I read the report where it stated that residential school kids in care outnumbered the children who resided in residential schools, and shouldn't Canada be ashamed of that? We need to be able to understand. Again, I will stress it, because it's the only thing that made me get to where I am. We must encourage that. When we look at programming, I think in total, if you look at the aboriginal directory, there are over a hundred organizations fighting for dollars. If you want to make a difference, make sure that you know where your funding is going.
In the past, I've seen that when something goes good for aboriginal people, and we start to let our crutches go, and we start to heal, those programs get cut. At that level, for us women, we need to make sure the message goes out that you take a look at each and every one, what is happening, how we all link together as sisters fighting for the same cause but may do things just a little bit differently because we women are at different levels.
For me, I'm living in a time when decolonization, if you were to put it into the computer.... When I put it in maybe seven years ago, the computer didn't know what that meant. A professor who was an English woman asked, “What is decolonization?”, and I was able to reply. It means to turn the things that have been done wrong and turn them back, so we can make sure this will never happen again to the generations of our children.
My vision and goal is that children belong at home with their families. We need to take a look at that, too. When you look at mothers and children, when it comes down to being able to care for them, that doesn't happen. The people who are missing at the table are social services and income. I've never sat at the table with them. The government, the day they put social welfare into the system—I was told by an elder—was the day they crippled our people.
We do want to work. We do. For a Métis woman, I do pay taxes. I am contributing to society. We don't need only small programs. We need to get our degrees. We need to be able to go to school full-time. In the past, I saw these training programs, but they lasted only so many weeks. We need longer education.