“You always hear the politicians and the candidates trotting out that term reconciliation and that’s great, but in terms of mental health and overall health services reconciliation is really about healing,” Keeseekoowenin Ojibway Nation Chief Norman Bone said on Friday. As part of the pledge, O’Toole said the Conservatives would invest $1 billion in new funding over five years for First Nations, Métis and Inuit mental health and drug treatment programs, and work to support land-based and culturally appropriate mental health care. As Chief of Keeseekoowenin Ojibway Nation, Bone leads a community of about 500 residents that sits 100 kilometres north of Brandon. “What we would need to see right away is a meeting between the federal government and Indigenous leadership, but not just a short meeting. There needs to be a real discussion nation to nation and government to government where we need to put the work in to get that education.”— Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun.

Source: thestar August 27, 2021 17:48 UTC