I sat down with Chief Yellowback and Councillor Barry Okemow of Manto Sipi Cree Nation, alongside Wayne Shuttleworth, CEO of Anishinaabe Peacekeepers Inc., to talk about community-led solutions, strengthening local capacity, and supporting First Nation-led approaches to public safety.

This conversation was important to me for a specific reason: too often, federal and provincial approaches to public safety in remote First Nations communities arrive from the outside — policies designed in cities, by people who have never lived in a fly-in community, without genuine input from the leadership and knowledge keepers who understand the community’s specific dynamics, history, and needs.

What Chief Yellowback, Councillor Okemow, and Wayne are doing at Manto Sipi and through Anishinaabe Peacekeepers is the model that works. Community-led. Culturally grounded. Built on relationships and trust rather than enforcement and reaction.

My role in this conversation is not to arrive with solutions. It is to listen, to understand the priorities, and to bring those priorities back to Ottawa — to advocate for the funding, the policy space, and the federal support that allows community-led approaches to flourish.

Thank you to Chief Yellowback, Councillor Okemow, and Wayne for sharing your priorities and for your continued leadership on behalf of your community. This conversation will stay with me.