Leader of Cree Nation from Quebec tackles issues in first year, looks ahead to future

Grand Chief of the Cree nation of Eeyou Istchee in Quebec, Mandy Gull-Masty, was elected in August 2021 and in more than a year in the post, she says it’s been eventful and challenging, with many goals in mind.

“We need to find our healing paths to ensure that we’re not passing this history on to the next generation,” she said.

The Grand Chief was part of a delegation that travelled to the Vatican last March and met with Pope Francis, who later offered an historic apology to Canada’s Indigenous communities for the Catholic Church’s role in running residential schools for Indigenous children.

“I really appreciate to have participated in that process, one, to ensure that the dialogue on residential schools is opened,” she said, “and also that it really gave me the opportunity to meet other Indigenous leaders, meet other nations and to develop working relationships with them.”

The Pope took his commitment to reconciliation to Canada, visiting and meeting with more Indigenous leaders over the summer who further dove into the dark history surrounding residential schools.

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“Although these discussions went well and we were well-received by the Pope, I do believe that more work needs to be done by the Catholic Church to understand the impact on culture, to understand that this process that they engaged in this summer is not really a checklist approach to addressing residential schools,” she said.

“It was really the first step in a number of steps that have to be taken to really have the proper dialog that church stations are looking for.”

On a more local level, the Grand Chief is looking to improve relations and the commitment to reconciliation with the Quebec government and Premier François Legault.

“I personally advise his office to engage a reconciliation advisor, somebody Indigenous, somebody that can give him cultural training, sensitize him to the reality of the Indigenous nations here and to work in in collaboration with the Minister,” she said.

“I believe that reconciliation goes beyond the scope of the Minister for Relations with Indigenous Peoples. It is complementary to the process. It is a process that spans across all ministries and I believe that it is training that we need to see it put in place for our government to truly understand what it means to govern all people in Quebec, not just Quebecers, but Indigenous nations as well.”

For Gull-Masty, the work is just getting started.

“My goal is to really ensure that in my capacity as Grand Chief of my nation, I’m building relations not only with our local leadership, our governments, but with other nations as well.”