I joined back in 1983. I was raised in a foster family, so at 18 years of age, we were basically kicked out of the family. I went to school over here because I wanted to become a police officer. I went to school, but because I was on my own at 18 years of age, basically school was not really meant for me.
I had some friends back then who wanted to join the military. We wanted to join the reserve unit here, on the other side of the bridge, the Régiment de Hull, so at one point I just went to the recruiting centre, did the test, and a couple of months later, I was enrolled.
I joined as a gunner, field gunner artillery, and I served for 22 years in the artillery. When I joined back in 1983, it was not nice to say we were aboriginal, because people really did not like that, and we didn't want to say that we were native.
Things have changed. When we went to the Oka crisis back in 1990, they started to give courses on harassment, for sensibilisation for other people. So I would say that yes, I did meet a lot of aboriginals during my career, but I would say that I met many more after I was released in 2005.