RoseAnne Archibald has been named the Ontario Regional Chief, the first female ever to take on the role.
"It's a victory for all women, and to be the first in this kind of role is actually, I was the first chief in my community, the first Deputy Grand Chief female, first female Grand Chief. So, this is another opportunity to be a ground breaking leader for other women." said Archibald.
The election took place during the 44th annual Ontario Chiefs Conference being held near North Bay at Nipissing First Nation.
Isadore Day from Serpent River First Nation has been the Ontario Regional Chief for three years, but was unsuccessful in his bid for re-election.
"Unfortunately I'm a political casualty, because I forced a hand and forced the board to meet. And now that we've cleared the path of having to get certain things done, to get organization back, there will still be some heavy lifting to do, but at least the horizon looks clear for the Chiefs of Ontario." said Day.
Archibald says later this week, she will meet with incoming-Premier Doug Ford and she hopes the Ontario PC government will meet First Nations in the middle.
"We want cooperation. We want all Ontarians to benefit from the resources of our land, and those are First Nation’s territories where a majority of resources are, all of them actually. Even in southern Ontario, there’s a lot of settlement down there. Those resources belong to the First Nations." said Archibald.
Archibald says her first order of business is to fix what she calls organizational problems.
