July 11, 2006
Check Against Delivery
First, it is a pleasure to be with you here in the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people, and I want to say to Chief Ernie Campbell of the Musqueam Nation, Chief Leah George-Wilson of the Tsleil-Waututh and Chief Ian Campbell of the Squamish Nation thank you for welcoming us here, welcoming me here and welcoming First Nations from across our country to this place for this week for these deliberations, because they will be very important to the future of British Columbia and to Canada.
To have 630 First Nations from across Canada come to these territories, to this place, to discuss your future and the direction you would like to go is a true honour for us in British Columbia, and I want to start today by saying thank you. Thank you, first, to the Assembly of First Nations, but more importantly, thank you to the elders who have persisted and who have kept a vision of the future of their First Nations, who have relentlessly pursued keeping their culture, traditions and their belief in their First Nations alive so that today we can all share the bounty of those traditions and that culture.
To the elders who join us today, I say thank you for coming to this place and thank you for the example that you have set, because it is an example of honour, an example of commitment, an example that leads future generations.
And I want to say thank you to the Assembly of First Nations today. I was elected, as Chief Atleo said, in 2001. Shortly after the last election of the Assembly of First Nations, your national chief, Phil Fontaine, asked if he could come and speak with me in my office and talk about your plans for the future of Canada and First Nations in Canada. From that has built a strong relationship that I believe has helped touch the hearts of First Nations across the country and, indeed, the hearts of many of my colleagues at the elected level of office and provincial governments.
Our first significant accomplishment, I believe, was in 2004, when we brought together First Nations leadership from across Canada and we said it was time for us to deal directly with First Nations health. We said it was time to focus resources and time and attention on the health of our First Nations and our First Nations children so that indeed First Nations people could have the same future, the same healthy future, as every other Canadian. And the Assembly of First Nations, after months and months of work and tireless consultation with First Nations across the country, came with a solid, practical, sensible plan that would help us accomplish that goal.
It is that leadership that you take as an assembly that is so critical to our future in our country and in our province. It is leadership that recognizes challenges openly, that faces the facts of today and asks “How do we build a better tomorrow together?”
Over the last year, we have worked in our province with the leadership council to build a new relationship. I should say to all of the members of the leadership council how much I appreciate their guidance and their vision as we strive to develop a new relationship in British Columbia that recognizes the goals that we set for ourselves and set for every British Columbian. They're goals we set for First Nations kids as well as for non-First Nations kids, they're goals we set for our entire province working together, and I can tell all of those of you assembled here today that without the leadership, the commitment, the dedication and the strength of purpose of B.C.'s leadership council, we would not have made the small progress we have made today.
On behalf of all of the people who live in our province, let me recognize, acknowledge and say thank you to the leadership council for your vision and your direction. You've been exceptional.
I had the opportunity last fall to go across the country, meeting with many of you in your traditional territories or in the regions from which you come, and I want to say thank you for also welcoming me and my colleagues with open arms. You were straightforward. You lent your expertise and your knowledge to us as we strived to map out a plan for First Nations in Canada and for Inuit and for Métis people that would ensure that everybody who is on this land shares in the bounty of this land.
Last November, all of us gathered together in Kelowna as leaders and representatives of our governments
