I'd like to see that go back to those who created it, and the funding done for it, and then have a lot more partnerships, with the national Native Women's Association leading that.
I know here in the north that PSAC partners. I think we could develop that much more. Because a lot of funding isn't staying with us. The way I understand it--and please forgive me if I don't have the correct understanding--there isn't much funding coming to the north, and a lot is going to the police. I think the police need to be culturally oriented too. I think in the north we do work fairly well with the police, but there are a lot of things missing and we have to do a lot more orientation with service providers again.
Service providers, Sisters in Spirit, that needs to go back to the Native Women's Association and they need to have and own the database, because that's OCAP, those are research principles--ownership, all that stuff. We have to own what belongs to us. And if you want to help us to change, then recognize our nationhood. Fundamentally, that is what has to be done. We're enshrined in the Constitution, but there's a lot of lip service. Canada has to be re-educated on the history of Canada, because Canadians are not recognizing us as full nations within Canada. I hear a lot, and I did a lot of training with PSAC, did a lot of education, because I had to decolonize, and I still have to. Any time aboriginal people get back the sense of who they are and get recognized for their nationhood, people start screaming that it's reverse racism. Reverse racism is not real; that's just people of privilege having to give up a little bit and share. That's all that is.