 Today we're celebrating International Women's Day, March the 8th. We're recognizing the achievements that women have made and celebrating the global movement towards gender equity. And here at the Legislative Assembly, we've asked women MLA's what women in your life have inspired you. I was fortunate to grow up in a household with two of the strongest women role models I could ever have dreamed about, my grandmother and my mother. They showed me every day through their actions about how to stand up for fairness, for justice, for equality. I can tell you the woman who inspired me to be involved in politics back in 1989 was Dr. Mirny Neveson. She was the Professor Emeritus of the University of British Columbia and she firmly believed that policy needed to be underwritten, if you will, by the best signs of the day. I would have to say that my grandmother, the late Belma Mark, from the Nisconation and from the Eagle Clan, was a great inspiration in my life. She went to St. Michael's Residential School. She survived it and raised a beautiful family. The woman who inspired me to get into politics is Linda Reed. Linda came to my writing, taught me how to door knock, how to main street and was a true inspiration. Deirdre Gallagher and I worked together for many years in the Public Service Alliance of Canada. She played such an important role in transitioning the union into something that was much more feminist, much more working class, and much more of a fighting union. Who really got me into local government was Mary Shustrom. She was the mayor of the city of Cornell and she encouraged me to get involved to have my voice heard and for that I will always be grateful. My mother is the big inspiration why I am in politics. She has always motivated me to do my very best, whether it was pursuing my studies, whether it was choosing my own career and then also getting into politics. My great nine social studies teacher Mrs. Rowe, she taught me that history was about far more than battles and wars. She taught me that history was about social history, what people ate, what they were thinking, what they wore and the kind of social impacts that were on them and that is the basis for my social activism today. On International Women's Day I want to talk about the women who inspire me and that's the women that I work with every day in this office and I want to say thank you to all their hard work and their incredible commitment to making this province a better place. And who are some of the women who have inspired your lives? Together we can promote gender equity. Together we can build a more equal BC. Happy International Women's Day.