LANDING A ‘DREAM JOB’
The woman who will bring North American Indigenous Games to Toronto next year,
Marcia Trudeau’s seventh-floor office near Hwy. 427 and Eglinton Ave. W. overlooks industrial roads, asphalt parking lots and, a short distance to the north, the looping flight traffic at Pearson airport.
The 40-year-old Trudeau is a long way from the sandy beaches and fragrant leafy woods of Manitoulin Island, or Mnidoo Mnising in her traditional Anishinaabemowin language. Her home.
But over the next year, Trudeau will spend most of her time in this gritty urban corner of the GTA as the newly named CEO of the 2017 North American Indigenous Games. The Games, with an operating budget of $10.1 million, will bring 5,000 competitors and 2,000 volunteers to Toronto, Six Nations and Brantford next summer.
Trudeau coveted the position, even though it meant six-hour drives home, to Wikwemikong Unceded Territory on the island’s eastern side, to juggle family time with her husband and their two daughters. She says as CEO, she is driven to promote empowerment through indigenous sport and culture.
“The value of sport is its ability to effect change in people’s lives, especially indigenous youth,” says Trudeau, a former varsity lacrosse player at Brock University.
“But it’s one thing to inspire people to achieve things, to have dreams. The flip side is our community is suffering from obesity, from poor participation rates in physical activity. In our traditional lifestyles, we were healthy people. We had to be active (hunting, fishing and travelling by foot or canoe, for instance) or you would not survive.”
Trudeau’s husband, Saul Bomberry, originally from Six Nations, believes in her vision.
“It’s Marcia’s dream job,” says Bomberry, a data technician for the United Chiefs and Councils of Mnidoo Mnising. “It’s a rare opportunity for an indigenous woman — and mother — to be in a highlevel position for a sport organization that gives back to the indigenous people.”
Trudeau, an Anishinaabe-kwe — the kwe ending signifies a woman — had another, more personal reason to pursue the CEO role: “My girls.”
Olive-Marie is 5. Lauren is 21⁄ 2. Imbuing her daughters with pride in their heritage must also, eventually, include a dreadful truth, Trudeau says.
“In addition to knowing that as their parents, their dad and I are their first role models, we understand the importance in raising strong and aware girls,” Trudeau says.
“As indigenous girls, they are not safe in mainstream Canadian society. I am all too aware as an indigenous woman, that there are dangers, there are predators and there are missing and murdered indigenous people out there.”
Trudeau described Bomberry’s encouragement as a life lesson for their daughters. He often drives to Toronto on weekends so the girls can see their mother.
She says that as parents, “we know we need to ensure our daughters know what healthy relationships are: this is the proper way a daddy should treat a mommy — with respect, dignity, and supporting each other — and that mommies and daddies love their children, just as grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and family generally should.”
Trudeau was raised in such a loving way within a family that held passions for education and sports. Her first sports contact was through her father, Maxie.
A competitive fastball player, Maxie Trudeau was a catcher with a cannon arm — trying to steal second on him was a mistake — and whose best years were with the travelling Wiky T-Birds. Trudeau and her brother Barry, two years older, would trail after their dad at practice and games.
“We were just little kids, running around the ball field and you start messing around with the equipment while (the players) aren’t using it,” she says.
“Then, you learn to catch and throw. These days, they call it physical literacy but back then, we learned by hanging around the ball parks with our parents.”
Maxie and his wife, Loretta, curled together. They added their son and daughter when they were old enough to play in mixed bonspiels.
After high school, Trudeau attended Brock, earning a degree in communications and sociology. In second year, she was introduced to lacrosse when a roommate’s friend on the school team brought over a stick.
“I had never played before that or even picked up a stick,” she says of the sport not widely played in her hometown.
Trudeau bought a lacrosse stick, “went to schoolyards, found a brick wall and started learning how to play.” Determined, she made the varsity team the next season.
Lacrosse made such an impression on her that after graduating from Brock, Trudeau wrote a proposal to the Wikwemikong school board to bring in Six Nations lacrosse stars to run a three-day introductory skills clinic. The players also spoke with the students, sharing background stories about growing up in the sport and rising to the elite level.
The three-day clinic cost the school board upwards of $3,000. Money well spent? “Yes, the entire student population, from kindergarten to Grade 12, was able to hear them over the three days,” she says.
Trudeau went on to work with various aboriginal organizations in sport and strategic planning, including the Aboriginal Sport and Wellness Council of Ontario, where she was director. She managed and oversaw the Aboriginal Sport Hero Torch Bearer program for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
Now an MBA, Trudeau is eager to expose indigenous youth (aged 13 to 19) to traditional sports and cultural events in next summer’s games and experience the sense of community a large event provides. She also wants to attract volunteers from small areas across Canada, not just southern Ontario.
“Really knowing the customs of your people is central to your identity and I think sport and physical activity plays a huge part in that.”