Colleagues, I rise today to recognize the work of Jacquelyn Cardinal, founder and director of Naheyawin and a member of the Sucker Creek Cree First Nation on Treaty 8 territory in Alberta, which is the traditional home of her people, the Sakawithiniwak. Jacquelyn testified before the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples yesterday as part of our study on the new relationship between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples.

In her statement she presented to us a vision of a future for herself and her descendants, seven generations and then some. She talked about what she is working to achieve, just as her ancestors have for many generations: a vision she described as “bridges in the sky” between our worlds, not to be used to meet in the middle to shake hands and be happy to go back to our own worlds without incident, but instead to be ventured across by the people of both worlds to listen and to learn on the other side and then journey back home transformed. She described these bridges as safe and clean because they are cared for by both peoples, and they come to the minds of us all in times of need, just as they do in celebration. These bridges, she says, will be part of who we are and we will stand taller because we have them.

She invited us to join her in achieving this vision by sharing the Indigenous natural laws of her people that provide an alternative framework for building the strong foundations of the lasting nation-to-nation relationships we wish to realize — Wahkohtowin, Nistotomuk and Sakiyatuk — a framework that has been successfully directing her company, Naheyawin, in facilitating change in how non-Indigenous peoples approach relationship building with Indigenous peoples.

These laws remind us of our interconnectedness, of the importance of supporting one another, in knowing ourselves before we seek to understand the other, and of the importance of being kind to one another and ourselves as we grow towards the nation-to-nation relationships we wish to build.

I thank Jacquelyn for her passion, her intellect, her enthusiasm and her inspirational leadership for young people and for all of us.

Kinanâskomitin. Thank you.