Poverty is a major issue with everything. Part of it is why are people so impoverished? Whenever we talk about poverty we need to go back and look at when Canada was first colonized. We have no rights to our resources and our minerals.
I live on a first nations community, and when we try to get programs and some economic development there are always those barriers: you have to do this and you have to do that. There are so many things that you're mandated to do before you can even get a small business operated on a first nations community. With those barriers put in there, if that's what's holding people back and that's where the poverty is coming from.... It's twofold: yes, it's poverty, but there are many poor people who don't have violence in their lives and who can live good lives. Part of it comes from understanding where they came from and understanding their traditional values, connecting with those values and being able to be in a place where they can practise those traditional values in a respectful way with people in the community accepting that.
Even a simple thing such as--and I'm not sure if you understand the term--“smudging”, where you take the sweetgrass or the sage and you burn it. A lot of our buildings don't allow for that. So when we run groups or put programs together, even a simple thing such as smudging becomes a major issue. We end up not being able to practise some of our traditional beliefs. When we put meetings together we feel that's an important part of practising who we are as first nations people.