I begin this morning by acknowledging the ancestors and territories
of the Algonquin peoples and thank them for allowing us to gather here today to discuss
our collective health and well-being.
Diverse groups and individuals have come together to vision, collective and collaborative
actions designed to address the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Thank you for being with us today on our work of that vision.
We've come together today to bring our best thoughts and intents to addressing the health
and well-being of Indigenous peoples of these lands, to vision the actions necessary for
change and most importantly to chart then and then to take action.
We are in a time and a context like no other.
We are in a time of renewed optimism and hope, a time of new relationship.
Many of us in this room have never had the opportunity to sit beside one another, to
sit together, to engage and explore and form those partnerships that will allow us to take
the action necessary to address the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples.
This gathering is truly unique in that regard.
We are here to answer what can and should we be doing in terms of practices and applied
work within a model of social determinants.
That is no small ask.
You cast your eye from here to there, you discover there, gosh, so many of our people
that are making a tremendous difference, a very positive difference in not just in our
communities or in the lives of Indigenous people but to the country.
We are making a very serious and positive contribution to Canada's well-being and too
often that isn't recognized.
And the challenge, of course, is the eradication of First Nations poverty.
Housing crisis, boil water advisories, disproportionate incarceration rates, some of the highest suicide
rates in the world, look at Nunavut, probably the highest in the world.
Children in care, what is the number today, about 30,000 children in state care, three
times the number that were in residential schools at the height of the residential school
experience and too many First Nations communities without schools, too many First Nations communities
with schools in a terrible state of disrepair, and the list goes on.
When we speak about reconciliation, it includes knowing, it includes learning, it includes
understanding, it includes accepting the truth of the situation, otherwise you can forget
about reconciliation, it will be, we have to change our origin story, we have to change
the narrative, we must accept reality, the reality that becomes part of our history,
and that includes addressing this notion of nation to nation.
That as we look to the 94 calls to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
a lot of us felt that focusing the first recommendations or the first calls to action
on children actually helps us begin our work in a good way.
So I think all of us know what's here, these are the only, as you know as a minister I
used to say that there's a difference between standing before a room of people who get it
and a room of people who don't quite get it yet.
And so I'm pleased to be here in a room full of people that get it, but how do we make
sure that the academy and the people on the ground and the people delivering services are
actually able to work together in my new math of two and two makes five.
And I think as, I know I've been called a lot of things from the minister of hand washing
to the minister of social determinants of health, now the minister of reconciliation,
but basically tonight I just want to be seen as the midwife for the National Collaborating
Center on Aboriginal Health.
This text is in some ways an utterly unique endeavor encompassing perspectives of Inuit
First Nations and Metis knowledges.
It is a book that represents indigenous perspectives from coast to coast to coast.
It is a book that encompasses the perspectives of artists and writers and community members
and clinicians and health policy makers, activists and scholars and researchers.
We have a panel representing Inuit, Metis and First Nations knowledge.
And so why the tree, well, first of all, it's part of the natural environment, but it is
the root that was the focus of my chapter and the focus of what I would like to, you
know, be my research agenda.
So like the roots of the tree, these structural environments that are deeply entrenched, ideological,
historical, political and economic foundations, right?
Will they influence all of the other environments?
It is the integrity of these foundations that shape equity, that's the fairness, and
that's the wellness of entire societies.
The four big laws are that it's everyone's responsibility to continually work to improve
the common good, to live in harmony and balance, to continually plan and prepare for the future
and to show respect for all living things.
And this plays out in specific Inuit ways of being, which is to be welcoming and to
be inclusive, to make sure that you're living together in harmony and balance in very respectful
relationships, always concerned for the other person's well-being and for making sure that
there is that level of balance, as with the Noglutak name, how you redistributed wealth
so that everybody was in balance, and communicating openly and truthfully to others.
So never gossiping, never lying, and confronting any issue that may create conflict in the
future.
And then there's Inuit Naq, which is the process of training children to live like this.
The real strength of Inuit Kaya Mayak to Kangit is the interconnectedness that people
have in every area of their life.
This is characteristic of our indigenous knowledges.
And it's really important that we use the strengths and the foundations of those interconnectedness,
the expectations that have been laid out by our communities to live a good life in order
to be our guiding post for how we move forward and make good decisions around promoting wellness
and encouraging people to come together to seek common solutions.
What I'm going to talk to you a little bit about today is, echoes a lot of what Shirley
in particular has said, but from a Metis perspective, we have a lot of work to do in terms of rebuilding
our kinship connections to each other.
And so I started wanting to know what the traditions of kinship were.
So in the story of the woman who married a beaver, a young woman goes out to fast on
the land, and she meets this young man who she falls in love with, and he convinces her
to come back to his home and to live with him and his people.
And so she was rich, she was rich with children, she was rich with material goods, she was
rich with food, and she grew into an older woman, happy and contented in her life with
her husband and her children amongst her.
And what had happened in the course of that is that she learned the kinship structures
of beavers, and it became her responsibility to convey that information to her own people.
And so she went back and she told her people about the kinship that they would have with
the beavers, that if they were respectful, if they hunted properly, if they didn't waste,
they would always have the support of those animals.
If they disrespected those animals, if they violated their kinship protocols to them,
those animals would no longer allow themselves to be hunted, and the people would be poor
because they would lose those relationships.
All of these stories tell us what it is to be human beings.
How we as the original people will live amongst each other and how we will construct relationships
with each other.
And so our family is not our immediate family, our nuclear family, the kind of family that
we're taught about in Western traditions, which is really new even to Euro-Canadians,
but it's our extended networks, and it's our job as human beings to go out and make relatives,
to connect with one another and make kinship relationships.
We do that through marriage, we do that through adoption, but we also do that through engaging
in ceremonies with one another, with sharing life moments with each other.
We're here to reach out, not feel alone, stand all together and stand strong, we can be the
change we wish to see, it's all up to you, it's up to me, stand tall and say hi, hi, hi.
One of the things that I was asked to do in the branch over the last number of years was
to help lead the development of a strategic plan for First Nations Inuit Health for the
department, and we went through a fairly extensive exercise of consultation externally as well
as internally, and it is the plan that our national and regional First Nations Inuit
partners are keeping us accountable to.
The plan was intended to enable change within at least Health Canada, but also hopefully
champion change across the federal departments.
That was really the goal.
There's a lot of different models, but it's a question of how do you actually then create
interventions at the level that will actually affect the community and the people in that
positive way, and that's a very real thing.
That's a bread and butter thing, and it's not always easy for people to make those connections
or to know how to prioritize resources, for instance, when there's so few and there's
so much demand, very hard, like what do you do?
Do you put your money in housing?
Do you put your money in education?
Do you put your money in safe drinking water?
You try to put money all a little bit everywhere, and people are still wanting, when they go
to a health center or a health facility, they still expect a really high quality service,
so you also can't compromise the direct service interface that you've got because you're
investing most of your resources on the determinants aspect.
These are very difficult decisions for decision makers to make on the ground, and how do we
support them?
In very practical terms, what we heard around the initiative around children is we've got
to get some common space as far as indicators across sectors around children's outcomes
– health, education, cultural, and links to economic developments.
The second initiative deals with community well-being, and again, the focus here is about
tools to support community readiness or sectoral readiness to work with other sectors.
The third area is around, as I said, engagement of indigenous peoples.
This initiative will very much play centrally into the healthy child development work as
well as community well-being, and starting with the entry point of cultural competencies.
We do know from the truth and reconciliation recommendations that this is deemed to be
an important concrete step moving forward as far as Canadians understanding and learning
more about indigenous history in Canada.
Collaboring centres have a contribution to make in this area, so I was glad to see that
certainly there's a few others that are represented in this room, and I think it's an effort
that will require all our inputs, and it will have to be transparent, and we will have to
make sure that every time there's a new government or that turnover of people at the
leadership level, that this message is carried forward and that the vision is pursued and
that we don't lose track of our goals as things change in government.
Transforming our realities begins with transforming relationships.
If you continue to do things the way that you've always done them, you're going to get
the same outcomes.
So transforming the system, you transform relationships.
What does that mean?
Simple.
I said it already.
Listen, learn, and then act, always in that order, always.
Now in our work in British Columbia, we had to battle the forces of status quo, and they're
everywhere.
They're in the ranks of our community, they're in the ranks of our leadership, they're in
the ranks of physicians, they're in the ranks of ministry of health employees, they were
definitely in the ranks in Tany's past year, they're everywhere.
Now the only way that we could defeat the forces of status quo is by engaging our leadership,
talking about the opportunity, listening, learning, building a consensus, reaching a
meeting of the minds.
In our process, we aired out fears, because the biggest hurdle to overcome in transformation
is fear.
People have incredible fear of change in health while their funding comes via federal agreement,
and many of the services come from the province.
Our goal is one standard of care, regardless of where our people live.
That's the same goal we have for children and family services, it's the same goal that
we have for housing, it's the same goal we have for education, post-secondary education,
all of those social determinants of health.
Listen to the voice deep inside.
I'm going to be speaking today on three easy ways to continue the dialogue.
Nagi stoonan, stal pin, pin meet suk, stal kap, kap e sik, stay over.
We have learned at this meeting how important it is to think and act, not in circles, but
in spheres.
A new math will move us from merely sitting in a circle, a wasa gamepia, a circle.
Whether it will see us communing as one, a mamopia, a mamopia.
So how can we make the book come alive?
And how can we make practical its crossed tees and dotted eyes?
I believe we can do this by probing what is known, by pursuing knowers, and by pushing
the known beyond this moment in time.
To this end, the NCCAH extends three standing invitations to all of us so we can continue
the dialogue we started here.
Nagi stoonan, stal pin, pin meet suk, stal kap, kap e sik, stay over.
These three standing invitations ask you to join us in transforming our realities by paying
particular attention to the health determinants that are particular to indigenous people.
In order to transform the realities of indigenous people, let us all together here today declare
this day our Senagana Kisegau Treaty Day.
But rather than exchanging money on this Treaty Day, let us commit to regular visits
with one another, which we will adopt as our new currency.
We will do this in the spirit of reconciliation.
It is, after all, the age of reconciliation.
I, for one, absolutely marvel at the act of Nagi stoonan, stop in and what it can bring
about.
My commitment to you is to provide that place once again for you to stop in, in 18 to 24
months from now, from today.
I am hoping that when we have that conversation, when we meet again and you stop in, that I
am going to hear from you, all the new partnerships and actions that you are taking together as
we continue our work and to build on that work with new partnerships, new collaborations
and extend that work in addressing our health and well-being.
I hope that when you stop in, you will be able to stock up on the friendship and the
love that Madeleine spoke about.
We nourish each other.
We share our medicines that we laid down on that white cloth.
We nourish our souls and each other.
I would like you to stay over.
I am not entering this relationship for today or for tomorrow or for a year from now.
I am entering this relationship with you for a very long time.
I think we have lots of work together to do and I am so proud to be in a room with such
brilliance, such commitment and such hope and light.
Thank you is all I can say.
Thank you for coming.
I hope that you have the same dream and the same feeling as you travel home and I wish
you safe travels, Miigwetch.
Miigwetch.
Miigwetch.
