Canada, Are You Listening?

I think we all agree you get what you work for. And no, I'm not talking about equality here. Yes, there's a lot of people that have more barriers than others, but you can't have this success without the work. Can we agree on that? Because that's something we need to talk about today. Sa. Hello, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon Clan, a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. Before I say anything else, thanks so much for being here because I was pretty sure I was going to lose a whole bunch of followers on Saturday when I released the video celebrating Indigenous Empowerment Day instead of Canada Day. So if you're here, kudos. That's. You don't have to agree with not celebrating Canada Day, but I love that you're here and open to learning. So Today's post, the July 3rd post, I kind of wrote a letter to Canada, and it was about what I was talking about in the opening, the idea that you have to work for success. You have to build relationships. If you want a great relationship, it starts with that incredibly awkward first date and no one knows what to say. And then you find commonalities and maybe you got a great running joke going and you find out you have common interests and maybe you go do one of those and the relationship builds from an Indigenous perspective. And I totally own that. That's the only perspective I've got, so I'm owning it. I wish some people would own their perspective and understand it's not everyone's perspective. But I digress. From my perspective, it looks like Canada is focused on building its economy, on making money, on getting the resources it needs. But there's a problem. So often getting those resources requires working in and on Indigenous lands. Now, the reality is all of Canada is Indigenous lands, but you know what I mean. Lands under the control of the First Nation communities. And I can't help thinking, well, you got to understand the communities where our first nations are. That's where we got moved to. So if you live in the city and there's no Indigenous people around, understand that was intentional. We got moved out of the way. And I can't help thinking sometimes Canada is kicking themselves in the butt because they moved us out of the way. Right on top of the minerals and trees they need, that's got to burn their butts. But I digress again. So now they're kind of looking at us like we're being in the way again. But they throw around words like partners and working together. But they don't want to put in the time to build the relationship. They want us to just trust them and jump on board. Based on what? What part of Canadian history shows that we should trust a for profit industry coming into our area? Are we living in the same national borders? Because what? I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm not saying there's not first nations interested. I'm saying put in the work. Put in the work. Especially since it was Canada that built the mountains that we're trying to get past. Does that make sense? So I'm here trying to explain this to people. I'm willing to put in the work. And there's first nations across Canada trying to explain. Explain things. Willing to put in the work, Canada. When are you going to be willing to put in the work? Canadian business. When are you going to be willing to put in the work? Not for your bottom line, that comes later. But to build the relationship. Because reconciliation benefits us all. Only if both sides are working on it. I hope that makes sense. I'd love to hear your comments. Comment below or send me an email. You could do that too. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.