Danielle Larivee has became Alberta’s first-ever minister of children’s services to receive a designated Blackfoot name from the Piikani Nation.
“It was tremendously meaningful,” Larivee said on Thursday. “I was starting to get tearful in the teepee… it’s just a really high honour.”
Recognized for her continued work with Alberta’s child intervention system, Larivee has championed both the child intervention action plan and the ’60s Scoop.
The latter being an apology which recognized the wrong-doings of previous strategies that saw Indigenous children taken from their parents, where they were then placed mostly with non-Indigenous families.
However, amidst all of her achievements thus far, Larivee says there’s still more to accomplish.
“There’s so much work to be done to deal with the fact that there’s so many Indigenous children in care,” says Larivee.
“We need to work with communities to do that and Piikani has been on this journey with me every step of the way.”
Piikani elder Peter Strikes with a Gun — who led the ceremony on Thursday — said he is tremendously grateful of this continued work upheld by Larivee and was humbled to receive the honour of bestowing upon the minister her official Blackfoot name, “Naatoyikanasaakii” or “Sacred Shining Lady.”
He said he’s proud to create meaningful relationships with the government, in hopes to continue reconciliation efforts moving forward.
“To get a name, especially here, it’s the greatest honour,” Strikes with a Gun said.
“I feel that this will give us the beginning of the healing and reconciliation that can now be in process.”
However it wasn’t just Larivee’s name that Piikani Nation was celebrating on Thursday: the naming ceremony also marked the official beginning of the celebration days and annual pow wow.
Commemorating its 60th year, it’s the longest standing pow wow event in all of Canada, and officials were excited the minister could there to kick it all off.
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Piikani Nation is about 80 kilometres west of Lethbridge.