 Great, good afternoon, everyone. Simgaget Sigmanak, Gwyt Wilsuk. My name's Melanie Mark. My Nisqa name's Lahakwiskak. I'm very proud to be BC's Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, and Sport, the MLA for Vancouver Mount Pleasant, and the first and only First Nations woman to ever get elected in BC's history. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge that we're meeting and joining today on the traditional unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Slewa-Tooth nations. I'm here today with my colleague, Minister Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. As well, we are also joined by Leslie Varley, Executive Director of the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centers. With us virtually is Barb Ward Burkitt, Chair of the Ministries Advisory Council on Indigenous Women. And together, we are working towards two important goals. One, keeping Indigenous women, girls, and 2S LGBTQIA plus people safe from violence. And two, advancing reconciliation and gender equality. For more details, it is my pleasure to introduce Minister Mike Farnworth. Thank you, Minister Mark, and thank you everyone for being here today. And I'd also like to acknowledge by, and begin by acknowledging that we're speaking with you from the traditional unceded territories of the Musqueam, Slewa-Tooth, and Squamish peoples. To begin, as many of you will know, a fire broke out today in Vancouver's Gastown neighborhood. Vancouver fire has been on the scene since the fire began and have completed several rescues from the upper floors of the building. We estimate that 70 people are affected and Vancouver Emergency Support Services is establishing a reception center for residents needing assistance. BC Housing is also in communication with the city of Vancouver to assist where needed. And our thoughts are with those affected. Our families and the firefighters on scene. Today I'm here to speak about the Path Forward Community Fund. Protecting communities and ensuring people feel safe is a crucial part of our government's work. Yet as we mark the prevention of violence against women weak, we know that too many indigenous women and girls and two spirit people continue to face disproportionate levels of violence. That's why I'm very pleased to announce $5.34 million in new grants. To increase safety planning capacity that is self-determined by indigenous survivors, family members and communities. In keeping with the idea of nothing about us without us. We are looking to the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centers to develop and administer the new Path Forward Community Fund. With 25 Friendship Centers across British Columbia and a 50-year track record of supporting indigenous communities, the BCAAFC brings a wealth of experience and expertise to this grant program. The fund will be accessible to support First Nation communities, urban and off reserve communities, Métis citizens, Inuit and two spirit communities. Indigenous safety advocates know best their communities safety priorities. And now they will have more resources to support them. The Community Fund is a key response to the final report of the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. And a milestone in our shared journey towards meaningful reconciliation and gender equality. The Community Fund is the initial step our government made in the Path Forward. BC's plan to end violence against indigenous women, girls and two spirit people. The Path Forward is also reflected in action 3.8 of BC's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act action plan. We are dedicated to creating a province where indigenous women, girls and two spirit people have the required supports to prevent violence and heal from its devastating impacts. The Community Fund aligns with the work my ministry and the parliamentary secretary for gender equity are undertaking to develop an action plan to stop gender violence, including budget 2022's $22 million to support sexual assault centers over the next three years. Government funding and support is vital to addressing violence. However, it is only through the meaningful participation of indigenous communities and organizations that we can make the journey towards lasting reconciliation. Thank you. Thank you, minister. Now I'd like to welcome the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centers, Leslie Varley, to tell us more about how the Community Fund is going to support communities. Thank you. Thank you, ministers. BCAFC is very pleased to be selected to administer the Path Forward Community Funds. For many years, indigenous women and girls have been targeted openly by serial killers and gangs preying on our colonial poverty. Where there are industrial work camps, we see high rates of violence against indigenous women and girls. We see gangs targeting our young girls. We've lost many women and girls who should have been protected by Canadian society. We receive substandard service from the police and from the judicial system. We've long endured colonial mentality of Canadians whose unspoken belief is that we're not worth fighting for and not worth saving. After a federal inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and the provincial inquiry, this is a key opportunity for us as an indigenous woman led organization to be administering anti-violence funds to indigenous communities and organizations. Until now, we've had to go through mainstream organizations to protect and support our women and girls. And that clearly hasn't worked for us. BCAFC is collaborating with battered women support services to develop frontline training for indigenous women and girls to work in this field. This is a first step in developing our own province-wide capacity as indigenous women for indigenous women. BCAFC is collaborating with Aboriginal Housing Management Association, with BC Society for Transition Houses, and with battered women support services to develop a network of indigenous support from town to town throughout BC, including information counseling, discrete protections, and including safe houses, transition houses, and second stage housing, as well as prevention and intervention services and counseling services. Indigenous women who are interested in developing their culturally safe support skills should give us a call. I deeply thank the province for supporting indigenous women to serve and support indigenous women. This is an important first step towards reconciliation. Thank you. Thank you so much, Leslie. I'd now like to introduce Barb Ward Burkitt, a longtime advocate for urban Aboriginal families. She is joining us virtually over to you, Barb. If all goes well with technology, nice to see you. Mr. Mark, Tensei Doutinak, Nia Wahia-Kwapdasko-Segaskoyan. Hello, everyone. I'm joining you today virtually from the unceded ancestral territory of the Claytley Tenei. As the collective work leading to this new funding announcement of 5.34 million was unfolding, four core scenes were identified as a path forward toward ending violence against women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA plus peoples. This initial work was led by Elaine Alec of Alder Hill Planning and Corporation in her planning sessions that were held in 2019 and 2021 and where there was identified need for safe spaces and safety plans for healing supports, for strengthening relationships with our partners and for access to resources. At that time, a number of challenges were identified through this process, such as funding and resources that were identified as the greatest barrier working in silos and cultural education burnout and engagement of ministers. It pleases me and I'm so happy today that these challenges are starting to be addressed by the BC Minister of Public Safety and through ongoing dialogue with our federal counterparts. Today, an urban indigenous organization, the BC Association of Friendship Centers has been selected to support indigenous community groups and organizations both on and off reserve to bring indigenous women and girls together in a safe environment to give voice to issues of gender-based violence and abuse within their lives, their families and communities, as well as to heal and learn from life experiences that build resilience and strength through a lens of reconciliation and trauma-informed practices. Today, the voices of indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA plus peoples will be heard in the province of BC as we align our priorities leading to safety, support, healing and decolonizing programs and practices. Thank you so much for the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centers for stepping up to the plate, as you always do, and for being in line to support this funding stream and also to the province of British Columbia. Thank you. Thank you. Fantastic, thank you so much. That ends our formal remarks, but I guess I would add as someone who's been a long-time advocate myself for missing women, indigenous women in the community as an indigenous woman myself. I just want to acknowledge the hard work Barb is doing up in Prince George, which a lot of that advocacy with a highway of tears has been central to your work and Leslie to really acknowledge the place of urban indigenous people in our province and being a safe haven for indigenous people across this province. I want to acknowledge Elaine Alec for her work. She really facilitated the voices of community and heard loud and clear what government needed to do to move forward, to create that path forward. And it's a lot to endure considering all the traumas that indigenous women have and continue to face. So I want to acknowledge Elaine, who can't be with us today, and to thank her for her leadership, to giving government, Minister Farnworth myself and the rest of our cabinet a roadmap to move forward, to mitigate and end the violence against indigenous women. And I know this fund was a call to action, so I especially want to thank the survivors, the family members, those that said to government, we need to see more action. And as Minister Farnworth said, nothing about us without us. So with that, thank you to everyone who made today possible, including the public service for facilitating this work. Hawa. And I will be passing it over to Minister Farnworth. Questions. Thank you, and now we're going to questions. Please press star one at any time and you will be placed in the queue. As a reminder, please unmute your phone as you will not be audible until your name is called. Our first question is from Binder Sajan, CTV. Given the number of issues that you've outlined so far. It's okay, it's binged, she asked for Leslie. Sorry, the first part was cut off. Can you repeat the question please? Yeah, hi Leslie. So I guess what I'm looking for is like, how will you know that moving forward with this funding is a success and results in less indigenous women and girls being impacted by violence? Ah, thanks for the question. Even the part where we get to administer funding to our own families and communities and projects to address violence and to do it in our way in acknowledging our experiences and our culture and working collaboratively is a success in and of itself. This is a societal problem. It's not a problem that indigenous women have created. So Canadian society is gonna have to work with us to address the violence against women and girls. Binder, do you have a follow-up? I do, and this one is for me on another topic. Just wanted to ask you about the fire again. Do you have an estimate of how many people may be impacted at this time? Can you talk a little bit more about the support available? I don't have a significant amount of information at this point. What I can tell you is obviously that Vancouver Fire Department is on the scene. The BC housing has been notified. There it is anticipated at this point that about 70 people have been impacted by the fire, but that's the latest information that I have. Our next question is from Amy Smart, Canadian Press. Amy, go ahead, please. Okay, could you repeat that question? It came in very, very quietly. I caught a bit about Amber Alert, but not much else. It's a system for missing Indigenous people similar to an Amber Alert. I'm wondering if BC is considering the same, and I'm also curious to hear whether some of the women leaders on this call would support that or would have any concerns about it. Certainly in terms of the Amber Alert that's used right now in British Columbia, it is our plan to have the broadcast intrusive alerting system as it's referred to in place for the fresh yet season and the wildfire season this year. The issue about an alert for missing Aboriginal and Indigenous women is something that certainly I would be willing to take a look at, and obviously would do that in consultation with First Nations. Do have a follow-up. Actually do have a follow-up relating to the fresh yet. I'm wondering, given that many of the communities, including First Nations communities, are still in recovery mode, I've spoken to some people who say they haven't even exiled enough to prepare for the spring saw. How ready are we for the possibility for another disaster? Well, I can tell you that prior to this press conference, I was just in a provincial, territorial, Indigenous Nations committee meeting that the province and the federal government set up to deal with these very issues in terms of recovery and flood mitigation and preparedness and disasters in general. I can also tell you that my ministry and other cross ministries have been preparing for the fresh yet. Right now we are waiting on the latest update from the weather centre in terms of the conditions around the snowpack. One of the things obviously that will have an impact is the rate of thaw that takes place while in many parts of the province, the snowpack is either at or slightly above normal. There are other parts of the province where snowpack is below normal. So, for example, in New Okanagan it is about 86%. It's about 109% in the coastal range and then up in the Peace River Leaird, it was at about 143%. But one of the critical factors of course is what temperature does and that's being monitored very closely. And I will receive updates on that on a regular basis. At the same time, the repairs that we're ongoing for or after the flood obviously continue. And so we are attempting to be as prepared as possible with local communities for the fresh yet system this spring. That's all the questions that we have and that concludes today's event. Thank you very much everyone.