Remarks by
The Honourable Anita Neville, P.C., O.M.
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba
PRAYER BREAKFAST, NATIONAL INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY
Manitoba Legislative Building
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
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Fellow Manitobans, it is a pleasure to join you on the morning of National Indigenous Peoples Day.
As Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, I honour and acknowledge that we are gathered on Treaty One land, and in the heartland of the Red River Metis.
This beautiful and diverse province is also the ancestral and the present-day home of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples.
I also recognize that northern Manitoba includes lands that were, and are, the ancestral lands of the Inuit.
Together, we will continue to work to hear truths, and to advance understanding, opportunity, and healing for all.
The goal of reconciliation takes many steps – educational, legal, economic – and involves actions in classrooms, courtrooms, legislatures, council chambers and throughout society.
But it also involves celebration and song, dance and dialogue. On National Indigenous Peoples Day, we come together to experience the diversity and depth of Indigenous cultures. And we see how gathering for this purpose lifts the spirit and opens the heart.
This breakfast brings together men and women from a variety of faith traditions. Some will express prayers seeking divine inspiration and compassion as we work for a better province, country and world.
Others will find their inspiration in the compassion of those around them and the shared humanity that we all have in common.
All are engaged in the work of finding common ground and building a society that values the lives and experiences of all its members.
This work builds on the Sacred Assembly chaired nearly 30 years ago by Elijah Harper. In that four-day gathering, elders and church representatives, chiefs and politicians, listened, learned, and sought answers.
Learning, listening and seeking are as essential to our social progress and development today as they were then.
On this special day, let us all commit to learn from this gathering, from the ceremonies and from the celebrations to come later today and from all of our interactions with our fellow human beings.
Thank you. Merci. Meegiwch.