The spiritual meaning of truth and reconciliation for the tribes

I’m waiting to get walking again. Some people react to the fact that I’m not walking constantly. I get questions like “Aren’t you going to be late in your walk of 8000 kilometers"? What is your agenda? If you’re not walking, what is the sense"?


I can understand people who react  in that way but that is not the way it works. There are the other people to take into account. The people I want to meet have their own agenda and sometimes I have to wait to meet them. As for the people on the street, I meet them in coffee shops, in activities that I participate in. As it is, I'm taking two years to walk 8000 kilometers.

The word “quinuituq” means deep patience

Waiting is the stuff patience is about. The word “quinuituq” means deep patience. That is the trademark of this 8000 km walk. I get to feel a little bit like the Inuit when they were travelling on the toundra looking for a herd of caribou making their way south. Sometimes it would be days before they saw the ravens that alerted them before they saw a caribou. They would grow restless but wait still.

But as you all know a lot happens when you wait. When you wait, you start looking at things differently.  You see things that you wouldn’t have seen or paid attention to had you been active. Opportunities arise.

Activity for the sake of activity would be a rut in my walk. So I take the time to prepare for the future meetings while I am waiting. It is not that I like waiting, but I am using it to the fullest.

First, I get to know the local library. I try to participate in any activity that I am interested in and will be opened to hear me talk about my walk, I read the local papers and get familiar with the local organizations and agencies that might have information I need on the tribes I’d like to get to know and talk to.

Respectful of protocols to let them know my purpose

It’s a delicate matter: I want to be respectful of protocols and not just barge in but at the same time, I need to let them know my purpose. The Inuit Nation I represent is also Aboriginal so I feel I have something the Nations here need to know. They share many woes but there are differences.

The spiritual meaning of truth and reconciliation for the tribes

So one day I studied the billboards at the library. There were two interesting meetings with the Nations. At the first one, I would get the spiritual meaning of truth and reconciliation for them; at the second one, I could maybe be invited as a guest speaker which would give me a great opportunity to share and learn more about the common plight of all Aboriginal women. The forum’s focus on justice was up my alley. It’s truly amazing what waiting holds in stock.

Amazingly, I was not surprised that the contents of the meeting were so soft. Whenever I listen to Aboriginal speakers, I am in awe of their gentleness and soft way of telling their stories. But there was amazing strength from all th testimonies.

Waiting is so full there is little time to write about it

Waiting has been so full I’ve hardly had time to write about the phone interviews I have had with Radio-Canada Estrie with Marie-Claude Barrette and with Régean Blais a few days later for a follow-up of my walk. A few days ago, I was also interviewed by Marie Villeneuve to tell her audience about my project and its purpose. Today, I am in  Chemainus to talk about my walk project for No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home.


No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home

Children, mothers and communities are the object of this project No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home. After all, every child is born with the right to have a better chance at a life free from abuse and violence.

Children are very vulnerable when they are removed from their birth families

But the children are very vulnerable when they are removed from their birth families. When they are removed not only from their families, but from their community, children lose out on being raised by their own families, in their own communities. As a result, there are increased numbers of Inuit children in child and foster care.


No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home is a grassroot initiative to help children in need of loving care, of a protective and stable environment to meet their basic needs for protection, shelter and education in a safe house in their own community.

Petition to empower the mothers and to reduce placements of the children

Like all that matters, we have to make the connections with what we can all do to help. This petition to be given to PM Justin Trudeau hopes to restore dignity but also their rights to a stable family and harmonious community. Policies and practices reflect longstanding and deeply embedded mother-blaming culture and father invisibility ideologies that shape child protection systems.