Joan Phillip, the second First Nations woman in the ‘B.C.’ cabinet, is patient but unrelenting

Canadian Press In February of 2023, Melanie Mark stood before the “B.C.” legislature, visibly shaken, as she read out her resignation speech. “This place felt like a torture chamber,” she said, holding an eagle feather and wearing her grandfather’s beaded moosehide fringe jacket. A descendant of the Nisg̱a’a and Gitxsan people on her mom’s side and Cree, Ojibway, French, and Scottish on her father’s side, Mark was the first First Nations woman to serve on the cabinet of “British Columbia” from February 2016 until April 2023. “I wanted to be an MLA so I could be a strong voice for my community and the people I grew up with and so I could be a champion for change. I wanted to disrupt the status quo. I wanted big systems to…

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