LEAF, Manitoba Chapter, Person's Day Breakfast, October 16, 2009

Attended the LEAF Annual Person’s Day Breakfast this morning. Was very well attended at about 1000. Yah! Prof. Kathleen Mahoney spoke. When I’ve thought of equality I’ve always considered it meant that you had to treat people the same. But she said, sometimes you have to treat people differently, presumably not to discriminate against them. That really spoke to me. Treat people differently, to treat them the same. Makes sense if you consider a pregnant woman in the workplace. You may have to treat her differently in order to get her to the same point as you would treat a man. Then former AFN Chief Phil Fontaine spoke. He spoke of the residential school situation. When I grew up in Brandon I attended the United Church and a number of the children (probably aged 6-16) attended from the Indian Residential School. They were tremendously bad behaved. Would never sit still. Would run all over the place. We always thought that they were just badly behaved. After listening to Chief Fontaine I had a new perspective – maybe they were just acting out because of how they were being treated at the Indian Residential School, or because they had been forced away from their family and were being forced to assimilate into “white” society. Put it in a whole different light. Maybe we should be more tolerant of bad situations and try to understand the causes rather than jump to conclusions about the obvious.

A friend had commented to me: Both speeches were very absolutely inspiring! I was impressed with Phil Fontaine's message about balance and his increible presence as a healer. The LEAF breakfasts are always thought provoking!

I too was impressed with Phil Fontaine's message and his delivery. She hit it right on the head in describing him as a healer. I previously had the idea from media reports over the years that he was more militant. However that was certainly not the message he portrayed at the breakfast. I also like how he talked about the good things that were done by some Indian Residential Schools. I had no idea about that. Should I have read more, or was it just not reported? I hope it is not a cop out, but I am of the view that sometimes the media publishes the extreme points in order to garner interest in buying papers, watching tv news reports, etc. That unfortunately leaves the positive parts of the story out.