Somehow I lost a minute.
'Niit. Hello everyone.
T’oyaxsut nüün, Mr. Chairperson. T’oyaxsut nüüsm. Thanks, everyone, for this opportunity.
In the necessity of brevity, I'll just get right to the point. The words that I'll speak today will be candid and likely make some uncomfortable. For that I make no apology. As a first nations woman from a long line of ancestors, we have been uncomfortable for over 150 years now.
These words, however, do not simply reflect me or the organizations that I am affiliated with. They do represent the voices of hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples not only across this country, but across the world, who have been dispossessed because of colonialism. They are the words of a generation still struggling to see true and meaningful reconciliation become a reality within their lifetime.
I'll say just a little bit about myself. For the past five years I've been the CEO of the Aboriginal Housing Management Association. I'll refer to it as AHMA from here on. I'm also a member of the indigenous caucus working group working with the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, which is based in Ottawa. I have a long-standing career dedicated to urban indigenous housing. In fact, my 28-year-old daughter's first words were not “mama” but “AHMA”. That is the years of front-line and lived experienced voices that we bring to the table.
I come to you today with grave concern and absolute, utter dismay at the release this morning from the Prime Minister's Office with this quoted wording:
Making a significant additional investment in Indigenous housing in 2022. It will be up to First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities to determine how housing investments are designed and delivered.
For us, this demonstrates once again this country's willful ignorance or purposeful discrimination that neglects to recognize that 80%-plus of all indigenous peoples are not captured in a distinction-based microfocus. I'm going to frame this from my own direct experience.
I'm a sixties scoop child. I was literally taken off the birthing table, fostered and then adopted into a non-indigenous family and non-indigenous community. I am only recently, at 53 years of age, affirming my matriarchal lineage. I am Tsimshian. Recent genealogical mapping verifies that I have deep and long-standing ancestral roots within the Lax Kw'alaams first nations.
My origin story, however, is the legacy of active attempts of government to remove the Indian problem through residential schools. My birth mother suffered the injustices of a legacy of trauma and she still suffers today. It's unimaginable pain for many, but a truth that must be purposely looked at. We cannot turn away any more.
Despite this recent affirmation of my ancestral connections, with the ongoing pain my immediate ancestors suffer through I remain completely dispossessed from my nation.
While I have a status card that verifies I am a status Indian, I have never been home. That's a trite word to the nearly 80% like me who have come to create a sense of belonging in for-indigenous and by-indigenous urban communities, created by the over 140 urban indigenous housing and support leaders for over 50 years now.
I'm sorry. My voice is cracking. May I just take a moment to have a quick drink?