Carolyn Bennett, Canada’s new Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, has been tasked with what some might describe as turning the page on hundreds of years of animosity.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau charged her in his ministerial mandate letter with the “overarching goal to renew the relationship between Canada and Indigenous Peoples.”
It is a tall order, but the former physician and MP for Toronto-St. Paul’s not only has the heart for the job but also comes with the relevant experience to fulfill Trudeau’s vision, which includes making “real progress” on issues such as housing, employment, health, child welfare, and education.
“Obviously, as a family physician I began to be exposed to some of the issues facing my indigenous patients,” Bennett told Epoch Times in an interview.
“I think as an MP I had the advantage of having the native men’s residency in my riding where they taught me the importance of getting back to culture and language as an importance to healing.”
Bennett, 64, entered politics in 1997, and in 2003 was Canada’s first Minister of State for Public Health under former prime minister Paul Martin. During her tenure she began incorporating some of the lessons she had learned as well as advocating for a more holistic form of medicine, including a focus on prevention.
“I began practically giving speeches about what the problem was with the medical model, which was pretty much running a repair shop and waiting for people to get sick and patch them up,” she recalls.
“I started giving speeches about fleeing the medical model and adopting the medicine wheel because we knew then from the indigenous people that keeping people well as in the medicine wheel—physical, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—was a way of enabling health.”
One of the daunting tasks Bennett has been assigned with is implementing recommendations contained in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—94 in all—including implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
She will play a lead role in several other areas, including setting up a joint ministerial inquiry into missing indigenous women and a full review of laws, policies, and operational practices of the department to ensure compliance of international treaty rights. She will also be responsible for updating the Nutrition North Program, increasing annual funding to reserves, and improving the quality of education on reserves.
