I see it in layman's terms, so I understand the importance of the dollar values of things. From my perspective, I think it should be an ongoing thing, regardless—and this is probably not going to go well in this room—of the dollar value. When you do reconciliation training and truth training, you do that for the individual group of people there, but things evolve and people move on. If you don't have the things in place to do the training for those who come next, then it's going to get lost and we're going to go right back to where we started.
I really think it's important that people—not just Canadian Armed Forces but all Canadians—understand the history of indigenous people, how we got to the point we're at today and why we are fighting so hard for our culture, for our spirituality and for our recognition. That is the only way we're going to move forward so that people understand the history.
I do a lot of this training and I get the good, the bad, the ugly and the “oh my God” from people who get it and from people who don't want to get it. For me, it's important for it to move on. If you tell one, they'll tell more.
Within the Canadian Armed Forces and within all of Canada, people need to understand that. For an indigenous person to sign up to fight for Turtle Island, for Canada, is a huge step.
A lot do it because their grandparents did it or their great-grandparents did it. In my family, I'm the only one who has signed up to do this. I think it's important and I feel that it's my responsibility for the people coming after me to start sharing this knowledge, this culture and my experiences to make it easier for those young people coming in. As an elder, as a veteran and as a grandmother, it is my responsibility to do this, and I take it very seriously. That's what we have to do. I understand budgets and money, but we need to keep moving forward regardless.
Meegwetch.