What Two Weeks in PEI Taught Me About Belonging in Canada

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of joining the Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference (GGCLC) 2026 – two weeks in Prince Edward Island alongside 250 leaders from business, government, Indigenous communities, non-profits, academia, health, agriculture, military service, and community sectors. We were there to explore the opportunities, challenges, and future of communities across the province.

I came home with a lot more than that.

The experience was both personally transformative and professionally significant. It also reinforced everything I believe about the work we do at Mothers Matter Canada. Here's what I learned, where I think we need to go next.

Canada Is a Community of Communities

One of the strongest lessons from GGCLC was that Canada is best understood not as one national story, but as a community of communities. National conversations often focus on large systems and broad policy questions, yet many of the most innovative and effective solutions are emerging at the community level. Across PEI, I met organizations, businesses, Indigenous communities, and local leaders solving hard problems with real creativity. But most of these solutions stay local. Communities are often facing the same challenges without any structured way to learn from one another.

That's exactly where I see our role. As a national organization working through local partners, we're positioned to spot what's working, connect communities to each other, and help good ideas travel further than they would on their own.

Cross-Sector Leadership Matters

Some of the richest moments of this experience came from relationships I'd never otherwise have built – with farmers, military personnel, entrepreneurs, climate advocates, Indigenous knowledge holders. These conversations kept circling back to the same truth: Canada's most pressing challenges – housing, affordability, immigration, reconciliation, workforce development – can't be solved by any one sector alone.

For us, that validates something we've been building toward already: our work has to keep expanding beyond settlement and social services, into real partnership with employers, educational institutions, health systems, and municipalities.

Immigration is about more than labour supply

Perhaps the most troubling pattern I noticed was how consistently immigration was discussed through a purely economic lens – labour supply, demographic growth, GDP.

As an immigrant myself, that landed differently for me than for most people in the room. In many conversations, immigrants were discussed primarily as workers rather than as future community leaders, entrepreneurs, decision-makers, innovators, and nation-builders.

Too often, immigrants are invited to contribute to Canada's growth without being fully invited to help shape its future. That distinction matters. When we treat immigration as only a labour solution, we lose access to the perspectives, skills, and leadership newcomers could bring to our institutions – and we send a quiet message about who really belongs.

Caregiving remains largely invisible in national conversations

Across two weeks of discussion on labour markets, productivity, and workforce needs, one thing was almost entirely absent: the unpaid care work that makes all of it possible.

Women continue to carry a disproportionate share of caregiving responsibilities for children, elders, and families. Despite this, they often remained at the margins of conversations despite their central role in strengthening communities and enabling workforce participation for others.

Additionally, women remain underrepresented in leadership and decision-making spaces across sectors, and immigrant women often face additional barriers related to language, employment, recognition of credentials, social networks, and discrimination. Add caregiving responsibilities, and the pathways to leadership become narrower still.

This is precisely why Mothers Matter Canada exists. We're not just delivering programs – we're building pathways to participation, confidence, leadership, and belonging for mothers who are too often overlooked despite being central to their families and communities.

I'm glad to say our perspective filled a real gap at the conference and our contributions on care work, economic participation, and belonging clearly resonated – enough that they were referenced in reflections shared with the Governor General.

Reconciliation: Real, and Still Unfinished

Some of the most powerful moments of the conference came through conversations with Indigenous leaders – and also some of the most sobering. Land acknowledgements weren't consistently built into the experience, and I saw limited effort to go deeper than isolated sessions. Several Indigenous leaders shared their frustration that reconciliation too often stays symbolic rather than transformational – in one case, describing being invited to a gathering only to deliver a land acknowledgement.

I also saw real tension in PEI between newcomer and Indigenous communities, often rooted in differences in access to rights and services – which only reinforced for me how much work remains in building bridges between these communities, rather than leaving them to navigate parallel, disconnected paths.

Acadian communities and missed bridges

The conference also surfaced challenges facing Acadian and Francophone communities on PEI. French-speaking Acadians remain concentrated in smaller communities like Souris and continue navigating questions of language preservation, identity, and inclusion.

There appeared to be real opportunities to build stronger bridges between Indigenous, Acadian, newcomer, and English-speaking communities – yet these groups still largely operate in separate spheres. Stronger social cohesion requires intentional bridge-building across communities, identities, and histories, not just within them.

What I Heard From Newcomers on PEI

PEI has a strong, distinct local identity – captured in the common expression "from away," used to describe anyone who was not born on the Island, no matter how long they've lived there. Immigrants on one panel put it plainly: integration often feels less like inclusion and more like pressure to assimilate. Acceptance depends on adapting to existing norms, not on making space for multiple identities to coexist.

One woman's words have stayed with me: "I did not know I was Black until I came to Canada." It's one thing to carry that experience as an adult. It's another thing entirely to watch your children begin to experience it too.

And these were reflections from immigrants who had, by most measures, succeeded. It raises hard questions about the experience of newcomers with fewer resources, weaker networks, or less access to jobs and capital.

Where We Go From Here

I came home from GGCLC with renewed energy and a clearer sense of direction. Here's where I believe we need to lean in:

1. Position Mothers Matter Canada as a bridge builder – connecting newcomer, Indigenous, Acadian, Francophone, private-sector, government, and community partners around shared goals.

2. Lead the national conversation on belonging, not just settlement – so newcomers have opportunities to thrive.

3. Elevate caregiving as a public policy issue – making visible the contributions of mothers and caregivers, and advancing policy that recognizes and supports care work.

4. Deepen Indigenous-newcomer partnership – growing the reconciliation work we've already begun into a defining feature of our national leadership.

5. Grow our Social Innovation Lab's role in systems change – evolving from a program-focused organization into a true national platform for innovation, knowledge mobilization and systems change.

   
   

A Final Reflection

GGCLC was a journey through the possibilities and contradictions of this country. It revealed extraordinary leadership and generosity. It also exposed persistent inequities and missed opportunities. Above all, it strengthened my conviction that our work remains deeply relevant.

Canada's future depends not only on attracting people, but on ensuring they belong. Not only on economic growth, but on human flourishing. If Canada is going to reach its full potential, it has to stop seeing people simply as workers, clients, or beneficiaries – and create the conditions where everyone, including immigrant women and mothers, can participate, lead, help shape, and thrive in the country they call home.

And that work sits at the heart of what we do.