I'd love to.
Thank you, Melissa, for sharing your story.
We look across this country at first nation communities, first nation reserves, and it doesn't matter how successful these communities are: We continue to see the same trends in trying to narrow that socio-economic or social gap in our way of life and the health and wellness of our communities.
I grew up my entire life on the Sugar Cane reserve, which is the Williams Lake First Nation, located just outside the city of Williams Lake. Surrounding Williams Lake are 14 different first nation communities, which range from the Secwepemc to the Tsilhqot'in to the Xat'sull. Heading further out west, we have the Nuxalk, and the Stl'atl'imx to the south.
A lot of the first nations from this region attended the St. Joseph's Mission residential school, which is located six kilometres from the community core of WLFN or Sugar Cane reserve. It's where my dad went to school. We are a generation removed from residential schools in our community, but we're still seeing the trauma—the direct trauma and the intergenerational trauma—filter through in our way of life. It's really impacting our balance as a community and as a people.
The reconciliation discussion is continuing to happen across this country, and the wrongs and the legacy of residential schools are coming to the forefront of discussions. It's really helping the healing journey of our communities and our provinces and, at the end of the day, our country. However, there is still so much work to do to narrow that gap.
I don't want to be talking about when reconciliation is going to be achieved with local politicians and thinking that there's a price tag attached to it. It's potentially generations from now that reconciliation is going to be achieved, because of how much education is needed around this topic of discussion.
We have an ongoing investigation over at St. Joseph's. We announced 93 anomalies last January. We're going to be doing a similar announcement for phase two of the investigation of the GPR work—the ground-penetrating radar work—and the research that we've been doing over the last couple of years.
This is a trigger not only for this region but for this country, every single time it happens. These triggers are happening almost on a monthly basis because of the number of schools in Canada and the history and wrongs of those schools.
I look into my community and at how successful we've been over the last two years, five years, 10 years. We are an economic powerhouse in this city of Williams Lake in the Cariboo Chilcotin region. We have numerous revenue streams. We reinvest our revenue back into the community. We have over 90 staff, 50% of whom are funded through that own-source revenue. We have programs and services. We have practically nil unemployment.
We look at all the benefits of being WLFN, and all the success we've seen and all the opportunities we have. However, we still have the same trauma in our community that everyone else does. We had three overdoses this year, and two suicides. For a small community like mine, with an on-reserve membership of 300 and an overall membership pushing 800, that is a big number.
How are we going to find this balance as indigenous people? The education component is a big part of that. Also, this language, ceremony, culture revitalization discussion needs to have continued investment, not only through time but also through money. That's exactly where our focus is going. Having the partnership and the support of the provincial and federal governments is also going to be a big part of that discussion.
Continuing to educate the local municipality, which is one of our neighbouring municipalities at the city of Williams Lake, is also a massive part of that discussion. Having the pressure from other government entities for them to continue to stand beside us and hold us up and educate themselves is also going to be paramount, and seeing the curve of health and wellness in our communities.
There is a lot of work to do around reconciliation, but at the same time we also have to acknowledge all the work that has been done to date and how the focus has continued to stay on it.
Let's continue to have this discussion and continue to push it so people will catch up and people will take that initiative and run with it, just as there are numerous examples of across this country, but again this should be a reminder of how much work we still need to do.
Kukwstsétsemc, and all my relations thank you.Thank you.