A new chief was elected over the weekend on Six Nations of the Grand River.
Sherri-Lyn Hill received more than 600 of the 1,050 total votes cast, in the community of more than 25,000 eligible residents.
With just over four per cent voter turnout on Saturday, newly elected band council chief Sherry Lyn Hill knows a lot of work is needed to bring the community together. But one of her first tasks will be to help people on the reserve who are struggling.
“I think that’s a huge one, because we don’t have a detox, we don’t have a residential treatment centre, we don’t have many physiatrists, emergency housing, we can go down the list,” said Hill.
“When we can sit here and work together and start having these types of programs in the community then people can start healing.”
She says far too many people on Six Nations are dying in the past few weeks and it’s affecting everybody in the community not just families.
Twelve councillors were elected on Saturday, Hill was on council previously, but will now serve a four year term as chief.
She says part of healing her community is dealing with intergenerational trauma.
“People might think that it happened a long time ago, it happened to my family, my grandparents went. So it’s not that it happened a long time ago. So I want people to really understand that in our communities it’s intergenerational trauma,” said Hill.
Aside from mental health and addiction care, the chief says getting clean drinking water for everyone on the reserve will be one of her top priorities.
And Hill says she’s hoping to work with neigbouring municipalities to make it happen.
