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Frank Iacobucci Speaks at Misiway Health Centre Luncheon in Timmins

By Frank Giorno

Jan 19, 2015

Frank Iacobucci, retired justice of the Canadian Supreme Court (1991-2004) spoke at the Dante Club in Timmins, Ontario today on the need to develop improved Canadian government - Aboriginal relations based on a government to government basis built on  mutual respect and trust.

Justice Frank Iacobucci spoke at a luncheon in Timmins sponsored by Misiway Health Centre. I returned highly impressed, if not awed by the cogent, eloquent, well reasoned and impassion support for First Nation self-government, nation to nation status between Canada and our First Nations, and the urgent need to improve condition for our First Nations People. Justice Iacobucci has the right background to come to such profound understanding of the need to rebuild Canada-First Nations relations on mutual trust and respect.

Frank Iacobucci is a respected lawyer and law professor as well as serving as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Since his retirement Justice Iacobucci has been the Federal Government's legal advisor on the Residential School Issues and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

He has also served on the Commission of Inquiry into the lack of aboriginal representation on jury panels in Ontario. Finally he is also the Province of Ontario's Chief Negotiator on the Ring of Fire, a project which will take time and patience, but whose economic potential can help alleviated the poverty that is so rampant in many of our First Nations, today.

Above all Vancouver Born, Frank Iacobucci has an endearing sense of humour. For example he explained that as a youth he loved to play soccer and he achieved a level of acclaim at the sport. " Many sports reporters covering the amateur soccer leagues in Vancouver were amazed to discover that I, Iacobucci was in fact of Italian origin -- they thought I was Japanese...Iacobucci, Yakamachi...they sound very similar. He quipped I should have run for political office, I would have won the vote of Vancouver's considerable Japanese and Italian vote."

I am blessed to have heard such a great Canadian speak live in Timmins at the Dante Club...in his opening remark Justice Iacobucci remarked that the Dante Club meal was terrific and it reminded him of his mothers cooking. To which I heartily agree, the food does remind me of my mother's cooking too.