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00:00Hi, everyone. I'm so nervous. I figured I'd just say it to get it out of my system.
00:05Kathy, thank you so, so much. Kathy is a powerhouse in herself.
00:13And honestly, it's such an honor that you would do this for me.
00:17And I think this is a great example of the power of strangers in my life taking a chance on me
00:27and being able to stand here in front of all of you.
00:32I'll tell you a little story in a second, but let me just say there is a beautiful ripple effect.
00:38So, Kathy, thank you so much. The reason why I chose her and asked her and begged her if she could present
00:47was because of where she comes from and what she represents to me.
00:53And I'm sure to tons of other women in this business who have worked so hard and passionately to get to where they are,
01:00I know there's so many people in this room who understand that. So, thank you again. Thank you.
01:10So, first of all, I'm going to do a little prayer.
01:14My family is Red River Metis Cree from Canada, from a community up in Canada called St. Eustache.
01:22My sixth grandfather, great-grandfather, was the first rebel Metis leader of our nation.
01:28So, I would like to think that I am just part of that lineage of ancestors and the people before me
01:36that are trying to serve justice to our people in this time frame.
01:41And here's the irony of that prayer. I was saying, thank you, creator. Thank you for all of this, all my relations.
01:53We are all connected. The irony of that now is that I learned how to speak my language from doing a TV show about 10 years ago.
02:04So, there is a great example in itself. I'm so tall, I'm just going to lean here.
02:09That is a great example of what film and TV can do for a culture and how to help bring a culture back in terms of being empowered.
02:20So, a little background story. My mother opened one of the first native modeling agencies in Canada back in the early 90s.
02:29And I was five years old and I saw all these aunties, as I called them, with bruises on their face and arms coming in.
02:36And I didn't know any different. They were just my aunties, my aunties with these marks on their bodies.
02:42And it wasn't until I was older that I realized that what my mother was creating was not a place to be skinny and beautiful necessarily,
02:51but a place that would create a safety hub for women coming out of domestic violence situations at home,
02:58who were coming off the native reserves for the first time.
03:01And if anyone in this room is unfamiliar with native reserves, that is where my heart and passion lies with everything I do to this day.
03:09We have third world conditions in the majority of them. Some lack access to clean drinking water to this very day.
03:17I have an indigenous film academy as a result of everything that I was raised with,
03:23where I work on the mental health of young men in particular,
03:27because there is a correlation and ripple effect of why we have so many missing and murdered indigenous women.
03:33And because of that as well, I use the arts to give back to really just create a sense of purpose.
03:41And I think we can all relate to that, that we need a reason to wake up in the morning.
03:45So to this day, actually, after this beautiful award, I'm going back to Canada to work in, you know, minus 30, 40 degree weather
03:54to work on a short film that I got funded for some of my students.
03:58And honestly, I just use that as a way to constantly uplift them in a way that someone has given me a chance in this business.
04:07And again, I just want to thank everyone here. This is really surreal.
04:12Even though I'm leading in this casual pose, I swear it's just because I'm really tall.
04:17But when I was 12 years old, I was digging out of industrial garbage cans in Vancouver, Canada.
04:25And I just like to be standing here now. It kind of proves the theory that you really can do whatever you want in this life.
04:37It's limitless if you're coming from a place of spirit.
04:42And when I say spirit, there was a saying by someone that said,
04:46if you try to be the light at least for even five seconds in a day, then you become the creator yourself.
04:53And when you do that, it just makes more room for creator to enter your life on a daily basis.
05:01I don't know, that kind of stuck with me.
05:03I'll leave you with this one prophecy, and it's kind of a guiding force of my life.
05:09And it's a prophecy that the Haudenosaunee people, the Iroquois people, and many tribes follow.
05:15And I'm not as eloquent as a guest speaker as these incredible speakers that have been up here.
05:22But I will try to recite it to the best of my knowledge.
05:26Crazy Horse said, seven generations from now, my people will rise again through the arts.
05:33And we will meet under the sacred tree.
05:35And through that, our people will heal.
05:37And we will heal each other.
05:39And if you do the calculations, that year is 2024.
05:44So we are the seventh generation.
05:47And I don't want to believe it's Native, it's all of us.
05:56So thank you for all the work that I don't see that everyone in this room equally does.
06:02And just know that you are part of that seventh generation and the healing.
06:08And that's what this life is about, isn't it?
06:10It's about how can we help each other?
06:13How can we learn?
06:15You know, there's no losing.
06:16There's just lessons.
06:17I follow all of that.
06:19So chi miigwech, all my relations to all of you.
06:22Thank you so, so much.