Yes. I'm fortunate to have worked for the federal government, the provincial government, and now for the municipal government, and I certainly have to praise the provincial government. When I worked for that government in corrections up north, in Fort Hope and Lansdowne and many of these places we're talking about, we in corrections were all required as an obligation to take some native sensitivity courses to get rid of the racism that was going on.
I find it incredible, after coming to work at the municipality, that I'm working with colleagues who are educated but who still use derogatory terms towards native people. I'm shocked that they have no idea that a single mom living in a basement apartment with water running through it won't come forward and complain, being a native woman. They're not understanding the whole issue. We did the same with the judges in the province. We've brought them aside so they understand that someone standing before them and being charged.... Perhaps that young girl standing before them and laughing is not actually laughing; she's fearful, and that's perhaps her way of expressing herself.
So to answer you in brief, we have to start in the classrooms, in grades four and five, to let people know who we're sharing this country with--or even younger. It has to start at a very young age. I'm a strong proponent of this. The City of Thunder Bay has hired a native liaison person, Anna Gibbon, and she's working really hard already at getting everybody on board.
That's what we have to change: the attitude we have. It's a bad attitude.