript

Malika Daya (00:01): Hi everyone and welcome back to the Knowledge Equity Lab's podcast, “From Campus to Career, Development Practitioners in Action.” In this series, we're speaking to some of the stellar alumni from University of Toronto's International Development Studies Co-op program, learning about their time in the program and beyond, exploring the diverse choices, pathways and experiences that shaped their careers in global development.

I'm Malika Daya, your host for the season, and a former graduate of the IDS Co-op program at UTSC. On today's episode, we'll be speaking with Rayna Sutherland.

Rayna is a current candidate at the McGill Faculty of Law. She recently spent four years in Canadian Parliament and the federal government. She began as a parliamentary intern working with progressive members of Parliament across party lines and ended as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. Prior to politics, she worked with grassroots social justice organizations, including MVIWATA Manyara in Tanzania, Natural Justice in South Africa, and Resource Africa's Global Office. We're so excited to welcome to our podcast, Rayna Sutherland.

Hi, Rayna. I'm so happy to see you again.

Rayna Sutherland (01:18): I'm thrilled to see you. I'm really excited.

Malika Daya (01:21): Thanks for joining us. So the first question for you is why international development?

Rayna Sutherland (01:27): Yeah, great question. I feel like I say this with maybe some love and grace for my baby self. I think since I was 10 or 11, I really, really wanted to do international development. I think at that age, it was like a somewhat naive desire to help people, definitely like a bit of a childlike savior complex a little bit. And I think that's why I really, it's not why I chose the program at UTSC specifically, but I think that's why the universe or whatever it may be, had me go there and it worked out really well because I really appreciate how the program shelters in young people and tries to foster or nurture that sense of empathy that you have and not allow you to lose it. 

And same thing with, you know, the more fiery sense of wanting to pursue justice. And what it does is try to protect that at the inner part of yourself, but at the same time, really kind of force you to flesh through like your intention, your biases, your sense of your own complexes of why you're seeking to be in this field and what kind of an impact you could have, including what kind of harm you can do based on how this industry was set up to function and knowing the power dynamics at play. And so I don't work in the classical sense of international development anymore, but I do still think that when I think about development in a broader sense, that is still the field that I work in. And I feel really privileged that I think I still have that sense of empathy and justice that the program and mentors have allowed me to safeguard, but I think hopefully with a much better sense of self-reflexivity of how you can do that with more intention.

Malika Daya (03:05): I hear you, that critical lens. I also came into the program with kind of that like, I want to change the world complex. So yeah, I hear you on that. Totally.

Rayna Sutherland (03:15): I think we look at little kids sometimes, like, you want to change the world that's so naive or you'll lose that. And I think there's something to unpack in anyone who says they want to do that. But I think there's a small part of it that we should hold on to and that when we lose sight of what we're doing, there's that innocent sense of why we want to be where we are. And then unpacking where there's bias in the innocence a little bit too.

Malika Daya (03:39): Totally, So can you tell us a little bit about your path from university to now, but also including your time in the IDS Co-op? So where you did your Co-op, and then where your career went after you graduated?

Rayna Sutherland (03:53): Yeah, for sure. I tried to do as many of the practical in-field placements as I could. And I think I really, really, really benefited from that. I did the QE Scholars program, the one, I don't know in what capacity it still exists, but they had the option when I went to do a short-term program before you did your long-term co-op placement. So I did my short-term placement in a summer in Tanzania. And that was with MVIWATA Manyara. And it was super different from anything I thought I would ever do. They're a co-op, they're not a nonprofit. And so they seek to serve small scale farmers in rural and peri-urban Tanzania, mostly in the Manyara and the South region to foster livelihoods, own small businesses in farming and manufacturing thereafter. And they also do a lot of really cool advocacy work around anti-GMO and things like that, which kind of, I think was part of my interests at the time. So I really enjoyed that.

And then for my co-op, I worked with Natural Justice. And I think that was really a catalyst for me that I still look back on and has had a really big impact in where I've gone since. I really enjoyed it because I think it was the international development field, in the sense of it, was a global south placement. They do work in the pan-African context, but in the office I was in, was in South Africa. But what I really enjoyed was that critical thinking was at the center of their work. They were there to do community-based work, to drive community-based goals and objectives. And then they used that to drive broader policy, critical thinking, research, and legal advocacy when it came to environmental justice and reconciliation in South Africa.

And so from there, I ended up continuing to work with the same boss I had at Natural Justice when she switched organizations and she went to Resource Africa. And that was a similar vein. It was based on community-based natural resource management, both in terms of the practical sense of grants, contributions, funding for communities to continue to do that work, but also in the policy sense of what are the barriers in domestic governments, but also in the international context that hinder communities from being able to have the right to that livelihood. And so I really enjoyed that. The challenge at the time was when I was hired, the organization was coming to the end of their funding cycle. So originally I was supposed to do policy research and advocacy, and it was during the end of my undergrad degree. So I was still a student and so I think towards the end, with the time difference, like I was sleeping a few hours a night and we were getting up at five to meet with our donors, to go over our work from the day before on trying to revise our funding applications. I would spend all day doing the data edits and then meet with my team in the evening to make sure we're all on the same page, do it again the next morning. And I think we did that for six months. And it was maybe eight to 10 hour days, sometimes 12, 15. And it wasn't the hard work that was the challenge, but for me it was really more so a bit of a striking sense of this work is so important and it feels like all these talented people are spending so much time just grinding to get the funding to do what these communities deserve to be funded to do. So for me that kind of clicked a sense of this work is useful, but maybe I also need to learn how to be a more tactful advocate.

So I ended up in parliament. I did an internship program where I got to work on both government and opposition to see both sides of parliament and kind of get a cross-partisan sense of political parties in Canada. And there was an incredible sense of other opportunities of networking, traveling to legislators across the world to get a full sense of how politics can be a driver in our everyday lives. And I wanted to just kind of have an inside look of what these institutions look like to come out and go back to nonprofits and be a better advocate.

I 100 % recommend the program because it led me to stay in politics. One of the Liberal placements I had gave me really good advice and said, if you also challenge yourself to work in places which can be against the grain but have a host of historical power, you have increasing opportunities to access levers to advance the kind of change you want to see happen. So I ended up working in politics in government for four years. I worked for four ministers in only two portfolios, given how many cabinet shuffles we had. And I think his advice was spot on. A lot of times it was really difficult because you're working on platforms that are controversial, are complex, and you may have your own reflections on what it stands for and what you stand for. But working in government and politics, there were so many opportunities to be at the table for issues I really cared about and have tangible opportunities policy-wise, resources-wise to make an impact on that. And so both felt like it was really meaningful to get to do that work with communities across Canada being more on the operation side and then also getting to see that tangible impact happen. And so I think that was a gift. And also I think it was development because it was development in the domestic context in terms of what we can do to reform institutions like policing, like border control, but also to remedy injustice in Canada when it comes to things like reconciliation, gender-based violence. So that's what I did for four years. And I ended as chief of staff to a minister who gave me endless opportunities to grow in my time working with him. And I think I would not have gotten there if it was not for really, really meaningful mentors who let young people have a seat at the table. And now I'm a law student. So that's the really long version.

Malika Daya (10:05): And can you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to go back to school to take up law?

Rayna Sutherland (10:12): Yeah, great question. I think people have been asking me like what I want to, what kind of law I want to do, probably similar to what a lot of people are asking development students today in terms of what kind of development they want to do. I have no idea. But I do know that everything I've ever had involvement in has always had a legal element to it. And I think there's lots of ways when you're trying to do social justice work or being a young person in a competitive field, being a young woman in a competitive field, where they will try to put ceilings on what you can do. And so I really wanted to make sure I had no ceiling or as few ceilings as possible in the kind of work I wanna pursue. And so I didn't want to not be able to understand the legal elements of the advocacy I really care about. So that's the short answer. The detailed answer is to be determined as we go through this, I think.

Malika Daya (11:01): Thanks for sharing that. And yeah, I think what you're saying is really important: the ceilings that exist for people of color, women of color. And how do we navigate that? I hear you there and thanks for bringing that up.

You kind of already talked about some of the challenges and like key learnings, but if you look back on your journey till now, are there any particular key learnings that have really stuck with you over the past few years?

Rayna Sutherland (11:28): Yeah, I think maybe for students that are in the program right now, whether or not you stay in development or you stay in the same realm of the field that you started out in, I think I've really, really learned from the examples I had of incredible advocates in South Africa during my placement to how I did things like politics and advising a minister. Because the incredible thing about politics is you have a lot of young people who are giving advice, briefing, planning the lives of ministers who have had incredible careers and are doing really consequential work in Canada. 

So, imposter syndrome is at play for sure. But I think about like Leslie Janssen, who was my boss at National Justice, and I worked with her at Resource Africa as well. And still to this day, I think the way that she taught me about how you do good community work has stayed with me in so much of the work I do now. So, you know, how you do a respectful community visit, how you seek to advance the interests of communities based on how they've articulated it to you, that parallel is in politics. Like the big part of what a minister's work is, is to, in the simplest sense of the word, you are elected as a government to serve the interests of Canadians based on the platform that they elected, and a minister is responsible for one portfolio of that. And so, you are intended to be across the country connecting with communities that are served by that portfolio to make sure that the mandate that they've given is still the reality. And for those that didn't elect that mandate, are we still serving every Canadian? 

So planning visits to First Nations communities in Northern BC, we went up to the Arctic Circle and delivered apologies for historical dogfires of the Canadian government and the RCMP, which continues to impact Inuit communities today. Rectifying historical wrongs in terms of legal changes, like the Haida Nation now has an Aboriginal title over their lands which they negotiate with the federal government as partners, not as adversarials. And so I think those notions of how you do good community work and social justice organizations should be directing our work when we think about bigger institutions like government and things like that.

And to really try and question everything, especially when you're working in big houses of thought like government and parliament and take nothing at face value. But at the same time, treating anyone as your enemy gets in the way of your goal of what you're seeking to do. So you will have to work across party lines, you will have to work across institutions. And I've seen it where if our approach is adversarial, sometimes that works, but sometimes it comes back to hinder the work we were trying to do. So I think working in a nonpartisan capacity was really important to teach me that. 

And then from the international development program, I think the one thing that has a hundred percent stood with me is critical paralysis. So at what point are we frozen from trying to do the work we see as meaningful because we're so worried about finding a way and every way to do that is wrong. No institution we work for, even nonprofits are perfect. And so I think always trying to find a way to reflect on how much of what I'm feeling is imposter syndrome, how much of what I'm feeling is maybe that I'm doing this wrong and how can I do it better? And maybe that's pivoting, maybe that's changing industries, maybe that's changing roles or lenses. But I think having moved from law to politics to government to nonprofits, that has always really stood with me. If we are seeking to continue to do good, stopping ourselves from trying is the first hindrance of that.

Malika Daya (15:05): Yeah, absolutely. Something that Isabelle Kim who works at GAC said in a podcast recently was, to get critical, not cynical. That is just, it reminds me of what you're saying right now. For students who are, let's say they're about to graduate and they're looking at the workforce right now, could you talk a little bit about what the day to day in these different roles may have looked like? So when you were working for the nonprofit and then in government?

Rayna Sutherland (15:31): Yeah, yeah, for sure. The nonprofits varied. I think when I was working at Natural Justice, they were, I think, a well-oiled machine, for lack of better words. Like they had multiple offices, they were well functioning, they had various teams, they were always growing. But we had a certain sense of stability. So I think the days were a lot of really meaningful, like research and writing. So I spent a lot of my time at my desk. What I really enjoyed about that work was rather than just the student life of sitting at a desk, you have partners in this work with you where you sit in the boardroom and you're really thinking about, okay we've thought about this direction, but based on this last community engagement, are we doing this right or how can we pivot? And then getting to plan the real tangibles of that. So I think we did quite a bit of research and partnership with the Khoekhoe and San in South Africa around their land and resource rights. So we go from a meeting where we're hearing from chiefs and elders and trying to shift the research or shift the direction of the program based on those learnings, tangibly planning those  field visits and planning partnerships. So we'd work with universities in the UK, with the University of Oxford, universities in the US and the tangibles of facilitating partnerships to do that work and then relationship building. So making sure you're connecting the organizations that are third party partners with the community groups to make sure there's trust there. So that was I think some of the day-to-day aspects of that work. 

When I was working for someone like Resource Africa, where they were at the end of the funding cycle and they were quite precarious, it was hours and hours and hours of data. So logic models showing, you know, monitoring and evaluation frameworks, showing the data of your past work, and every single day honing and rehoning it to meet and align with the mandate of your funder and what they also need to prove that they're doing. So the reality of that was anywhere from 8 to 12, to 15 hour days in the scheme of data, reviewing, mending, collaborating with your team to make sure everyone's different parts align and then presenting it to the donor in cycles. 

And then politics was probably the most exciting thing I've ever done and the most fast pace for sure. You could go from being briefed by assistant deputy ministers and deputy ministers on files within your jurisdiction. So for us, that was how the federal government is responding to memorializing, commemorating, identifying residential schools and mass graves, or how we're tangibly advancing the calls for justice when it comes to missing and murdered, missing women and girls, how we're negotiating with nations across the country, who are seeking to reach self-government or modern treaties. So you're being briefed by the department and then you're verbally briefing the minister or you're writing a note to the minister and you're giving him advice of “this is where we're at in this work, this is what I recommend on the next steps.” Or you could be doing that for him to make a decision on the file or for him to go meet with a partner that can enter this nation to understand: here's where we're at, here's what we can present to you as a federal government. How does this feel? What are our next steps? So you're really tangibly taking in what the federal government is doing, advising a minister on how to meaningfully do that work to drive the department to critically think about what they're doing and how to do it differently to work with partners across Canada. So there's that policy element. You are yourself meeting with partners, whether it's community organizations, First Nations, Inuit, Metis groups to be the conduit of the minister's work when he can't be in every place at once, which is really exciting. And what I really loved about my job on the operations side was that you are the person planning for him to immediately connect with those communities on this work. So within anywhere from a 24 to a 72 hour turnaround, you're planning for him to be from Halifax over to Qikiqtarjuaq in Northern Quebec, which is you need to charter a plane to get up there, but then you're physically getting on the plane with him and going to meet elders, Indigenous leaders in governments who have advocated for this work for decades and you get to be a small part in trying to see it through to its final stages now the government is at the table to meet them there. So really, really meaningful work. But yeah, lots of different elements to it.

Malika Daya (19:57): Yeah, extremely meaningful work. How has your perspective on development evolved in these different roles? You alluded to it briefly earlier, but yeah, how has that happened and where do you see the future of development perhaps evolving for yourself or as an industry?

Rayna Sutherland (20:12): Yeah. I think we're, I wonder if other generations say this as often as we do, but I really do think we're at a pretty polarizing state of the world nowadays. And so I think even though I'm not in the traditional sense of the development field anymore, I think across that industry and a lot of industries which seek to do, you know, community development, governance, social justice, that polarization is really reflecting in how these industries are shifting. I think there's a lot of lost trust. I think there's a lot of times, there's ill will. And I think we're in an era where we're trying to rebuild that across many sides. And I think we're also starting to rethink where we're doing good work and where we're doing harm. And those questions always exist, but they feel a lot more polarizing now. 

So I guess for students or young professionals, the things that I try to ask myself is like, where is there opportunity to do good community development? It may not be where I always expect it to be, but seize the opportunities in front of you. And then just always ask yourself, am I in the right place? And am I doing this well? And whenever you're asking yourself that question, parse out how much of it is imposter syndrome and with whatever is left, try and think critically about how you're engaging. Cause a big part of it will be imposter syndrome. I remember the first time I walked the minister into the cabinet and had to sit next to him in the cabinet meeting. I was told I sat in the wrong seat. I was absolutely freaking out that I was in the wrong place. Cause I was by far the youngest person in that room. And in that moment,”I'm not supposed to be here.” That is imposter syndrome versus when I was working at, you know, public safety where we're in the era where Chinese Canadians, Indo Canadians are being vilified as the sources of foreign interference. And, you know, police brutality is at an all time high and try to think about how can I be in places that work in partnership with these institutions and try and reform how we do good work. You know, when you're working with institutions that have a mandate by the public to serve them, but historically have known to do wrong and harm folks they are meant to serve. Are you in a role where you're able to critically engage with that? And if you're not, or if you're not ready to, how can you pivot? And so I think those are questions I've tried to ask myself of, am I in the right place to do what I wanna do? And if I'm not, can I adapt or can I pivot to do this differently or somewhere else? And how can I try and build bridges along the way so that I can come back to this work if there is further opportunity to do it? Because the last thing you want to do is burn a bridge to be able to serve the purpose you once meant to do, perhaps back when you were maybe a little more naive about what was possible in that place.

Malika Daya (23:05): Great advice. So amongst all of this, we're constantly grappling with complex urgent crises and deep rooted global inequalities, right? So how do you as someone who's working in politics and development, someone who's going into law, stay motivated through all of it? Because like we spoke about earlier, it's easy to be paralyzed by the weight of it all. So how do you keep going?

Rayna Sutherland (23:34): Yeah, totally. I think honestly, maybe tying to what I was saying earlier, being really honest with yourself, because there will be points when you're burnt out or you're jaded. I think when I was leaving politics, I was both. I was really, really lucky that I had bosses that I worked for, which saw the potential of young people to really grow and how much I was able to grow in the short time. It was incredible, but I think in some ways it was really fast. And so I had a lot of pressure, expectation, work, ahead of me. And,  I could feel myself getting to the point where the magnitude of it was lost on me a little bit. Especially when you're working on things that are so consequential to people's identity, which often a large element is consequential to their rights and their livelihoods and their sense of dignity. If you are no longer serving that in the way that you hope to. It doesn't mean you have to give up back to the point of critical paralysis, but I think you do need to be honest with yourself about where you go from here. I think I had reached the point of what the most I could do in the mandate and the opportunity that we had, and then there was a lot of change in politics.

We're recording this now in September, but when I left a few months ago, it was right after Justin Trudeau stepped down. We had an election, we had a new prime minister. I think there was a span of five cabinet shuffles in that time. And the mandate of what we were seeking to do changed. And I think knowing that and that I was quite jaded and burnt out, I asked myself, can I still do the work that I believe in here? And maybe there was, but with where I was in my place in myself, I couldn't at that time, so I pivoted. And so I think it's constantly trying to find where you feel like your work is meaningful, where you're able to feel grateful and purposeful. And part of that's your own work of reminding yourself of that. Maybe one tangible thing for the students that are listening is the thing that has helped me most in the last 10 years is a ripped off version of the gratitude journal.

Every single day I word vomit one page when I'm not feeling great. I don't do this when I'm feeling well, but when I'm not feeling great, I word vomit a page of whatever is cycling through my head that may be negative about myself, my work, what I'm doing, what I'm a part of. And then I try to ask myself three questions: three things that went well the previous day. So whether it's how you approach community work, how you treat yourself in this work, how you treat the folks that you work with, what things that you do well that you want to remind yourself you're doing well and continue to do. What are three things that could have gone better? So it's not about where you failed, it's about where you may have acted in a way that you would do differently next time. So you're constantly trying to reflex and grow. And then three things you're grateful for. Whether it's working with communities or working in government, it's a privilege to do the work that you're doing, given the impact you're having on folks' everyday lives and the folks that you're impacting. You are impacting in tangible ways and you're having those relationships which are a privilege to have and an honor to have and you can do a lot of harm too. So always try to remember to be grateful for the spot you have to do this work. I think this is a really big part of staying centered and I would do that daily and I think you start to find patterns of where maybe you're having tendencies to act in a way that is not aligned with your values or the opportunities to do this work isn’t along the line with your values and then you can make bigger decisions to pivot. But having that daily reflection I think is really important.

Malika Daya (27:09): Thanks so much, Rayna. The last question: what advice would you give students or young professionals? And you have done that throughout this podcast. But if there are any parting words of wisdom you wish to give to students either entering the program in it or leaving, you're welcome to do so.

Rayna Sutherland (27:28): Yeah, I don't know if these are new, but maybe they're like quick TLDR summaries of what we talked about a little bit. I would say stay open to where you can do good community development work. I think especially when you're young and you're really eager, you have maybe sometimes a really clear or rigid idea of what that looks like. And that's really exciting. Like let yourself be guided by that, but be open to other opportunities where you can do good work. And it may not be exactly what you pictured, but reflect on it and see if it still serves the purpose that you want to have for yourself and for the world and the work you want to do. And if it aligns with that, then try it and continue to reflect on it. 

As far as you can build bridges, not enemies. I think the development program brings a lot of progressive people together. And that's a really, really meaningful and exciting place to be and learn. That will not be every place that you get to work. And so try and understand where there's opportunities to collaborate or learn from each other and where there isn't, how you engage respectfully so that bridge is open to you going forward. I think your peers are sometimes your greatest mentors. Some of the Indigenous staff that I worked with or that were on my team working for the Ministry of Canada and Relations are, for lack of better words, like badass now. They're so, they always were, but they're so incredible in what they're doing. One of them is a Fulbright scholar at Harvard. The other one is like the right hand of John Burroughs, who's an absolute shining star legal thinker in the field of Indigenous Legal Studies and is shaping the way for the future. And now they're giving me advice on law school. And once upon a time, they worked on my team in a hierarchical structure. So I think finding learnings from everyone around you, including your peers in the program is really important. And same vein, anyone can become your colleague later. So be kind to those around you because one day they can be your coworker, your boss, whatever it may be. And the fields you work in are smaller than you think. 

And I guess the last one is to use your voice strategically. I think in the era that we grew up in, I'm 27. I think I'm not far from other students who are entering now. There is social media, there's a lot of avenues to have a really loud voice with a breadth of reach. And that can be really powerful, but be thoughtful and strategic about how you use it. I've seen a lot of really incredible advocates, young people who've had that used against them. And so it's not to say that you don't have a voice and you shouldn't always be vocal about the things that you believe in, but be thoughtful about how you do it so that you always have as many avenues as possible to achieve the, I guess, justice that you were advocating for. Because your voice is one thing, but tangibly getting to the outcome that you say you believe in is the most important thing. So be thoughtful about how you use that. Because unfortunately, we're in an era where it looks a lot different than some of our mentors were. And so I think we're navigating a world where our voices are increasingly important, but they're also very much scrutinized and documented. So be thoughtful about where you use it.

Malika Daya (30:41): That's great advice. Thank you so much, Rayna for spending your morning with us and for all that you shared with our listeners. I'm sure everyone will learn a lot from this podcast. So thank you and good luck in law school. I know you're gonna kill it.

That's a wrap on today's episode “From Campus to Career.” Thank you for joining us. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow the Knowledge Equity Lab on LinkedIn and Instagram for updates on our upcoming episodes. Hope you'll tune in for our future episodes with some incredible development practitioners.