 I'm the trust manager for the Pegwis Surrender Claim Trust, we're a community fund trust in Pegwis First Nation. Currently we're sitting at $135 million in the trust, which is a result of the illegal surrender of our initial reserve St. Peter's by Selkirk Manitoba. And the move from St. Peter's to our current day Pegwis, which is about 200 kilometers, moved north into the United States. As a result of the loss of the lands, the loss of the economy, loss of our culture, we were compensated with $126 million. And from that, what we've been able to do is take a look at why the trust is there, what does the trust want to do, what does the community want to do. And it's a community fund trust, so it's grants, grants that the community can apply for. And one of the components is that youth education, cultural language. Those are some of the areas. And as trust manager for the last three years, what I've been doing is going around to the community and to the members, to the membership, be it in Winnipeg, Selkirk, Pegwis, and providing them with information on what the Surrender Claim Trust is about, who we are, why we have it. But what we found is we have to start talking about our history. Who we are as Anishinaabe people. Where is St. Peter's? As we talk to students in the high school, talk to students at the universities, they don't realize or weren't taught our history. And that wasn't in the school system. So we want to share that with them about their vast cultural history, their heritage, where they came from, what it's all about, so that we have a better understanding and they have a better understanding of who they are. Where did they come from? What is their sense of identity? And creating that sense of identity we find gives them the self-esteem, gives them the confidence, gives them the foundation to go further, to do more, because they have that strong base in terms of who they are and where they've come from. So we provide that type of information to them. And at the same time, we also provide opportunities. We do community grants. So students come in, youth come in, community members come in, band departments come in, apply for grants for projects, programming, infrastructure, depending on what they want to do. And we support them. So what we see there is we see a lot of people coming in, getting these grants, and we build resources from that so we can see who's doing what in the community. And we can share that with other community members, with visitors, with people that want that information. If they want to find out who's a good artist that can bead, that can paint, who's doing what, programming in the community? So from that, we find out who's doing what. And so we're a source of resources for the community and for other people too. And what we've been also doing is comprehensive community planning. With the $126 million that the Surrender Claim received from the federal government, we also received $65 million in treaty land entitlement, trust monies too. So with almost $200 million coming into the community, the trustees needed to know what community plans were. So we have $200 million. What are we going to do with it? What's the plans? What's our vision? Where are we going? How are we going to get there? And who's going to prepare us to get there? So we have to make sure we inform the community members, educate, share, but also get their knowledge. Because as we talk to different community members, we're finding their skills, their gifts, we're finding their ideas. And so we want other people to be aware of that too so that we know kind of where we're going, where we're heading. And that'll give the government a sense of a path, a path that they can take us down, that we can walk together, that we can get where we're going based on the community's decisions. And from that, we see it it'll be, it's a, it's not an easy path, but it's a path that we've determined together that we know where we want to go. So we can see the vision and we want to get there. So that's what we're also working on too. We're trying to get that community engagement going. We're trying to get the resources together. We're trying to get the community talking about where they want to be. We do some sessions, information sessions about who we are, where we came from, what we're currently doing and why we're here, but also we talk about the future, about where we're going, where do they want to be, what careers are available within the community, within the trust industry, within the investment industry, within the community as a whole, whether it be Winnipeg, Pegwis, Selkirk, wherever Pegwis has lands and wherever Pegwis members are. So that's one of the, kind of one of the big things that we try to do. At the same time too, we try to do some financial literacy in terms of who wants to be a millionaire. So as community members, we let them know that they're millionaires. They have $135 million in Surrender Trust money currently and they have $50 million in TLE monies. So what are they going to do with it? It's your responsibility. It's your money. You have to know how to handle it. You have to know how to manage it and you have to know what you're going to do with it. So we do a session on that so it makes them aware of what they need to be, what they should be aware of as millionaires and what they could be doing with the money and hopefully give them some ideas in terms of maybe, you know, I'll start applying to the trust or I'll become a trustee or I'll become a trust manager or I'll go to university college and I'll pursue this and then come back and I can do some work for the community. So we're trying to inspire and motivate with the information we have but also with the funding that's available through the trust and the management of the monies that we have here. What we started doing is we started doing community engagement sessions at the community hall with the community as a whole and to bring the community members and we had to find ways to motivate them, to inspire them to come. So we started doing, we do lunch, we do door prizes but we also do speakers and we invite community members in to speak on areas of interest that they have. That way they bring themselves they bring their families they bring their coworkers in and we start getting a lot more people involved but we also start using local resources so we start looking within. So one of the models we have is community strength comes from within. So we start looking within the community because we have about 12,000 members in Pegwis and so there must be someone that can do what needs to be done or has those resources or those skills. So we started doing that and as we continued with those sessions we started realizing that we have to change the way things are going. We have to inspire change but the best way probably would be to go through the youth, go through the students. Let's start with them. So we started with their history letting them know who they are. We started bringing in elders talking about the teachings about the way things were but we had our own systems in place and we have to acknowledge those. We have to honor them and we have to recognize them. So we started doing that and then we started talking to the students about what they can do, about the power that they have, the opportunities that they have, the things that they can do. And one of the things we did with the grade 12 students specifically and related to the trusts was we started taking them to national conferences. We have the A4A Canada National Conference. We have the National Aboriginal Trust Office Conference and these were conferences where they can see what opportunities are out there. They can see a bigger world outside of Pegwis. They can meet a lot more people out there and start to get to know what other opportunities are there. They can meet vice presidents, presidents of investment management firms. They can meet heads of banking companies. They can meet so many people including other First Nations, other communities and finding out what's going on there that we have a lot of similarities in place and that these people are just another person. So they're just like you. They're no different. So we wanted to open up their eyes to the world and let them see what's out there. But we also wanted to engage them. We didn't just want to send them to the conference or to the sessions. We had to motivate them. So we gave them something like a scavenger hunt, questions to ask, people to pursue, people to take pictures of. One of the examples is they went to A4E Canada National Conference in Halifax. We took the group there. Further scavenger hunt, they had to find Terry Goodtrack and take a selfie with him. But first they had to figure out who Terry Goodtrack was and then to figure out what he looked like. And then I forgot to tell Terry that the kids were coming. So I saw him and he says, all these kids from Pegwis are coming up to me to take a selfie with me. It makes me feel so important. So it was fun. It was cute. We also had them work with one of the trade booth. So we arranged for some of the trade booths to take them in for half an hour to an hour. Show them how to engage, show them how to market the resources that were there. Show them how to make people feel comfortable and invite them in. And hopefully that would kind of make them feel confident about themselves and make them feel good. So those were some of the things. They also had to talk to people from different areas and provide them with a small gift a pin from Pegwis and would say, thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you, introduce themselves and hope they'll see them again. So those types of things we wanted them to be actively engaged in so that they weren't sitting in the workshop, sitting in the conference, and also getting involved in all of the activities that are there. So it kept them busy and it was nice to hear some of the feedback from the delegates and from the organizers that they enjoyed having the students there and they enjoyed seeing them involved. So I think that was probably one of the things that initiated the youth concept with A4W Canada to have them more involved and invite the youth. But with A4W Canada we also have the Youth Award winners. It was MNP Youth Award. We tried to get Pegwis students to apply as they can. So we did happen to have one of them that was awarded, was recognized one year. So they took him to the conference. They took him on a tour. His comments were, he met so many people there. So many institutions, banks, institutions, some of the universities, colleges were asking him to apply to their programs. So it was nice to see and it made him feel good that people were interested in him, but also that he wasn't aware of what was there. So it was nice to meet all those people. He met the lieutenant governor. He met a few of the chiefs there. So he had a good time. So it was a good experience for him to take back to the community that they too can apply, try and get the awards and take this opportunity to get to know a whole bunch of people. And it's a big world out there. As much as Pegwis is the center of my universe, it's nice to be out there too. One of the things I found growing up in Pegwis is my parents were my dad was a pulp cutter, seasonal labor. My mother was a janitor at the hospital. She instilled in us that you had to get an education. We don't want you working in the bush with us. We don't want you working as a janitor. We want you to get a good education so you can become independent. You can be comfortable. You can have your own life. That was okay. That was great. But at the same time, they didn't teach us anything about who we are in terms of our identity as a National Bay people. They didn't teach us the language. They, told to go to church, Anglican church. We didn't have any cultural teachings. We did have stories. But it was stories that had been passed on from them. But it wasn't promoted that it was part of our culture that was being taught. It was more of warnings. Don't wander out off late at night. Stay away from the river type of thing. These spirits will get you. So that's how our group is go to school. Go to school or go to work. Those are your two options. So it wasn't until I got to university that I started realizing that as an indigenous person I have a history. I have a culture. I have a whole bunch of ancestors behind me and what they did. That wasn't shared with us until we got to college or university. That's when we started finding out there was a way of life. We didn't have these schools. We didn't have these textbooks. We didn't have this type of teaching. There was a whole different way of learning, a whole different way of teachings that were there before and including the language. So that was an eye-opener. But at the same time, too, I find that Pegwis is really colonized and part of it was a transfer from the St. Peter's to Pegwis. It was push the schools, push the churches, no language taught, no culture taught, no dancing taught, no ceremonies. These were all pushed down. They were all buried. It wasn't until later that people started realizing that, hey, we had a way of life that was that's good and that's still there. But it's buried. So it started making its appearance. So I thought that I was book smart. I could go like, you know, get a couple of degrees and graduate, graduate high school, graduate university. And, you know, this would be great. But what I didn't realize until later that I didn't know anything about who I was as an Indigenous person. I didn't know my culture, didn't know my culture, didn't know my language. Took the classes. But again, it's the academic classes. You still have to live the life. You still have to participate in it. So what I was able to do later on was start, was trying to find out more about it. So I'd be sitting down with some of the cultural innovators, the ones that were starting to push the culture, starting to realize that, you know, we had, we have all these, all these ceremonies we have, all these things that we should do this way of life that's starting to make comeback. And by starting to spend more time with them, including the hunters and gathers group in Pegwis, they would take young men and teach them hunter safety, firearms acquisition, how to look after winter survival, summer survival, how to look after equipment so that they'd be able to look after themselves, teach them about trapping, teach them about how to take care of animals, how to harvest animals, plants. It was from there that I started realizing that our ancestors were really smart. They knew the land, they knew the animals, they knew the trees, they knew the plants, and that what I guess what we've been doing is taking that knowledge, but accrediting it to someone else. And we're not giving them the recognition that they should receive that we did have a wonderful, a wonderful way of life. Our ancestors knew a lot. So realizing that, that was great. But at the same time too, when I look at the treaties, when I look at the work that they did with another nation, it's like they were really smart, they really thought ahead. So when you talk about going seven generations ahead, going towards for those yet unborn, I start to see it. I've been starting to see it now. So I take a look at the Salkirk Treaty, I take a look at treaty number one. I take a look at some of the treaties and the thinking. The thinking that's there that went behind it and the forethought. So when I was working in Indian Affairs, the some of the staff there were, well this contract should be over, it should be finished. You know, we've paid enough. But it's no, it regardless if you've paid enough, that's not what was signed. It was supposed to be until until the water stop flowing. And I guess at that time the probably European nation never realized that it was going to be forever, or hopefully forever. So those types of things, those types of thoughts are starting to are starting to make me realize that there was a lot of planning, a lot of thinking that went into into negotiations from our ancestors and our elders. It wasn't it wasn't kind of imposed on them. They had their input. But at the same time, too, we have to acknowledge the teachings there the way they did things. And we're starting to see it now, too. We have a really strong land-based education system in Pegwas and we're seeing in other First Nations and other communities, too, that it's not all classroom based education anymore. We have to get the students, we have to get the children out onto the land, out working with the community members. We have to bring the elders in. We have to bring those people with their gifts in because we have to find what those gifts are within these children and so they can honor them recognize them but also acknowledge the gifts that they have because it's important to know what your purpose is, who you are and what you're good at. You're here for a reason. One of the things we find is with the spirit names and someone gets their spirit names. There's a reason behind why they have that name and there's a meaning to it and that seems to ground them. It gives them a good sense of who they are and why they're that way. It also gives them the opportunity, too, to give them a strong sense of identity. And then from that there, it helps on their path. But for the education part, we have to involve the students in more than just classroom based education. They have to get out there, they have to be involved and they have to participate but we also have to recognize that there's different ways of learning. We can, as we sit with the elders when we ask them questions, we can't ask pointed questions. It's hard to talk and give them a straight answer. So it's nice to sit there and listen to them, listen to their stories and then it starts to come out and they start telling us more than we actually wanted to know at the time, to learn. We start finding out more so it's, we need that opportunity to sit with people and just have them share their experiences but not just the elders, too, that we're finding as we're talking to the students talking to the children and listening to them that we have to get down to their level and work with them at that level so that we can listen to them. And I have to sit back every once in a while and try not to tell them what I want them to do or what I expect from them. I want them to tell me what they want and that's part of our community engagement, too, is talking to them or listening to them about what they want to do and how can we help them do what they want to do, not what we think they should be doing. So it's it's been a good eye-opener but it's also been it's been refreshing I think to see that there is a lot of motivation there's a lot of vision there but we just have to bring it out we just have to give them that opportunity to share that. As I look forward for the next 10, 15 years into the near future what I'm currently seeing right now is that a sense of acknowledgement appreciation for who we are as Anishinaabe people some see it, some don't because we still have that colonial attitude where it's it's not it's not appreciated, it's not understood and it's something that we haven't been doing for a long time there's still that battle between Christianity and the traditionalists in the community at the same time we do have a lot of the traditionalists who are maybe pursuing ceremonies but it's we're not exactly sure if it's let's say the Anishinaabe ceremony or ceremony they may have adopted from somewhere else it's starting to get a little mixed so we have to we don't have to but we need to look at what we're doing and who we are understanding who we are and where we're coming from so that we don't start bringing in too many different things and mudding the water, changing things but being on the same page but there is a lot of that coming, there's a lot of that starting and people are starting to go back to the old ways, they're starting to go back to the ceremonies and they're looking for a sense of meaning from that we're seeing a resurgence in the language, we're starting to see people starting to get their spirit names being one of the main things is going to the medicine people and seeking the healing but also seeking the identity trying to figure out who they are why are they here and giving them a good sense of identity so they can move forward from that it's also an appreciation of who they are but what I see is pride I see some pride in those that as they speak in the community they start to recognize introduce themselves by their spirit names and then they start talking in the English language we do have some elders now that can come to the community meetings and can speak in Ojibwe and do their prayers do a presentation just to show the community that it's possible they didn't have it before, they weren't taught before but they've learned the language and they've been able to share it now and they're taking pride in that we're starting to see a lot of children with Ojibwe Ojibwe or some some traditional name now so that's starting to get into the system now so that it's not biblical names anymore or so we're starting to see a lot of that happening so it's nice to see that we're starting to do that some of the changes yet is we still have to change our government our government system we're still Indian Indian Act based elected chief and council for two years doesn't give them much time to lead the community for those two years it doesn't give us much time to grow and develop because of the lack of consistency in governance so we do need to change that but at the same time we shouldn't be relying on the chief and council to govern the community it has to be the community leaders it has to be the departments they should administrative departments we need to start taking the responsibility but also the leadership to show the community where they want to go, what they want to do and the chief and council can support them they can walk with them but they don't have to be the ones telling them what to do, where to go and how to do it the community needs to do that the community needs to step up and be involved in that area we started recognizing our community leaders in Pegwis and these are people that are doing great things without without the appointment without receiving any kind of a payment for the work that they do but because they want to do it they're doing it for the community they're doing it for the family they're doing it because they have the skills they have the gifts for it and it's nice to see those people being recognized and honored for what they've done so we need to do more of that acknowledging who we have in the community and the skills and the gifts that they have at the same time we know that chief and council do still do need some recognition because we do rely on them we have to rely on them to support us to provide the advice to I guess take the next step with the government usually with the federal government, provincial government there but we do need our community leaders to be involved we also need to make sure that communication is open among the community people need to know what's going on we have social media but we need to know from the government side and from the administrative side what's happening in the community it builds trust the more you know but what's going on it gives you a better sense of what the community is doing and who's doing what so when you hear good things about people acknowledge it record it, put it out there so that we can take pride in what's happening it doesn't have to be the provincial the federal awards it could be something good that's happening where it makes you feel good and we start building on that on that pride and also it's nice to acknowledge it too as a person if you receive something and someone mentions it it makes you feel good about what you've done and it's also a confirmation of the good that you're doing so hopefully motivate the person to continue doing what they're doing those are some of the things that I'd like to see within the community we do need that comprehensive community plan to continue where the community lets us know what they want to do and we come together in the different areas to figure out where we're going and then how we're going to get there and continue those discussions and continue those discussions but yet still involve all the community members be it on reserve, off reserve and the different groups there so we need input from everyone so that we know where we're going