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Part 5: MLA Melanie Mark’s politics shaped by Aboriginal ancestry and childhood struggles

Truth & Transformation: Fifth in a six-part series examining Vancouver through an Aboriginal lens

Melanie Mark made political history in February when she became the first indigenous woman to be elected to the B.C. legislature.

That history is now nine months old but fresh in many ways as the 40-year-old Mark, whose Aboriginal heritage is a mix of Cree, Gitxsan, Nisga’a and Ojibway, settles into her new life as the NDP MLA for the riding of Vancouver-Mount Pleasant.

Not surprisingly, she has become a magnet for Aboriginal groups.

“I have a whole group of people who want me to help with issues all over the province related to indigenous politics,” she told the Courier from her constituency office on Commercial Drive, where the sign advertising her name is also translated into her Nisga’a name, “Eagle passes on to the next generation.”

Clearly, she added, intervening in the internal conflicts of an Aboriginal group or band is not something she believes would be effective. But the welfare of children, poverty, housing, education — issues that affect all people — are areas she wants to do something about as a politician.

“People think because I’m native, I only care about native issues,” she said. “That’s an unfair assessment.”

Mark went on to talk about having two young daughters in public school, how she grew up in social housing and how both her parents had substance abuse problems (her mother is now sober and her father died of a drug overdose in the Downtown Eastside).  

They were just some of the topics discussed and points made over more than hour as Mark responded to questions about her job, her background and her goals as she and her NDP colleagues look ahead to next year’s election.

The central theme of the Courier’s questions focused on whether progress was being made in Vancouver on issues facing the Aboriginal community. Mark, who was born and raised in Vancouver, has a perspective that is rooted in her childhood, her volunteer work with community organizations, her experience as a summer student with the RCMP, her work to co-found the Vancouver Aboriginal Community Policing Centre and, more recently, her job as the associate deputy representative for the B.C. Office of the Representative for Children and Youth.

Mark’s election came five months after Canadians woke up to learn Justin Trudeau and his Liberal party won a majority in the federal election. Former regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations Jody Wilson-Raybould won the Vancouver-Granville riding for the Liberals and was later appointed justice minister — another first for an indigenous woman. The Courier made multiple requests over three months to include Wilson-Raybould in the Courier’s Truth and Transformation series, but her office did not make her available for an interview.

The following is the edited and condensed interview the Courier conducted with Mark.

Your election, the election of Liberal Jody Wilson-Raybould and city hall’s hiring of Ginger Gosnell-Myers as manager of Aboriginal relations points to progress made for Aboriginal people in politics and in senior staff positions. But, overall, is life better for Vancouver’s Aboriginal community in 2016?
Have we made progress? For sure, on all these fronts — schools, business, policing, politics. But Ginger Gosnell-Myers is one person. Imagine the weight that she carries on her shoulders. I’m one person. Jody is one person. And we all happen to be women, I might add, who carry different responsibilities, especially if we have children.

Are you suggesting civic bodies such as city hall, the school board and the police department should hire more Aboriginal people? Or get involved in politics?
Absolutely. There’s a lot of policy areas that need transformation and indigenous people have a unique lens that they can bring to whatever that policy is. Child welfare had a huge impact on my family. It turns out it’s helped me be an amazing advocate for kids. Why? Because I was there. I had an empathy, I had an understanding.

Melanie Mark celebrates her byelection victory in February with supporters, including her mother Yvo
Melanie Mark celebrates her byelection victory in February with supporters, including her mother Yvonne (right) at the Heritage Hall on Main Street. Photo Dan Toulgoet


You have a policing background from your work in co-founding the Aboriginal Community Policing Centre and working as a summer student in Hazelton, B.C. for the RCMP. You also welcomed Adam Palmer as the new chief of the Vancouver Police Department in a blanketing ceremony. Has the VPD improved its relations with the Aboriginal community since the death of Mi’kmaq First Nation’s man Frank Paul, who was left in alley by police in 1998 and died?
Yes, there’s been progress. The relationship is better, and it’s authentic. But do I meet people in my constituency who still say they’re being targeted for being native? Yes. Do I meet people that come into my office saying that they’ve experienced police brutality? Yes. What do I do? I try to form enough of a relationship with them to have trust to go through the process, to bring their concerns forward. Then I tell them I will bring that issue forward for you because I understand the lack of trust in the system. And that’s going to be Palmer’s learning.

What was that experience like working as a summer student for the RCMP?
I went to [the RCMP training] depot. I spent a month there. We were called the hi-yeah-yeahs, the Indians, chugs, wagon burners by other cadets. And these were people who were going to go out and be real cops. I worked with racist assholes up in Hazelton, who said look at those chugs that breed like rats. We were going to domestic file cases and they were saying, ‘Why don’t they just kill each other.’

For decades, Aboriginal people have had a mistrust of government and politicians. Why did you decide to enter into such arena?
I did not ever think in my lifetime that I would be a politician. That has to be the part that’s really clear. Even when I studied political science at SFU, it wasn’t with the intention of becoming a politician. I studied political science because I wanted to understand how the system works. And I’ve had a number of jobs within various levels of systems. I’ve worked front line at Covenant House, I’ve worked for an international NGO, I’ve travelled across the country, I’ve sat at parliamentary committees, I’ve been around senators and MPs and MLAs. So I think the exposure to all these different levels of decision makers brought me to having an interest in politics. And that interest was, I don’t believe there’s enough public policy push on issues that matter to me.

What issues matter to you?
I’m particularly attracted to the political arena at the provincial level because of all of these issues I’ve been advocating for for years — policing, child welfare, education, student loans. They’re all provincially related. Housing? I’ve moved 30 times in my life. I grew up in social housing. If it weren’t for Lu’ma Native Housing, I would have had to drop out of university. And I’m sure people would like to see another unemployed native person.

You’ve made your background very public and talked about being sexually abused and the life your parents led with substance abuse. How has that history shaped you as a politician?
I’ve had a ton of people reach out to me and thank me for having the courage to speak about my life. You can’t imagine how many survivors have reached out to me from across North America, saying it’s about time real people who have experienced adversity are in the legislature. I tell people I had a lifetime of abuse, and so did my grandparents. The issues are enormous, absolutely enormous. I signed up for the job because I want that systemic change in my lifetime. I don’t want to be talking about missing and murdered indigenous women and girls when my girls grow up. I don’t want the narrative to be about how defective and deficient we are as indigenous people. Because that’s not the narrative today. We’re still alive, we’re still standing, we’re becoming MLAs, we’re making history. There’s a lot to celebrate in the indigenous community. But who’s telling that story? It’s convenient for people to shape that narrative that we’ve got to go help the poor, lonely Indian. That’s an old story. A few chapters have been written since.

The Courier saw you at a graduation ceremony in June for Aboriginal students. What was going through your mind when you saw the students walk across the stage to get their graduation certificates?
I’m thinking if their lives were anything like mine, it wasn’t just school on their minds. Whether they did it alone or did it in foster care, or living with their sister, God knows what their experiences were. So I was thinking: look at how amazing you are, how resilient you are and you kept it all the way to the finish line.

In August, NDP leader John Horgan announced that you would become the party’s critic of the children and family development ministry. This position seems like a natural fit for you.
I’m going to be all over this file. There are real crises in these files. To me, it is a crisis that you have this overrepresentation of indigenous kids in care, more so than the height of residential schools. So we need to do something about it. And I tried with every bone in my body to be diplomatic and be tactful, to sit down and have conversations at the [Representative for Children and Youth] office with the ministry, and nothing changed. I said in my throne speech, this government has an allergic reaction when it comes time to accountability, especially for children and families.

Melanie Mark participated in a walk from the Aboriginal Friendship Centre to Trout Lake for National
Melanie Mark participated in a walk from the Aboriginal Friendship Centre to Trout Lake for National Aboriginal Day festivities. Photo Dan Toulgoet



What’s your definition of truth and reconciliation?
Three out of four of my grandparents went to residential school. That’s a truth. The impact of their truth is what I’m still reconciling. None of my grandparents are alive, so I have no one to turn to and ask for their truth on what it’s going to take to reconcile. I have to rely on this body of work [through Truth and Reconciliation Commission Canada] that was carried out all over the country. Making amends is more than saying sorry. If you abuse someone for 40 years and all you have to say is you’re sorry? That’s a pretty uneven hand to the injustice you may have experienced.

Where do you go from sorry?
The justice rests with leaders who carry out with the reconciliation and those calls to action. We don’t have to recreate the wheel. It’s pretty clear. Those actions are about addressing the heavy hand in child welfare, it’s greater investment in education, it’s adopting the declaration of the rights of indigenous people. It’s all there. It’s just whether or not the leadership is willing to lean in, or not.

You’ve made it clear that you were not interested in pursuing Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s job as the representative for children and youth. Why not?
I’m interested in being the minister [of children and family development]. I‘d much rather form government next year and then become a cabinet minister. How about that? Then I could really push the envelope. That’s my [modus operandi] right now. My job is to change the system. And [Minister of Children and Family Development] Stephanie Cadieux has had a chance at that. The reason I got into politics is because I could do a better job than Stephanie Cadieux.

How do you get more Aboriginal people to vote?
I can’t give you all my secrets before an election. The Liberals read the paper, too. I will say that my election has people who weren’t paying attention, now paying attention. And I plan to keep on making sure they will pay attention.

What was your reaction when Jody Wilson-Raybould got elected as Liberal MP for Vancouver-Granville and then appointed justice minister?
I’m very proud of her. This is a great achievement for Canadians. I think the message of her being in this position goes back to your questions about truth and reconciliation. This is reconciliation in action. If you look at every report on poverty and murder and incarceration, etcetera, indigenous people are always overrepresented. So you take the most overrepresented people in that realm and put us in a role of leadership. What does that say? I think it’s a very powerful message that her portfolio carries. But it doesn’t make it easy for her because the expectations are that the communities she comes from and the background and the history — all the things that we experienced as indigenous people — are carried on her shoulders. Then there’s the expectation of the people who are champing at the bit and waiting for the Indians to fail.

Many people in the Aboriginal community have told the Courier that you and Jody Wilson-Raybould serve as role models for young Aboriginal people, particularly girls. How do you feel about that?
That’s the fuel, that’s what keeps you going when you’re functioning on limited sleep, limited food, a day of angry emails. What keeps you going is knowing that you’re making a difference, that you’ve had on impact on someone’s life in a positive way. And I have a lot of that to draw on.

Next week: elders.

mhowell@vancourier.com
@Howellings