Kwey! Wachiyekk!

First and foremost, I would like to thank the lord for giving me life and for giving me this special opportunity to speak to all of you at this first ever Regional Job Fair.  I would also like to acknowledge the presence of our Deputy Grand Chief Ashley Iserhoff, our finest role model!

Today! As your leader, Youth Grand Chief, I acknowledge your presence at this event and provide my full support on you to make a decision to care for what life has to offer. 

You may not realize that today, can be a positive turning point in your path of life. Notice, I emphasize the word LIFE, I do this for you to be aware that its life that gives us who we are.  LIFE IS ABOUT GROWTH, LIFE IS ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF OUR MIND, SOUL, BODY AND SPIRIT.  Some of you may ask yourself, how is this relevant to this event?  How does LIFE play a role at this first Regional Job Fair?

One Key role this event offers, is an educational vision, a vision that one day, you will take full control of your choices, all of what you see around you, around this setting, gives you the hope to succeed!

Today, you are young but you will not always be young forever, same as me, I get old as each day passes, and today I feel quite old, I was in a meeting over the weekend in Quebec City with a lot of non natives, we are part of a Provincial Youth Forum, many of our challenges are quite similar to the rest of Quebec, however, measuring our priorities and seriousness is extremely low compared to them.

Think about education for a minute, without prioritizing education, we cannot succeed.  Without the willingness to learn, we will not strive in this ever challenging and rapidly developing society.

Education is the very foundation of our strength, from the signing of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement back in 1975 and the recent signing of the agreement to implement the section on Justice and Policing comes with a high level of responsibility.  All these AGREEMENTS do not just happen by accident, our leadership agreed to take on more responsibilities for our generations to come.  This is where we are today, we are the generation to take a hold of our education, and it is up to us to go the extra mile to get a diploma in one of the many current opportunities.  I say this to you with a lot of concern and worry that our Nation may fall, YES, it may fall, reality is that there are not too many of us that are quite educated nor serious enough on pursuing a higher education, College or University for that matter.  Did you know that our drop out rate in our community schools are about 80%, 80% of our students fail or drop out from school by the time they reach Secondary three compared to less than 30% for the rest of Quebec.

80%.  If our youth population under the age of thirty represents 65% of 12,000 Crees, that’s about 7,800 youth of 12,000 now, imagine our current state of challenges. 

Maybe some of you care, however, with the stats I just gave you, the message I am recieving is that 80% many of you do not care while ONLY 20% CARE, this is not acceptable. I believe that each one of you can turn your thoughts around, say you care, but do not just say it.  Show us by taking control of your destiny.  I applaud to the ones that really care!

We are so fortunate to have a strong foundation built for us by our previous leaders, by our elders, I ask myself, are we going to jeopardize of what the foundation is?  With all of our financial strengths, nothing ranks higher than our educational abilities to take control of our nation’s economic growth and our political dream to govern ourselves as people and nation.  All of you are the hope for our Nation to stand strong. 

Too many times we take things for granted, enough of this, taking things for granted.  Let’s get serious.  All of what we have came from hard work and determination from our past and present leaders.  Thanks to them we have our education paid for, not even one cent we have to worry about paying our school expenses, whereas Non natives have to make a loan just to cover their tuition for education.  We, the youth, have the full support from our Cree School Board to keep education alive.

I encourage all of you to get serious and go after your dreams, go after a higher level of education, but, if you just go for a social mission to a College or a University down south, than simply rethink your mission.  The mission should entail hard work, commitment and a whole lot of sacrifices, I know this because I attended Heritage College back in 1998.  I had to sacrifice leaving my family behind, sacrifice leaving my friends behind, sacrifice missing a lot of the special birthdays of people I care about and special occasions in Mistissini.

I do not regret leaving behind my community and Cree Nation, this is how I got to understand how important I am to the Cree Nation.  I got serious at the age of 16, although I had a rough teenage years, my mother left us behind due to Medical Reasons, I only found out from my sister that it was LUPUS that caused my mother to be on a Dialysis Machine.  Her kidney got eaten up by this disease and on top of that I did not have a father growing up, he died when I was only 4 years old, not old enough to know how he was, what he liked or how he would talk to me.  I remember none.

And today, I thank you for acknowledging my presence and am very honored to be here with you, choosing me as one of your role models.  This is something I did not plan to be part of my life.  I planned my life to succeed and never give up hope, and walk the good fight.  And today, here in Chisasibi, where my wife is from, is a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life to come.

In closing, I thank Stella and the Organizing committee for inviting me to this first Regional Job Fair.

Finally, I thank you for your participation, without your participation this event would not be what it is today.

And remember, today marks a special day in your lives, with all the resources coming our way, with all the agreements signed to date, and with new agreements to head our way, we are the people to walk to replace our current leaders.

Thank you again and God Bless all of you!!!