Mandy Gull-Masty makes career of beating the odds

At just 14 years old, an age when most are worried about high school, Canada’s new Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty was facing the challenges that come with being a mother.

“I was like every regular teenager, I had my own issues,” Gull-Masty, the new MP for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, said in an interview. “I didn’t always make the best decisions, mine turned into being a teen mom.”

But the resourceful and determined teenager from Waswanipi, Que., would quickly learn that life is all about making the most out of her circumstances.

As the first Indigenous Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, and the first woman to be elected to the office of Grand Chief of Eeyou Istchee before that, Gull-Masty has made a career out of beating the odds. Now she hopes her journey can inspire other Indigenous women to pursue a career in politics.

But all of this was all still a lifetime away for the young Gull-Masty.

Following high school, Gull-Masty aspired to follow in her mother’s footsteps, who was a secretary for the local band council in Waswanipi.

“Seeing my mother in that role, where community members were coming to her, other employees were coming to her.… ‘was like, wow, she is really in a role where she’s able to help everybody,’” Gull-Masty said. “So, I want to be like my mom.”

As the mother of two young children, Gull-Masty was determined to set a positive example for them by attending university.

“Something about having them in my life made me hyper-aware of the responsibility of caring for somebody,” Gull-Masty said. “And I think that transferred into my career path as well.”

It was her mother who first encouraged her to enter Cree politics, remembering how deeply invested she was in the affairs of the band council politics as a child.

“I remember talking to her on the phone and saying, ‘Mom, no way,’” Gull-Masty said. “There’s no way that would ever happen. People would never vote for me.”

Gull-Masty admits she was hesitant to run at first, worried about her past and that her limited Cree language skills, stemming from a childhood spent in the south, would automatically discredit her in the eyes of many voters. But her mother reminded her that, at least the latter, could be fixed with a little bit of effort.

“The Cree foundation is in your mind,” Gull-Masty recalled her mother telling her. “You just have to exercise your language ability and it will come back. It will strengthen.”

Then word got around in the tight-knit community of Waswanipi, and soon after, others in the community began to approach her saying the same thing.

“It snowballed when somebody heard that and came to see me and said, ‘you know, Mandy, we think that you could do this and we want to support you,’” she said.

When Gull-Masty became the first woman to be elected the Grand Chief of Eeyou Istchee, 20 years after the last woman held the position by appointment, she saw it as an opportunity to open political spaces for Indigenous women.

Terrellyn Fearn, Project Director at the Turtle Island Institute for Indigenous Science, said that systemic reform and cultural shifts are needed to make room for Indigenous women in leadership.

“Reconciliation in politics is more than just land acknowledgements” Fearn said. “It means creating space for Indigenous women to lead, to be grounded in feminine thought and contribution.”

Three years into her term, Gull-Masty organized a Women’s leadership conference aimed at helping Indigenous women enter politics. Gull-Masty recalls they had initially hoped for 40 attendees, only for more than 300 to show up, from every Indigenous nation in Quebec, including the Inuit.

Irene Neeposh, chief of the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi, was part of a wave of female chiefs across Eeyou Istchee who were inspired to enter politics by Gull-Masty example.

“I think the inspiration that I hope that Indigenous people can find from this, I think I hope it’ll be a positive one and one to encourage our I would say duty to spread out,” Neeposh said. “If we want change, we can’t sit on the sidelines.”

Before Gull-Masty’s election, only two of the 22 council representatives in the Cree nation were women. By the end of her term, over half of the council was made up of women.

Now, as the Liberal MP for Abitibi–Baie-James–Nunavik–Eeyou, she hopes to expand that example onto a national scale.

For Joshua Loon, a Cree father of two young girls, Gull-Masty’s leadership brings a sense of pride.

“I want my children to recognize who they are as Cree women,” Loon said.

Gull-Masty hopes her appointment sends a message, not just to Cree, but to Indigenous women across the country, that change is possible.

“Statistically I was a teen mom, I should not be where I am,” Gull-Masty said. “Statistically, as an Indigenous woman in Canada, the level of harm that could happen to me, is pretty high. So, I don’t think there are any barriers in life that are too high if you want to achieve something. The strength in you and resilience you have as a woman can take you into any spaces you want to be in it.”

Lucas-Matthew Marsh is a reporter for Iori:wase based in Kahnawake, Que.