November 2021
FOPL and OLA will be meeting with Liberal Party leader Stephen Del Duca at the end of the month. I am VERY excited for this meeting and speaks to the success of our meeting last month with Kate Graham. We have also been invited to meet with NDP platform party chairs to discuss our priorities and see if we can make those priorities align with theirs as well. This puts us in an excellent position to push our priorities forward to the Liberals as they develop their election campaign. Diving deeper into the issues concerning our First Nations Public Libraries, I have met with the First Nations Consultant at the Ontario Library Service to discuss our concerns with the FNPLs funding model and immediate need for crisis intervention. OLA and FOPL have agreed to attend a Tea and Chat on November 6th to connect with more First Nations Library leaders to gather personal stories and anecdotes about our FNPLs to add directly into our priority’s narrative. We also be reaching out to the Chiefs of Ontario so that we can speak with First Nations voices as we bring First Nations priorities forward. Further work will be done with the working group to develop a sustainable funding model proposal to bring forward to the provincial government.