Legislators
recognize Lieutenant Governor and Grand Chief
by
Peter Moon
TORONTO
, ON —In a rare gesture, members of the Ontario
Legislature have honored Ontario's first Aboriginal Lieutenant-Governor
and the grand chief of the province's largest tribal organization.
During
an unprecedented invitation to Lt.-Gov. James Bartleman
to address Legislature, Grand Chief Stan Beardy of Nishnawbe-Aski
Nation, was asked to stand in the Visitors Gallery and
receive the applause of the MPPs.
Bartleman,
a member of Mnjikaning First Nation at Rama, told Legislature
he grew up in poverty and the target of racism as the
son of an Ojibway mother and a white father. Books, he
said, "transformed my life, allowed me to dream and
prepared me for a life other than that of an unskilled
laborer, which would have been my lot in life."
After
a distinguished career as a senior Canadian diplomat he
was appointed Ontario's Lieutenant-Governor "and
began to travel to Northern Ontario, in particular to
the 49 communities of Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, located in
the vast northern two-thirds of the province, (and) I
saw how far we still had to go as a society."
He
found widespread poverty and despair and turned to Beardy
for advice.
"The
grand chief told me we had to give the children hope and
to show them that other Ontarians cared about them. Hope
and caring, he emphasized, were the keys. We have worked
closely together in pursuit of these objectives ever since...The
grand chief and I agreed that the keys to giving hope
were literacy and building bridges of understanding and
mutual respect between native and non-native children."
Two
years ago, after finding desperate shortages of books
in isolated Northern communities, the Lieutenant-Governor
appealed to the people of Ontario to donate used books
for the children of Nishnawbe-Aski Nation.
Instead
of an expected 60,000 books a flood of 1.2-million books
were donated and distributed to First Nations across the
province with the help of the Canadian Rangers, Ontario
Provincial Police, Nishnawbe-Aski Police Services, Wasaya
Airways and others.
The
results have been dramatic, Bartleman said.
The
books have led to an increase of 30 percent in reading
levels in one community, Attawapiskat, and encouraged
youngsters in other communities to develop early reading
skills.
Bartleman
announced he was starting another used-books appeal in
January with the books destined for Aboriginal children
in Ontario, quebec, Nunavut, Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
He
has also set up summer literacy camps in Ontario's Far
North and established twinning programs between Aboriginal
schools in the north and non-Aboriginal schools in the
south.
His
speech received a standing ovation.
Sgt.
Peter Moon is the public affairs ranger for 3rd Canadian
Ranger Patrol Group at CFB Borden.
