Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Métis peoples, while comprising over a third of the total Indigenous population in Canada, experience major gaps in culturally-safe health services. This is due to decades of colonial legislation and land displacement. Métis are unlikely to engage in health services that do not value their cultural identities, resulting in Métis peoples being "caught betwixt and between" First Nations and mainstream services. These gaps in health services are problematic given the severe disparities in health determinants and outcomes that Métis peoples experience. Given these contexts, this research aims to fill the culturally-safe health service gap for Métis peoples in Toronto. It will do this by engaging with the original Métis community health experts, Métis women. Métis women were traditionally central to the health and well-being of their communities, and Métis medical knowledge was often passed down through matrilineal lines. This research follows up with 56 urban Métis women who participated in the project called Our Health Counts (OHC) Toronto. Through a conversational method, this research explores urban Métis women's identity and their experiences with health services in Toronto. By recovering stories and experiences, this research aims to 'dig up the medicines', to explore what medicines are still carried by Métis women in urban areas, and are being/could be applied to address the health service gap in Toronto. Preliminary thematic findings from the conversations will be presented.