Winter from coast to coast...

We prairie people are well aware of how cold it gets on the prairie in the winter. Yet we choose to live in that cold for what the weather offers and for what it shelters us from. We are only too happy to suffer through -45 degree January's to avoid Vancouver's bridges and Toronto's 401, 407, 404, 427...Don Valley Parkway... So when, last week, I found myself on Toronto's motorways in -20 degree weather, I wondered...

Thank you trustee Jerry Chadwick for allowing me to access so many of your aboriginal parents, staff and students. Thank you for letting me tell some your many minorities that the world is accessible to them.

I don't mind if our students choose not to read but it troubles me to no end to think that they were never shown or told that through reading, they can achieve their goals and access their dreams.

2012/2013 will have been my busiest year ever. Things are happening in our big country. Idle No More is waking Canada to the reality that we can be...no, that we have to be better than we have been. We are Canadians and if we are told the truth, we will do better than we have done. If we've done wrong, it is usually because of poor communication, either intentional or not.

I am traveling to cities, towns and reserves from coast to coast to coast and I am seeing change.

Whoever wrote Don't sweat the Small Things and They are all Small Things hasn't lived in the world I have lived in. It is the little things in life that matters. God is in the detail. Life is about little things and they are happening.

To be a part of these historical times is an honour and a responsibility I do not take lightly. When Education Today writer John Schofield offered to help me spread the good word, I was more than grateful. I was honoured and I was humbled.



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2013

Idle No More, Chief Spence forces Harper to meet with her, Metis and Non-status Natives are now said to be "Indians"...As 2013 unfolds, things are happening in Canada. If I have learned from the previous decade, it is to expect the unexpected.

Social Media matters. Global changes are happening in a way that wasn't thought possible a decade ago.

As I fly out for Northern Alberta, I wonder. Will northern schools finally get access to books, libraries and perhaps even librarians? Will Aboriginal students become the readers it will take for them to graduate on par with their non-Aboriginal counterparts? Will government recognize the needs and the dreams of all children?

There is much to hope for and it is all possible.

2013 will be an interesting year.