Wab Kinew, well-known broadcaster and Associate Vice President for Indigenous Relations at the University of Winnipeg, will chair the new Indigenous Advisory Circle made up of 20 members. Joining him will be Aboriginal elders and business owners and will include First Nation, Metis, and Inuit people.
Dr. Marcia Anderson Decoteau, Medical Officer for Indigenous Medicine for the Province of Manitoba, joins Mayor Brian Bowman following the inauguration of the city's Indigenous Advisory Circle. She is the current president of the Indigenous Physicians Association of Winnipeg.
WINNIPEG, MB-The City of Winnipeg now has an Indigenous Advisory Circle that will strive to bridge the city's Aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities.
"We need to build bridges in this community," Mayor Brian Bowman, Metis, stated during a press conference at City Hall, during which he presented the members of his newly formed circle.
Wab Kinew, well-known broadcaster and Associate Vice President for Indigenous Relations at the University of Winnipeg, will chair this new group made up of 20 members. Assisting Kinew will be Treaty Commissioner Jamie Wilson and Justice Murray Sinclair, Lead Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Joining them will be Aboriginal elders and business owners and will include First Nation, Metis, and Inuit people.
These people are "committed to making this city a better place for everyone and also a place that fully celebrates the richness, and the wisdom and strength of Indigenous cultures," Chair Kinew said. "What everyone up here is committed to do...is to figure out how to actually make that work on the ground level, how do we actually move forward on topics like making it safe for women and girls, jobs for Indigenous people, educating the city staff to the history and culture of Indigenous peoples, all to work toward the goal of making this place a more powerful and more vibrant city."
The advisory circle includes Wab Kinew, chair; Councilor Cindy Gilroy; Harry Bone, Elder; Mae Louise Campbell, Elder; Esther Ducharme, Elder; Dr. Marcia Anderson-Decoteau; Jessica Dumas, owner and founder of Prime Image Life Coaching; EJ Fontaine, president/CEO and founding partner of Anishinabek Consultants Inc.; Damon Johnston, President, Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg; Kimberley Puhache, consultant, Leaders and Co.; Dee Thomas-Hart, university student, youth representative, Aboriginal Chamber of Commerce; Manley A. Begay Jr., co-director of of Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University;
Cindy Blackstock, executive director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, associate professor, University of Alberta; Alan Greyeyes, Aboriginal Music Development manager for Manitoba Music, chair of Aboriginal Music Manitoba; Chief Robert Louie, Westbank First Nation; Sean McCormick, CEO and founder, Manitobah Mukluks; Justice Murray Sincclair, Truth and Reconcciliation Commission; Kerri Tattuinee, university student; Jamie Wilson, commissioner, Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba.
The advisory circle will meet on a quarterly basis with their first meeting to coincide with the anti-racism summit to be jointly hosted with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, September 17-18.
