NWAC wants voice heard

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The new president of the Native Women's Association of Canada is pressing the federal government for funding which would do justice to its status as Canada's fifth national Native political association.

Although NWAC has been a national voice for Native women since 1974, its influence is now being recognized, said Janis Walker. With this recognition should also come the resources necessary to allow NWAC to do its work.

Funding was on the agenda for Walker's Sept. 19 meeting with Indian Affairs minister Ron Irwin, her first since her election in July. Women have to have input into the process of social reform, but the limited funding currently received will limit that input, she said.

"It's fine to say we have to listen," said Walker. "Give us the funding to have our own voice."

Irwin was receptive to Walker's concerns, she said, and would like to meet with the president at least once each month. He also gave her contacts in other federal departments where NWAC might be able to access funding.

Walker insists the provinces also should be contributing more to provincial Native women's organizations. Funding is imperative for women to organize and develop policy.

During her short time in office, Walker has attended three provincial women's assemblies and one territorial assembly in her promise to remain in touch with the issues and concerns at the grassroots level, she said. She will be in Goose Bay in October and

in Montreal in November. She wants to hear firsthand how the troubles in Davis Inlet, and the Parti Quebecois win are affecting women in those two provinces.

Her role as national leader has also taken her to the premier's conference in Toronto in the early days of September. There she took the first steps to fulfill her second mandate, which is to work with other Aboriginal leaders to further Native concerns.

Walker joined Ovide Mercredi, Nation Chief of the Assembly of First Nations; Jim Sinclair, President of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples; Gerald Morin, President of the Metis National Council; and Rosemarie Kuptana, President of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada in their bid to push Native issues onto the premier's agenda. The five made a commitment to see each other on a regular basis in order to make policies that would allow the organizations to support each other and work together.

The country has entered a new decade in which Aboriginal endeavors will be positively received by the general population of Canada, she said. Canadians are an empathetic people and will no longer sit back and allow the mistreatment of people in their own country.