Photo: Justin Trudeau | Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
Mary Simon, the first Indigenous person to become Governor General of Canada, was sworn in during a ceremony that included the lighting of a Qulliq, a traditional Inuit oil lamp used to light and warm the home. Simon, an Inuk from northeastern Quebec whose Inuk name is Ningiukudluk or "bossy little old lady," said her parents taught her to live in two worlds -- the traditional lifestyle and the "non-Inuit southern world." She promised to use her position as Canada's 30th governor general to work against climate change, advocate for mental health and work toward reconciliation. "My view is that reconciliation is a way of life and requires work every day," she said. "Reconciliation is getting to know one another." Her appointment comes during a time of reckoning in Canada's relationship with Indigenous Peoples, after discoveries of unmarked graves containing the remains of children near former residential schools.
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