WOMEN IN BUSINESS • B25
VICTORIA NEWS • OAK BAY NEWS • SAANICH NEWS • GOLDSTREAM NEWS GAZETTE - Wednesday, March 28, 2012
LOCAL WOMEN MAKING A DIFFERENCE
M
ary Ellen Turpel-Lafond has served as B.C.’s first Representative for Children and Youth, an Independent Officer of the Legislature, since Novem-
ber 2006. With degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, Osgoode Hall and Carleton University, Turpel-Lafond has been a tenured law professor and is currently on leave from the Saskatchewan Provincial Court, where she was the administrative Judge for Saskatoon. A member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Turpel-Lafond is active in her First Nations community and published a book on the history of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation that was short-listed for a Saskatchewan Book Award. Working tirelessly to promote the welfare of children, Turpel-Lafond is also president of the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates and a board member for UNICEF Canada. She lives in Victoria with her husband, George Lafond, their son and three daughters.
Black Press: If you were not in your current career, what would you be doing? Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond: Growing up, I wanted to form a country and western quartet with my three sisters. We listened to lots of Tammy Wynette (probably child maltreatment these days) and step-danced in front of our parents’ friends for quarters. From my vantage point today, if I wasn’t a lawyer, judge and child advocate, I think I would enjoy being a natural scientist or biologist. Nature is a great healer and teacher. What better job could there be than to wander around the forest thinking, researching and learning while someone pays for that?! BP: Who/what inspires you? METL: I am inspired by anyone who works hard, believes in supporting others and has an open and curious mind. I’m very Canadian in my inspirations – sure there’s Gandhi and Mandela, but the Bay men and their families who formed the Hudson Bay Company stand out, especially the women – what a force. The amazing characters, the building of York boats, fur trading, polyglots, mixing and building this great northern nation – is there anything more exhilarating than a voyageur canoe running the rapids on the Churchill River during the spring thaw? So it shouldn’t be surprising that I love Canadian women fiction writers and the stories they
Women 40s Milestone
Victoria’s women through the decades
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond
Representative for Children and Youth
write of the extraordinary in the ordinary – I so miss Carol Shields. And the Canadian male writers aren’t half bad either – read Wayne Johnson and enjoy. So I admire creative people, artists, scientists and folks who work hard and love others – especially those who struggle, and children. I guess it’s the Indigenous and Hudson’s Bay Company DNA in me. BP: How do you find balance in your life? METL: Does anyone really believe there is a balance? Let’s stop perpetrating that fiction. Don’t try to be perfect but use your big brains and immense passion and love your kids and family. There’s no balance, so enjoy the chaos, learn from the voyage and when the going gets tough, break the days down into small parts and find joy in a hot shower, a coffee and one friend with whom you can share the journey. BP: What does relaxation look like to you? METL: Anything involving boats, birds and nature, curious people and trees. Birds amaze me and that is a lifelong passion. I had a misadventure when I first moved to Victoria and thought I could make a neighbourhood raven a pet. My kids were dive-bombed by “Blackie” and I learned to keep a respectful distance. BP: Your proudest achievement? METL: My four children – although their accomplishments are their own and not my reflected achievement. Those amazing pregnancies, births and nursing years stand out as gratifying and empowering as a woman. I hope to have success as a parent and launch them with unconditional love, a sense of hard work and dedication to learning, and that they demonstrate empathy for others in their lives.
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19 Spiritual Care Conference th
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Nurturing the Spirit – a day of renewal for anyone involved with the care of dying and bereaved persons.
Keynote: “Graceful Passages” Internationally known speaker Linda Kavelin Popov – co-founder of The Virtues Project and author of A Pace of Grace
Saturday, April 14, 2012, 8:30 - 4:30 1/8 Hotel Grand Pacific, Victoria $140.00 includes lunch - Pre-registration required
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For further information and to download the brochure visit www.victoriahospice.org or contact Education Services at edu.hospice@viha.ca or 250-370-8283
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Women in Business PROFILE
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Nadine Hanchar
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Building better relationships at home and at work. Nadine works with individuals, businesses and organizations, facilitates, teaches, mentors and designs programs to meet your needs. Individual Counselling is about working with clients to “empower” themselves. Nadine specializes in addressing relationship issues,abuse and trauma. She begins with the assumption of wholeness; that each person is essentially whole, and has tremendous capacity and potential. Simply by virtue of being a human being, you have inherent value, purpose, and meaning. Even our shadow or darkest parts of ourselves offer us opportunity for truth, healing and transformation. Your journey, with Nadine can involve the unfolding, releasing and healing of the many levels of the self, and integration of the mind, emotions, heart, physical intelligence, as well as our spiritual and creative natures. Relationship Counselling is the process of counselling the parties of a relationship in an effort to recognize and to better manage or reconcile troublesome differences and repeating patterns of distress. The relationship involved may be between members of a family or a couple, employees or employers in a workplace, or between a professional and a client. Nadine is often heard saying that if you only have a hammer everything begins to look
www.victoriahospice.org
Women in Business Milestone Woman proudly sponsored by:
KIA
like a nail and she prefers to have a large tool box of tools at her disposal so she can use the appropriate tool to fit the situation. Using non-traditional forms of therapy allows a resultoriented approach focused on how the mind works, using the language of the mind to change areas in your life in order to live up to your highest potential and to re-establish rapport within self. Nadine is the developer of a personality profiling system called PEP Personally Process©, based on how a person processes information. Her system offers incredible insights into ourselves and others and how this affects our communication, personalities, relationships and life. Nadine: • Helps people discover choices and create successes • Believes in building better relationships • Studies continuously and expands her expertise in human relations • Has trained with many of today’s best and foremost NLP trainers • Is a fully qualified Counsellor and Consultant • Is a Certified NLP Trainer (Neuro Linguistic Psychology™), Hypnotherapy Trainer and TRT Trainer (Timelinked Release Therapy™)
Suite 135 – 1555 McKenzie Ave., Victoria www.progressiveplus.com 250.384.1341