On the first day of Convention 2024, a province wide community-to-community forum was hosted by UBCM and the First Nations Leadership Council. To learn about their experience developing a relationship between a First Nation and local government, UBCM spent five minutes with a local mayor and chief Nasu?kin Heidi Gravelle, elected chief of Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it First Nation (Tobacco Plains Indian Band) and Nic Milligan is the mayor of neighbouring City of Fernie. (Nasu?kin is the Ktunaxa word for chief.)
UBCM: We talk a lot about reconciliation in BC, and there are many forums in which reconciliation is needed. What does it look like at a local government level in the east Kootenays?
Nasu?kin Heidi Gravelle: It's something that started organically by making a connection and then developing a true relationship as First Nation government to city. We’re thinking about reconciliation more of as trying to educate, learn and grow together as people. We want to foster that understanding of who we are. Once we have that foundation, the ability to do cool things and great initiatives comes a lot more naturally, because there's respect and trust.
Mayor Nic Milligan: Truth is incredibly important to inform the reconciliation journey – and reconciliation is a journey. It's not a destination, it's a process. I think it starts with an openness of willingness to start on that journey. I absolutely loved what Grand Chief Stewart Philip said this morning. He said to start where you're at with what you've got. Don't be afraid because you don't know. It is a process of understanding and building understanding.
UBCM: How do you encourage that organizational culture change so this work continues if leaders change?
Gravelle: I think the important piece too is it's the people in those positions that allow themselves to be vulnerable, to open up, to gain an understanding and perspective that might be different than what they grew up with or knew. All the outcomes we seek are fostered through our technical staff, and those people don't change. So, the changeover of leadership might happen, but if the practices and values are already embedded and everybody believes it, that isn't going to just wash away with a change of leadership.
Now, projects and initiatives aren’t brought up because it's a part of reconciliation. It's, ‘How are we going to meet the needs of our people?’ So, looking at things people are facing in Fernie and also in Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it.
Milligan: It's not, of course, a straightforward process. It takes a lot of tenacity and taking a broad view of the relationship, but also your organization. It can't just be top down. You have to embed it at every level of the organization so it becomes part of everybody's thinking and everybody's work. To nasu?kin’s point, it may start with a territorial acknowledgement, but when everybody is doing that at every meeting and they're asking, ‘Why are we doing that?’ And you're able to frame that for folks, and they take ownership of that, then it starts to change the culture overall. And in time, with luck, it is separate from the people becomes just an organizational reality.
UBCM: You've mentioned land acknowledgement. What are some other specific examples of ways that this is showing up?
Gravelle: Collaboratively doing events together I think is a huge part for us versus Fernie just saying, ‘Hey, can you guys come to an opening prayer, but we're going to do the event alone, and you guys have your own event.’ But instead, coming together where we're all a part of it, it holds a lot more of that value. The City of Fernie also put in a flagpole to have our flag to show it's our territory that those lands are on, that those people's homes are on. If it's not out there, how do people know? My son went to school there and he said, ‘Nobody even knows that we exist down in Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it.’ So if the students don't know … So we got to take a step back and ask, ‘Why isn't it happening? Oh, because nobody ever did it? Okay, well, let's just, start doing it.’ Instead of faulting the past, let's move forward.
Milligan: We're all products of our upbringing, of our past, our culture. We’ve all maybe have thought and said things in the past that we’re ashamed of or embarrassed by now. I had a conversation some years ago with a Ktunaxa poet about this. He said, ‘Shame and embarrassment are not useful emotions. Feel them, but don't sort of steep yourself in them as you move toward reconciliation. Allow yourself to grow and learn.’ That was incredibly valuable advice, and I've tried to pass that advice on to my community members, because people do struggle with feeling ashamed or embarrassed. So, own that, but move forward and open your heart.
UBCM: Why is this important for local governments and First Nations to develop a relationship and to start governing together where there is overlap? Why do you think that's important?
Gravelle: Because we all share the same issues, the same barriers, the same crises, the same celebrations. It's not an ‘us’ and ‘them’ anymore. We're already cohabitating, so to speak, as humans. There's no reason to duplicate. The more we come together get to whatever said outcome whether, health care, justice, housing, you're solving a need for everybody. You're putting all your best hands in, versus we're going to do ours, and it's just for us. They’re going to do theirs, and it's just for them.
A huge piece for Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it is also reconciliation and healing of the land and we can't do it on our own, because we have a lot of settlers that also share this land with us. So how do we do it together that is going to have positive impacts for seven generations, not just for today?
Milligan: I'm not sure I can improve on that answer, except to say that as Nasu?kim Gavelle said, we're all here now and strength comes in the ability and opportunity to work on these problems together, rather than in isolation. It's true at every level. We had a conversation the other day, and I am staggered by the weight of work that First Nations communities have to undertake not just in running their community, but the level of engagements required with the other orders of government is significantly more than what we have to engage in. Understanding that also helps me understand the burden they have to undertake to get the day-to-day stuff done. So, whatever we can do to collaborate and help one another, will only pay dividends for all of us,
UBCM: Any advice for other First Nations and local governments who want to get started on this?
Milligan: Reach out. Just start the conversation. Create space for openness. And again, we're often told this in public office: it's okay not to know. Have the courage to say, I don't know. I don't know your community, and would love to get to know one another, to understand your challenges, our challenges, what we could do together. I would just encourage people to pick up the phone, or visit.
Gravelle: I would say remove the politics, remove the public eye, and bring it back down to forming a relationship with another human being that you want to gain perspective from, you want to gain ideas, and understanding based on respect and dignity, to advance the quality of life of all people. Starting in that space takes away the pressures to where you can have those deep conversations that have meaning, and then all the other stuff is going to naturally, organically form from that.