Outgoing president of the Métis Nation of Alberta says she faced a ‘man’s world’ when first elected – APTN News
Sep 18, 2023
Audrey Poitras has been president of the Métis Nation of Alberta (MNA) since 1996 and says since that time, a lot has changed.
Poitras recently sat down with APTN News to talk about her career, first in the finance department, then later as president.
She said at first, the MNA was not in a good financial position and that’s why she decided to run for president.
“Right at the very beginning, we needed to rebuild the credibility of the Métis Nation,” she said. “We had to work hard as an example, to have our banking institutes believe in us again. Our government departments that we had agreements with, some of them that we had lost, to start believing in us again.
“So there were some real challenges along the way.”
She said being the first woman president of any provincial Métis organization in Canada wasn’t easy. She faced the old boys club.
“It was totally a man’s world and of course, as the president of the Métis Nation, I also sat at the national table with a bunch of men who made it very clear to me every time we went to a meeting that I probably really didn’t belong there.
