The Mainstreeter:  Good morning, Clayton.  Thank you for sharing some coffee time with us today.  You are a well-recognized figure in this community but not necessarily known to many.  Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Goodwin:  My name is Clayton Goodwin Jr. I was born April 5,1976. I am 49-years-old. I have lived here in Old Ottawa East at the same residence on McGillivray Street for 12 years. I moved here to become a political  advocate for veterans of the Canadian Forces. I am a mixed blood Aboriginal from the East Coast. This particular community sits on unceded land of the Algonquin Anishinaabe nation, but I am of Micmac heritage.  I have an Aboriginal grandmother who is full-blooded Micmac, and I am a member of the Confederacy of Nova Scotia Metis. 
The Mainstreeter:  Tell us a little bit about your time in Old Ottawa East.

Goodwin:  As a community in which to live, I find that Old Ottawa East has its own flair and its own feel that has changed quite a bit over the past 12 years. We now have a large development on Main Street, and I see a lot of intake of elderly Canadians, which is quite enjoyable. I get to see them here at the coffee shop and to talk to them. I witnessed the pounding in of the Flora Footbridge, and it’s lovely that we’re now deeply connected just by walking to Lansdowne, so it allows us to enjoy both sides of the canal.

When I first moved to Old Ottawa East, it still had the old Ottawa feel, it really did. Now we’re modernizing, right? At one time, I used to turn my nose up at Greystone Village, and then I no longer did anymore, because you’re getting a good mix of residential and commercial.  So, this big build has really gone to the back of my mind. I don’t even notice it anymore. I do like the fact that we have a good Main Street. Sure, I would have loved an A&W instead of a McDonald’s, you know, but, whatever. It’s all really quite wonderful.

The Mainstreeter:  You mentioned the changing demographic of Old Ottawa East. Can you speak to the people of this community, your neighbours, and the people you meet.

Goodwin:  You know, I’m a part of this free Buy Nothing group where you move things around between the people in Old Ottawa East. Give away things, get things. Just yesterday I got a little coffee pot, you know, a little small one that makes an individual coffee. To me, when you really want to get to know Old Ottawa East, you can do that best through the Buy Nothing group, because your neighbours here are so wonderful. They strike up conversations with you.  

This is why I like Old Ottawa East, because I can go talk to my neighbours – like it still has a country feel to it, like we’re meeting at a farm show. For example, I said hello to my pharmacist on the way here, you know. And it’s just  one of those things where they care about you. It’s also like  my next door neighbour, when I got a very  bad case of COVID in December.  She  checked in on me, even while she was worried about her husband going into hospice. She says to me: “Clayton, if you’re not on meds by tomorrow or else going to the hospice yourself, I’m dragging you in there. So, I called my pharmacist, and he gave of his own time to prescribe me antivirals.”

So, I find Old Ottawa East has the small town feel, even though I can’t always deal with the fact that I wake up in the middle of 1.3 million people – because I also have operational stress and trauma injury, where crowds bother me some days. But overall, I love to get up at four in the morning, step out front of my apartment in Old Ottawa East and just hear the birds. You know,  like, if you ever wake up in this area of the city at four o’clock in the morning, just sit in a chair having a coffee. It’s pretty bright out. You’re in the city, but like you feel that you’re in the country, right? It’s a kind of special place.

The Mainstreeter:  Clayton, you describe yourself as an individual who has never sought out recognition, but lately you have been-much decorated for your political advocacy and activism on behalf of disadvantaged Canadian veterans.  Tell us how you came to receive the King Charles II awards – not one, but two – over the past two years.  

Goodwin: I don’t do anything for recognition. So, this would be the first time in 15 years or more of veterans advocacy that I’ve ever accepted anything, right. However, I do love the King, so I have no issues accepting this, but it’s really for the LGBTQ and Aboriginal veterans  that we had to make a stand during the convoy. We had to put the run on people who were trying to drape a Nazi swastika eagle on the Aboriginal veterans monument. A couple of times we had to defend against  that, and it’s just about stepping up for those that might feel unsafe to step up for themselves, right? I’ve got broad shoulders. I do not mind.

The Mainstreeter:  So first, in 2025, you received the King Charles II Certificate of Merit. Can you explain on what basis you were chosen to receive that honourary community award, and how did you feel about receiving it as an Aboriginal Canadian?

Goodwin: I got the King Charles Certificate of Merit from Yaser Naqvi. The reason that I got the Certificate of Merit from Yasir is that I stepped up for minority groups fighting against the convoy that tried to take over Ottawa, which included white supremacist groups. A fellow veteran put my name forward for the honour.

I am ex-military. I drive a Dodge Ram truck. I could very easily have blended in with the convoy group, but that’s not at all who I am. My morals and those of the veterans who came to join the convoy really did not align at all, nor do the morals of all of the progressive veterans across Canada that support me and talk to me.  

And while the convoy was happening here in Ottawa, I was told by the East Coast veterans I work with to get off my couch and do something about it.  They asked me if there was something we could do. So, we set up a counter protest in front of the Ottawa police station in order for action to happen.
Basically, my time during the convoy was spent checking in on the neighbours in Ottawa Centre. They were basically under siege, noise disruption, sleep deprivation. There were some elderly that would come up and just sit with us at the police station. We had to check in on some of the clergy there, because we are quite a diverse city. I only ever went down to the convoy blockade area once to look at it, and I wasn’t impressed. And the BIPOC gentleman I was working with had racial slurs directed at him by convoy members, so it was just as well that I stayed up at the police station.

When I was interviewed by CBC TV, they asked if I wanted to use force?  Not really, I told them. As I described it – when children are having a tantrum, you do not validate that tantrum, nor do you use force. What we had in the convoy, technically, was a smattering of probably 60 to 70 different groups, ideologies, all whipped up by what I call the fakeness of internet. You know, 60% of what we view online now is fake.

The Mainstreeter:  And then this past Remembrance Day, you learned of a second King Charles award honour, this time for your Veterans advocacy work, correct?

Goodwin: That’s correct. We are now waiting on the paperwork to officially confirm Joel Harden awarding me the King Charles medal this past Remembrance Day. I will quote you Joel Harden’s words so you will understand me a little deeper:  “I am giving this to you, Clayton, because I know that if any veteran of any political persuasion or belief approached you for help, you would fight Veterans Affairs on their behalf.”
My official role is the CEO of the Veterans Accountability Commission, a group that I set  up in 2015 with a fellow veteran. He has since passed. Basically, our group engages government in a different manner. We will not sign NDAs. We will not take free trips. I set something up in order to point fingers at everybody, including stakeholders and anyone who might shill for the sitting government, no matter which government.

And this is a not for profit organization, no money.  I am a commission; I talk to everybody, you know. We engage up at Parliamentary  committees. I follow the Veterans Affairs Committees. I moved to Ottawa specifically because this is the seat of our government. And if you actually want to hand something to someone, you do so up there at committee. If you want to play the political game, this is the city to do it in, right?

The Mainstreeter:  Your own background in the military resulted in your own disability and launched your Veterans advocacy work, correct?
Goodwin: I did nine and a half years in the Forces reserve, all in Canada. I have been to the Arctic, to Greenland at Thule Air Force Base. I got to fly in over the top of Alert. I was on Ellesmere Island, Nunavik, one of the most beautiful places in Canada that we need to preserve.

What I have is an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury, an operational stress injury, or OSI. They have diagnosed me with major depression, but in all honesty, it all stems from a traumatic brain injury. In my second year in the Reserves, I got hit in the back of the head at CFB Gagetown with a 50 pound piece of metal and blacked out cold.

So, in the work I do at present, based on my injury and my experiences, I kind of lay activism right across advocacy. I’m probably the only one that has done this as a veteran. My Ram truck once chased Stephen Harper’s campaign bus straight down the 401 with retired veterans and RCMP aboard. So, yes, I am quite a political activist.

The Mainstreeter:  You seem to have a take-no-prisoners style to your work on behalf of Canadian veterans. Would you agree?

Goodwin: I find that if you’re not being listened to on Parliament Hill, you have to take someone from their job, and I do the style of activism that goes after someone’s political career. Here’s an example with Justin Trudeau. His campaign started out in New Brunswick, and I was already protesting at Veterans Affairs offices, chasing politicians. I was out front of the veterans building one day in Belleville when Trudeau was there. I sent a text message to the political ‘fixer’ standing beside him. My text said: “My future prime minister should step off the bus in the front of the building, walk over to the veterans there and shake our hands.”

They had a whole veterans platform. They stated that they were going to return the old Pension Act, but they didn’t do that. I kind of knew that by the time you get into the bureaucracy and deal with those that count money, promises comes out differently. So, I brought 23 veterans to Centre Block and protested. The government wanted five questions in Parliament that day, but they got six instead because I worked with Irene Matheson to have her rise in the house and put the new Veterans Affairs minister on the spot on his first day in office.

That’s what I do…but for how much longer, not sure. You know, I love Canada, I love the citizens, I love our diversity, but it can be quite tiring, and so can activism and advocacy. As much as I love Old Ottawa East and the small town feel, I just need some space from the 1.3 million people once in a while, right?  So, I just bought a  little property two hours north in the bush, and I hope to be logging it in the spring to build myself a little hideaway.

The Mainstreeter:  Clayton, let’s conclude this interview by returning to your indigenous roots and culture. You are aware, of course, that this community itself has a tarnished legacy based upon its historic dealings with the Indigenous people of Canada. What are your feelings about truth and reconciliation here in Old Ottawa East?
Goodwin:  Well, our truth here in Old Ottawa East is that we are housing a Catholic university that was part of this whole thing. There is no disputing that. But at the same time, when you reconcile, I feel that it’s a two way street. You have to have two listeners, two receivers. It has to be in a non-conflict environment. You have to be open to criticism. And in order to move forward, we need to acknowledge that not everyone was involved.

You know, the last residential school closed in the 1990s, so this is not just distant history. Some wounds will be fresh. As we move forward on the path to healing, we have to acknowledge and put to rest, first of all, the denialism of what has occurred. There is a whole movement online, extending to within our political institutions, mostly on municipal levels across Canada, that outright denies that the horrors of the Residential Schools actually occurred.

But I tell you, I have been in a museum in the province of Manitoba, holding child-size handcuffs, and that is the only truth that I require. After that I don’t need to hear more stories. If an Aboriginal person wants to tell it, of course, but that’s their own trauma. A lot of it caused generational trauma. But if you wanted truth at its purest, you only have to hold a pair of child-size handcuffs.

We have to reconcile with the fact that Indigenous people had to hide. We know that, basically, things were done wrong, you know. But the thing is we have to move forward. This is the question, for everyone who’s trying to attack our diversity. I truly believe that diversity is our strength.