The Indian Act is getting in the way of progress Carolyn Bennett says.
The federal Liberal Aboriginal Affairs critic and MP for Toronto-St. Paul's thinks the act personifies colonialism and paternalism, an approach that needs to change.
"It will take First Nations to come together to decide what would the replacement of the act look like," she said in Thunder Bay Monday.
First Nations had a lot of things right before colonization wrecked that way of life. A lot can be learned from the community. Bennett was in the city meeting with various First nations groups and organizations, focusing on health care.
"We know that we can't develop good public policy without talking to the people who know about it," Bennett said.
There is expertise out there and people who have developed solutions who need to be trusted and listened to Bennett said. A doctor by trade, Bennett said getting a focus on prevention is an issue across the country but in the North, with vast distances and fly-in communities, it matters even more.
"We really do need to focus on the things that keep people well," she said.
That includes social determinants of health, from poverty to education.
