Status of Women committee  Good afternoon. I want to start by thanking the Standing Committee on the Status of Women for this opportunity to speak today. I consider this a great honour. I accepted the invitation without hesitation. Once I started to prepare my thoughts on how I was going to present this,

Status of Women committee  On the top four things that I see as an area that we could start exploring, again, I could talk a lot about the colonization, but I think we really have to understand that as first nations women we have to understand the impacts and how that looks in today's culture. So it's abou

Status of Women committee  Yes, sure.

Status of Women committee  I definitely see that career-wise the opportunities.... That's where a lot of our skill development and our leadership skills come from, being in the career path that allows for this. But when you're in an urban setting, especially in a first nations setting, those kinds of resou

Status of Women committee  I think what happens when we're in the communities is that there's a bit of an eye-opener that happens in those communities when we start talking about inherent rights. Basically, what we say to them is, this is about you and it's about you putting your voice back into how you wa

Status of Women committee  I think we really have to start focusing on increasing that voice of the aboriginal woman. We have to really start empowering her to participate. There's a lot of fear in our first nations communities, because a lot of backlash has happened to women. When they take steps to try t

Status of Women committee  You know, from what I understand, the centres have a stronger role when you go out east. When you come out to the Prairies, our friendship centres play not so big a role in that. So it would be hard for me to really give that a just answer, because I don't have enough informati

Status of Women committee  I would suggest getting the stories out there and showcasing other successful aboriginal women, not just aboriginal women, but women in general, and maybe taking that extra time to talk about skill development and the needs that they feel are important to start helping them acces

Status of Women committee  Participating in an aboriginal women's leadership project, we've had a strategic planning session where a lot of these issues came out, and I heard from them. They talked about all these issues, so I see that as one of the most effective ways that.... And then just strategizing

Status of Women committee  Again, you know....

Status of Women committee  No, I was probably just going to go off on another tangent.

Status of Women committee  I like the approach. It's creating awareness of some of the issues we put in front of ourselves. I think the same approach can be taken to the first nations' level. When we talk about lateral violence, institutionalized discrimination, those kinds of things, I always find that if

Status of Women committee  I think the more awareness among all the parties involved, the better it will be in the long run. It will start creating that synergy to start moving towards what I've always believed is a common goal. We're always here. We're about trying to make a better place for the next ge

Status of Women committee  You know, I'm not so young, but culturally—

Status of Women committee  I see those same issues with our women. It's a complex issue. I actually deal with an emerging leadership program, too. The women who are more confident, who are willing to put themselves out there, and who are on the right path in education for their career paths are to me the f