OTTAWA, Ont.-Cindy Woodhouse has been elected as the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN).
"I am honoured that the chiefs-in-assembly have placed their trust in me to lead the Assembly of First Nations," said Woodhouse. "My commitment to them is to advocate on behalf of all our communities and to improve life for all First Nations. That advocacy starts with accountability, transparency and dialogue. I look forward to working alongside the AFN executive committee on advancing our priorities in each region."
The Assembly of First Nations focuses on protecting and advancing the aboriginal and treaty rights and interests of First Nations in Canada, including health, education, culture and language.
Woodhouse was raised on the Pinaymootang First Nation, where her father became chief when she was four years old-a role he held for more than forty years. As a child, Woodhouse often attended Assembly of First Nations meetings with her parents. Her great-great-great-grandfather, Richard Woodhouse, was a signatory of Treaty 2.
As a young adult, Woodhouse attended the University of Winnipeg, where she and a small group of 15 to 20 others started a march for missing and murdered Indigenous women. Woodhouse began working for First Nations issues while at university, as an adviser to Francis Flett. She later worked for Shawn Atleo and as a senior advisor for Perry Bellegarde on First Nations-related policies. As part of her advocacy work, Woodhouse, who was still living on the reservation of the Pinaymootang First Nation in Fairford, worked as an AFN negotiator for a $23-billion child and family services class-action settlement reached with Canada last year.
In July 2021, Woodhouse was elected a regional chief of Manitoba's Assembly of First Nations, and in 2022, she represented Canada by joining a First Nations delegation traveling to Rome to meet Pope Francis and discuss the Catholic Church's role in residential schools.
In her new post, Woodhouse must unite more than 600 chiefs after years of internal strife and complaints that the organization, which is supposed to advocate for them, often neglects their best interests.
Woodhouse promised that she would prioritize issues brought forward by the Assembly's chiefs, no matter their scale.
"First Nations from coast to coast to coast have to be unified . . . We have a lot of work to do," she said. "We need to make sure we're working together for progress."
