It's because, again, they feel that.... We do come from.... I come from a descendant of a Cree kokum and an Iroquois. There was a time 300 years ago when we were Iroquois or I was Cree, but I was also a distinct Scottish and a distinct French. Through that history, we came together and created a language and a culture that was distinct and different. Otipemisiwak—that's what the Cree called us—“those who govern themselves”, “the flower people”. The first nations were seeing within us how we created our own sense of being in government, our own sense of ways of life.
In first nations, it's not about.... Forty years ago, which is when the Constitution was being put into play, were they consulted? Was there proper consultation going on? We don't know at the time. I'm going to say that I'm not an expert in that. I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but what I do know is that I have over 300 years of culture in me that says I have a voice now, and if I speak up, I'm not going to go to jail. If there are three or four of us in a gathering, we're not an illegal assembly. Those laws of the Indian Act applied to us in many ways.
Today I sit here hoping that we have a better future for our children, but we're not going anywhere. First nations are not going anywhere. We have to build a better Canada than what Canada is, and our indigenous people can play a major role in building that, because there was a time in history when we got kicked out of Canada's ways, and we were dictated what to do and where to live. Scrip came up earlier. My parents had scrip, but then you look at our stories—a simple bottle of whiskey took one family's scrip away because he had no idea what was going on.
Land base was all about, “We share the land.” The European mentality was, “I want a piece of land,” but we didn't know the value of it. We all did it: “I'll just go elsewhere.” There was lots of land to be had in Canada. That's why we went into the bush, and we lived there and we lived off the land.
Some days my mom and dad want to go there and live back there. They want to be there, but we were in a housing project in Chetwynd. We were put into it in 1972. There was even a documentary done on my people, Moccasin Flats. It's on YouTube.
In my eyes, yes, this will build a better nation, plus we'll have better times playing when we go play aboriginal hockey together.