Recent calls by Shawn Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, to scrap the Indian Act within five years and create a new model for Aboriginal governance in Canada have struck a chord with former Sechelt Indian Band (SIB) Chief Stan Dixon.
Dixon is not simply echoing Atleo's call to dismantle the Indian Act and rework the relationship between Canadian First Nations and Ottawa; he's also presenting a made-in-Sechelt solution - a self-governance model, which, he said, freed the SIB from the Act's stipulations 23 years ago and could work for other Canadian bands.
Dixon said in 1986, during his tenure as chief, the SIB was the first band in Canada to achieve self-governance through the creation of the Sechelt Indian Government District (SIGD). The process transformed the Band's approximately 1,600-hectare former reserve into "Band lands," to which it holds title. According to the Band website, the SIGD has jurisdiction over Band lands and exercises the authority to provide services and education for its residents.
"It's just giving us the opportunity to make our own decisions - economically, socially, spiritually, community-wise," Dixon said.
He said that for the SIB, the shift to self-governance means that chief and council no longer answer chiefly to the Department of Indian Affairs; they answer to their own voting membership.
"In our constitution, we have meetings very regularly, and chief and council have to report what's going on in developments and opportunities for Band members for jobs and education needs," he said.
He added the new structure has removed dependency on Ottawa and puts the onus on the Band to forge its own destiny.
"The Band and the process and the achievement of self-government is good," he said. "It's up to the Band, now, to make it a success story for the next 100 years."
But while Dixon said he's convinced the Sechelt model could work elsewhere, he feels the Band's story isn't widely-known.
"What the government did for Sechelt, they apparently didn't publicize it, so people don't talk about Sechelt, they talk about Nisga'a [1998 land claim settlement with the government of British Columbia] and the bands that are working under the treaty process in B.C.," he said. "And that's probably only half as good as getting completely out of jail, completely out of the Indian Act."
The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs's website notes that, to date, the federal government has completed 17 self-government agreements involving 27 First Nations communities.
Dixon has just finished chronicling the SIB's journey towards self-governance in his second self-published book, K'watamus Speaks, Book II. Dixon published his first installment of the work in 2008 and said he plans to have a third installment -dealing with the philosophy behind self-governance - done by November. For a copy of his most recent book, Dixon can be reached at 604-885-2728.
