Thank you.

Thank you for this invitation to speak. I'm speaking with you from Tiohtià:ke, Montreal, the traditional and unceded territory of the Kahnawá:ke, Mohawk and the Anishinabe Algonquin peoples.

I have been the project coordinator for the indigenous veterans initiative at the Last Post Fund since the inception of the initiative, in March 2019. I will refer to the initiative as the IVI going forward.

The IVI has been made possible by the generous funding of Veterans Affairs Canada. We work to provide indigenous veterans in an unmarked grave with a grave marker and a traditional name inscription when the traditional name is available. We will also go back retroactively to add a traditional name that may not have been added to grave markers that the Last Post Fund or Veterans Affairs previously placed.

For new grave markers, we offer the family the choice of adding a culturally relevant symbol to the grave marker as well. We commissioned a Cree artist by the name of Jason Carter to design seven symbols that can be used in perpetuity by the Last Post Fund for the indigenous veterans' grave markers. Carter provided us with symbols based on the seven sacred teaching symbols.

In the last five years, the IVI has placed over 270 grave markers for indigenous veterans who were in unmarked graves throughout Canada. We have provided grave markers in at least six distinct traditional languages, working as far north as the north of Northwest Territories, where we placed a tombstone in Aklavik last year, and placing a grave marker as far east as Nova Scotia two years ago. We have worked in every province and territory so far, except for Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The IVI works closely with local communities in finding these unmarked graves. Either we will work directly with a department in the band office, or the band office will help us find a local community member who will help us search for the graves. These community members either are provided a honorarium or are volunteers by choice. So far, we have worked with 45 communities and 25 researchers.

Having a dedicated IVI coordinator like me means that the grave markers for indigenous veterans get processed quite quickly. Once the family returns the paperwork and the veteran's service is confirmed, I'm able to place an order for a marker quite quickly.

Finally, we celebrated the success of this initiative with the culmination of a short documentary film sponsored by the Bank of Montreal. In 2021, the Bank of Montreal approached us with a generous grant to further support the work that the IVI was doing. We used that to create a documentary. This documentary is currently being used as a visual aid for outreach to communities and to spread public awareness of the IVI. We had the pleasure of recently showcasing this documentary at the Canadian War Museum and had over 150 attendees, many of them being secondary school classes, as well as many registrants from the Canadian Transportation Agency.

A secondary effect of the IVI has been that it's an excellent tool to educate non-indigenous Canada and the new generation on the contributions of indigenous veterans in the Canadian Armed Forces and the importance of commemoration.

Thank you again for inviting us to speak. We're open to any questions.

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