I think it's all three of those. The recruitment problem is, when you go into communities.... If we go back to the history of indigenous folks here on Turtle Island, in Canada, there's a problem of trust. It's a huge thing when a non-indigenous person goes into a community and tries to recruit. If it's not an indigenous person going into the community to recruit, there's an automatic overlay of mistrust of the information that's being put forward. Even as an indigenous person, when I go into first nations communities, they accept and know that I'm indigenous, but it takes a while to gain the trust of the community and the people.
Trust is one thing for recruiting. Another is being able to look at the information and to see what is offered in the language of the people who are joining, whether they are first nations, Métis or Inuit.
Another thing is retention. As I stated before, if you put somebody in an area that's not close to their community, they're going to be homesick. They're going to be missing.... You have to include their families so that there are things there for their families to do.
For example, when a sailor sails for six months at a time, his family is left behind. If he's a Cree person in Mi'kmaq territory, there's a disconnect unless he knows where to go. It's really important to have programs in place for families to go to when they need help.
Another one is language. Language is a barrier that will not help with retention.
With the three of those, I know it sounds like a huge problem, but a little bit at a time we start understanding the nuances behind recruiting. You would not send a non-Indigenous person into a remote community to ask that community to send their young people to be with us and join the Canadian Armed Forces.
The history is there from our treaties. People would sign up to honour our side of the treaties to protect Turtle Island, but the intergenerational trauma that exists with the federal government is there, and that's a barrier to overcome.
If you do, then you're looking at a language barrier and a retention problem, not only if they're not with their families, but also if they're single. You're taking them away from their communities. That's another huge aspect of it as well.
You start chopping away at those barriers a little bit at a time, maybe by putting indigenous knowledge keepers into each one of the bases. They could be there in an advisory capacity to the base commanders, the MARLANT or the wing commanders, to advise them on issues that may arise with indigenous service people. Those are small things that can move forward. It doesn't have to be elders. It can be knowledge keepers or veterans.
At the Assembly of First Nations Veterans Council, we have representatives across the country. We come together, and we do great work. We are very strong supporters of recruiting for the Canadian Armed Forces. At the same time, they have to reach out to us to get our help because we can't just go in and say, “Here we are. We're going to take over.”
Meegwetch.