A young Métis woman from Kapuskasing is just back from a trip to Australia with a group of fellow students from Cambrian College in Sudbury.
Nineteen-year-old Candice O’Malley was one of 20 students and staff members who spent 13 days learning about Australia’s Indigenous people.
O’Malley says there are many similarities. However, Australia has only been engaged in truth and reconciliation for ten or 15 years and returning to native teachings.
“Canada’s further ahead,” she says. “There’s more teachings that have been taught here, whereas over there, they have to learn from books and old testaments basically to what happened.”
O’Malley says the Canadians and Australians shared a lot about their experiences. She says she learned something she wishes would happen in Canada, coming from the non-Indigenous population.
“Be more welcoming. There’s still a lot of people that have that judgment towards Indigenous people because of what happened in the past. But they’re (Australians) more welcoming to Native people. That would be really nice to see up here.”
While she’s glad she has learned so much about the Indigenous experience in both countries, O’Malley hasn’t decided yet whether she’ll continue that along with her millwright studies.
