Despite being accused of bias, the chair of the Strathcona Regional District board has managed to get directors to have a change of heart on forming a committee to improve relations with First Nations.
The board had previously voted to put off the initiative until its strategic planning meeting but at the regular board meeting last Wednesday, board Chair John MacDonald brought the item back for reconsideration.
He said he felt the decision to delay the committee until strategic planning had been made without consideration of some “key facts” and that some directors had mistakingly believed the committee would get involved in treaty negotiations rather than its real purpose of bettering relationships.
“It’s mandate would be confined to doing research on behalf of the board, and recommending ways and means for the regional district to advance its interests in this area,” MacDonald said.
But Area A Director Gerald Whalley had concerns that MacDonald had his own agenda in bringing it back.
“I would prefer an item of this nature be brought forward by a director,” Whalley said, adding that the report “gives the appearance of a bias.”
Whalley added that he would “hate to see this become precedent or standard procedure, that the chair brings forward his own personal agendas.”
Tahsis Director Jude Schooner said she felt MacDonald was only trying to advance a strategic priority that the entire board shares.
“In my opinion the time to go forward is now,” Schooner said. “I think it’s a shared priority by the board and not just a couple of directors.”
But Whalley said his relationship with the First Nations in his electoral area are progressing the way he wants it to and said he would hate to see a committee come in and change things.
“I don’t want any risk of anybody screwing that up,” Whalley said. “It (the committee) won’t speak on my behalf.”
Area C Director Jim Abram expressed the same concerns.
“I don’t care one way or the other at this point if we form a committee or not, it’s window dressing, it’s not necessary,” he said.
“I’m working on First Nations relations daily, by way of contracts, working together, and getting things done in Area C. And if this committee thinks that it’s going to have any kind of input or change in that system, think again please.”
Draft terms of reference for the committee state that its mandate would be to research how the regional district and other governments are trying to improve their relationships with First Nations; to prepare an inventory of all First Nations located within the regional district; and to investigate the status of each First Nation with respect to treaty negotiations.
As a select committee, just five of the 13 board members are to sit on the committee, and MacDonald, in his motion to reconsider the committee put forward directors Noba Anderson, Julie Colborne, Charlie Cornfield, Ron Kerr and Schooner as members.
That didn’t sit well with Area D Director Brenda Leigh.
“It’s either going to be the whole board or no one because it’s not right that you take a select few from this board that are going to hear what is being presented to them and then regurgitate it to us,” Leigh said. “I do not trust putting it in the hands of just a few. If the chair would be open and fair about it, he would say the whole board needs to move forward with that strategic priority.”
Kerr agreed that instead of a small group of people, it should be the entire board but Anderson pointed out that with a board as large as the regional district’s it would be “cumbersome” to dig into the issues.
In the end, after nearly half an hour of debate, the board agreed to form the First Nations committee and have just the five directors sit on it.