Participants in the Aboriginal Children and Youth Strategy
roundtable held on January 21, 2015. Front row (L-R)
Syvia Maracle, Executive Director of the Ontario
Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres (OFIFC);
Dr. Dawn Harvard, President of the Ontario Native
Women’s Association (ONWA); the Honourable David
Zimmer, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs; the Honourable
Tracy MacCharles, Minister of Children and Youth
Services; Gary Lipinski, MNO President; Gertie
Beaucage, Traditional Person. Back row (L-R) Deborah
Richardson, Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Affairs;
France Picotte, MNO Chair; Darryl Sturtevant, Assistant
Deputy Minister of Children and Youth Services;
Alexander Bezzina, Deputy Minister of Children and
Youth; Doug Wilson, MNO Chief Operating Officer;
Erin Corstan, ONWA Executive Director.
On January 21, 2015, the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) participated in a Métis and Urban Aboriginal Leadership Roundtable. This was the third roundtable focused on the issue of developing an Aboriginal Children and Youth Strategy. Other participants in the meeting included the Honourable David Zimmer, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and the Honourable Tracy MacCharles, Minister of Children and Youth Services as well as representatives from the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres (OFIFC) and the Ontario Native Women’s Association (ONWA).
The MNO was represented by President Gary Lipinski, Chair France Picotte, Chief Operating Officer Doug Wilson, Director of Healing and Wellness Wenda Watteyne and Manager of Operations Shelley Gonneville.
This meeting marked the final stage in the eighteen month process of developing an Aboriginal Children and Youth Strategy and approved a Framework proposal that will now go before the provincial Cabinet for consideration. “The MNO made a valuable contribution to the creation of the proposal that will go before cabinet,” explained President Lipinski. “This again brings home the importance of the positive relationship we have built with the Ontario government through the MNO-Ontario Framework Agreement.”
“Once in place,” he added, “the Aboriginal Children and Youth Strategy will assist Métis and other Aboriginal youth become all they can be.”