Ah neen! Every week, our reserve seems to be changing. For example, the six-plex is near completion, the foundations are being poured for the new homes, and our Business/Investment Centre is almost operational. Not only are we building our community, we have expanded to the cities to try and offer better services to our members. Making the transition to the towns and cities, we find different rules, regulations, and policies that make an impact in the way we try to provide services to our membership. We have faced municipal, provincial, and federal governing laws and policies that impact our way of life, our ability to conduct business, and to practice our Treaty rights. As Leaders, we actively seek economic growth and sustainability, advocate for increased funding, and uphold our inherent Treaty rights.
In the past few years, our Leadership began to see the value for short and long term planning and spent a considerable amount of time developing a strategy to increase our ability to build economic initiatives that will benefit our community growth and community member’s quality of life. With the support and assistance of our Senior Managers, we produced an economic plan that we believe will sustain our community long after our governance. We wanted to ensure that basic intrinsic values that have already sustained our way of life are incorporated in the plan. In addition, we wanted to reflect our way of doing business by building trust, relationships and due diligence in all aspects of economic development and funding sources. Under our direct Leadership, we have come to realize that all of our land and people are the resources needed to sustain, build, and invest in our economic viability.
In previous years, we have developed short and long term goals to build organizational capacity to formulate a legitimate, competitive, and marketable structure that produces and garners confidence from funding sources. For example, our Nation has been able to initiate businesses that can potentially produce profits; however, they are in early stages of development and some are awaiting funding. Currently, the status quo is to under fund a project which leads the Nation to seek alternative funding or abandon the project altogether. As a Leader, it is frustrating, it deters and prevents our Nation and other First Nations from achieving a viable economy, and it produces systemic dependency.
Expanding and improving our community has been a long difficult road. As a Leader, I cannot help but to contemplate how our ancestors fought to establish the Treaty between the newly made Federal Government and us. It is still a struggle to maintain and enter a mainstream business system; however, we continue to persevere and succeed. We believe that O’Chiese First Nation needs an independent voice as our needs may be different than others. We expect to work towards a system of co-management of our resources and to be recognized as a viable economic entity.
My overall message to the community is “thank you, as it is the ‘we’ and not the ‘I’ concept, but the team effort that we will continue to succeed, and prosper. As always, I thank the community, elders, and employees for their continued support, encouragement, and prayers. Thank you to my biggest support: my wife and family.
Hope to see you all at the Community Christmas Dinner and have a Safe and Merry Christmas!
Respectfully, Chief Darren Whitford, O’Chiese First Nation