Members of the shíshálh Nation will go to the polls on Feb. 15 to choose a new chief, with incumbent Warren Paull and three others, Nievelina Carmona, Randy Joe and Lenora Joe, on the ballot.
The nomination meeting was held Dec. 9 and candidates have already taken part in three all-candidates meetings, including one hosted by the Sechelt and District Chamber of Commerce on Jan. 28.
This is the first election where, thanks to a recently adopted change in the shíshálh constitution, nation members living elsewhere are eligible to vote, although Paull said at the Sechelt Chamber all-candidates meeting that only about 40 people applied to be added to the voters list.
Nation members, and the candidates for chief, already know who will make up the next council after a candidate withdrawal led to the remaining four being acclaimed.
Three of the councillors will be returning for another term: Corey August, Alvina Paul and Selina August, who were first elected in 2017.
Barbara Joe will join council, taking the seat currently held by Keith Julius, who decided not to run again.
The acclaimed councillors will take office after the Feb. 15 election that will decide who will become chief.
The advance poll will be held on Feb. 9.
Warren Paull
In a profile he wrote for the shíshálh Nation’s election webpage (www.shishalh.com), incumbent chief Warren Paull, who also served on previous councils, called his term as chief an enormously rewarding challenge.
One of the challenges has been getting the administration of the nation running smoothly. “We’re starting to make some fundamental changes in how we do business,” Paull told Coast Reporter. “I now see an opportunity to finish the work of self-government.”
Paull said that includes being able to make future amendments to the constitution without going back to the federal government.
Paull said the Foundation Agreement with the province took up a lot of time this term, and that while some favour a court case on land title, the Foundation Agreement could achieve the same goal.
“Some want to go down that particular path,” he said. “But rather than spend 25 years litigating we can now sit down and have a conversation.”
His candidate profile also talks about the significance of the Foundation Agreement.
“Some call it an incremental treaty: I can categorically say it is not that,” Paull wrote. “Show me any treaty that allows either side to cancel the agreement with 90 days notice. Our aboriginal rights are recognized and affirmed. A five-year plan is in place on how we discuss and agree what development happens in our Swiya. We also have a robust dispute mechanism in place.”
Paull also said he’s proud of the economic development efforts he and the current council were involved in.
“We are growing, and continuing to make sure that the growth stays on the path we’ve set for it [and] at some point we are going to be the engine that moves the Sunshine Coast,” Paull said. “This is a bit like our coming out party – getting a lot of things going that we’ve talked about in the past.”
Nievelina Carmona
Nievelina Carmona grew up in Sechelt and worked for the Squamish, Sto:lo Nation and Seabird Island First Nations before returning to the Coast to work with the shíshálh Nation, where she’s currently a human resources manager.
Carmona is also studying for a diploma in Indigenous Community Development and Governance through the University of Victoria.
This is Carmona’s first time as a political candidate. She told Coast Reporter that her studies have opened her eyes to some of the challenges involved in taking a political leadership role, while her work in the nation’s human resources department has allowed her to see the organization from a different point of view.
“I have the skills to see things a little bit differently and approaching them through a different lens gives me the opportunity to change the outcome of how we deal with situations within the community,” she said.
“I think it’s time to bring back a balance between younger and older people and men and women and create a space for younger people to really learn about what we’re doing and how we govern ourselves and have the chance to share how we’d like to see things change.”
In her candidate profile, Carmona said, “with the support of the community, council and staff, we can work towards a stronger government and a new way of doing things… If needed, we will slow down and we will get this right to ensure we all understand what is happening and how it impacts our community.”
“I’d like to see more community events where it’s not just about us sharing information, but we’re actually creating a meaningful dialogue,” Carmona said. “Also, let’s find ways to incorporate our culture and how our people traditionally governed ourselves and carried ourselves and the core values of who we are as a shíshálh people.”
Randy Joe
Randy Joe is a former shíshálh councillor, serving from 2013 to 2016, with work experience in logging, fishing and mining.
He’s also been involved in the nation’s constitution committee, the day scholars class action suit and the negotiations for the Foundation Agreement.
Joe said the wellness of the community is his number one priority.
During the Sechelt Chamber all-candidates meeting, Joe said self-government and the recently signed Foundation Agreement have put the nation 30 years ahead of many First Nations in Canada, but the time has come to get back into negotiations with the federal government on title to traditional territory, and to be prepared to return to court.
“The title case is really big for me,” Joe told Coast Reporter in an earlier interview. “We were in the treaty process in the early ’90s… We got out of it because we weren’t making any progress and we started thinking about going to court… It’s time. We’ve got all the information together, we’ve got all the witnesses and it’s time to move to the next step… I want to start talking to the people about it.”
In his candidate profile, Joe said he’s met regularly with the last three mayors of Sechelt as well as district councillors and regional district directors and is active in the community. “We’ve been making a lot of headway with the [Sechelt] mayors, we’re collaborating more… It can only get better, and it will under my leadership,” he said.
Joe lists education and culture, housing, and securing new agreements in aquaculture and mining among his other key priorities.
“I will bring strong leadership for our new council, employees, businesses and our self-governance and most importantly our nation members – the ones who live on nation land and the ones who live off,” Joe wrote in his candidate profile.
Lenora Joe
Lenora Joe is one of the other former shíshálh Nation councillors in the running to be chief.
Joe was on council from 1987 to 1989 and was also a School District No. 46 trustee from 1988 to 1993.
She held several positions in the nation’s administration prior to her retirement in 2018, after eight years as education director.
Joe also, as she put it in her candidate profile, “chose to try out entrepreneurship and became self-employed as the owner-operator of the Petro Canada Gas Station for two years.”
Joe told Coast Reporter that one of the issues that motivated her to run for chief was the need to finish work on the nation’s constitution. “Over the years our community has not had input into the creation, amendment or adoption of the [constitution], other than it being presented and it being voted on,” Joe said, adding that she was a little frustrated when the constitution committee was disbanded after getting the voting amendments through.
“I got really excited that we were going to be able to make some changes and we were going to start to see some accountability and transparency – something that would guide us into the future and secure the stability of the nation. But that didn’t happen,” she said.
Joe said she wants to see a bigger role for women in the nation’s leadership, a continued focus on economic development and more effort to ensure the community knows the details of the growing number of government-to-government relationships and agreements shíshálh is involved in.
“Another passion is education,” Joe wrote in her candidate profile. “Without knowledge we cannot move forward. We need to work with the community to build a strong succession plan for our future generation and ensure that our members are holding the top positions within our nation.”
